Undead Man Lover
I should have wrote a post about this months back, but better late than never. At the Global Game Jam this year my buddy Mike and I teamed up, with some ass...
article
Collaborative Game Editing
Collaborative Game Editing
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programming
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
Making Your Files Merge Friendly
Merging is a fact of life for most of us. Eventually two users touch the same files and a conflict must be resolved. For programmers merging is a daily act...
SWIG: Casting Revisited
A while back I wrote SWIG and a Miss, which is a post about several of the problems I’ve encountered with SWIG. At that time I didn’t have a solution for dea...
Terraria: The Auto-Saving Server
After beating Minecraft (not really) I thought my addition to these blasted sandbox mining games was satisfied. Sadly, I was wrong. I started playing Terra...
Extend Visual Studio!
The Pitch
SWIG and a Miss
There are so many pitfalls you’ll encounter after using SWIG for any extended period of time or with a large enough codebase. I thought I would go over some...
Redneck Cloud Computing
Every now and then I wonder what decisions might be different if I had access to a cloud of machines dedicated to baking game assets or solving other highly ...
Hubert’s Safari Adventure
The Global Game Jam 2011 has ended. I present to you the labors of me and my team. The theme this year was “Extinction”, which I’m happy to say I loved. I...
Triangle Game Jam 2010
The Global Game Jam 2011 happens later this month and I’m really excited. A few months ago we had our local Triangle Game Jam for the 4th year in a row. It...
R-Script is Awesome
Background
WPF: ViewModel + Attachable Behavior
One of the biggest pain points of MVVM is the boilerplate code that is necessary for it to function. The code I’m referring to is the code needed to Hook an...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
Visual Studio: Item Template & Custom Tool
I’m currently working on a project over at CodePlex that I haven’t published yet because I want to make it a little more awesome before I draw back the curta...
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 2)
Here is a video of a bunch of us playing our game.
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 1)
[Possessed: The Turing Deception]
Tools of a Tools Developer
No WPF article this Thursday, I’m working on a big one and I keep coming up with sub topics to cover :). So i figured, why not just throw together a list of ...
WPF: How can I debug WPF bindings, visually?
Early on Data-Binding in WPF can be kind of annoying, things aren’t binding correctly, UI isn’t being realized because of it. Searching Google for tips on ho...
WPF: ListBox Background Image
One thing I really enjoy doing is duplicating effects in WPF that I’ve seen in other applications. One I like a lot for directory browsers and content browse...
WPF: Overlay Control
If you haven’t had a chance to mess around with an AdornerDecorator, I highly recommend that you do. They’re extremely useful because they allow you to over...
WPF: XAML Attribute Order Matters
I think the most annoying thing about WPF is that for any given task everything goes fine, for a few hours, then you do something and you’re stumped why it’s...
MSIL Command 2: The Visualizing
When generating MSIL it’s often very useful to be able to see what you’re doing. One very handy debugging visualizer I’ve used is Haibo Luo’s DynamicMethod ...
wpf
WPF/MVVM Hack: ValueChangedEventManager
Anyone that has had extensive experience with WPF and has attempted MVVM knows it’s not perfect. Over the years I’ve attempted many things in an attempt to ...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
WPF: ViewModel + Attachable Behavior
One of the biggest pain points of MVVM is the boilerplate code that is necessary for it to function. The code I’m referring to is the code needed to Hook an...
WPF: Heat Maps
So awhile ago I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do heat maps in WPF?”. Well I started playing around with the idea and immediately was side tracked with ho...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
Tools of a Tools Developer
No WPF article this Thursday, I’m working on a big one and I keep coming up with sub topics to cover :). So i figured, why not just throw together a list of ...
WPF: How can I debug WPF bindings, visually?
Early on Data-Binding in WPF can be kind of annoying, things aren’t binding correctly, UI isn’t being realized because of it. Searching Google for tips on ho...
WPF Theme Replacer
I was thinking about the [WPF Theme Replacer] some more and there are a few things you should be aware of when designing your theme to work just like a Micro...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 3)
So in [Part 1] I explained the basics of theming your WPF application and in [Part 2] I provided a more in-depth discussion of how the styles are applied to ...
WPF: ListBox Background Image
One thing I really enjoy doing is duplicating effects in WPF that I’ve seen in other applications. One I like a lot for directory browsers and content browse...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 2)
For this part I wanted to talk about the style lookup system, things to be aware of and some problems with WPF’s “theming” capability in general. Here are th...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 1)
I just finished doing a ton of styling/theming work in WPF, after doing so I had many thoughts and experiences on the subject that I thought I would share. S...
WPF: Overlay Control
If you haven’t had a chance to mess around with an AdornerDecorator, I highly recommend that you do. They’re extremely useful because they allow you to over...
WPF: Kaxaml
I have been using XamlPadX to test out XAML ideas. But lack of updates had me looking around for a new tool, turns out there is one. [Kaxaml] has some nice...
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
WPF: The Shapely TabItem
So I wanted to make a really nice looking WPF TabItems and went looking for some examples of how other people have done it. I really only found one quality ...
WPF: XAML Attribute Order Matters
I think the most annoying thing about WPF is that for any given task everything goes fine, for a few hours, then you do something and you’re stumped why it’s...
WPF: Just enough thread to hang yourself
One of the really nice features of WPF is that it comes with a Dispatcher for executing code coming off a thread different from your UI thread. It’s not sub...
game-jam
ChatGPT Killed Fancy Game Namer
I’ve been playing with ChatGPT and it’s kind of incredible. After toying with it for awhile a thought hit me, that this could replace something like Fancy G...
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
Undead Man Lover
I should have wrote a post about this months back, but better late than never. At the Global Game Jam this year my buddy Mike and I teamed up, with some ass...
Broken Magic Jumper
A couple of weekends ago was the 2012 Triangle Game Jam. Our theme of the jam was to generate game titles by madlibs: everyone contributed a list of 5 adject...
Global Game Jam 2012 Wrap-Up
The 2012 Global Game Jam is over and it was another year of awesome games in the Raleigh-Durham – North Carolina area. This week I wanted to put the spotlig...
Global Game Jam 2012: Friday!
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately rebuilding the old Triangle Game Jam website. Now that it’s done I can get back to new articles. The new site is up a...
Hubert’s Safari Adventure: Development Diary
1/28/2011 6:00 PM
Hubert’s Safari Adventure
The Global Game Jam 2011 has ended. I present to you the labors of me and my team. The theme this year was “Extinction”, which I’m happy to say I loved. I...
