@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

TomF

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place

Graphics coder and HW architect, currently at Rec Room, previously at Muckyfoot, RAD Game Tools, Valve, Oculus and Intel.

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SirTapTap, to random
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"algos know you better than you know yourself"

Amazon: "here are size 4 shoes you might like" (I have bought exclusively size W14 shoes, about 6 pairs in a year)

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@SirTapTap "I see you just bought a washing machine. Would you like to buy three more?"

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Fallout the TV series was pretty damn good. I've played most of the series, my wife has played none. She thought the first two episodes were a bit "fan service" but liked the rest and said it held together well.

Is this the first video game adaptation that doesn't suck?!?!?!?

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@glassbottommeg recommended Isles of Sea and Sky, and I second that - I'm really enjoying it. It's "Zelda, but Sokoban" and everything you do is done by pushing things. Some fascinating mechanics.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1233070/Isles_of_Sea_and_Sky/

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@glassbottommeg I just finished it with 81 stars. Still a lot left to do - I've been trying to do the "serpent isle" on the west of the map, but oof it's nasty. I might park it now and just do a few bits here and there over time.

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Wife's Away So Watch Crap Films.

Today's film - "Don't Look Up". Dinosaur-killer is headed for Earth, and DiCaprio and Lawrence utterly fail to save it. I thought it would be Idiocracy 2.0, but it's subtler than that, and annoyingly plausible. Really this is great writing - it's a film worth watching!

Yes depressing. But you know that from the start. The stuff that happens on the way is the interesting part. So many lovely little touches.

glassbottommeg, to random
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

I wonder this every time I look up at my adblocker in the GMail tab:

how on earth is Google serving (well, failing to lol) over a thousand gmail ads in a single workday?

I don't even understand where these things would be. Is the count accurate? I could of course turn adblock off and see, but. Lol. No.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@glassbottommeg As far as I can see there aren't any actual visible adverts on the Gmail page. I assume it's all single-pixel phone-home bullshit. What are they for? That's beyond your security clearance, citizen.

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

ok so I was trying to figure out what year the magic purple honda civic 3 door hatchback I had back in college was because my insomnia has been really awful the last two days and I had this great idea that I should make a game where you have to figure out how to drive the magic purple honda civic 3 door hatchback I had back in college, and anyway I totally failed to find it but I stumbled upon this amazing and improbable website and I don't know what's real anymore: https://www.lingscars.com/personal-car-leasing/honda/civic/4374098-2.0-eHEV-Sport-(143bhp)-Hatchback-5dr-Petrol-electric-Hybrid-CVT

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/retro/heres-every-generation-honda-civic

It's unclear. The fifth generation is your best bet - they were magic, but not available in purple. However, since purple isn't a real colour, maybe it was actually violet? Memory plays tricks on us.

The sixth generation was somehow available in purple, but was technically only mega, not actually magic. However, there were several aftermarket groups offering a full-magic upgrade, so maybe that's what it was?

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Yeah that looks like a sixth gen. The problem you'll have is the European model was made in a new factory in the UK, and it's very close, but not exactly the same, as the one the US got. But close enough so nobody makes a distinction. So might be minor differences.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Shape of the rear window. That "notch" in the 3/4/5 gen upper-rear window of the 3-door hatchback is really distinctive. They softened it for the 6th gen hatchback. So if you can remember what shape that was... :-)

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

An interesting statistical quirk: Notice the disjoint in these two posts. This is not rounding; Godfrey, on the left, is counting Grover Cleveland twice

TomF,
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@Thad @The4thCircle @mcc Oooh don't make me open a can of War Doctor worms...

DataAngler, to Birding
@DataAngler@vis.social avatar

Two cozy owls eyeing me from a perch. #birding #owls #birds

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@DataAngler Barred owls. And they look floofy! The one on the right is certainly a kid - not sure about the one on the left - older sibling, or young parent?

hedders, to random
@hedders@mas.to avatar

Denis Villeneuve really missed a trick with Dune Part Two. Imagine having Christopher Walken in Dune and not having him say “If you walk without rhythm, you won’t attract the worm”.

TomF,
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@hedders Apparently Walken also didn't know the link between the Fat Boy Slim record and Dune until recently. Which is fair enough - the lyrics in the song are from the David Lynch movie, not the books.

sinbad, to unrealengine
@sinbad@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

New blog post: Playing Animation Montages in Multiplayer Games https://www.stevestreeting.com/2024/05/30/playing-animation-montages-in-multiplayer-games/ #unrealengine

I'm always grumbling about there only being videos for things in UE when I'd prefer to read a blog post, so here's another from me to go on the "reading" side of the scale.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad I think neither are particularly easy to watch on a video. And as you say, BP rapidly becomes "write only" code.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@sinbad I wonder if single-stepping through code on video is a better way to teach it, than to show you actually writing it? Hmmm...

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Just got caught up on The Discourse of CPU design and this article: https://hackaday.com/2024/03/21/why-x86-needs-to-die/

Let me skip to the chase - it argues that x86 is shit because it's got variable-length encoding, is out-of-order, and does speculative execution. It then says ARM and RISC-V are much better.

Er... except they also do all those things in the fast chips. Which the writer clearly didn't know. So they're not just wrong, they're ignorant.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

They also assert the original 8086 is not microcoded. Absolute garbage - it was - the 8086 and 68000 were microcoded far far more than any current CPU - why do you think even "simple" instructions took 3-4 clocks?

As an x86 architect, I can give you a huge list of reasons that x86 is terrible and ugly and should be fixed. This article mentions none of them. It is junk, and nobody should read it. There - saved you 10 minutes of your life.

TomF,
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@aeva Good!

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

More info on this:

Casey's rebuttal is a pretty good intro to CPU architecture in general. I mean his actual rebuttal could be shrunk to 5 minutes, but the rest of the stuff is great background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCBrtopAG80

The Chips and Cheese article Casey referenced that I basically agree with 100%: https://chipsandcheese.com/2024/03/27/why-x86-doesnt-need-to-die/

Not enough architects talk about the actual process of making architecture and why our decisions sometimes make no sense to software people. So I did: https://vimeo.com/450406346#chapter=1300005

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko @aeva Sorry!

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva @dancer_xiv They really don't matter. Anything can be fixed given enough incentives. It's literally like arguing which human languages are "best".

fatlimey, to random
@fatlimey@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Pick up your keyboard, turn it upside down and shake it over an empty surface.

Be amazed at what falls out.

Feel ashamed you didn't do that sooner.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@fatlimey How about I never ever do this and I just continue to feel good about myself?

glassbottommeg, to random
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

At a certain point, design work is just staring at a split complementary and making up stories in your head that justify the colors. You slide Lightness and Saturation up and down while going "yes, and there's the blood, earth, sea and sky, these are the colors of The People".

I think it's where designers get the spiel they eventually sell clients with: deciding on colors, is in part, when you feel your story about them is good enough.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@glassbottommeg I really don't understand the whole "palette choice" thing. Show me a damn gameplay screenshot. Maybe then I'll get it.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva @glassbottommeg No no I totally agree with the concept. But I need a screenshot of a game. This is just screaming out random 6-digit hex strings.

grumpygamer, to random
@grumpygamer@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I think the root is my problem is I'm generating floats from n-m. I needs it to be blazing fast and it can't use any libs because I need 100% consistency across platforms.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@grumpygamer I would generate integers from e.g. 0-65535 and then return (n+(m-n)*rand/65536)

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@grumpygamer @arghdos Sorry, I was on my phone. Longer:

return (n+(m-n)*(float)rand * (1.0f/65536.0f));

What device is this on?

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