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| Reconstruction Underway | January 26, 2010 |
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Demo Chronicles (formerly GL Chronicles) is undergoing a structural rewrite and, as a result, much of the content is currently unavailable. The current focus of the rewrite is to optimize the underlying server-side code that drives this website as well as to improve user navigation options. Additionally, the graphics set for this site has been altered to allow for the placement of a flash component that will serve as a "teaser" for new site content. The majority of this reconstruction should be completed by the end of February.
Part of the reconstruction process for this site includes implementing a slight alteration in its primary purpose. Whereas the previous iteration of this site was focused on the work and interests of its creator, the current revision will focus on the user as the primary content creator. Specifically, the current vision for this site is that of a social networking site. Much like social networking sites such as Twitter of Facebook, where the user spends a portion of his or her time viewing content created by other people and engaging in creating their own content (photos, artwork, blogs, messages, etc), Demo Chronicles will be a social networking hub for nascent and accomplished amateur programmers who wish to share their work or collaborate with others on group programming projects. Users will be given a working space to store content they create. This workspace will also serve as the platform for interacting with other users of the site. A variety of standard communication features will be added to facilitate group interactions.
Competition will play a significant role in this revision. Building on work done with the GL Challenge (2008) and the OpenGL Challenge (1999-2001), users will be encouraged to enter their projects (hopefully fostering the collaborative process at the same time) into a monthly competition that will be decided by the whole Demo Chronicles community. While financial limitations will restrict competition prizes to the accruement of community status, it is hoped that as the user-base for this site grows that corporate sponsors (or financially able contributors) will be willing to furnish prizes for annual competitions in exchange for strategic advertising placements.
At present the majority of this work is being completed by Godvalve between January and April of 2010 in part to fulfil a project requirement at the University of Victoria. If you have questions about this project, feel free to contact the Proximal team at godvalve@hotmail.com.Posted by: Godvalve
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| Logo design V.2 | January 21, 2010 |
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 I decided to take another shot at Proximal's logo today. The first version of the penumbra with its shades of brown seemed off somehow. After thinking about the image and trying to
figure out what was bothering me about it, I decided that the color configuration was "mucky" with not enough contrast. There were too many subtle shades of brown that were fighting
against each other and against the aesthetic idea I was trying to represent. The logo is supposed to depict a penumbra, which is the period of twilight where the planet is partially
in a state of darkness but still being partially illuminated by light bouncing off the atmosphere. Aesthetically, the penumbra represents a threshold or liminal zone between two states
of perception where what appears to be one way might not appear the same way under more absolute lighting conditions. As such, twilight is a time where one often questions the accuracy
of what is observed. In literature, a liminal zone is often a threshold between two spaces where illusion and magic become predominant. Examples of liminal zones include the edge of a
forest (see Chaucer's The Friar's Tale) and instances of dream. The concept of liminality even extends to characters who occupy a state of "in-between-ness" such as the Greek
figure Aeneas, who is linked to both the human world and the realm of the gods. Both spaces and figures in transitional zones embody aspects of the supernatural and magic where the
conventions of reality are broken. When I think about creating virtual 3D worlds in games and demos I can't help but feel that I am working in a liminal zone of sorts wherein I am
continually in the process of producing illusion and digital magic. It is for this reason that I am drawn to the image of a penumbra to represent the work produced by Proximal. To
clearly communicate this period of transition in the logo it was necessary to remove the distracting shades of brown from the image and leave only the penumbra surrounded in a sea
of blackness. While the result is an image that embodies sharp contrast, the result is an exact focus on the "moment of magic" which is the transition of the planet's surface from day
to night. I'm very happy with the result. Posted by: Godvalve
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| Facebook Group Created! | July 13, 2009 |
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 Proximal now has its own facebook group. Use this group to connect with the team and see what we are up to. Also, you can view our full collection of work (very meagre at the moment) through our YouTube Channel.