The Art of the 48 Hour Game
The idea isn’t new, a few people get together one weekend with a common goal; make a game in 48 hours. I have game jams on the mind because the Global Game J...
Triangle Game Jam 2010
The Global Game Jam 2011 happens later this month and I’m really excited. A few months ago we had our local Triangle Game Jam for the 4th year in a row. It...
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 2)
Here is a video of a bunch of us playing our game.
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 1)
[Possessed: The Turing Deception]
Coming Soon: Global Game Jam 2010
The 2010 Global Game Jam starts in just 12 days. I love doing game jams and can’t wait for this one to start. If you’ve ever wanted to break into the game in...
Global Game Jam: Space Fish
This weekend was great fun, I participated in the first annual 48 hour Global Game Jam. Working on the smash hit, Space Fish.
tools
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
Making Your Files Merge Friendly
Merging is a fact of life for most of us. Eventually two users touch the same files and a conflict must be resolved. For programmers merging is a daily act...
Redneck Cloud Computing
Every now and then I wonder what decisions might be different if I had access to a cloud of machines dedicated to baking game assets or solving other highly ...
Documentation [Easy Mode]
I’ve talked about AtomineerUtils before on my blog very briefly several months back when I first discovered it. I’ve now been using it pretty much straight ...
R-Script is Awesome
Background
Visual Studio: Item Template & Custom Tool
I’m currently working on a project over at CodePlex that I haven’t published yet because I want to make it a little more awesome before I draw back the curta...
Tools of a Tools Developer
No WPF article this Thursday, I’m working on a big one and I keep coming up with sub topics to cover :). So i figured, why not just throw together a list of ...
WPF: Kaxaml
I have been using XamlPadX to test out XAML ideas. But lack of updates had me looking around for a new tool, turns out there is one. [Kaxaml] has some nice...
MSIL Command 2: The Visualizing
When generating MSIL it’s often very useful to be able to see what you’re doing. One very handy debugging visualizer I’ve used is Haibo Luo’s DynamicMethod ...
Problem Steps Recorder
I haven’t actually tried using this in the field, but this little tool comes with Windows 7 and after playing around with it a little it seems really handy. ...
World Builder 2040?
This video was getting passed around the office a little while back. Figured I would link it here for posterity. It’s Bruce Branit imagination of what a worl...
Of Users and Tools Developers
Was reading one of the feature articles over at Gamasutra Custom Tools: Environment Artists and Game Editors. Was a good read; from my experience I would hav...
rendering
Rendered Image Comparison
For the past several months I’ve been refactoring the automation framework off and on for Unreal Engine 4. One of the things that we wanted to bring to the f...
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
Oxel: A Tool for Occluder Generation
Its been awhile since I’ve done an update to my research into occluder generation. If you need a refresher, take a look at:
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
Subsurface Scattering Volumes
I didn’t get to see many sessions at GDC this year. One I really wanted to see but didn’t make it to was the talk on “Approximating Translucency for a Fast,...
Nsightful
It took several versions before enough kinks got worked out in Nvidia’s Parallel Nsight Graphics/CUDA debugging application before I could successfully profi...
Ambient Occlusion Volumes [Picture Timeline]
One of my hobby projects has been to try and implement Morgan McGuire’s Ambient Occlusion Volume (AOV) approach to ambient occlusion on DirectX 11. It’s loo...
Ambient Occlusion Volumes
There’s a pretty cool paper on Ambient Occlusion Volumes I was reading awhile back by Morgan McGuire, the technique actually uses volumes to calculate what p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
GDC 2010: Rendering With Conviction
One of the good talks I saw at GDC was this one, Rendering With Conviction. Stephen Hill posted his slides for his presentation and you should check them out...
c
Broken Magic Jumper
A couple of weekends ago was the 2012 Triangle Game Jam. Our theme of the jam was to generate game titles by madlibs: everyone contributed a list of 5 adject...
SWIG: Casting Revisited
A while back I wrote SWIG and a Miss, which is a post about several of the problems I’ve encountered with SWIG. At that time I didn’t have a solution for dea...
SWIG and a Miss
There are so many pitfalls you’ll encounter after using SWIG for any extended period of time or with a large enough codebase. I thought I would go over some...
Triangle Game Jam 2010
The Global Game Jam 2011 happens later this month and I’m really excited. A few months ago we had our local Triangle Game Jam for the 4th year in a row. It...
Heap Inspector
This is a pretty awesome memory tool hobby project Jvander Beek of Vanguard Games is working on. I’m a big fan of the physical memory layout / fragmentation...
C++ VS.Net Context Menu
Awhile ago when I was working on the ShaderEffect Generator I had an idea for another Visual Studio plug-in and quickly got it working. I finally got around...
Visual Studio: Item Template & Custom Tool
I’m currently working on a project over at CodePlex that I haven’t published yet because I want to make it a little more awesome before I draw back the curta...
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
Global Game Jam: Space Fish
This weekend was great fun, I participated in the first annual 48 hour Global Game Jam. Working on the smash hit, Space Fish.
MSIL Command
MSIL is a fantastic language, but then again I loved programming in x86 assembly back in school . The problem with programming in MSIL is the same problem y...
visual-studio
Care and Feeding of Enum Flags
Maybe you’ve been looking at some C++ in the debugger not too long ago and happened across some enum flags on an object in your codebase. However, rather tha...
Extend Visual Studio!
The Pitch
C++ VS.Net Context Menu
Awhile ago when I was working on the ShaderEffect Generator I had an idea for another Visual Studio plug-in and quickly got it working. I finally got around...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
Visual Studio: Item Template & Custom Tool
I’m currently working on a project over at CodePlex that I haven’t published yet because I want to make it a little more awesome before I draw back the curta...
MSIL Command 2: The Visualizing
When generating MSIL it’s often very useful to be able to see what you’re doing. One very handy debugging visualizer I’ve used is Haibo Luo’s DynamicMethod ...
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Threadis
Who watches the threads? Apparently the Visual Studio 2008 debugger. Though, this should come as no surprise to anyone… except for the fact that they watch t...
games
Terraria: The Auto-Saving Server
After beating Minecraft (not really) I thought my addition to these blasted sandbox mining games was satisfied. Sadly, I was wrong. I started playing Terra...
Triangle Game Jam 2010
The Global Game Jam 2011 happens later this month and I’m really excited. A few months ago we had our local Triangle Game Jam for the 4th year in a row. It...
