GWT – WLGfx

Parallax3D WebGL

This is proving to be easier than I thought.

The Eclipse GWT project was setup. The parallax3D jar library added. A test AnimatedScene class with some basic geometry tests done. Spin a few of them around.

That’s me done for tonight. Got work in the morning.

I’m hoping I can load in Blender models, or even .OBJ models. If not, I’ll figure something out. Also 3D text I need.

No screeny yet cos of screen tearing.

Tonight I had a full on plan to get my own VPS (Linux based) and setup a Tomcat server ready for my WebGL personal project showcase. I’m planning on porting some old school samples from years ago from both IrrLicht and Dark Basic Pro.

So far, I’ve not made a start as the missus passed her CBT today (Motorbike Compulsory Basic Training) and she is way over excited.

VPS and Tomcat are still in progress.

I also plan on studying this WebAsm too for much faster rendering.

To start with I will be using Parallax3D for GWT which I’ve played around with a few times before. I finally decided on Parallax3D after giving up on LibGDX (which is very good and easy), and CopperLicht (which I don’t like using Javascript).

If it chills out tonight, which is highly unlikely, then I’ll make a start.

WebGL 3D

After faffing about with CopperCube and CopperLicht, which is fun to play around with, I’ve found it quite restricting for the type of demonstrations that I want to do. So I’ve decided to head on back to Parallax3D, bypassing the urge to play with LibGDX again.

The reason for dumping CopperLicht is simple. I don’t like Javascript at all. With GWT, it is rare I need to use JSNI with it.

LibGDX is good but each LibGDX project has to be a complete GWT module in itself, which means copying over all the GWT stuff again. It probably is likely that I could integrate it into a GWT project and I might try it at some point.

However, Parallax3D just appears to have everything and is a simple Jar file which is added to a GWT project.

So… It’s finding out what mesh files (hopefully wavefront OBJ’s as well) and I’ll be up and running if the weather is bad this weekend.

I also need to FTP this site as my homes Sky router isn’t working with the DNS service.

Enough of this. Time to setup a project on my lappy.

It’s been a while

Yes, most definitely it has been some time since I last posted anything on my blog. That’s because this last month I have hardly had any real chill time to myself. Well, I have had some, but it never lasts for long enough.

Anyway, I’ve still been faffing about. I recently purchased CopperCube so that I could delve deeper into WebGL. Plus I’m familiar with Irrlicht, and CopperLicht makes working with 3D graphics a doddle.

I’ve also found that I can actually call myself a full-stack developer considering recent projects I’ve been working on. One project involves a C/C++ TCP/UDP server for communications, A Java TCP server to use Java AWT graphics, GWT for a web interface instead of installing software. The server does many things, too many to mention, but I’m well chuffed with it.

Setting up the server involves freshly installing Linux. Then installing Apache Tomcat. Making a few modifications to the system and then installing the software.

Device connect on the network via ethernet or wifi and will automatically detect the location of the server because of the UDP heart beat. Clever stuff really. Probably not, but all the same, it works great.

I’ve also played around with having a home TCP server which can be made use of from my mobile phone while I am out, my tablet or a PC, as well as a GWT web interface.

After playing around with all of this, there’s lot’s more I want to play with. Maybe Vaadin or similar. Move on to desktop 3D graphics again instead of openGLES 2.

I’ve also finally got myself an i7 laptop with nVidia graphics. Cheap off eBay! So I can develop on the go. That’s if the battery is good in it.

There’s other things over this last month that have tickled my fancy, but I won’t mentioned that here. Tempting though.

Hopefully this weekend I will have a long one as I’m booking Friday and Monday off because I seriously need to relax a little.

Until next time…

WebGL engine test

Yesterday I played around with a webGL engine and added it to my home hosted servers website. So it will not be available to view all the time.

wlgfx@home

Here’s a screenshot of it running in the Chrome browser:

wlgfxathomejunglescene

When you write something really awesome

As it say on the page, thinking of data in C++ takes some time and some mental planning. Java with its quirks, I finally think I’ve got the knack of it.

Glorious Java inheritance

WLGfx@home updated

Click here: WLGfx@home to view my PCs hosted site.

If it doesn’t load up then my home PC is not switched on.

There’s still quite a bit to do to this site, especially to do with the 3D stuff. I’ve got to setup a decent scene to show off with. Some cool shaders and some decent meshes.

