Skyward Fire

Has it really been a whole month since I blogged? Amazing. Well, the past one month has been jam-packed with a whole lot of personal issues, including an accident that I had and another session of running around here and there concerning my admission into a good college. Both of that didn’t really give me much time to get involved in anything else, including one thing that I was really looking forward to – playing around XNA, since I scored a Creators’ Club membership not long ago. Within a couple of weeks, I’ll be finishing reading a couple of books regarding developing in XNA and I’ll be ready to go. I can only wish my 360 wont die on me with an RROD, considering the way it has been acting up on me over the past few days. For that to happen right now would just be bad timing.

I started off with a couple of private projects of mine on C, but both got stalled for aforementioned reasons. For those of you who’ve been around this blog of mine, you probably know how much Winamp has fascinated me for years now. That was the first computer software I had ever seen in action, and this was way back in 2003 when I was in middle school. Lately, I’ve working on plug-ins for Winamp, and one amongst those was the light-weight Last.fm scrobbler. Since there were better alternatives, I took that project off my register and it’s not in development any more. I then went on to draft a scrobbler for a friend’s iriver, and that wasn’t too bad either, except for some bug fixes that I could never sort out because of the limited knowledge I had, so that had to be pushed out of the window back then too. But now, I’ll be reviving that too. So iriver owners, rejoice! You have the best and feature-laden Last.fm scrobbler coming your way this holiday season.

As far as the other projects are concerned, I wont be picking up anything anytime soon because of my jam-packed schedule. I was hoping I could finish a simple arcade title for the 360 by the end of summer, but that is still lagging and I have a long way to go till that comes into initial formation. Oh well, if not summer, it’ll be done by September. This will also happen to be the first full-fledged component of my digital portfolio so I’m committed to this. I tried to assemble a team of coders and designers for the same, but it’s difficult to find people my age in India who’d be willing to do such a thing, Getting out of the theory shell and into practicality is a far cry. Well, considering the very unpractical & chaotic education system India projects, who can you really blame?

xbox 360 goodness by somberguy

For masses, E3 2009 started off with a bang set forth by the Microsoft keynote, the two biggest announcements of the same were Project Natal, and Metal Gear Solid coming to the Xbox 360. Project Natal is Microsoft’s very own Full Body 3D Motion Detection technology, that uses a 3D camera, and the SDK currently seems to support face recognition, voice recognition and fully body motion scanning in real-time. Project Natal is something straight out of what you might have seen in Minority Report, and the possibilities with this are endless. Check out the Keynote preview below.

The demo at the Keynote showed immense accuracy, specially while reading the limbs. But I have some major doubts regarding the same in my mind, which I’m sure the folks behind this are madly working to fix, most important of which is bringing down the manufacturing costs. Considering the fact that this is supposed to work with finger movement detection & detection of facial expressions of many people at the same time, the resolution and the processing capability needs to be massive. Come to think of it, finger detection is needs intense precision, and is very highly unlikely, at least for the time being.

Although, it’s just too early for this to hit the streets. With proper software backing, more hardware improvement & add-ons, and as mentioned before, bringing down the costs have a long way to go. For now, one can only say that demoing Project Natal was more of a marketing move. Being given the chance of opening up gaming’s most celebrated public events, Microsoft just had to overshadow competition, and build excitement & expectations that will be carried forward to E3 2010. And they’ve successfully done that. Gizmodo has a great gallery of the entire demonstration and a detailed report available here.

I’m at the most important stage of my life yet. I have to make a decision regarding college, which will further set forward my career, and my life from beyond the point where I am right now. Ever since I first saw a computer back in the year 1997 in junior school, I knew what I had to do in life. That LOGO cursor I saw that day has thus pushed me to the limits of giving my hundred percent when it has been about learning anything concerning computers. Here I am, almost 12 years since my first date with a computer, on the crossroads, where I have to choose between UAE & India for further education. My reasons for choosing Royal College, UAE might not sound as convincing to others as it does to me. Though you’ll agree with my reasons for not choosing a college in India.

Choosing a college is hard, specially when you have decided what you want to do with your life. Video games have always fascinated me, and that’s the line I want to get into. Working on a future Unreal Engine for Epic Games has been something I’ve had in mind ever since I finished high school. That particular road would have been tough if I were to stay in India and study at colleges I had to choose from. Considering the kind of intense extra effort the field of my choice needs, conventional college methodology is no way to do it. I am sure that if I were to stay in India, I’ll always have one or the other deviation. Over the past six months, I’ve closely observed the college students’ life away from home, and it hasn’t really done much of change how I feel.

Unreal Tournament Ad by ~Ampre

Going in to Royal College, UAE, I know I’ll be cut off from a whole lot of stuff I am into right now. But that is the necessity of the hour. My lifestyle needs a massive overhaul, and I’m sure I’ll be getting that over there. All the negative PR that UAE has, at various instances, put me in two minds, but there has been a certain reason that has mentally backed me up. So, my battle for achieving what I want is ongoing with the system. The formalities and the loan application procedure has been frustrating, and tiring. And the damn thing still isn’t even half way through. I can only wish the loan application goes through smoothly. Considering how various bank officials have reacted to my queries regarding the same, I can only wish such primitive thinking would die out.

I miss you my three angels, and I cannot wait to be with you.