Falcon Punch
We play a lot of Super Smash Brothers Brawl during lunch around here, and occasionally after work there’s additional smashing. I walked in today to find this...
DICE: Design Outside the Box
This presentation from DICE by Jesse Schell is pretty insightful. The talk is about how humanity has become dissociated with reality over the years but becau...
WPF: Heat Maps
So awhile ago I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do heat maps in WPF?”. Well I started playing around with the idea and immediately was side tracked with ho...
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 2)
Here is a video of a bunch of us playing our game.
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 1)
[Possessed: The Turing Deception]
Coming Soon: Global Game Jam 2010
The 2010 Global Game Jam starts in just 12 days. I love doing game jams and can’t wait for this one to start. If you’ve ever wanted to break into the game in...
Gotterdammerung: The Curse of the Dead
One of the best things about my job is getting to see the games users of our tech are creating. Check out this really cool tech demo from Artifex Mundi.
project
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
Terraria: The Auto-Saving Server
After beating Minecraft (not really) I thought my addition to these blasted sandbox mining games was satisfied. Sadly, I was wrong. I started playing Terra...
C++ VS.Net Context Menu
Awhile ago when I was working on the ShaderEffect Generator I had an idea for another Visual Studio plug-in and quickly got it working. I finally got around...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 2)
Here is a video of a bunch of us playing our game.
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 1)
[Possessed: The Turing Deception]
WPF Theme Replacer
I was thinking about the [WPF Theme Replacer] some more and there are a few things you should be aware of when designing your theme to work just like a Micro...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 3)
So in [Part 1] I explained the basics of theming your WPF application and in [Part 2] I provided a more in-depth discussion of how the styles are applied to ...
xna
Undead Man Lover
I should have wrote a post about this months back, but better late than never. At the Global Game Jam this year my buddy Mike and I teamed up, with some ass...
Broken Magic Jumper
A couple of weekends ago was the 2012 Triangle Game Jam. Our theme of the jam was to generate game titles by madlibs: everyone contributed a list of 5 adject...
Global Game Jam 2012 Wrap-Up
The 2012 Global Game Jam is over and it was another year of awesome games in the Raleigh-Durham – North Carolina area. This week I wanted to put the spotlig...
Hubert’s Safari Adventure
The Global Game Jam 2011 has ended. I present to you the labors of me and my team. The theme this year was “Extinction”, which I’m happy to say I loved. I...
Triangle Game Jam 2010
The Global Game Jam 2011 happens later this month and I’m really excited. A few months ago we had our local Triangle Game Jam for the 4th year in a row. It...
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 2)
Here is a video of a bunch of us playing our game.
Global Game Jam 2010 (Part 1)
[Possessed: The Turing Deception]
Global Game Jam: Space Fish
This weekend was great fun, I participated in the first annual 48 hour Global Game Jam. Working on the smash hit, Space Fish.
graphics
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: A Tool for Occluder Generation
Its been awhile since I’ve done an update to my research into occluder generation. If you need a refresher, take a look at:
Trip Report: Gamefest 2011 - Seattle
I managed make it out to Seattle this year for Gamefest and figured I’d share my thoughts on some of the different presentations I saw. They are not availabl...
Subsurface Scattering Volumes
I didn’t get to see many sessions at GDC this year. One I really wanted to see but didn’t make it to was the talk on “Approximating Translucency for a Fast,...
Ambient Occlusion Volumes [Picture Timeline]
One of my hobby projects has been to try and implement Morgan McGuire’s Ambient Occlusion Volume (AOV) approach to ambient occlusion on DirectX 11. It’s loo...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
WPF: Heat Maps
So awhile ago I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do heat maps in WPF?”. Well I started playing around with the idea and immediately was side tracked with ho...
game-industry
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Heap Inspector
This is a pretty awesome memory tool hobby project Jvander Beek of Vanguard Games is working on. I’m a big fan of the physical memory layout / fragmentation...
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
DICE: Design Outside the Box
This presentation from DICE by Jesse Schell is pretty insightful. The talk is about how humanity has become dissociated with reality over the years but becau...
Project Natal
If you haven’t gotten a chance yet to check out what Microsoft has planned for the 360 in the coming year, you should check out this video about Project Natal.
Tick Tock
GDC is nearly upon us and we’re wrapping up the latest release of the product, Gamebryo Lightspeed. Keep an eye out for updates on the website, or if you pl...
hierarchical-z-buffer
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: A Tool for Occluder Generation
Its been awhile since I’ve done an update to my research into occluder generation. If you need a refresher, take a look at:
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Generating Occlusion Volumes
Almost a year ago I wrote a couple of posts on Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling (HZB-OC).
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
debugging
Debugging UFunction::Invoke
A few weeks ago Nick Penwarden highlighted several improvements that we made to Unreal Engine 4 while working on Fortnite Battle Royale.
Nsightful
It took several versions before enough kinks got worked out in Nvidia’s Parallel Nsight Graphics/CUDA debugging application before I could successfully profi...
Heap Inspector
This is a pretty awesome memory tool hobby project Jvander Beek of Vanguard Games is working on. I’m a big fan of the physical memory layout / fragmentation...
R-Script is Awesome
Background
WPF: How can I debug WPF bindings, visually?
Early on Data-Binding in WPF can be kind of annoying, things aren’t binding correctly, UI isn’t being realized because of it. Searching Google for tips on ho...
Where would you take it?
There are few things more painful than trying to debug an application in production. So I was very pleased to run across a little tool today that can be use...
game
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
Broken Magic Jumper
A couple of weekends ago was the 2012 Triangle Game Jam. Our theme of the jam was to generate game titles by madlibs: everyone contributed a list of 5 adject...
Hubert’s Safari Adventure: Development Diary
1/28/2011 6:00 PM
Hubert’s Safari Adventure
The Global Game Jam 2011 has ended. I present to you the labors of me and my team. The theme this year was “Extinction”, which I’m happy to say I loved. I...
The Art of the 48 Hour Game
The idea isn’t new, a few people get together one weekend with a common goal; make a game in 48 hours. I have game jams on the mind because the Global Game J...
Natal Arcade
Does anyone remember Nick(elodeon) Arcade? I think they must have used a a physical area for the users to move in, but I wonder if an intrepid game programme...
vsx
Extend Visual Studio!
