Category: development

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development

Now or never

This is the (backdated) first post to inaugurate Real HDR’s blog.

Version 1.0 is out since 25 June 2018.

During the first launch of the product, a forum entry attracted our attention. It was related to our development of Real HDR, opening the door to the question “will it endure or will it be discontinued after a few weeks?”. Well, the question is legit; as software users ourselves we are quite excited and worried when a new actor appears on the market… long ago we were a strong supporter of Nevercenter Silo (now discontinued) and we are a strong supporter of Unigine (now better than ever). So, yeah, the question was legit and I and my colleagues are proud to start this new blog to keep a more verbose conversation of our development plans for Real HDR, and the other software we are working on.

Real HDR development plans

The post Now or never appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

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development

Color conversions

color conversions

It was quite easy to add some color conversions that receives normalized data from the sliders, converts it in a more usual 8-bit range and then to HSV and HEX. I also added a button functionality to copy this data in the clipboard. This may be useful if one wants to quickly transfer color to another application such as Photoshop.

color converrsions

The post Color conversions appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

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development

Early stage development

Real HDR now features some exporting options with proper 2:1 proportion.

I finished the color editor that features 3 sliders with float value for RGB channels, and a proper way to generate these values in a 32-bit range. The main challenge was to create the “selector” pins that are sitting on another layer and are at the moment the sole containers of the parameters. This means that there is no “main2 parameter container, but each set is fully independent for the maximum modularity. I took this idea from another project of mine (Real Zombie Game) that is totally different but manages data containers in the same way.

Early stage developmentEarly stage developmentEarly stage developmentEarly stage development

There is now a login feature on start-up that manages the licensing system. As a difference from Real IES, real HDR will use an online authentication system similar to Adobe Creative Cloud (similar to the one I developed for Render Academy’s Classroom). This way we can avoid the annoying activation done via Request, Activation and Authorization codes we use in Real IES… I’ll update that one later.

Early stage development - user login Real HDR

The login section is also responsible to compare the actual installed version with the latest one I will release in the future. I think this is a good way to keep users updated instead of sending lot of annoying emails. There is a hidden button in the UI that will appear only if the server has a newer version. This way the user can go directly to the download page, without having to Google for it.

The post Early stage development appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

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development

How it started

When I was late-teenager I had this idea, moved by Paul’s Debevec researches, about an algorithm to encode 32-bit images. I was math&code inexperienced that time, so my attempt was just a bunch of wrong formulae and useless stuff. In my late twenties, however, I deepened my usage of HDRI files as a 3D artist and I was always fascinated by how a complex light set could be “packed” in a single image. I was using Photoshop and 3D Studio Max for my experiments at that time.

real hdr beta in photoshop

Things didn’t change much during the years, I kept using this IBL workflow for a while at PlaySys and then I started lecturing at Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan.

I was in charge of CGI lectures with 3ds Max, V-Ray, and Keyshot. And at that moment I thought about developing my own tool, to speed up the creation of custom HDRI for my company.

I studied different methods – initially, the intent was to obtain it with a Max Script – but then I expanded the idea, strong of my previous experience with Real IES utility and this is how Real HDR looked like in its early stages:

 

real hdr beta

The post How it started appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

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development various

State teacher in Finland

Looks like yesterday that we started the videogame course here at Sataedu. Sounds like a common sentence but it’s true, time passed so fast and I loved so much the time spent here in this amazing Country.
finland
Who follows this blog knows that I’m in love with Finland, sounds irrational, but in reality there are so many tangible reasons:
Food
Our ex-prime minister mr. Berlusconi was totally wrong when he said that food here is crap. Actually I find it delicious…of course porrige is not in our tradition and looks like overcooked risotto (well…it is) but the taste is not bad. Now porrige is not national food, but was just an example. Here meat is very tasty and also is cheese. Juices and ciders are so many that you don’t know which one you should buy and sweets…one girl some time ago told me “Finland is the promised land of sweets”, actually she was right…and she was also sweet ;p
People
One of the best aspect of this Country that makes the experience absolutely unique are citizens. They are clean and loyally righteous (of course I’m not so naive to think that all of them are like this, I’m talking about my experience of whom I meet).
What surprised me are the extremes; think about climate and sauna: freezing and boiling. This is an aspect that you can find here quite often in folk’s personality. They are not talkative but if you spend enought time with some they tell you all about their life. They are friendly but you also know that if you don’t behave properly a punch would hit your face.
During day people are clean and respectous of environment and during night everything happens around. During week days they are on time (and with on time i mean “on time!”) and the laziness arrive in the weekends. They are quite consumists, lot of bright advertisings and then on weekends everything is closed (sometime even bars).
State
If you think finland is perfect place because taxes are low you are a fool, I also was. Here taxes are very high but in the same time you feel that you are investing in something that works.