For technical discussion related to demo programming or the dsChallenge, head over to the new forums. Hopefully this forum will last for a while before it is cracked by spam bots. :P Update: The "About" section of this site has now been created and we will be adding more information soon. Posted by: godvalve
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| DirectX, Vista, and Code::Blocks | July 1, 2009 |
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 | Happy Canada Day! |
With the completion of my first university degree and the nearing completion of my second degree, I am now turning my attention back to demo programming. I have been running Windows Vista for some time now and I have noticed that OpenGL seems to run slower on Vista than DirectX. When I started poking around on MSDN and other sources of information on Vista I discovered that, quite naturally, Vista uses DirectX to implement the Aero effects system. Specifically, Vista seems to set a DirectX application to full-screen mode which it renders all on-screen displays through. The upshot of this is that OpenGL performance in windowed mode seems to suffer on Vista because it must pass through a translation layer in DirectX. Furthermore, running OpenGL in full-screen mode disrupts desktop effects such as DreamScene. I discovered this quote over on a microsoft blog:
"Another thing that has left a lot of people confused has been around OpenGL applications and how they work with the new desktop composition system, called DWM. DWM is implemented using Direct3D 9, and as such it was originally thought that OpenGL applications could not coexist with DWM and DWM would need to shut down in the presence of an OpenGL application. This is not the case. Windows Vista provides a mechanism for hardware vendors to use to integrate an OpenGL application with DWM, which acts in the exact same manner as D3D9 and GDI integration with DWM via shared surfaces (a new feature of WDDM)."
So, it would seem that we need to modify how we work with OpenGL on Vista versus XP. NeHe's OpenGL base-code is in serious need of an update to work well with Vista and I will be working on this project for the next little while. In the interest of (eventually) including a greater number of people who are interested in demo programming, I have started looking into DirectX 10 programming. Programming for DirectX is much easier when using a Microsoft compiler. This just makes good sense. The easiest way to obtain a Microsoft compiler is to download Visual C++ 2008 Express and install it. However, I just can't bring myself to use the Microsoft compiler suite (Visual Studio) on a regular basis. Particularly, I really despise the fact that I am unable to modify resource files within the IDE. Fortunately, this compiler can be used with the wonderful Code::Blocks IDE. See Phil's article here for instructions on how to set up Code::Blocks. Also, having a resource editor for Win32 is a must (convenient at least) at this point if you don't want to work with the wxWidgets GUI system provided with Code::Blocks. ResEdit is a free resource editor that works very well with Code::Blocks.
Lastly, I have just run across a really comprehensive presentation on the history of the demo scene. Watch it here.
Posted by: godvalve
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| OpenGL Challenge archive now online. | October 4, 2008 |
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The archive of demo entries from OTri's OpenGL Challenge are now online. To access the archive, navigate over to the GL Challenge section and click on Archive in the menu. The archived demos are organized according to year and month. Click on the year and month to view all demos submitted during that period. I have also activated the "Archived Demos" randomizer that you should see to the right of this page and on all GL Challenge related pages. There are approximately 180 demos in the archive that are viewable both through the randomizer and the archive. I don't have any Linux ports of these demos available for download and so I apologize to my Linux visitors. Anyone interested in porting these demos (MacOSX, Linux, etc) are welcome to and I will include appropriate links. I have a handful of ports for a handful of demos that I will get online in the next little while.
A word about Firefox browsers: This site is being developed with Firefox and is also being tested in Internet Explorer. I have started using some experimental CSS3 Mozilla text wrap functionality to help organize some of the information that I am presenting. Specifically, I am using -moz-column-width and -moz-column-number arguments in some of my html containers and I have noticed that the results are quite inconsistent. I mention this only because I have noticed that sometimes the text on pages using this CSS bunches up on itself and makes the page unreadable. Hitting F5 to refresh the page usually fixes this problem but if you are on any of my AJAX fed pages you will have to click again on the link that brought you to that page to refresh it. Of course, your mileage may vary. You will not experience any of these problems if you are using IE, but the pages will be tough to read if you have a large monitor as the text will run from one edge of the monitor to the other. I am running a 24 inch monitor at full screen and so breaking the text into multiple columns makes the text much easier to read or skim through. As always, leave comments in the forum about either the archive or issues about the way the page displays for you.
Posted by: godvalve
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© 2001-2010 Proximal Studios. All rights reserved.
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