Since 1995, I’ve been rendering LEGO models using POV-Ray. For most of that time, I’ve used scripting to place and build those models. It’s been fun and I’ve learned a lot over the years, each model looking a bit better than the first. That said, I’m never quite happy and always looking for new ways to render my models and, below, are my recent attempts using Blender.
I’ve been trying to get back into my LEGO ray tracing the last few weeks, but find myself distracted. Not with other activities, but with research and all the cool things others are doing. My journey led me to Mecabricks, where it provided the image you see to the right. Not yet at my destination, I thought I’d share this stop along the way.
Walls and creatures always make for a nice game and Faller, our program of the month, has both. It takes a bit of imagination, but watch the icky spider climb up the wall towards you. Their goal, of course, is to knock you off and claim the wall for themselves. Like any good hero, you sit at the top and move over the spiders using Z and .. But be quick and knock them off using M to save the day. Just don’t be a faller should you miss.
Trying to get back into my LEGO ray tracing yesterday, I begin looking for old instructions on the internet again. It’s been awhile since I’d done that. Like coming home after being gone awhile, I enjoyed browsing through the old and new scans that are out there. I remembered liking the old house sets and, when I landed on 353 Terrace House, I thought it would be nice to render it. Yet, something made me think I’d already done that.
If you haven’t visited in a while, you may notice that my ZX81 retro computer site is looking a bit different. I’d been using newer, responsive themes, for almost a year now. Yet I was being selfish. The general population wasn't allowed to partake my fun. For the most part, this was due to me not feeling ready. The little bugs I saw prevented me from making progress. The coding perfectionist in me injected doubt which translated into no fun for the masses. No longer.
As we close out April, it is time to submit my official word count for Camp. Yep, I hit my final count and can enter the winner’s circle, but it’s bitter sweet. Although I penned some more scenes for my novel, Steel Strong, it wasn’t as much as I’d planned. In fact, I’d already lowered my goal to 25,000 as I knew it would be a tough month with all the activities I'm doing.
April is close to wrapping up and I was able to find time this weekend to type in another ZX81 game. Laser Blast, this month’s program, has you saving the world. Kind of cliché I know, but hey this was 1984. George Orwell’s novel didn’t come true, but at least we could blast alien’s with lasers. Use the Z and . keys to move and M to shoot your ray of death. But beware. The alien has a guided missile and it’s heading right for you.
Finally making the leap, I released a new template for my primary website this weekend. As noted in the past, I’ve been fed up with my 2006 based theme and have been testing out new designs for a few months now. Transferring most, but not all, of the design ideas from my test site, I just couldn’t wait any longer. Tweaking continues, but you can enjoy the new look now.
As the rain falls on the last Sunday in March, I know that my website design will soon be put aside for a bit. It has been fun, yet other activities are looming. With spring comes Camp NaNoWriMo and I look forward to writing. That doesn’t mean I’m planning to drop everything, but I do want to finish the story I started last year.
I’m feeling pretty good about the structure I want for my web site. Plugging away on my test site, I’ve updated my old blogging script to present unique titles with modern slugs, improved categories and decent paging. In the backend I have page redirects working to reduce duplication, added stub 404 pages to prevent caching of bad links, and turned on decent logging to track errors. Yet, the look is still circa 2006. It may be flat, but it isn’t responsive and needs an update.
Ah, spring time. As winter melts away, the weather goes haywire and it’s time to enjoy the bouts of sunshine, rain and the occasional thunderstorm of hail. Perhaps it’s fitting that in the middle of this meteorological mayhem that Computact came back to life. An outwardly simple landing game that is almost impossible to play. No matter, it demonstrates some interesting use of ZX81 BASIC as March’s Program of the month.
Do you find yourself fighting your editor? The common text editors of today work quite well as long you work they way they want you to. Yet, when you stray from their paradigm, even when they seem to offer infinite flexibility, it can be a chore to get even simple things done. What is a developer to do?
Digging through my listings, I struggled deciding what to offer for February. The first one I found was an adventure text game. Too close to last month's program, I decided against it for now. Further down in the stack, I found a code breaking program, but after entering it in I realized it needed work. The next program I pulled out, a graphic game called Teleport—ignore that spelling for now—ended up being just right.
After ten years, I’m sick of my web site’s look. During my early web development days I would change the design almost yearly. My original LEGO site went through many refreshes until I abandoned it for Flickr. My blog, now, feels old and neglected. Not only that, I’m not happy with the format or flow of content either.
While working on a new theme for my Reid’s for Fun site, I flipped over to my 3v sub-domain to check something. While there, I noticed that all the user bars were failing with an API error. I quickly jumping over to the 360voice site and found it dead. Only the “Safari Can’t Connect to Server” error stared back at me.
Wow, 2016 and I’m still digging programs out of my stack of print outs. Kicking off the new year, I’m grabbing a story based program. I wrote Star Probe, our program of the month, in the style of a Chose Your Own Adventure book—and yes, I actually owned most of them. Although you can only enter numbers, Star Probe is actually an example of interactive fiction. Though not as advanced as an Infocom game, Star Probe delivers an interesting, if short, story to the player. Before I spoil where I drew my inspiration, go play it. It will only take a few minutes. Just try to ignore the horrible grammar and spelling of a 14-year-old.
I’m slowing working through updating my site. Recently, I decided to update my icons. I’ve been using favorite icons for years—favicon.ico for those that care. But, it was old and boring. Time to update.
I’m trying to start of the new year by updating all my web sites. I’ve been researching SEO (search engine optimization) for a few months, but only recently started to work through how to actually do it. The last few days have been a eureka moment for me.
Time to close out the year with another classic remaking. Back in 1983, I decided to try my hand at recreating Nintendo’s fan favorite: Donkey Kong. My version, cryptically called Monkey Maze, is December’s Program of the Month. Not quite as complex as the original, my version has only a single board that you can navigate around using the ZX81 cursor keys (5,6,7 and 8 which map to left, down, up and right). It plays pretty well. Go give it a try, and avoid the barrels, if you can.
Well, last day of NaNoWriMo 2015. I validated 53,422 words for the win. I actually hit 50K just before Thanksgiving. It was nice staying on track this month, which prevented the sprint I needed to do last year.
One of my favorite video games as a kid was a rather unlikely one. It wasn’t the coolest graphics or excellent control. It was about story and animation. It was, of course, Dragon’s Lair. The odd laser disc game by famed animator Don Bluth. Not surprisingly, I tried to recreate a bit of the game's feel on my ZX81. My attempt is, of course, November’s Program of the Month.
It is Halloween and October’s Program of the Month is right on time. When I pulled the listing for The Haunting from my stack I knew it would be perfect. Although short, I knew I’d be challenged as this program of the month requires something I hadn’t needed before. That something was sound.
To my surprise, I was thumbing through my old printouts and discover that I actually wrote an Input Two program. I covered Input One as March’s Program of the Month. For September, however, it is Input Two’s opportunity to shine.
Well, encoding issue is fixed. Sort of. After digging around I found that the routines in my CMS are forcing the use of ISO-8859-1 which makes it difficult to easily convert to UTF-8. It isn’t impossible, but it isn't what I want to work on right now. I’m saving that exercise for another day.
I’m currently working on a responsive HTML5 template for my website. As much as I like the old one, it is starting to get a bit long in the tooth. Five years of life is a pretty good run, but it is time to get with the modern world full of mobile devices and tablets. Unfortunately, I’ve run into a bit of a pickle.