The Pitch
C++ VS.Net Context Menu
Awhile ago when I was working on the ShaderEffect Generator I had an idea for another Visual Studio plug-in and quickly got it working. I finally got around...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
Visual Studio: Item Template & Custom Tool
I’m currently working on a project over at CodePlex that I haven’t published yet because I want to make it a little more awesome before I draw back the curta...
tool
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
Oxel: A Tool for Occluder Generation
Its been awhile since I’ve done an update to my research into occluder generation. If you need a refresher, take a look at:
Heap Inspector
This is a pretty awesome memory tool hobby project Jvander Beek of Vanguard Games is working on. I’m a big fan of the physical memory layout / fragmentation...
C++ VS.Net Context Menu
Awhile ago when I was working on the ShaderEffect Generator I had an idea for another Visual Studio plug-in and quickly got it working. I finally got around...
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
directx-11
Trip Report: Gamefest 2011 - Seattle
I managed make it out to Seattle this year for Gamefest and figured I’d share my thoughts on some of the different presentations I saw. They are not availabl...
Chaining Compute Shaders
My new side-side project with DirectX 11 is something that has been bothering me for awhile. Chaining compute shaders with variable length output. Chaining...
Subsurface Scattering Volumes
I didn’t get to see many sessions at GDC this year. One I really wanted to see but didn’t make it to was the talk on “Approximating Translucency for a Fast,...
Ambient Occlusion Volumes [Picture Timeline]
One of my hobby projects has been to try and implement Morgan McGuire’s Ambient Occlusion Volume (AOV) approach to ambient occlusion on DirectX 11. It’s loo...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
hiz
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Generating Occlusion Volumes
Almost a year ago I wrote a couple of posts on Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling (HZB-OC).
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
kinect
Creating Kinect Controls for Angry Birds
Before I begin let me give you a little background. About a month ago we decided to try and create NUI (Natural User Interface) or Kinect controls for Angry...
Kinect, Anthropometry and You
Anthropometry (Greek anthropos (άνθρωπος – “man”) and metron (μέτρον – “measure”) therefore “measurement of man”) refers to the measurement of the human i...
Trip Report: Gamefest 2011 - Seattle
I managed make it out to Seattle this year for Gamefest and figured I’d share my thoughts on some of the different presentations I saw. They are not availabl...
Project Photofly Experiment
Last week we were sitting around the office wondering if it would be possible to place ourselves in a game world with Autodesk’s Project Photofly. How cool ...
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Do the Truffle Shuffle to Start
Preface
activate3d
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Intelligent Character Motion 1.0
Who would of guessed back in 2009 when I wrote this post. That I would actually end up working on solving those exact problems?
German Engineered for Quality
Our PMD CamCube 3.0 arrived over at Activate3D a few days ago, figured I would snap a picture of this bad boy. This thing is one seriously beefy time of fli...
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
Nick ➟ Activate3D
Last week was the start of new things for me. I’ve moved on from Emergent and joined my good friends and fellow bloggers Dan and Shaun over at Activate3D. ...
motion-gaming
Creating Kinect Controls for Angry Birds
Before I begin let me give you a little background. About a month ago we decided to try and create NUI (Natural User Interface) or Kinect controls for Angry...
Kinect, Anthropometry and You
Anthropometry (Greek anthropos (άνθρωπος – “man”) and metron (μέτρον – “measure”) therefore “measurement of man”) refers to the measurement of the human i...
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Do the Truffle Shuffle to Start
Preface
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
style
WPF Theme Replacer
I was thinking about the [WPF Theme Replacer] some more and there are a few things you should be aware of when designing your theme to work just like a Micro...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 3)
So in [Part 1] I explained the basics of theming your WPF application and in [Part 2] I provided a more in-depth discussion of how the styles are applied to ...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 2)
For this part I wanted to talk about the style lookup system, things to be aware of and some problems with WPF’s “theming” capability in general. Here are th...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 1)
I just finished doing a ton of styling/theming work in WPF, after doing so I had many thoughts and experiences on the subject that I thought I would share. S...
theme
WPF Theme Replacer
I was thinking about the [WPF Theme Replacer] some more and there are a few things you should be aware of when designing your theme to work just like a Micro...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 3)
So in [Part 1] I explained the basics of theming your WPF application and in [Part 2] I provided a more in-depth discussion of how the styles are applied to ...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 2)
For this part I wanted to talk about the style lookup system, things to be aware of and some problems with WPF’s “theming” capability in general. Here are th...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 1)
I just finished doing a ton of styling/theming work in WPF, after doing so I had many thoughts and experiences on the subject that I thought I would share. S...
awesome
Broken Magic Jumper
A couple of weekends ago was the 2012 Triangle Game Jam. Our theme of the jam was to generate game titles by madlibs: everyone contributed a list of 5 adject...
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
R-Script is Awesome
Background
Falcon Punch
We play a lot of Super Smash Brothers Brawl during lunch around here, and occasionally after work there’s additional smashing. I walked in today to find this...
occlusion-culling
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Generating Occlusion Volumes
Almost a year ago I wrote a couple of posts on Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling (HZB-OC).
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
global-game-jam
Cowtastrophe
So for the 2015 Global Game Jam we worked on a multiplayer game called Cowtastrophe. It’s a very silly game, you collect cows, some cows are worth more than ...
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
Global Game Jam 2012 Wrap-Up
The 2012 Global Game Jam is over and it was another year of awesome games in the Raleigh-Durham – North Carolina area. This week I wanted to put the spotlig...
Global Game Jam 2012: Friday!
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately rebuilding the old Triangle Game Jam website. Now that it’s done I can get back to new articles. The new site is up a...
unreal-engine-4
Debugging UFunction::Invoke
A few weeks ago Nick Penwarden highlighted several improvements that we made to Unreal Engine 4 while working on Fortnite Battle Royale.
Rendered Image Comparison
For the past several months I’ve been refactoring the automation framework off and on for Unreal Engine 4. One of the things that we wanted to bring to the f...
Care and Feeding of Enum Flags
Maybe you’ve been looking at some C++ in the debugger not too long ago and happened across some enum flags on an object in your codebase. However, rather tha...
Cowtastrophe
So for the 2015 Global Game Jam we worked on a multiplayer game called Cowtastrophe. It’s a very silly game, you collect cows, some cows are worth more than ...
net
The CLR Team Needs Feedback
So [over at the CLR Team Blog] they’re asking users to send them feedback on what kinds of things they should be focusing on for the next version. Even thoug...
Where would you take it?
There are few things more painful than trying to debug an application in production. So I was very pleased to run across a little tool today that can be use...
