Project Seraph

What you can see below is a presentation of my final project at my first specialisation at International Faculty of Engineering - 3D visualisation / reconstruction / image processing program for medical applications called Seraph. Although it was by far the least clean code and the worst design I have ever created, it still remains my favourite child as far as computer programs are concerned, which is why I am showing it here. I guess I am getting sentimental.

The presentation is in French, because I have been studying my first specialisation in that language. I thought I would have some free time to translate it and make presentation more interesting, but since it has been sitting on my hard drive for last five months waiting for that, I decided I would just put it on the web in the very same form it was in 2004.

My only disappointment is that noone continued the development and the program was finally not used much apart from my project, even though I wanted it to became open source. Unfortunately, it is my university that holds the intellectual rights to it and the program has simply remained somewhere there, unused. Oh well, now that I work as fully fledged software developer I am almost ashamed of that code. I guess I will have to rewrite it one day on my own and put it on SourceForge. Then Seraph's soul will be able to take a rest...

The 1K Project II

...also known as 1,000 cars running in the same time. Yes, I know that it is not really news, but there are still people out there who might have missed it. Nevertheless, it is a great video and I definitely recommend having a look.

Personally, it makes me think about salmons running to the sea...

Mario is Evil

In the vein of recent Manhunt 2 controversy and Polish Ministry of Education wanting to punish distributing of violent computer games with prison in the frame of their "Zero tolerance to violence" programme, I have decided that I would contribute to the witch hunt and disclose a violent game that might have slipped under the radar : Mario.

The perfidy of the aforementioned game is that it disguises itself as innocent entertainment aimed at children, while in fact it poisons their delicate minds with obnoxious propaganda of all things impure. This article explains in great detail why Mario is Evil. In short, it propagates communism, racism, violence, deviation and drugs.


I would also like to take this occasion to sincerely thank Polish TVN channel for their vigilance on the subject (unfortunately, the link is in Polish only - basically, the whole TV program explained that games are for people who do not think and propagate violence).

Chobot versus Uszat

One thing that I have accidentally found on Grocal's page, was IGN's Jessica Chobot getting her cute backside kicked... err, spanked, actually. By this guy.

Uszat's English could be better, but let's face it, the video is not really so much about him... And if you are wandering why I put the PSP tag to this post, well, it's because of this famous photograph:


Yup, that's Jessica Chobot herself. So I am torn between feeling disapproval of Uszat manhandling the interviewee and slight jealousy...

EDIT : Well, apparently that guy had me fooled - in fact his English and interviewing skills are impeccable (just see this video to be convinced). I have never seen any of his interviews before before, so I assumed this is his regular way of being. As Grocal pointed out in the comments, that young man has two identities, Uszat and Carmac (think Borat and Sasha Baron Cohen). I guess the joke's on me, then.

Abe's Oddysee redone on ZX Spectrum

Abe's Oddysee was the game that I got all of a sudden from my friend in 1996, without ever having heard anything about it before. I tried it with certain dose of suspiciousness and I was blown away. That game had incredible story, was oozing with atmosphere, great graphics and sound, and above all it was ... odd. the whole world presented in the story was as alien as it could be. Rarely have I seen such an incredible otherworld experience (with positive exception of Another World). If you don't know it (shame on you), catch up by checking the game intro on YouTube and also this great music video, containing a lot of gameplay.

Although unfortunately Lorne Lanning, the founder of Oddworld Inhabitants, gave up and withdrew from video games world (it is a topic that deserves a separate post), the game remains a cult classic and still has some faithful followers. Recently two Russian programers, Tropimtchuk brothers, have ported Abe's Oddysee to... ZX Spectrum. Yes, from 32bit to 8bit, just see the video below :

Now you see, I couldn't have missed that - a great game from my past ported to the very first computer I ever owned. To be honest, it is just the first level that got ported (see the map here), but nevertheless it constitutes a remarkable feat. It definitely looks better than the Gameboy version.

Personally, this event has made me sit down and replay Abe's Oddysee on my PSP (you can see how it looks in this video and also check this custom eboot animation, which goes nicely with the game). You can also download the game port and check it on any decent ZX Spectrum emulator (I did). And if you still have too much free time on your hands, see this music video made of the sequel.

Photoshop versus Elements

Even though my artistic skills are far from good, I don't give up on drawing. Although my deviantArt page is not too impressive yet (gotta update it... especially my old and ugly Id), I still dabble in computer graphics, both 2D and 3D, animations and traditional art as well - simply because I like it.


Being a little bit of a legalist, I use only legal software, which for a long time meant only Gimp to me. When I bought a tablet in USA (I will write a review some time in future), it came with bundled Corel Painter Essentials and Photoshop Elements - and it certainly made my day. Before buying it, I was wondering how much crippled down that version of Photoshop would be. I remember using Photoshop CS long time ago and being awed by the ease of use and software possibilities.

At first, the answer seemed to be "yes", meaning that indeed there is quite a lot of stuff missing from Photoshop Elements. But I started using it nevertheless, simply because I am not a professional and CS cost is prohibitive, especially here in Poland. In my limited everyday use, however, it turned out that only sometimes would I really miss anything badly from the full Photoshop.

So I started wandering that maybe the more esoteric functions are not really something a little amateur like me would really need. After all, I don't print my drawings, therefore I don't really need CMYK. Colour depth higher than 8 bits would be nice, but then again, will anyone notice the difference in my feeble attempts at digital painting? And if I miss curves tool that much, maybe there is some free plugin to put me out of my misery?