Online GL shader editor

Just so I don’t lose or forget about it, I’ve found a very handy online openGL shader editor…

ShaderFrog

From basic shaders including texturing and lighting right up to procedural shaders and more.

All I need now is to run a sample project in Qt to test out some of these and then transfer them to GWT and Parallax. Good stuff can now be done.

GWT + 3D

When my home server Apache is running (basically when my PC at home is on), then the very first test of 3D inside a web page is working…

WLGfx@home

However, the RPC calls are not working. I’ll get onto that straight away.

Eclipse update and GWT

After upgrading from Linux Mint 17.3 to 18, I found that the minimum Java available was 8. For GWT projects, up to 7 is allowed because there are issues running with Java 8.

So, I deleted Eclipse ready to install the latest. It installed fine. Still some issues along the way with Java 7 and 8 with GWT.

Eventually I installed Oracle Java 7. So far so good.

After finding that there is no longer support for Android in eclipse and installing all the Android stuff I cleared eclipse again. Actually I removed Eclipse a few times until I got Java 7 and 8 and all the GWT web stuff. Including Java EE version of eclipse.

Now I’ve figured out how to run a GWT project straight out of Eclipse without needing to upload onto the Apache server too. This makes for much faster build times. However, one cavaet is that I will have to create a linux group and add my user to the group next so that Tomcat7 and my user can read/write to the servers home directory.

Having sped up the build times, development of GWT projects will be so much easier and less time consuming. I will only need to deploy to the Apache main server when it has all been done. All I need to do is to save all files that I’ve been editing, click refresh in the server pane in Eclipse and go to the page in the browser. The browser will then tell the project to build itself the changes made.

Good stuff for a few hours of headaches.

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And out goes 2024… (almost there…)

December 19, 2024
by csnorwood

Hello everyone,

For a long time I've been bouncing between projects and not sticking with one. Probably all down to what life throws at you.

So lately, I've moved from Godot to using Raylib. Godot as an engine is amazing for not only beginners, but for advanced users too with its native development cycle. Raylib however, being a very cut down framework opens up a lot of options. You can find my latest project here.

My development platform:

OS: EndeavourOS + Wayland + KDE
PC: Higole F9B 512Gb model with 16Gb RAM. Intel N100.
Software: VSCode, OpenMPT(Audio), Blender(3D), Inkscape(Vector), Krita(Artwork)

The main reason for choosing Raylib over Godot is simply that I have raw access to what is being rendered. Raylib is a C framework and I am building my own framework in C++ over the top of it.

An example of the simplification can be seen in the source code.

These last 2 weeks have mainly been getting used to the API itself and its data structures. And now I am moving over to using shaders for the first time manually.

Although saying that Raylib is cut down. It still has everything I need right now without all the extra bloat. And once I've gone through the API and C++'ified it, building applications should be much easier.

2025 should be a creative year for me... See you there...

Godot 4 Terrain Generator – progress

July 27, 2024
by csnorwood

I’ve just uploading another video to youtube about the current progress of my work on 3d terrain generation.

Here I am mixing two noise values, a main noise for the actual terrain and the other which is only added at 10% strength adds extra terrain detail patches.

There’s still a lot of ideas yet I want to add to this and I am getting through them bit by bit.

Audio issues are still ongoing and hopefully will be resolved in future videos.

Until next time… Carl out…

Godot 3D terrain testing

July 8, 2024
by csnorwood

Just using GDScripts SurfaceTool, here’s a quick glimpse of what I’ve been fiddling around with.

For some strange reason Godot keeps calling me back, and each time I play with something else. This is the latest.

Think of now using a threaded solution to generate meshes using 3D noise and maybe even stretch it a little and animate it with 4D noise as a constant time dimension added.

I dunno…

July 8, 2024
by csnorwood

I was thinking just then, “hey, you do know that adding 6Tb storage to your PC is a big deal?” Well, that’s when it struck me, actually, yes it is!

They’ve been sat in the NAS case for almost a year now since I cut Windows on all my PC’s at home. And I never got round to setting it up for Linux. It kinda got that way, I had a 2Tb SSD to shove all my stuff on.

So a week later and Aliexpress delivers my HD caddies. Straight away, unboxed, 2 x 3Tb drives straight into them, and all setup. And voila! They all work and now I’m sat here with a tiny Mini PC, with about 10.5Tb of storage in total connected to it.

So, yeah… It’s a big deal.

