Natividad

Maybe you have heard the sad story of the poor stray dog Natividad that was captured on the streets of Nicaragua, exposed in a so called "artwork" and let starve to death.
I, as many, many people all around the world was stunned and disgusted so I shouted my protest directly to the Museum MADC and they quickly answered me saying that :

""Dear Stefano:The polemic exhibition was not in these Museum, it happened in GaleríaCódice in Nicaragua.A representative from that galerie said that the dog did never die. In themorning of friday 17 of august after feeded and while a guard was cleaningthe entrance, the dog walk away from the galerie.I'm seding you two documents attached, one from the Galería Códice and theother from the Museum. Let me apologized because we only have thesedocuments in spanish.Thanks for your concern!RegardsDiseño Web MADC ""

So it seems that the dog escaped its prison and regained freedom.
I hope that things happened this way. Being a stray dog in Managua is not that easy but infinitely better than starve to death.

Thay attached an official statement by the exposition that states that (warning, text in spanish) :


DE GALERIA CODICE
Managua, 19 de octubre
Galería Códice desde su creación en 1991, ha promovido las artes visuales centroamericanas, pero especialmente las nicaragüenses, tanto en el nivel nacional, como en el regional e internacional. En Códice han expuesto grandes maestros centroamericanos, así como artistas consolidados y emergentes. Los lenguajes contemporáneos del arte universal también han tenido espacio en Códice, por lo que periódicamente acoge muestras de arte conceptual.
Con ese espíritu, el jueves 16 de agosto recién pasado se presentó Exposición No.1, del artista costarricense, Guillermo Vargas, conocido artísticamente como HABACUC.
Uno de los trabajos expuestos consistió en presentar a un perro famélico que Habacuc recogió de la calle, y durante la exposición aparecía amarrado con una cuerda de nylon, que a su vez estaba sujeta a otra cuerda que pendía de dos clavos en una esquina de la Galería. Habucuc nombró al perro "Natividad" en homenaje al nicaragüense Natividad Canda (24 años) quien murió devorado por dos perros Rottweiler en un taller de San José, Costa Rica, la madrugada del jueves 10 de noviembre de 2005.
El perro permaneció en el local tres días, a partir de las 5 de la tarde del miércoles 15 de agosto. Estuvo suelto todo el tiempo en el patio interior, excepto las 3 horas que duró la muestra, fue alimentado regularmente con comida de perro que el mismo Habucuc trajo. Sorpresivamente, al amanecer del viernes 17, el perro se escapó pasando por las verjas de hierro de la entrada principal del inmueble, mientras el vigilante nocturno quien acababa de alimentarlo limpiaba la acera exterior del mismo.
La Galería Códice se reserva el derecho de velar por la calidad de los trabajos expuestos, respetando en todo momento la creatividad del artista y jamás ha pretendido ejercer ningún tipo de censura, siempre y cuando no atenten contra los principios elementales de la ética y mucho menos que impliquen la vida de un ser viviente, sea humano o animal. Yo pensaba quedarme con "Natividad", pero él prefirió retornar a su propio habitat.
Celebro el que tantas personas en el nivel internacional se hayan mostrado molestas por las declaraciones brindadas por Habacuc, en las que sostenía que su intención era dejar morir al perro de inanición, lo que es de su absoluta responsabilidad. Al cumplir con informar la verdad de los hechos, espero que todas esas mismas personas hayan elevado también su voz de repudio cuando Natividad Canda fue devorado por los Rottweiler.
Atentamente,
Juanita Bermúdez
Directora
Galería Códice
Managua, Nicaragua

The work continues

Major update today,
after spending some time in my vacations I'm in the course of a major rewriting/rethinking of the entire Entropy engine.

My tests went well and now it's time to rewrite all the code in a more organized manner.

Firstly I've switched fron Raknet to Lidgren networking library. It may be not so complete as Raknet is but the license fee is way cheaper.

The rewrite starts from the consideration that Entropy will become a full client/server game. No AI on actual previsions; all the code, therefore, must be rewritten with networking in mind.

Beside Entropy itself and after endless and unuseful google searches, I started as a side project, the developement of a simple master server to handle the game servers informations.

You will surely know how a master server does fill a game browser. I didn't and found it an interesting challenge.

Actually my master server receives data from a fake game server on my workstation and broadcast them.

Te next step will be to put it on a public IP to see if the game data are visible throught the web and the latency is acceptable.

I actually have in prevision to release a pre alpha test level around the end of the year.

No screenshots this time, I feel sorry for this but I assure you that there's nothing interesting in a well organized set of classes on a IDE.

Battlefield frustration

Don't know if anybody of you, dear readers, own a copy of Battlefield 2 but, if you own it, do you have ever felt the frustration of being endlessly killed by a chopper or aircraft pilot just after respawning ?
I'm feeling this kind of frustration NOW.
After 1.000.000 unuseful deaths I've come to a kind of decision : if I will ever manage to release Entropy (that has three choppers) I will insert a powerful and portable stinger missile to shot down those cowards.....
I'm beginning to hate them ....:)

Networking stuff

Today, given a little spare time, I started to experiment with Raknet, a very good networking library.
A fast read to the basic tutorials and, Voilà, I've instantiated a server and a client. They connect fairy well in no time.
Now I'm gonna try to send positional packets (to begin) from two boxes on lan.

TODO, read carefully the docs (there are plenty of things to learn) and experiment, experiment, experiment......

They say that parctice makes perfect...:)

Let it be the sound

Only a minor post today.
I've implemented sound in Entropy.
It was surprisingly easy (it took me around one minute) using this library :

http://www.ambiera.com/irrklang/

Born for Irrlicht engine, it's compatible with dotnet, multiplatform, extremely easy to set up and FREE for non commercial projects (the fee for commercial projects is anyway low-end - from 65 to 390 bucks).

My advice is to give it a try.

Pheeew!

What a mess!
The last months have been fully dedicated to my family and work. I've just completed a house moving and now I'm the proud owner of a single family house in the suburbs of Milan. It's big, it's beautiful and it's mine. It's been a long time since my wife and I dreamed for this and now we have done it! Very coool!
My dogs are happy too and, by the way, now they are four, since I've rescued a poor dog wandering around my factory seeking for help and food. Now she's with us and I'm happier than her....

Entropy, of course, has been in stand by for a period of time (I don't feel the urge to rush furthermore since at the moment it's only a toy to test my programming skills, if I have any...).

Anyway my precedent goals were satisfied (do you remember my grass project?).
The grass coverage works, it's dense and eye candy; it moves, it does all the things I planned before.

Actually I've fully implemented vehicle phisycs and I'm going to finish some chopper phisycs too.

I've also inserted a very large set of weapons filled with animations.

My goal is now to understand and implement collision checking and particle engine. (I've got some wonderful explosion effects).

Next will be the sound driver and the networking.
Last, but not least, I will develop a gui for Entropy.

It's strange but it's relatively rapidly becoming a full featured game.

Mandatory screenshot follows...