As a result of my search, I stumbled upon Richard Lynch's article that presents similar point of view, only from much more professional angle. The article then lead me to his webpage, Hidden Elements, where you can actually download some extensions to Elements for free. As for the curves, I found out two great articles on how to add them to Photoshop Elements 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5 as well, and from there I got pointed out to SmartCurve plugin. Below you can see my PSE with Hidden Power effects and colour picker :


The final conclusions are that Photoshop Elements really offers good portion of the functionality of its more expensive brethren. What's more, many of the things that are missing, can be added with just a little bit of effort and no extra charge. Elements then turns into something almost as powerful as fully fledged Photoshop - without CS's hefty price tag, though. Of course, if you are an industry professional who smirks with disdain at Computer Arts article titles, then yes, Elements is not for you - but in such case you probably already own the newst Adobe suite anyways. For all the rest of us, however, Elements should be more than enough for most applications.

And if you still don't like it, you can always go for Gimp...

Escheresque

I try not to spam you with just trailers and YouTube movies on my blog, but some games definitely require a highlight. Such is the case with Echochrome :

It's like M.C.Escher versus Crush's Danny in Xiao Xiao form - I wonder which one prevails? Can't wait to get my hands on it. Definitely PSP becomes home to more and more ambitious games. And since Sony secured Everday Shooter for PS3, maybe they'll make a copy for PSP too?...

Life is good.

Crush videotutorials

As you remember, I am an avid fan of Crush for the PSP. I have one or two final levels to complete and I haven't done it yet due to lack of time (last levels can take 40-50 minutes if you play from the very beginning to the very end).


Although for me the game has been a very enjoyable experience, I have noticed quite a lot of voices on the internet complaining that the game is too difficult. Personally, I am convinced that this is just the lack of three-dimensional imagination - after all, not everyone is an engineer and has done technical drawings or dabbled in 3D renders. Ah, the joys of humanist studies... smirk.

Fortunately, there is a help for those less gifted with the sense of space and 3D imagination. YouTube user JIMMY has prepared a series of video walktroughs for each level of Crush (well, for the time being he hasn't completed it yet, but no doubt he will). The language is German, but the actions shown in the movies don't really require subtitles. You can watch them all here, and I present one of them below for reference :

Test Drive Unlimited Car List

Just a brief note to point you out to something that may make your life easier if you are addicted to Test Drive Unlimited.


Grocal has just published a customisable Test Drive Unlimited Car List on his blog (in English, don't fret), so give it a try. I somehow didn't get addicted to this game, but seemingly there are people out there who are. Hope it comes in handy to you!

Illuminated by Lumines

Although this isn't exactly fresh-out-of-the-oven news, I definitely cannot pass on it. Plus, there's a few interesting twists and turns to this story, now that we look at it from three weeks perspective.

Fanjita and Noobz team managed to find an exploit in one of the first games for PSP - Lumines. At first they provided only the proof of concept in the form of Illuminati-themed Hello World equivalent. Hence, it has been nicknamed the Illuminati Exploit.


Two days later the team brought us full HEN (homebrew enabler) and downgrader for any firmware up to 3.50, using any Lumines version (EU, US and JP). One could see video tutorials around, such as this YouTube movie. The sales of Lumines have sky-rocketed after the exploit was found. My personal guess is that this makes it the most popular PSP game in the world. I have mentioned it many times that Lumines should be the game that every PSP owner should have (my prophetic skills never cease to amaze me), so now there's one more reason to.

Unfortunately, this has also caused some people to buy it only for speculative purposes. As a result of this and also in order to underline the fact that downgrading itself is not a bad thing, a couple days later slightly embittered Fanjita published a rant on morality of downgrading.

I totally agree with what he writes there- I myself admit publicly that I use game isos, but I am against piracy. Therefore, when I see the game that I am interested in, I will download and play it. If it turns out good, I buy it, if it doesn't I delete it. Taking into account that a new PSP game can easily cost above 200PLN (more than 72USD) in Poland and the fact that game demos are few and far between, I feel justified in my actions. And I have a whole set of games on my shelf to back me up. Oh, and I also use isos in order not to carry all my UMDs around and to speed up loading.


Unfortunately, Sony reaction to the whole Lumines affair was fast as lightning, too - almost immediately a new firmware was released with exploit hole patched and no new functionality added. Also, there are rumours on the web that there is a new, patched version of Lumines out there. This wouldn't be the first time something like that happens - it was the same with GTA : Liberty City Stories.

Together with the news of Dark Alex leaving the scene, this puts the future of homebrew in rather grim perspective. Personally, I have to admit I have my fears concerning Dark Alex ever since I saw the black ribbon on his webpage. Remembering him mentioning that "I've lost two family members this year because of cancer [...] PSP programming [...] was a hobby that distracted my mind of the darkness of life" and remembering Cyblade, I can't shake off bad feelings. Dark Alex, wherever you are, I hope you are safe and sound.

Nevertheless, despite this sad accents, the facts for the time being are such that we have homebrew capability for almost every firmware available so far, great OpenEdition firmwares, superb quality games that don't require firmware upgrade just yet and a ton of great homebrew of all kind. Let us be happy about it for now and worry about potential troubles when they arrive!