Everyone loves awesome things. And rippling space is one of the more awesome things I can think of. Sparked by a discussion on the Ogre forums ( http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=297386 ) and a mighty need to have such effects in the Invasion Engine, I wrote a simple demo that makes a fountain of bubbly-ness and a black hole. Screenshots, and source code (along with all the textures, shaders, etc) are available below :)

So, I've had some... spare time recently, where I can't work on Invasion, so I widdled away a few hours playing with something that's always interested me: fluid dynamics. I wrote a quick and dirty little OpenGL app that creates a room full of some compressible gas, and drops some ink in. Read on for screenshots and source code :)

There's a bunch of different ways of mitigating the effects of latency in online games. Everyone who has tried to make a networked game knows how it feels to be testing and running your game locally, where everything is smooth and crisp and instant, only to be tremendously disappointed when you go to play that inaugural multiplayer match and your enemy is skipping so fast you can't even follow him. With the Invasion Engine being built from the ground up as a networked game (even single player matches are actually connections to a local server) solving the issue of lag is very, very important. Having just finished the first successful test of our system for doing so, I'd like to talk a little about it. If you've ever been interested in how games like Half-life 2 (and all the Source engine games) counter lag, or if you're struggling with this same problem in your own project, read on.

I got home from RIT last Saturday, and naturally, the first thing I do is stay up all night coding. I had a really fun 24 hours. Sean and Peter came over to have a cookout type deal, and then afterwards we transformed my dining room table into NSR Headquarters. Armed with 6 cups of coffee and an unlimited supply of hard boiled eggs, we stayed up until about 7:00 AM working on the Invasion Engine beta. Peter had prior engagements, but Sean and I (after a brief 5-6 hour nap) continued our campaign that culminated in about 1000 lines of new code.

Slashdot today brought me news that the PRO-IP act passed the Judiciary Committee, unanimously. This is the bill that would increase penalties for copying a CD up to $1.5 million, the bill that would create an international police force under a new US department strictly for chasing down copyright infringers... etc. So, out of interest, I looked up the text of this bill. I now understand why no one read it. If you're interested in how the US goes about creating and enacting laws, take a read.