MSIL Command
MSIL is a fantastic language, but then again I loved programming in x86 assembly back in school . The problem with programming in MSIL is the same problem y...
gamebryo
The Tale of the Transmogrifier
World Builder has this great little feature (with a good back story) in it that I added in the early days of its development. The idea started with a challen...
Gotterdammerung: The Curse of the Dead
One of the best things about my job is getting to see the games users of our tech are creating. Check out this really cool tech demo from Artifex Mundi.
Tick Tock
GDC is nearly upon us and we’re wrapping up the latest release of the product, Gamebryo Lightspeed. Keep an eye out for updates on the website, or if you pl...
lightspeed
Gotterdammerung: The Curse of the Dead
One of the best things about my job is getting to see the games users of our tech are creating. Check out this really cool tech demo from Artifex Mundi.
Toolbench
We (Emergent) posted a series of demo videos over at our YouTube channel. They are videos we created prior to GDC’09 for customers and such. These videos dem...
Tick Tock
GDC is nearly upon us and we’re wrapping up the latest release of the product, Gamebryo Lightspeed. Keep an eye out for updates on the website, or if you pl...
musing
Project Natal
If you haven’t gotten a chance yet to check out what Microsoft has planned for the 360 in the coming year, you should check out this video about Project Natal.
I ❤️ The Vitality Sensor
The Wii Vitality Sensor was just announced at E3 and I’m thrilled. I’ve wanted this type of peripheral for a long time. Think of what knowing the heart rate ...
World Builder 2040?
This video was getting passed around the office a little while back. Figured I would link it here for posterity. It’s Bruce Branit imagination of what a worl...
ideas
Subsurface Scattering Volumes
I didn’t get to see many sessions at GDC this year. One I really wanted to see but didn’t make it to was the talk on “Approximating Translucency for a Fast,...
Natal Arcade
Does anyone remember Nick(elodeon) Arcade? I think they must have used a a physical area for the users to move in, but I wonder if an intrepid game programme...
shadereffect
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
nui
Creating Kinect Controls for Angry Birds
Before I begin let me give you a little background. About a month ago we decided to try and create NUI (Natural User Interface) or Kinect controls for Angry...
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Do the Truffle Shuffle to Start
Preface
triangle-game-jam
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
Broken Magic Jumper
A couple of weekends ago was the 2012 Triangle Game Jam. Our theme of the jam was to generate game titles by madlibs: everyone contributed a list of 5 adject...
Global Game Jam 2012: Friday!
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately rebuilding the old Triangle Game Jam website. Now that it’s done I can get back to new articles. The new site is up a...
oxel
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
Oxel: A Tool for Occluder Generation
Its been awhile since I’ve done an update to my research into occluder generation. If you need a refresher, take a look at:
msil
MSIL Command 2: The Visualizing
When generating MSIL it’s often very useful to be able to see what you’re doing. One very handy debugging visualizer I’ve used is Haibo Luo’s DynamicMethod ...
MSIL Command
MSIL is a fantastic language, but then again I loved programming in x86 assembly back in school . The problem with programming in MSIL is the same problem y...
emergent
Toolbench
We (Emergent) posted a series of demo videos over at our YouTube channel. They are videos we created prior to GDC’09 for customers and such. These videos dem...
Tick Tock
GDC is nearly upon us and we’re wrapping up the latest release of the product, Gamebryo Lightspeed. Keep an eye out for updates on the website, or if you pl...
toolbench
The Tale of the Transmogrifier
World Builder has this great little feature (with a good back story) in it that I added in the early days of its development. The idea started with a challen...
Toolbench
We (Emergent) posted a series of demo videos over at our YouTube channel. They are videos we created prior to GDC’09 for customers and such. These videos dem...
gamedev
Project Natal
If you haven’t gotten a chance yet to check out what Microsoft has planned for the 360 in the coming year, you should check out this video about Project Natal.
I ❤️ The Vitality Sensor
The Wii Vitality Sensor was just announced at E3 and I’m thrilled. I’ve wanted this type of peripheral for a long time. Think of what knowing the heart rate ...
project-natal
Natal Arcade
Does anyone remember Nick(elodeon) Arcade? I think they must have used a a physical area for the users to move in, but I wonder if an intrepid game programme...
Project Natal
If you haven’t gotten a chance yet to check out what Microsoft has planned for the 360 in the coming year, you should check out this video about Project Natal.
wpf-theme-replacer
WPF Theme Replacer
I was thinking about the [WPF Theme Replacer] some more and there are a few things you should be aware of when designing your theme to work just like a Micro...
WPF: Adventures in Theming (Part 3)
So in [Part 1] I explained the basics of theming your WPF application and in [Part 2] I provided a more in-depth discussion of how the styles are applied to ...
data-binding
WPF/MVVM Hack: ValueChangedEventManager
Anyone that has had extensive experience with WPF and has attempted MVVM knows it’s not perfect. Over the years I’ve attempted many things in an attempt to ...
WPF: How can I debug WPF bindings, visually?
Early on Data-Binding in WPF can be kind of annoying, things aren’t binding correctly, UI isn’t being realized because of it. Searching Google for tips on ho...
hlsl
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
shader
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.5
After learning a lot about integrating tools into Visual Studio (2008/2010), I’m happy to announce a new version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool. (ugh...
humor
Falcon Punch
We play a lot of Super Smash Brothers Brawl during lunch around here, and occasionally after work there’s additional smashing. I walked in today to find this...
mvvm
WPF/MVVM Hack: ValueChangedEventManager
Anyone that has had extensive experience with WPF and has attempted MVVM knows it’s not perfect. Over the years I’ve attempted many things in an attempt to ...
WPF: ViewModel + Attachable Behavior
One of the biggest pain points of MVVM is the boilerplate code that is necessary for it to function. The code I’m referring to is the code needed to Hook an...
directx-9
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling
While I was at GDC I had the pleasure of attending the Rendering with Conviction talk by Stephen Hill, one of the topics was so cool that I thought it would ...
animation
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
Nick ➟ Activate3D
Last week was the start of new things for me. I’ve moved on from Emergent and joined my good friends and fellow bloggers Dan and Shaun over at Activate3D. ...
aov
Ambient Occlusion Volumes [Picture Timeline]
One of my hobby projects has been to try and implement Morgan McGuire’s Ambient Occlusion Volume (AOV) approach to ambient occlusion on DirectX 11. It’s loo...
