So yeah, I should probably explain myself about this.

Those of you reading this may or may-not know that I spammed Twitter, Facebook and other social networks with a survey about touch screen controls. I stated that it was for Uni research, but that was kind of a lie. It WAS for Uni, but it was for something else that I will have to explain another time, sorry. (I have been sworn to temporary secrecy!)

Anyway, some of you wanted to know the results, and I promised I would post them. I’m not very good at this whole data analysis thing, but I’ll give it a whack;

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Hey, guess I never made that post, but hey ho. Happy new year.

I didn’t really have a plan for this year, just to better myself as a person as best I can. Is the only non-explicit thing I can try to achieve, and it hasn’t been going bad so far. Although I’m taking quite a mental or at least emotional beating lately.

I got A1/A1 (100%) on an assignment today, yet I feel like crap. I’ve been thinking about it most of the day, and I think I’ve sussed why. My friend initally stated that it’s probably because I don’t “feel” anything. As in I don’t feel rewarded or self-gratification for it. It could be that, because I don’t feel any different and it doesn’t really feel like I’ve earned it. To be honest, the marking seemed way too light, and all the extra work I put in seemed wasted if anything. I’m fairly confident I did three times the work expected, and it feels crap because I can’t get marked higher than 100%. (I don’t mean this in an arrogant way, but I did work stupidly hard, and had no problems with my work, yet people had missed out whole sections of the work and got an A2, I did every section, plus improvements.) Another thing is, I can’t brag about my grades. I can’t boast my hard work, which yes is a horrible thing to do, but if something good happens, it’s nice to celebrate it without feeling like a dick. My girlfriend is having a really hard time with her Uni work at the moment, with late hand ins and failed assignments, which is even harder because I can’t say anything to make her feel better, and I can’t even tell her that I’m doing well, because it makes her feel like an idiot.

Another frustration is that everyone I know is always bloody miserable.

I try so god damn hard to keep people happy, and it just never works. I either get it wrong, or do something to piss them off. It’s driving me crazy. I just can’t seem to win.

To put it short, I’m fed up. I’m really starting to wish sometimes that I could just drop all social aspects and keep to my own devices. But I know that can’t be done, and won’t get me anywhere.

So I keep trying.

In any case, there is a silver lining. After a very stressful situation of being assessed, I managed to show off lots of my past works to a lecturer, as well as a new one recently hired. I seemed to have impressed both of them as they want some of my work, as well as a video showing off the stuff I can do. Better yet, a director of Stainless games is coming to my University next week, and the lecturer wants me to show off my work to him.

Bit scary, but hopefully will pay off in some way.

It was another one of those situations that boosted my ego and made me feel good, except I can’t talk about it because it puts others down.

People are so frustrating.

Anyway, with any luck I’ll be working more on my Tower Defence project (which I haven’t worked on lately, but as I said, hopefully I’m going to pick it back up), which would be great. I also want to get started on learning things such as DirectX, and network programming(as scary as it is). And just generally going to try and stay on top of my work and get the best grades I can.

For now, I’m just going to try and survive.

I took part in another Ludum Dare. Although I decided not to complete my entry.

The main reason is that the more I tested it, the more I found the mechanic rather dull- even annoying. I really liked the concept at first, but myself and a few others agreed that it on its own wasn’t really “fun”. I soon lost motivation for it, and hearing people having fun playing their own games really set in stone that I didn’t want to finish it.

You can find my entry here.

Which kinda sucks because people enjoyed it when I submitted it.

Oh well. Lesson learned.

If you can’t tell, I’ve been uber-busy as of late, and I apologise. I might make another post during christmas, but right now, I’m feeling kind of down. I’m going home in two days to stay with my family for a week, which should be nice. (Won’t have a computer though, thus the ‘should’ part.)

If I don’t make a post in time- Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year everyone.

…as long as Mayans were wrong. Which would suck because I go home that day.

So I started the second year of Uni on Tuesday, and it’s amazing how little different it feels, and as if I haven’t been away for months on end. Although I must admit it’s really different living nearby. Definitely makes breaks much nicer and not having to rush about so much.

This year’s work seems a bit easier than the last though. It’s a bit more interesting and not so much involved. Not sure if that’s because I’ve just started, or I’m actually motivated and interesting, but we’ll see. Programming is a bit slow at the moment, but it’s nice being recognised now. I’m currently procrastinating the Java practice at the moment though. Which is why the blog posts are actually being done.

While I say the work is easier, I do seem to have a lack of personal time. There’s some stuff I want to do or experiment with, but I’m slightly scared of getting behind, which I refuse to do, but as I said, I’ll see as the weeks go on. Things might change.

Unfortunately I have been placed in a group with people I’d very much like to see burn… but such is life. Just ignore them and carry on, not like I have to pay them much heed anyway.

