My first post of the new decade!
Posted by BrianH | Filed under Website News
Happy New Years, everyone! It’s 2010! A new decade is upon us and technology is continuing to blossom as rapid as it always has. Especially in the world of open-source. Blender 2.5 is pushing closer towards Release Candidate 1, with all its juicy new features and eye-candy user interface. The Durian project is looking more awesome by the minute. Montage Studio is pouring into the Durian development team, and producing awesome work with CG Cookie. And Hynds|Studio is, well … not doing a whole lot of anything. A lot of my projects at the moment are mix and match, between my part-time job and side work. I’ve been working on getting my Blender Networking eBook finished and ready to launch. Writing an entire book is not an easy task by any means. I also have some other projects I’d like to get done, including a rewrite of the old Fur Library for 2.5. I really just need to take a step back and focus on getting one thing done at a time.
So, let’s start with my New Year’s Resolution. Here we go … I, do solemnly swear, by the witness of the new decade 2010, will post blog posts on a regular basis. Yes, you heard it correct and can hold me to it! I pay for the blog so I might as well use it, right? I will also post a lot more goodies for you to enjoy as well.
Speaking of goodies, you’re probably wondering what happened to my video podcast series. Well, one thing I’ve learned is that things never go as planned. During the creation of the first podcast, my svn checkout quit compiling properly. Largely due to the fact that there was a lot of new code commits to the svn that wouldn’t let me compile on Mac OS X. So, I jumped on IRC and started talking about it in the #blendercoders channel about my compile problems, which itself stemmed interest in another problem with compiling on Mac OS X. The user-def.mk system for overriding the settings was, and actually always has been, somewhat of an issue. The current method was to copy the entire user-def.mk file from the config presets, and paste it into the blender root directory to be edited. To be honest, I’m not a coder, or at least not a well experienced one. So, I have no clue why this was a problem. It’s always been routine for me when compiling Blender to do this. Well, since then, it’s changed again. To make a long story short, I’ll need to do some more research on how it’s setup now before I can continue with the compiling series. There are some dependency issues that need resolved too. The video podcasts are planned to get back into development, but starting into something else other then compiling Blender. Feel free to post suggestions in the comments, because I’m always interested in my reader’s feedback.
Another goody to expect from this year is a rewrite of the old Fur Library for the 2.5 update. There’s some really awesome stuff I’d like to take advantage of, and I think it would really benefit those who actually used the old library. I’m researching the in-app tutorial stuff in 2.5, so I hope I’m able to make something useful this time around.
Again, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I look forward to keeping in touch more often.
Website Updates and Update Fixes.
Posted by BrianH | Filed under Website News
I recently made some updates to the website, but unfortunately no good deed goes unpunished. I started to receive emails about not being able to access registered content. Since there is nothing you need to register for, I had a look and discovered my download manager made some bizarre changes to the permissions of files I have publicly available. They are now all fixed. If there are any other problems, feel free to shoot me an email about it.
I’m about to start posting more on the website along with some of my recent projects, so keep tuned in. 
Networking Book and Config Generator
Posted by BrianH | Filed under Blender Tutorial, Website News, eBooks
I have two things to announce today. The first is something that I mentioned a while back, but recently I’ve been doing a lot of work on. I mentioned before that I was working on a Blender Game Networking eBook and I’d like to give you some updates on what’s happening. In a nutshell, the book has evolved into much more then an eBook. I’ve been writing and editing like crazy on this book and I’m pleased to announce that I will be publishing this book in paper-bound form (yippe!). The book will hopefully include a CD with demo files and extra goodies to play with. However, I’m not even halfway done with writing the book yet. I’ll give you a heads up when I get close though and maybe even open a pre-order form so I have a good idea of what type of demand there is.
The second announcement, I will be launching some really cool developer stuff on my site very soon. I’m developing some code generators for compiling Blender with some easy to understand documentation. It should be a nice contribution to the community, especially for those who are just learning the ropes.
So keep your eyes open for some really cool stuff heading your way
Tags: Blender, Config, Generator, networking