Ambient Occlusion Volumes
There’s a pretty cool paper on Ambient Occlusion Volumes I was reading awhile back by Morgan McGuire, the technique actually uses volumes to calculate what p...
personal
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
machine-learning
Back to top ↑support-vector-machine
Back to top ↑svm
Back to top ↑openni
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
Do the Truffle Shuffle to Start
Preface
swig
SWIG: Casting Revisited
A while back I wrote SWIG and a Miss, which is a post about several of the problems I’ve encountered with SWIG. At that time I didn’t have a solution for dea...
SWIG and a Miss
There are so many pitfalls you’ll encounter after using SWIG for any extended period of time or with a large enough codebase. I thought I would go over some...
automation
Rendered Image Comparison
For the past several months I’ve been refactoring the automation framework off and on for Unreal Engine 4. One of the things that we wanted to bring to the f...
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Generating Occlusion Volumes
Almost a year ago I wrote a couple of posts on Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling (HZB-OC).
occlusion-volumes
Oxel: A Tool for Occluder Generation
Its been awhile since I’ve done an update to my research into occluder generation. If you need a refresher, take a look at:
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Generating Occlusion Volumes
Almost a year ago I wrote a couple of posts on Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling (HZB-OC).
voxelize
Oxel 1.1
So I’ve posted a new version of Oxel, grab it here. The new version has several improvements in UI, performance, stability, as well as a brand new re-triang...
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
binding
WPF: Just enough thread to hang yourself
One of the really nice features of WPF is that it comes with a Dispatcher for executing code coming off a thread different from your UI thread. It’s not sub...
threading
WPF: Just enough thread to hang yourself
One of the really nice features of WPF is that it comes with a Dispatcher for executing code coming off a thread different from your UI thread. It’s not sub...
il
MSIL Command
MSIL is a fantastic language, but then again I loved programming in x86 assembly back in school . The problem with programming in MSIL is the same problem y...
sos
Where would you take it?
There are few things more painful than trying to debug an application in production. So I was very pleased to run across a little tool today that can be use...
windbg
Where would you take it?
There are few things more painful than trying to debug an application in production. So I was very pleased to run across a little tool today that can be use...
gamasutra
Of Users and Tools Developers
Was reading one of the feature articles over at Gamasutra Custom Tools: Environment Artists and Game Editors. Was a good read; from my experience I would hav...
level-editor
Of Users and Tools Developers
Was reading one of the feature articles over at Gamasutra Custom Tools: Environment Artists and Game Editors. Was a good read; from my experience I would hav...
3d
World Builder 2040?
This video was getting passed around the office a little while back. Figured I would link it here for posterity. It’s Bruce Branit imagination of what a worl...
video
World Builder 2040?
This video was getting passed around the office a little while back. Figured I would link it here for posterity. It’s Bruce Branit imagination of what a worl...
controller
I ❤️ The Vitality Sensor
The Wii Vitality Sensor was just announced at E3 and I’m thrilled. I’ve wanted this type of peripheral for a long time. Think of what knowing the heart rate ...
heart-rate
I ❤️ The Vitality Sensor
The Wii Vitality Sensor was just announced at E3 and I’m thrilled. I’ve wanted this type of peripheral for a long time. Think of what knowing the heart rate ...
editors
Collaborative Game Editing
Collaborative Game Editing
lock
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Threadis
Who watches the threads? Apparently the Visual Studio 2008 debugger. Though, this should come as no surprise to anyone… except for the fact that they watch t...
thread
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Threadis
Who watches the threads? Apparently the Visual Studio 2008 debugger. Though, this should come as no surprise to anyone… except for the fact that they watch t...
search
Filters
The two most common filters used in any UI are “Begins With” and “Contains” substring. However, both of these filters are non optimal because they tend to fa...
xaml
WPF: XAML Attribute Order Matters
I think the most annoying thing about WPF is that for any given task everything goes fine, for a few hours, then you do something and you’re stumped why it’s...
shape
WPF: The Shapely TabItem
So I wanted to make a really nice looking WPF TabItems and went looking for some examples of how other people have done it. I really only found one quality ...
tabitem
WPF: The Shapely TabItem
So I wanted to make a really nice looking WPF TabItems and went looking for some examples of how other people have done it. I really only found one quality ...
net-3-5
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
color
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
highlight
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
selection
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
textbox
WPF: Change TextBox Selection Highlight Color
So if you’ve ever tried to change the selection color of the TextBox in WPF, you’ve probably found out really quickly that it’s not really doable in .Net 3.5...
adorner
WPF: Overlay Control
If you haven’t had a chance to mess around with an AdornerDecorator, I highly recommend that you do. They’re extremely useful because they allow you to over...
overlay
WPF: Overlay Control
If you haven’t had a chance to mess around with an AdornerDecorator, I highly recommend that you do. They’re extremely useful because they allow you to over...
transmogrifier
The Tale of the Transmogrifier
World Builder has this great little feature (with a good back story) in it that I added in the early days of its development. The idea started with a challen...
world-builder
The Tale of the Transmogrifier
World Builder has this great little feature (with a good back story) in it that I added in the early days of its development. The idea started with a challen...
image
WPF: ListBox Background Image
One thing I really enjoy doing is duplicating effects in WPF that I’ve seen in other applications. One I like a lot for directory browsers and content browse...
listbox
WPF: ListBox Background Image
One thing I really enjoy doing is duplicating effects in WPF that I’ve seen in other applications. One I like a lot for directory browsers and content browse...
integration
Visual Studio: Item Template & Custom Tool
I’m currently working on a project over at CodePlex that I haven’t published yet because I want to make it a little more awesome before I draw back the curta...
code-generator
Back to top ↑over-engineering
Back to top ↑heat-map
WPF: Heat Maps
So awhile ago I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do heat maps in WPF?”. Well I started playing around with the idea and immediately was side tracked with ho...
dice
DICE: Design Outside the Box
This presentation from DICE by Jesse Schell is pretty insightful. The talk is about how humanity has become dissociated with reality over the years but becau...
clr
The CLR Team Needs Feedback
So [over at the CLR Team Blog] they’re asking users to send them feedback on what kinds of things they should be focusing on for the next version. Even thoug...
feedback
The CLR Team Needs Feedback
So [over at the CLR Team Blog] they’re asking users to send them feedback on what kinds of things they should be focusing on for the next version. Even thoug...
microsoft
The CLR Team Needs Feedback
So [over at the CLR Team Blog] they’re asking users to send them feedback on what kinds of things they should be focusing on for the next version. Even thoug...
achievement
The Toothbrush Achievement
So I was thinking about what [Jesse Schell was saying in his DICE presentation] while brushing my teeth this morning. About 90% of the way through the prese...
