Pug’s Place

School’s basically done. I have some RITA work for Software Engineering to do this weekend and I need to put together a video of my Simulation project, but otherwise it’s smooth sailing.

Above you can see a screen-shot of the new installer for Windows I put together yesterday. It uses the Nullsoft Scriptable Installer System and has features to:

1. Check for your local copy of Mono. If you don’t have one, it opens your web browser to the Mono download page.
2. Create Start Menu shortcuts.
3. Create a Desktop shortcut.
4. Cleanly uninstalls through a Start Menu shortcut or through the Add/Remove Programs dialog.

That should fix… every problem so far reported for Windows. The next release of Gpremacy will have this installer for Windows. The big feature additions for the next version of Gpremacy will be Blind Bidding and randomized order of play, fixing the old market-manipulation flaw in the original game rules. This is proving to be difficult to get right, so I have no ETA on the next release.

Speaking of that Simulation project above, well, here’s a screen-shot. It’s a simulation of fish, dolphins and sharks (and fish food) in a 3D spherical aquarium. All entities have agent-based artificial intelligences and school, hunt, eat, avoid other species and generally stay alive.

This simulation showcases emergent behaviour - complicated behaviour made up of simpler sub-behaviours.

The boxes at the bottom of the screen have descriptive text when run in Windows, but something strange is happening in Linux. The big button in the center, believe it or not, says “Add Food”. I’m trying to fix this now. The sliders on the left change the coefficients which blend different behaviours of the fishes, and the smaller buttons on the right add more of various species to the aquarium.

It’s rather cool to watch. The fish school around, trying to avoid predators and unfamiliar species. When you add fish food, they go up and feed on it. The dolphins streak around the aquarium eating fish, and the sharks lurk around munching on living targets of opportunity (including dolphins). I’ve faked underwater lighting, so light ripples across their backs as they move. You can rotate the aquarium around and zoom in/out.

It’s a hell of a cool amusement. One of these days I’ll get it on-line for general consumption.
Tomorrow I’m invited to April’s place for a day of Star Wars. We’re watching all of the movies, 4-5-6-1-2-3. The order that God intended.