SRJM.co.uk » DirectX

Project Update

Simon — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:50:22 +0000

A typical picture update of the project from both aspects, the 3D and the physical interface.

Digital Atmosphere

Terrain Spikes

Testing the spike generator for visual feedback on the terrain:

Pulse Rate Sensor

Sensor in the Handle

Adding a Joystick to DirectX

Simon — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:37:24 +0000

Having acquired a joystick I was eager to try it out in my DirectX project. This is theoretically a very easy thing to do, but of course, it isn’t turning out that way. While the sample project and tutorial instructions are incredibly easy to follow, and the sample project compiles and runs perfectly well, starting to apply this code my own project is not straightforward.

Something which I am now starting to accept is pretty typical of Microsoft’s code is that they do something totally differently to the way that they themselves have said it should be done, and don’t bother explaining WHY.

Nevertheless I shall persevere with adding this to my project with the intention of linking camera control to the joystick, but the responsiveness of the motion will be dependant on the strength of biofeedback signal.

Update: I discovered I was trying to fix an issue that didn’t exist when all that was required was including the dinput8.lib file to the project…

A Slightly Better Video

Simon — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:00:04 +0000

Thanks to Alan for pointing me in the direction of CamStudio, a free video capturing software for your screen, which I have used to produce a slightly better video of my project’s 3D world.

Running both the software and DirectX at the same time was a bit tricky, slashing the FPS from around 120 to 40 but it’s better than using my camera to take a video of my laptop screen!

The water can be manipulated from any point, but for now it is set to only ripple from the centre. When I produce a final visualisation the position will vary, of course based on biofeedback influence.

Water Motion Preview

Simon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:27:20 +0000

Since still images don’t quite demonstrate the effects going on in the 3D side of my project, I decided to take a video recording of the liquid as well. It’s not great in terms of quality and could have been composed more fancifully but gives you an idea.

Experimenting with HLSL

Simon — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:13:53 +0000

After quite a lot of effort, adding, swapping and killing code I’ve started to get away from having HLSL turning everything a shade of utter grey.

The screenshots show my water mesh which will be one of a few features of this virtual environment which responds to biofeedback data from the avatar’s user.

Avatar Model

Simon — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:32:44 +0000

My Initial 3D avatar model idea mocked up in 3D:

The idea is to represent a more traditional aesthetic of meditation, providing a connection between the project and the field of biofeedback’s origins.

Also the development of the environment and the terrain mesh:

DirectX Coursework2 Hand-in

Simon — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:02:48 +0000

Here is a screenshot of my mobile lights floating around the fish model all wrapped up in a micro-terrain:

Update on DirectX 2

Simon — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:31:05 +0000

Here are some screenshots I took a couple of days ago of developing my mobile lights. I’ve also decided to re-use the fish model for now since I have nothing better to replace it with!

Here is a shot of my first light, not doing very much interesting.

The final lights are completely mobile and have behaviour determined by taking analogue signals from my USB circuitboard. The motion ranges from soothing and gentle to fast and erratic.

Running DirectX with Analogue Input

Simon — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:44:43 +0000

Here’s a screenshot of my visualiser with a model (albeit the tiger model), mobile camera AND analogue input signals displaying in the output, built on the DXUT utility library.

A few more tweaks were needed to get the slower USB interface to read reliably while DirectX pounded my graphics card for every FPS it could get.

Useful DXUT DirectX Pages

Simon — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:05:57 +0000

Rather than simply tagging this page I thought it more appropriate to draw greater attention to it for myself:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173254(VS.85).aspx