jesse-schell
The Toothbrush Achievement
So I was thinking about what [Jesse Schell was saying in his DICE presentation] while brushing my teeth this morning. About 90% of the way through the prese...
toothbrush
The Toothbrush Achievement
So I was thinking about what [Jesse Schell was saying in his DICE presentation] while brushing my teeth this morning. About 90% of the way through the prese...
gdc
GDC 2010: Rendering With Conviction
One of the good talks I saw at GDC was this one, Rendering With Conviction. Stephen Hill posted his slides for his presentation and you should check them out...
gdc-2010
GDC 2010: Rendering With Conviction
One of the good talks I saw at GDC was this one, Rendering With Conviction. Stephen Hill posted his slides for his presentation and you should check them out...
attachable-behavior
WPF: ViewModel + Attachable Behavior
One of the biggest pain points of MVVM is the boilerplate code that is necessary for it to function. The code I’m referring to is the code needed to Hook an...
magic
WPF: ViewModel + Attachable Behavior
One of the biggest pain points of MVVM is the boilerplate code that is necessary for it to function. The code I’m referring to is the code needed to Hook an...
falcon-punch
Falcon Punch
We play a lot of Super Smash Brothers Brawl during lunch around here, and occasionally after work there’s additional smashing. I walked in today to find this...
ssbb
Falcon Punch
We play a lot of Super Smash Brothers Brawl during lunch around here, and occasionally after work there’s additional smashing. I walked in today to find this...
shadows
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Shadows
After exchanging a few emails with Stephen Hill, he clarified how they were able to cull shadows from the scene using the Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB). The p...
middleware
Nick ➟ Activate3D
Last week was the start of new things for me. I’ve moved on from Emergent and joined my good friends and fellow bloggers Dan and Shaun over at Activate3D. ...
motion-synthesis
Nick ➟ Activate3D
Last week was the start of new things for me. I’ve moved on from Emergent and joined my good friends and fellow bloggers Dan and Shaun over at Activate3D. ...
codeplex
WPF ShaderEffect Generator 1.7
I’ve released an updated version of my WPF ShaderEffect Generator tool on Codeplex. The release is fairly minor but I figured I’d update my blog anyway.
logging
R-Script is Awesome
Background
r
R-Script is Awesome
Background
big-i
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
cnn
Activate3D On CNN
I finally got the green light to make a blog post about what I’ve been working on for the past 3.5 months :D Today is a pretty auspicious day for Activate3D,...
camera
German Engineered for Quality
Our PMD CamCube 3.0 arrived over at Activate3D a few days ago, figured I would snap a picture of this bad boy. This thing is one seriously beefy time of fli...
depth-camera
German Engineered for Quality
Our PMD CamCube 3.0 arrived over at Activate3D a few days ago, figured I would snap a picture of this bad boy. This thing is one seriously beefy time of fli...
pmd
German Engineered for Quality
Our PMD CamCube 3.0 arrived over at Activate3D a few days ago, figured I would snap a picture of this bad boy. This thing is one seriously beefy time of fli...
hack
WPF/MVVM Hack: ValueChangedEventManager
Anyone that has had extensive experience with WPF and has attempted MVVM knows it’s not perfect. Over the years I’ve attempted many things in an attempt to ...
reflection
WPF/MVVM Hack: ValueChangedEventManager
Anyone that has had extensive experience with WPF and has attempted MVVM knows it’s not perfect. Over the years I’ve attempted many things in an attempt to ...
memory
Heap Inspector
This is a pretty awesome memory tool hobby project Jvander Beek of Vanguard Games is working on. I’m a big fan of the physical memory layout / fragmentation...
profiling
Heap Inspector
This is a pretty awesome memory tool hobby project Jvander Beek of Vanguard Games is working on. I’m a big fan of the physical memory layout / fragmentation...
ambient-occlusion
Ambient Occlusion Volumes [Picture Timeline]
One of my hobby projects has been to try and implement Morgan McGuire’s Ambient Occlusion Volume (AOV) approach to ambient occlusion on DirectX 11. It’s loo...
ambient-occlusion-volumes
Ambient Occlusion Volumes [Picture Timeline]
One of my hobby projects has been to try and implement Morgan McGuire’s Ambient Occlusion Volume (AOV) approach to ambient occlusion on DirectX 11. It’s loo...
productivity
Documentation [Easy Mode]
I’ve talked about AtomineerUtils before on my blog very briefly several months back when I first discovered it. I’ve now been using it pretty much straight ...
cloud-computing
Redneck Cloud Computing
Every now and then I wonder what decisions might be different if I had access to a cloud of machines dedicated to baking game assets or solving other highly ...
gpu
Nsightful
It took several versions before enough kinks got worked out in Nvidia’s Parallel Nsight Graphics/CUDA debugging application before I could successfully profi...
nvidia
Nsightful
It took several versions before enough kinks got worked out in Nvidia’s Parallel Nsight Graphics/CUDA debugging application before I could successfully profi...
parallel-nsight
Nsightful
It took several versions before enough kinks got worked out in Nvidia’s Parallel Nsight Graphics/CUDA debugging application before I could successfully profi...
subsurface-scattering
Subsurface Scattering Volumes
I didn’t get to see many sessions at GDC this year. One I really wanted to see but didn’t make it to was the talk on “Approximating Translucency for a Fast,...
subsurface-scattering-volumes
Subsurface Scattering Volumes
I didn’t get to see many sessions at GDC this year. One I really wanted to see but didn’t make it to was the talk on “Approximating Translucency for a Fast,...