Oh, I also finally received and email from my boss from college, and that the customers haven’t replied at all and I haven’t been excluded. He more or less concluded the project in that email, and thanked me for my work and left a few compliments that slapped a big smile on my face which I won’t ever let go of.

…I’m happy and looking forward to the future for once.

Which is definitely a nice change.

Sorry about it being late, I’m not used to this kind of thing, but here we go.

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You know how you get some form of communication or social media that you know people you know might not read or at the very least family? Well Twitter used to be that for me, but my own mother follows me.

Now this makes it difficult to express certain feelings, despite the fact that I try to keep my emotional outbursts off Twitter, but that’s not always possible. You can’t deny that some part of you relishes the fact that someone somewhere might acknowledge your emotion and make you feel validated. Or even get lost in the noise of the internet, reminding you that you’re just another cog in the gears of life, or so they say.

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So about 20 odd days later, he remembers he has a blog.

Actually, that’s a lie, I remembered a while ago but I couldn’t be bothered, then I had some news I wanted to put off posting for a while, but alas, here we go;

So as I previously stated I moved out and now live in Student Accommodation with my other half, and two friends on the same course as I am.

We get along fine, bills are scary but managable, and food is weird.

Just the way it should be.

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So yeah. 20 years on, I’m finally moving out.

It’s student accommodation whilst I’m at Uni, but it’s still moving out. I’ve had this planned for over month now, but as I though, nearer the time, my emotions finally start to bubble.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. But I’d be lying if I said I was terrified. The only things I worry about are the trivial financial matters, and if we get robbed. That scares me the most I think.

But I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t excited. It’s a huge step which I never imagined I’d be taking. Sure, mid-twenties maybe, but not now. I’m 20 at the time of writing this, I know the average is 18, but I’ve always been the kind of person who stays with their parent(s).

Speaking of which, I know my mum is starting to well up a bit, but I guess it’s normal. I’m quite close to my mum, closer than most. My whole life it’s usually just been the two of us, plus an extra few times, but they come and go. It’s weird for the both of us, not living together any more, and I think that’s what hurts her the most.

However I do need this experience now in my life, rather than later. I’m in a good situation to do this, and if anything does go wrong, it won’t ruin me.

Old readers will know that I struggle with change, so much that it can spiral me into depression for a while. Which is going to be huge test because my whole life will be changing. I’m living with people who aren’t family. I’m going to have to learn how to do things I’ve never done, which I should already know, I’m going to have to change or be aware of any odd habits.

I think I’ll freak out for a while initially, but I think I can manage. It’s good that I’m getting a start now, just before Uni actually starts, so I can get any problems out the way now. It’s also really going to test my relationship with my girlfriend. We’ve been together for 4 and a half years, now can we live together? Who knows. I really hope so, we’ve been together since school, it would be a shame for it all to go now. She’s been a constant in my life since I left school, I don’t doubt for a second I would struggle without her. But I know that life isn’t perfect.

Anyway, on a lighter tone, I’ll have no internet for 10 days…

Guys, I think I’m gonna die.

I’ve been putting off a post about my particle system, not sure why. But I’ll be doing it along with another important update after. I’ll space them out though, so no massive bulk of posts.

Anyway, sorry about the neglect, and will see you soon!

I’ve been putting off posting this for some reason, not sure why, but I think I should probably do it now.

So one major thing I’ve been wanting to do for a long time is Perlin Noise, it’s just another form of random procedural generation, which old readers know I love doing.

So the project I’m doing with Alex, I thought it would be perfect to do for, seeing as it’s a world map. Perlin Noise is very good for map generation, a good popular example is Minecraft. The world is generated using a similar algorithm. Or it used to anyway, not sure any more though.

Anyway, Minecraft isn’t the only example, but enough about that.

So I think the reason I didn’t really want to post about this was because I didn’t write the entire code myself. I wrote the reader, but not the writer. It surprised me how little code I needed, but it also seemed over-whelming at the time. Even now I probably couldn’t write it myself, but the main thing is, I got it to work with our project. (You can view the code I used here.)

So plugging it into our game, and messing around with a few things, here’s a 1024x1024 map:

The black represents mountains, and blue obviously represents water. Honestly, I think it looks amazing. I felt really bad undoing Alex’s work though, but he agreed that it looked nicer. Sorry Alex!

Well, in all fairness, Alex is currently changing the render that I worked on, so I guess it’s all in good code/faith.

In any case, as far as my other types of generation go, this is the nicest, however most shameful because I didn’t do it myself. I’m not going to take credit for it, but I will however do my damn hardest to see if I can write it myself one day.

Also you can find other pictures of the generation on my Twitter images here.