I mean, with taxes you feel that you are contributing in something named “State”. Again, I’m not so naive to think that here corruption doesn’t exists and politicians are nice people.(mr. Stubb no offense intended, just a recent viral video on the web)

But still things works, even if somebody is stealing money from State, here stuff works.

Can you imagine? bus in time, public grass cutted, efficient road cleaning, economical support and contribution for investments and business, State services and websites working, public worker in office during work time. it sounds crazy that all these things are working so well…actually it sounds fucking crazy that in Italy they don’t work and taxes are even higher.
“We are many and they are less” I heard people saying, bullshit I think. If we are many contributor things should work better no? maybe we are many “burglars” you mean? ok, this changes the sentence then.
By the way, fuck my thoughts! here things works, food is great, people are averagely good and friendly, everybody speaks english, you can find support for everything, cold weather forges soul, landscapes are very meditative, public instruction works and for me is a pleasure being a part of it as State teacher!
Finland? 10/10
Categories
development various

Videogame Development course in Finland

I want to update the blog since long time and i think this experience I’m having in Finland can be a right reason.
luca deriu sataedu videogame development course
Recently I got in touch with SATAEDU vocational school, a series of faculties joined together in Satakunta region in western Finland. The request of the school is to prepare students to videogame development techniques, and for me is a real honor to be in charge in such a role, expecially in one of the best Countries for videogames (Remedy, Rovio, Supercell and so many others).
So that’s it, I took a ticket at the end of July to come here for interview, I got confirmed and the 25th of August I started.
luca deriu sataedu videogame development course
The experience is not simple at all, many people consider my stay in Finland like a sort of holiday, but alarm rings very early in the morning and days are quite heavy and long.
Actually I’m doing lectures every day between 6 and 8 hours per day. Topics covers 3D, 2D, textures, UV mapping, shading, lighting, scene setup, Unity and development.
unity 3d realtime global illumination plugin
Students are various in terms of age and background, some are really cool in 3D, animation and gaming while others require a bigger effort from me to be supported in all the steps…but I’m doing my best. The goal is to produce something really cool that can help students to find a proper employment in this business and in the same time proof the quality of SATAEDU instruction.
unity 3d realtime global illumination plugin
During this period I’m also working on a 3D animation containing fire and imrpoving a new plugin I’m writing for Unity, capable to render Global Illumination light in realtime.
Actually the result is quite rought and aproximated but it works with an impressive framerate. I’m experiencing some problems in color absorption/reflection but I’m optimistic on the final version 😉
unity 3d realtime global illumination plugin
Categories
development graphics music various

Last month’s summary

In the last few months I had no time to update this blog and I think it will be discontinued (or moved on my personal web-domain). Latest project included the end of courses at NABA and SPD. The year was pretty long but, as always, full of satisfactions. NABA’s course was at the 7th edition and in my opinion is now time to update the program. I started this series of lectures in October 2007 and even if I did some corrections and modifiations during the time, I think now the core of the course should be redesigned. SPD gave me great satisfactions (while with Domus Academy the experience was a little different) regarding 3D lectures. What I love of SPD is that I’m considered in the planning aspect of the course. Logically there is an academic office that take decisions, but I think is very good that they asks us (teachers and professionists) what we think about some new implementations, like software update, schedules, planning and so on. This make SPD very professional in the approach.
Anyway in november my new edition of Autodesk 3ds Max, V-Ray (and other surprises :)) should start again on NABA, Domus Academy and SPD. For the second semester there is possibility that other schools would insert my program in lectures regarding CG subjects. This is a “maybe” but I’m also discussing with two new schools outside Italy’s border and I hope to repeat the amazing experience I got time ago as visiting professor at Helsinki’s Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. According to lectures, me, Andrea Peduzzi, Filippo Zanoli and Donald Cortese did a deep workshop in another school in Como. I’m glad to work with them in VideogamesLab project: we do basic but functional workshops on game development. Our main goal is not to “create” game developers (it would be too ambitious, expecially in short periods like workshops). Our goal is to show an approach to game development business both to students and teachers.
About videogame development lectures I’m also partecipating with the brand new Spicchi team in a series of basic lessons on game development as business path. Courses are open to everybody but designed for parents that desire to understand more about this possible path for their childs. In this period I’m preparing my new speech for ViewConference 2014. In 2010 and 2011 I spoke about videogame development and realtime technologies using 3ds Max and Unreal. Last year I spoke about 3ds Max, V-Ray (thanks to Chaos Group for believing in my knowledge), 3D Printing (with Massimo Temporelli) and Augmented Reality with Unity 3D.
This year I plan to surprise you with a practical approach to virtual reality both for presentation and entertainment. For the occasion I bought an Oculus Rift 2 (inspired by Luca Roncella taht made me try his one). So get ready to be inserted in a 3d environment :), I’ll wait you at ViewConference 2014! About PlaySys works we never stop and year after year we are more stable on the market. Even if there were some difficulties in publishing department (because of the ending of two magazines like Professional Photoshop and Fotografia Facile) we still continue with Digital Camera. Also 3D renderings for architecture and design are proceeding properly and our information platform (3DArchitettura) got renewed recently. Render Academy by the way is proceeding slowly but I hope it would be ready in september with a lot of surprises. Still with PlaySys we are updating our games like Kitty Scratch 2, Augmented Cat, we developed a new simple one named Grayville and we are in the pre-production phase for a new one, with better story this time, I promise 🙂
In the meanwhile during august I want to speed-develop a platform; it will be a solo project and the challange is very appealing! PLAYSYS
PlaySys
KITTY SCRATCH 2
Kitty Scratch 2
STEEL HERO
Steel Hero
GRAYVILLE
Grayville
Last but not least, I released my last music solo project on iTunes and Spotify. Project name is Nihilistista and the album is named Eclipse. This project started about two years ago and I’m very satisfacted of the result, recording guitar, bass, drum and mastering together in the album. My working projets are taking time from my music, in the past I would never expect this would happen (expecially when, 18 years ago, I was playing drums 2 hours per day). I promise myself that one day I’ll get back in music with a band or something like that…hopefully I would keep my word 😉 Well, that’s all I think. There are many other stuff happening in the between but I can’t write them all and this is still not my memoirs 😀
It’s just a quick summary of what happened in this silent period and I’ll do my best to keep this blog updated somehow.