1-0
Intelligent Character Motion 1.0
Who would of guessed back in 2009 when I wrote this post. That I would actually end up working on solving those exact problems?
icm
Intelligent Character Motion 1.0
Who would of guessed back in 2009 when I wrote this post. That I would actually end up working on solving those exact problems?
appendstructuredbuffer
Chaining Compute Shaders
My new side-side project with DirectX 11 is something that has been bothering me for awhile. Chaining compute shaders with variable length output. Chaining...
compute-shader
Chaining Compute Shaders
My new side-side project with DirectX 11 is something that has been bothering me for awhile. Chaining compute shaders with variable length output. Chaining...
copystructurecount
Chaining Compute Shaders
My new side-side project with DirectX 11 is something that has been bothering me for awhile. Chaining compute shaders with variable length output. Chaining...
d3d11
Chaining Compute Shaders
My new side-side project with DirectX 11 is something that has been bothering me for awhile. Chaining compute shaders with variable length output. Chaining...
dispatchindirect
Chaining Compute Shaders
My new side-side project with DirectX 11 is something that has been bothering me for awhile. Chaining compute shaders with variable length output. Chaining...
opencl
Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling - Generating Occlusion Volumes
Almost a year ago I wrote a couple of posts on Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling (HZB-OC).
auto-save
Terraria: The Auto-Saving Server
After beating Minecraft (not really) I thought my addition to these blasted sandbox mining games was satisfied. Sadly, I was wrong. I started playing Terra...
server
Terraria: The Auto-Saving Server
After beating Minecraft (not really) I thought my addition to these blasted sandbox mining games was satisfied. Sadly, I was wrong. I started playing Terra...
terraria
Terraria: The Auto-Saving Server
After beating Minecraft (not really) I thought my addition to these blasted sandbox mining games was satisfied. Sadly, I was wrong. I started playing Terra...
community
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
gaming
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
unity
Intelligent Character Motion 1.1 - With Unity Integration
Back in April I wrote a short post about Activate3D releasing 1.0 of ICM, but unlike the 0.8 alpha version the 1.0 did not ship with a community version.
media-wiki
How I Organize Research
About a year ago I got tired of trying to keep the mounting supply of PDFs and PowerPoint slides I’ve collected over the years organized. They weren’t searc...
organization
How I Organize Research
About a year ago I got tired of trying to keep the mounting supply of PDFs and PowerPoint slides I’ve collected over the years organized. They weren’t searc...
research
How I Organize Research
About a year ago I got tired of trying to keep the mounting supply of PDFs and PowerPoint slides I’ve collected over the years organized. They weren’t searc...
whitepapers
How I Organize Research
About a year ago I got tired of trying to keep the mounting supply of PDFs and PowerPoint slides I’ve collected over the years organized. They weren’t searc...
project-photofly
Project Photofly Experiment
Last week we were sitting around the office wondering if it would be possible to place ourselves in a game world with Autodesk’s Project Photofly. How cool ...
culling
Back to top ↑game-developer-magazine
Back to top ↑conference
Trip Report: Gamefest 2011 - Seattle
I managed make it out to Seattle this year for Gamefest and figured I’d share my thoughts on some of the different presentations I saw. They are not availabl...
gamefest
Trip Report: Gamefest 2011 - Seattle
I managed make it out to Seattle this year for Gamefest and figured I’d share my thoughts on some of the different presentations I saw. They are not availabl...
opengl
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
solid-voxelization
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
voxel
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
voxelization
Robust Inside and Outside Solid Voxelization
While wrapping up my post for generating simplified occluders for Hierarchical Z-Buffer Occlusion Culling, I was pointed to a paper called Complete Polygonal...
merging
Making Your Files Merge Friendly
Merging is a fact of life for most of us. Eventually two users touch the same files and a conflict must be resolved. For programmers merging is a daily act...
revision-control
Making Your Files Merge Friendly
Merging is a fact of life for most of us. Eventually two users touch the same files and a conflict must be resolved. For programmers merging is a daily act...
anthropometry
Kinect, Anthropometry and You
Anthropometry (Greek anthropos (άνθρωπος – “man”) and metron (μέτρον – “measure”) therefore “measurement of man”) refers to the measurement of the human i...
angry-birds
Creating Kinect Controls for Angry Birds
Before I begin let me give you a little background. About a month ago we decided to try and create NUI (Natural User Interface) or Kinect controls for Angry...
2012
Global Game Jam 2012 Wrap-Up
The 2012 Global Game Jam is over and it was another year of awesome games in the Raleigh-Durham – North Carolina area. This week I wanted to put the spotlig...
occluders
Oxel: Source + Version 1.0.1
So I have a new page dedicated to the Oxel project located here: http://nickdarnell.com/Oxel. I’ve also started a new project on BitBucket where you’ll be ab...
github
The Depixelizer
A few days ago Morgan McGuire added a post on his blog about the absence of a good cross platform tool for depixelizing pixel art for higher resolutions purp...
html5
The Depixelizer
A few days ago Morgan McGuire added a post on his blog about the absence of a good cross platform tool for depixelizing pixel art for higher resolutions purp...
javascript
The Depixelizer
A few days ago Morgan McGuire added a post on his blog about the absence of a good cross platform tool for depixelizing pixel art for higher resolutions purp...
pixel
The Depixelizer
A few days ago Morgan McGuire added a post on his blog about the absence of a good cross platform tool for depixelizing pixel art for higher resolutions purp...
pixelized
The Depixelizer
A few days ago Morgan McGuire added a post on his blog about the absence of a good cross platform tool for depixelizing pixel art for higher resolutions purp...
web
The Depixelizer
A few days ago Morgan McGuire added a post on his blog about the absence of a good cross platform tool for depixelizing pixel art for higher resolutions purp...
zombies
Undead Man Lover
I should have wrote a post about this months back, but better late than never. At the Global Game Jam this year my buddy Mike and I teamed up, with some ass...
fancy
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
generator
The Fancy Game Namer
So back in 2012 for the Triangle Game Jam, I threw together a simple PHP script to generate a set of game names based on the pattern Adjective Noun Verb(er) ...
cows
Cowtastrophe
So for the 2015 Global Game Jam we worked on a multiplayer game called Cowtastrophe. It’s a very silly game, you collect cows, some cows are worth more than ...
enum-flags
Care and Feeding of Enum Flags
Maybe you’ve been looking at some C++ in the debugger not too long ago and happened across some enum flags on an object in your codebase. However, rather tha...
hex
Care and Feeding of Enum Flags
Maybe you’ve been looking at some C++ in the debugger not too long ago and happened across some enum flags on an object in your codebase. However, rather tha...
blueprints
Debugging UFunction::Invoke
A few weeks ago Nick Penwarden highlighted several improvements that we made to Unreal Engine 4 while working on Fortnite Battle Royale.
ue4
Debugging UFunction::Invoke
A few weeks ago Nick Penwarden highlighted several improvements that we made to Unreal Engine 4 while working on Fortnite Battle Royale.
cpp
Debugging UFunction::Invoke
A few weeks ago Nick Penwarden highlighted several improvements that we made to Unreal Engine 4 while working on Fortnite Battle Royale.
ai
ChatGPT Killed Fancy Game Namer
I’ve been playing with ChatGPT and it’s kind of incredible. After toying with it for awhile a thought hit me, that this could replace something like Fancy G...