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OS: Java/Processing |
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Submitted: May 26, 2010
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Good news for Code::Blocks users. The maintainers of this excellent IDE have, after two years, released a new stable version. Code::Blocks 8.02 was released in February of 2008 and version 10.5 was released on May 30th of 2010. Despite the fact that nightly builds were sporadically being released by the Code::Blocks team, I was beginning to wonder whether the project was dead. Well, there's no need to wonder any longer. Update your copy of Code::Blocks if haven't already.
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The bug in the voting system has been resolved and the voting system is now online. Please head over to the voting page and register your vote if you haven't done so already. Although it is a foregone conclusion that pixelnerve's Vunnel will be ranked first place this month (since it is the only demo submission), everyone should still vote.
Note: only registered members of Demo Chronicles can vote. Membership is free and open to everyone, so register if you are interested in joining our community.
Also, June's Demo Challenge is posted. This month's theme is "electricity". The Demo Challenge is a monthly competition that is open to beginner and experienced programmers alike. See the contest page for full details. Here's a demo to get you excited about demo coding:
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The "About Demo Chronicles" page has been updated. Check it out if you haven't read it yet. Here's an excerpt:
Some of the rationale for creating this website lies with the fact that demo coding can be very competitive to the point where emerging demo producers are hesitant to showcase their latest product for fear that they will be ridiculed by their more accomplished peers. For demo coders who have developed considerable skill sets (artisans) but who are insecure about how their products will be received by their peers, the demo challenge provides a low-risk venue for showcasing their talent without fear of their demo "being ripped apart on Pouet". See the main page for Demo Chronicles to learn more about this regular event.
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The first submission for May's Demo Challenge is in and there are only 4 days left in the challenge. The challenge is open until the 31st and there is still plenty of time to put together a demo for this month so grab your compiler and get coding. Pixelnerve's submission can be found on the front page, in the Challenge Archive, and on the Demo Challenge page itself. If you have a Twitter account, you can stay up to date on the latest submissions by following Demo Chronicles on Twitter.
Team Proximal continues to work on completing the voting section. We are just about done with the Profile area of the site and most of the functionality is in place. Check out the Profile index and view the profiles for the Proximal demo group. The comment fields were completed tonight so stop by pixelnerve's profile and let him know what you think of his demo.
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A new member of Demo Chronicles has just asked if it is OK to use his scripting engine to produce a demo for this month's challenge. Because his scripting engine is not yet open source but it is available to the public for free, he wanted to know if providing the complete source for everything but his scripting engine was acceptable. My answer to him was a resounding Yes. Of course it is OK to submit a demo that doesn't include your full source. Although one of the basic purposes of the Demo Challenge is to create a repository of awesome demos complete with source code, how much of the source code you release is up to you. Eventually Team Proximal will have put together a comprehensive set of primers on every aspect of creating demos, so even if a demo doesn't have complete source code, our primers will show you how to fill in the gaps.
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I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all new visitors to Demo Chronicles, home of the Demo Challenge. If you are exploring this site you will no doubt have noticed that there are still some sections that are unfinished. This site has only been live for a few months and the Proximal Studios team is working at completing these remaining sections. It is our hope to have most of this work done in the next few weeks.
For those of you with an interest in producing demos, the Demo Challenge is a monthly competition where participants are encouraged to create an OpenGL or DirectX based demo and submit it to the site. When the challenge closes at the end of each month, visitors are given the opportunity to vote for their favourite demo production. The underlying purpose for the Demo Challenge is to create a vast collection of demos complete with source code that can be shared with the community. Although there will be no prizes awarded for the various competitions for the first little while, it is our hope that sponsors will step up and provide prizes.
Development on the voting section and user gallery of the site are presently the main priorities for Team Proximal. These sections should come online in the next week or so. Should you have any questions, please email Godvalve.
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Back in July of 2009 I wrote a news post here talking about my uncertainty about the future of OpenGL on the Windows platform. At that time I was running Windows Vista and I had noticed that my OpenGL demos did not run as fast in windowed mode on Vista as they did on Windows XP. I had also latched onto the ideas that Microsoft had pulled out of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (the body responsible for maintaining the OpenGL API), that the new Aero desktop effects system used DirectX for rendering its effects, and that the Desktop Window Manager worked as an intermediary between OpenGL and the hardware (not exactly true). I bought into the idea that OpenGL was a dying API and I went out and bought some books on DirectX and I even altered the focus of this website in preparation for OpenGL's seemingly imminent demise.
Thankfully school has kept me really busy and I've had time to contemplate my misconceptions about OpenGL's future. Obviously, I've come to the conclusion that OpenGL isn't disappearing any time soon. Just because Microsoft has decided to focus on their proprietary API and make it an integral component of their OS (I'm assuming this is done to complicate any monopoly lawsuits targeting DirectX), doesn't mean that OpenGL is in danger of becoming obsolete.
Now, I'm not a supporter of ideological positions that promote one view as correct and another as being inferior, but the Wolfire Games Blog has an interesting article titled "Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX." This article describes OpenGL's recent downward trend in popularity with respect to recent Microsoft marketing campaigns and it is definitely worth a read. As for me, I will continue to work with OpenGL but I will also continue my foray into DirectX. After all, there is no right way to create a demo, which is what this whole website will eventually make clear.
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