Categories
development graphics various

Augmented Cat – Free app for Android

Can you imagine a free application in which you can interact with a 3d model touching it directly on the screen? A free application for kids, without missions, tasks, shooting, zombies or other stuff? a free application that is not addictive, in this era of addictivism to games? a free application that is constantly updated with new features, light to install and that contains simple camera movement using augmented reality?
augmented_cat
Well this application exist and is named Augmented Cat! Is just 18 Mb and features a funny cat that can be touched on the head, on the back, on the pawns…and when you are satisfacted, you simply close and reopen some weeks later with new contents: it’s free and gives a worth to try!
iTunesArtwork@2x
Here is the direct link to the download page for Android devices and a video that shows how it works.
Categories
development

Porting ios game to android mobile device

The adventure continues and the porting of Kitty Scratch 2 from iOS to Android is almost done. Porting Kitty Scratch 2 from iOS to Android I want to write here the 4th main steps that we faced during this debugging process, as reminder for future videogames:

  • Nothing works and nobody knows why (- -)
  • Nothing works and somebody knows why (- +)
  • Everything works and nobody knows why (+ -)
  • Everything works and everybody is happy (+ +)
Categories
development graphics music various

Kitty Scratch 2 on AppStore!

Today I have a great announce: Our videogame “Kitty Scratch 2” is avaible to play on AppStore! Kitty Scratch 2 This project represent a new, exciting step forward for PlaySys. After the experience of Kitty Scratch 1, released in 2010, and that was mostly an experiment for us, we had a long break. As “break” I mean a huge series of lectures, conferences, 3d renders, 3d animations and interactive media. Kitty Scratch 2 During the 2013 we also did another videogame, Steel Hero, for a prestigious customer: Museo Nazionale Della Scienza e Tecnologia “Leonardo Da Vinci”. That game was developed by PlaySys and Broken Arms Games that supported us with the programming code. After the experience I got so interested in discover more about programming that I attended a full immersion during easther period. I studied, researched, experimented, red and watched tons of tutorials and at the end I took a decision: develop a videogame without outsourcing.
With PlaySys we prepared a full game design document and the 2nd of September we started the official development. Today, after 2 months the game is on the “shelves” of AppStore and I’m working on the porting for Android and, if everything goes right, tomorrow the game’s .apk will be delivered to Google Play. Kitty Scratch 2 I want to credit here the cool team that supported me in the development of this game: Pamela De Lorenzi – Producer
Filippo Zanoli – Game Designer
Elisa Cristantielli – Art Director
Elena Kartseva – Interior Designer
Lorenzo Cardile – 3D Artist
Beniamino Valentini – Animator
Bo Zhang – 3D Artist Intern
Alessandro Carpentiero – Musician and Composer
Andrea Peduzzi – PR Now let me conclude saying that the game is far away to be a GTA5 or a colossal, but is funny to play and we tryed to do our best to include dynamic 3D stuff on mobile devices. In fact the game behave differently accordingly to the time of the day in which you play it. Every 12 hours the system gives you 50 scratches to use and you can extend the game experience with mini games. Graffiette from Kitty Scratch 2 Kitty Scratch 2 – Episode 1 is the first of 3 episodes and the remaining will be released from now to January/February. To discover more please follow the links below and enjoy! 🙂 appstore  facebook  linkedin  playsys Last but not least: Please note that PlaySys don’t support any kind of violence. During the development of this game no furniture was damaged or injured. This game is also for kids.