… Now on to organising it all. (That’s the bummer…)

Z80 Spectrum 48K assembler

June 15, 2024
by csnorwood

So I finally got around to making my very first recording with my voice over to quickly demonstrate how easy it is to edit and run assembler code on a ZX Spectrum emulator.

Click here to view the video on Youtube.

ZX Spectrum 48k (adventure)

I’m hoping to record a video showing where I’m up to with my trip down memory lane.

Portable monitors are awesome! … ?

Straight up, yes they are. I have two, an 11 inch standard HD and a 15 inch 4K. Both power over USB, both have extra USB C ports on them and both have USB C video input and HDMI.

They are also thin, very light and come with a magnetic cover which acts as a stand. The brightness and colours are perfect to me.

But, …

When it comes to the resolution and the size of the monitor itself, especially the 4K monitor, ‘size matters’.

I do a lot of programming and screen real estate is essential for displaying code. The more code you can see on the screen, the better. And here’s were the 4K monitor falters.

At that resolution, you know 4 times the space of a HD screen. Well, in resolution anyway. You’d think, or at least I did, silly me. You’d think that opening 4 browser windows in each corner or the monitor. Oh yeah, that is cool.

Nope. It’s a 15 inch screen. Splitting it up into 4, 7 inch screens doesn’t work. Simple as. You strain your eyes reading tiny, tiny text.

For programming they are superb. But to split the screen up smaller, nope.

Oh, I’ve also got a 28 inch 4k monitor and I can confirm it doesn’t look too bad splitting 4 browser windows.

Microsoft and Chrome

I’ve not long got a new PC and my first Windows 11. As usual, I set it up the way I like it.

Then, I boot up to find Edge has opened all my Chrome tabs.

The weeks go by and I see reports of the same thing on YouTube.

And now today, I’m getting emails from Microsoft asking me to recover my Google account through them.

Hmm

2024 Updates

So it is time for me to setup a new development folder. This time around, unlike the many years in the past, all the test projects will be dumped into a testing folder before they are allowed to join any main stream projects that I am working on.

Now with a PC upgrade I am capable of working a lot faster (8 cores/16 threads helps here), especially with running local AI’s and also working in Linux and MacOS. Most of this will be all on the same machine.

Current projects:

Media server and device management software/server.
- Video playback
- Image viewer
- Devices manual updates by client
- plus many other features…
Godot Game
- Terrain generator and texture painting
- Fauna splatting
- Various generators to add objects in a scene
- Miscellaneous player controls (ie. sliding down slopes and climbing walls)
Home AI chat on the go.
- Home AI that runs on a server that allows me to chat over the internet using my phone
- Text or speech input.
- Optional text to speech output
- Selection of local LLM’s (ie Llama chat, or Mistral Instruct)

With WSL in windows it does make it easier to develop and test Linux software, however it is not that good because it doesn’t give raw access to hardware. This is not a problem for development and testing.

There will be a lot more to come over the months as things start to get organised and time is given to these projects.

Catch you all soon…

Carl

Testing before an interview

It’s extremely important if you are taking a laptop to an interview to showcase a project that you’ve been working on to thoroughly test it before going. I found this out recently.

It was a Node JS project I had been working on for about six months, it loaded up, built and ran fine the night before and even on the morning of the interview. Doubts that anything could go wrong just didn’t exist. This project was working.

But that wasn’t the case in the end.

During the interview I booted up, loaded the project in as I had been doing, no changes to the system or project. Then I ran the project and opened up the page in a web browser.

Garbage! That’s what I got on the screen. Just garbage!

According to the output log from the project it was all going fine, but that’s not what was on the screen in the browser. I could see some of the text and icons but they were all squashed up on the screen. Argh! I thought. How could this happen?

I had to resort to just explaining the project and apologising for the failure for it to work properly.

Interview over and headed back home on the train. Furious at myself for this to happen.

Whilst on the train, I opened up my laptop to write a thank you email for the interview which I had to connect to my phones hot spot. Email sent, I decided to open up the project to quickly see why it all went wrong. The project ran, I opened it up in the browser… And it just worked!

After a very short investigation I found what the problem was. A CSS file was being requested from a CDN (content delivery network) which when connected to the internet could get access to and use in the project. During the interview, I did not connect to the internet and the CSS file was not loaded into the page. No layout information, colours, nothing…

So that was it. No internet. Project cannot access that single CSS file.

Of course now I’ve added the CSS file directly to the project and it does work completely offline.

Lesson learned.

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Category: GWT