NCsoft Java redux

After our project was canceled and the team split for other jobs, etc. I figured that was the end of any chance for NCsoft to use the Java 3D rendering tech we had worked so hard on. Well, turns out I was wrong. Have a peek at these shots of applets running on the public Korean website for NCsoft's newest triple-A MMO, Aion (If you have not heard of Aion yet, you really should do yourself a favor and go read up on it.):







Interesting stuff. The first two shots are of an applet allowing you to basically show off a living breathing version of your in-game avatar. The character is in 3D and you have some camera control and so forth. The other shot appears to be an up-to-date land map with call-outs for important locations or events. See the applets in action for yourself here and here. (you'll need Java 6)

I'm happy to see they have used the tech after all and would love to see where they might go next with it. I could imagine additional widgets that could effect real in-game data, such as economic, guild or community features. Tying MMO communities and players into the game play (even when they are not in the game) is, in my opinion, an important next step in MMO development. Good to see that coming from NCsoft.

New server for blog

I recently moved my hosting for this blog to save some cash, taking advantage of the interruption to also move the blog to a subdomain and use blogger's newer layouts system. Hopefully as the dust clears everyone will still be able to find and access the blog! :)

Google Talk Video Plugin

A couple of days ago I saw a little link at the top of my gmail screen advertising the new voice and video chat plugin for gtalk. Intrigued, I decided to try it out here on my iMac (64 bit Intel based using the latest Firefox and Safari).

The install process went quite smoothly, but unfortunately I did not have any contacts who had also installed the plugin, so it went untested that day.

Oddly enough, my Mac started exhibiting strange behavior that same day. Anything involving a web browser (and even some other tasks that didn't) started having random stalls... my internet connection seems fine and when things did load, they came in promptly. Unfortunately, I'd often have to click multiple times to get to the next page, etc.

Over the next several days, this reached a critical point where I was actually unable to get my work done because of the slowdown! Frustrated, I started doing what I normally only do on my windows box... yank open a process manager and look for processes to kill. I discovered that doing a sudo kill on the process for the plugin unstuck those stalling requests. The process immediately respawns though and I had to keep repeating the "cure". Finally I'd had enough and I uninstalled the plugin. Life fortunately returned to normal.

So did I ever get to try the video chat? Yes, actually I did try it the second day I had it installed and every time I tried to setup a call it would not make the connection or have other such problems. Maybe you'll have better luck and none of this will happen to you... but for now, I think I'll stick with Skype, thank you.

ItsEasyToWin.

Recently a good friend of mine and I helped out with the client/server programming of a game show that you play live - streaming over the web. The client and server communication and server logic is handled via Sun's Project Darkstar. The front end is Flash and a Java applet that uses the new java deployment script. The end result is a nice, extensible game show platform.

I just found out that the project had some news coverage on the radio and tv. Here's one from Boston's local CBS station:

Use the force Aaron

My son Aaron, as a Jedi for this Halloween.

The kids got so much candy this year that I ended up buying up the bulk of it from them rather than endure the endless sugar rush and dental bills...

Ardor3D moving along

Just wanted to throw up a little mention about Ardor3D. I'm happy to report that we have made some good progress on getting the first draft version under way. We have made judicious use of the work previously done for jME, slimming things down to a nice compact core and rewriting key areas. It is already starting to feel much simpler and cleaner to work with, which is exciting! As we get closer to that foundational set of code that will serve as our base for open source release, I expect to be able to give more info and some code samples. Stay tuned. :)