Fall Semester 2006

Sun Dec 10
Click here for next week's individual appointments.

Wed Nov 29
Final Exam for A202/A598 is in GY126 between 5:00-7:00 p.m., Tues., December 12.

Our vision for this class to be presented in March at SIGCSE 2007.

(Search for Blender once the page loads. We'll discuss this in class next week).

Tue Nov 28
Reference for today's lecture: ch. 15 and 27 in the gamekit textbook.

You will find the chapters starting on pp. 88-90 and 236 in the text.

Mon Nov 27
Tomorrow in class we will discuss Tube Cleaner.

Here it is in 14 stages:

  1. Stage One
  2. Stage Two
  3. Stage Three
  4. Stage Four
  5. Stage Five
  6. Stage Six
  7. Stage Seven
  8. Stage Eight
  9. Stage Nine
  10. Stage Ten
  11. Stage Eleven
  12. Stage Twelve
  13. Stage Thirteen
  14. Final Stage

You should have these on your CDs already.

In class we will discuss these stages one by one.

Sat Nov 25
Adrian's lab will meet in LH023 from now on.

Wed Nov 22
Here's the code and a snapshot of Metal's Walking Humpty-Dumpty.

The logic, again, is here.

Thu Nov 16
The Blender Metal Lectures start today.

Here are a few more papers on the Blender Python API:

They're still in French but I will translate them soon.

Tue Nov 7
One Alice example to be used from this page today.

For the Blender/Python GUI examples today we might take a look at this script.

Note that we can now use 2.42 with the new user manual.

Here's a script and its result.

More scripts can be found here (parts of it might need to be updated) as part of this site.

Here are some documents that will help with our Tkinter study, later:

Mon Nov 6
We delegate Python GUI discussion to next week.

Tomorrow we develop an Alice game and then discuss Blender Book One.

Thursday we discuss Blender Gamekit Book.

Presentations on Friday are from the Gamekit book.

Joe Burris will work with Joshua Manns on the Blender Escape! game.

Dan Doyle will develop an 8bit Zelda-like program.

Next Tuesday we discuss Python GUIs.

Thu Oct 26
Today in class we will finish the python/cgi discussion and show mysql access from python/cgi.

Of course you need to have a database set up (here's the minimal example shown here).

Tue Oct 24
This week: a short detour on using Python for web scripting.

(Some of this might be useful: installation of apache, basic CGI with python.)

We will compare and contrast the approach with GUI development in Python using Tkinter.

Mon Oct 23
Current list of projects, being updated now on a daily basis:

Visualization of quantum algorithms/circuits. (Shaun Deaton)
Interactive Blender Analytical Geometry (Greg Orlov)
Blender/Python implementation of Mancala (***) (Brian Mego, Metal Nat Hayes)
Shared interactive world with Blender, Flash, Java or Python.(**) (Jake Rorrer)
Blender/Python implementation of Tontie (***) (Mike Fatten)
Blender/Python implementation of Scrabble (***) (Shahrier Akram, Baha Khodjaev)
Platform game with Blender and Python. (Joshua Manns)
Rich Internet Applications (Ajax/OpenLaszlo/Flash) (Joel Richardson, Greg Orlov, Magnai Ganzorig)

** = essentially a 2D or 3D multiplayer game without the gameplay
*** = models of marbles, board pieces etc. generated through a Python script.

Link to livewires from the CD.

Link to script that allows on-line registration for lab presentation this week and the next.

Tue-Thu Oct 17-19
Code to be discussed in class representing Brian and Metal's core Mancala functionality.

You need to choose two topics to present in lab next week and the week after.

Topics are listed below, choose one from the first column the other from the second column:

Basic Blender (2.03) Blender Gamekit (v2.24)
Mesh Modelling Modeling an Environment
Curves and Surfaces Chapters 5-13 Gamekit text
Special Modeling Techniques Super-G
Material and Textures Power Boats
Lighting Ballercoaster
Animation Weapon Effects for a First-Person Shooter
Particle Effects Flying Buddha
Python Scripting Character Animation Using Armatures
The Interface Blenderball
The Buttons Reference (chapters 24-29, Gamekit text)

Mon Oct 16
Link to the Postem section (A202-0107) created today.

