Well as most of you know I hit 21 on last Saturday and even though I haven’t done anything for it yet (planning on going go-karting in easter holidays, contact me if you wanna go), it has still been pretty awesome so far.

I got lots of cool presents and money (could call me materialistic, but… hmmm… guess I am ). My main present was a Creative Zen, which is cool, I’ve wanted a decent MP3 for years and now I have, it has 20gig storage (extra for moving films, games and TV episodes around). Was also taken out clothes shopping (was a bit boring but it needed to be done), for smart clothes that I could attend an interview in and work, etc. Also got DVD Rewriter, which I have been also meaning to get. Awesome new Sennheiser headset. And lastly a Belkin UPS… which my dad got me (I think there was a couple spare from his work).

So today I have been cleaning the innards of my computer from dust and installed the DVD Rewriter and pulled out the DVD Reader and CD Writer (which wasn’t actually attached due to short ribbon cables). After hoovering the area around my computer (and in my computer), I decided to hook up my new UPS, which meant climbing under my desk and sorting out all the cables (eep!). It’s very cool, it has USB connection for my PC so I can change its settings and it can tell my computer to shutdown when power goes out. This is extremely useful for protecting HDD corruption and damage due to powersurges, but I have hooked up both my CRT and my TFT in addition to my base unit so that I can play when power goes out heh, probably only for 10-15 minutes. Allows me to finish what I’m doing and shut down myself, instead of losing work.

So a good birthday in general, looking forward to drinking the bar dry on friday, will also be dedicated to my turning 21 (how long can I stretch it out for?). Lastly, about the go-karting, it will probably happen mid-easter holidays. The more the merrier, so please contact me if you want to come. I gotta get the numbers sorted on how many are coming so I can get it booked.

So inbetween coursework pieces I have been coding our (Comscare house’s game) MMORPG we’re making, dubbed ‘Project Furscape’. Eventually its going to be a full 3D futuristic space MMORPG, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and apparently, the same with Charlie. I’ve volunteered to write the 3D engine for it and oh boy its a biggie! It’s boggling my mind already, but I’m slowly plodding on with it. I should be writing my final year project for university but the renderer, despite causing me physical pain, is fun (masochist?).

I’ve got a basic scene tree implementation working with textures and can load in models from Milkshape 3D (but haven’t got round to implementing the animation side of things, and every time I think about doing it, I feel like I’m going to cry). The test scene I’ve tried it out with actually makes me feel pretty good, just from looking at it. Couple of spinning asteroids on a starry background… makes me think “Wow, I’ve actually got to the point where I’m coding in the same language at the pros!”, but OpenGL is a biiiiiig place lots of areas, particle effects, bump mapping, and I don’t even want to think about pixel shaders :S

We have been designing it on a MediaWiki hosted on our LAN and have been recording all ideas we come up with, various systems and how things are going to interact with each other. We weren’t planning on starting it until AFTER unviersity (since the end is pretty close). But I couldn’t resist… this is something I’ve always wanted to do and it’s GOING to happen

Anyway, I guess I should get some sleep. Tomorrow has been assigned to AI coursework completion. Might do a spot of light reading in bed of “The Redbook” (OpenGL documentation).