Note that grades are not there yet but will soon be (you can log in though).

Sun Oct 15
Feedback and grades for the midterm to be posted shortly.

Sat Oct 14
Solution (and sample run) for the midterm administered yesterday.

Wed Oct 11
The review (see link below) is now at page 127, Ch. 12, we hope to finish it all tonight.

Mon-Tue Oct 9-10

The review (link below) is now at Ch. 9 and we hope to reach Ch. 15 in class today.

Wed Oct 4
The review for the midterm exam will be finished tonight.

Currently the first three chapters of the book have been covered only.

Fri-Sat Sep 29-30
Game examples courtesy of Metal Nat:

Thu Sep 28
Goal for this week's lab: complete overview of the 2.0 guide.

We want to have a glitch-free lab while we tune into the Blender state of mind.

Tue-Wed Sep 26-27
Blender 2.03 (described in the Guide distributed) can be run in labs in standalone mode.

Just make sure you set an environment variable HOME to C:\temp or some such folder in advance.

I will show it in class tomorrow.

Thanks to Shah, who found a link to Blender 2.25 for Mac OS X: 

http://www.blender.org/cms/Older_versions.283.0.html
Please note the "USA" and "Australia" link for Mac OS X is broken, the "Europe" link is still working.

If you're looking for a version anywhere between 1.73 and 2.42, you can try this link, says Shah. 

http://download.blender.org/release/

Mon Sep 25
Here's a walkthrough tutorial.

Sun Sep 24
Track A (Pyth-Blen-Java) Track B (Pyth-Blen-Game) Track C (Java-Blen-Pyth)
Richardson, Joel (jtrichar) Orlov, Greg (gorlov) Tjondrowidjojo, Dennis (dtjondro)
Ganzorig, Magnai (mganzori) Mego, Brian (bmego)
Khodjaev, Bahtiyor (bkhodjae)
Fatten, Michael (mfatten)
Hayes, Metal (nahayes)
Amstutz, Jamie (jaamstut)
Deaton, Shaun (srdeaton)
Burris, Joseph David (jodburri)
Doyle, Daniel Laurence (daldoyle)
Manns, Joshua Sylvester (jsmanns)
Rorrer, Jacob D (jdrorrer)
Akram, Shahrier (sakram)

Sat Sep 23
Here's the guide we need right now.

Individual student profiles to be posted soon.

Wed Sep 20
Yesterday's quiz will be posted today, e-mails will be sent by noon with feedback.

Take a look at the text being used in A201 this semester (the Java version).

Tue Sep 19
Tentative plan for the first five homework assignments:

Homework One Sep 23 Simple text game
Homework Two Sep 30 Object-oriented version of same game
Homework Three Oct 7 Robots
Homework Four Oct 14 Pacman
Homework Five Oct 21 SpaceWar
Homework Six Oct 30 Simple Alice game

Sat-Sun Sep 16-17
Take a look at the text being used in A201 this semester (the Python version).

Also, our Blender text is here (take a look at the pdf, just to get an idea).

Fri Sep 15
Code worked out in the 10:10am lab today with Mike Fatten, Greg Orlov and Brian Mego.

Two chefs, gravity, momentum and bouncing off the vertical walls.

Thu Sep 14
Both our labs are now in GR103. Times won't change.

Here's source code for the first six or seven chapters I need to briefly discuss.

Sat Sep 9
Sites in which Blender works fine: WY125, GY226, SE054, BH108, LH102.

Sites in which Blender doesn't work well: GY126, SB221.

We're working with UITS to find out what's going on.

Fri Sep 8
Blender seems to be working well, though, in UITS STC labs.

So today in labs (in both) we will start by testing Blender briefly.

Something is wrong with GY126, I think, and I promise to find out what it is.

Thu Sep 7
First part of next week's lab notes, posted. The rest, tomorrow.

Tue Sep 5
Python CDs will be distributed in lecture today.

Here are installation notes to consider, along.

Sun Sep 3
Lab Notes for this week are being posted today.

Wed Aug 30
Lecture and lab notes for this week posted.

Pygame and livewires finally installed in the UITS STC clusters!

Tue Aug 29
First lecture today in LH102.

Here's how our class appears in the IU Course Browser.

Updated by Adrian German for A202/A598