Started to work on some settings here and there. This will allow me to actually optimize it because it’s going to be easy to pinpoint what lines slow down the generation process. I also finished the controls rebinding settings too. Doesn’t seem that long but for whatever reason, it took me a long, long time to do so.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
Heya There! I made some fairly major progress on the Main Menu. I finally more or less chose the general theme for it, as well as added a couple settings as follows:
That’s pretty much it for the day.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
Kept working on the GUI. Button by button, script by script, the progress keeps going because it sees no end, no bound. I’ve set up a proper tab container instead of my poor excuse of one, as well as started to make some display/audio settings. I also added some background music. GUI really is a pain, but honestly?
I kind of like it here. I feel at peace.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
Started working on the main menu as well as the GUI. I did a LOT of brainstorming on what kind of theme I should adopt, and I’m still not sure. I also fixed the overlapping problem. Or, rather, the lack of it. If you look up a sample under a microscope, you would notice the suprising abundance of the overlapping. However, thanks to my code, I am able to limit the overlapping to a certain degree.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
PS.: GUI is a pain. It really is.
Quite a bit of progress today: I made all the cells spawn in little packs of roughly 1-10 cells each, as well as being of the same type together. To do this, I originally wanted to adhere to some sort of randomized noise texture to affect the chances of a cell spawning on a selected pixel, but, after quite a few facepalms, I ended up opting for spawning first a few primary cells, and then spawn a bunch of secondary cells around them. That means that it’s a tad less flexible, but for the time being, that’s what I’ll use.
However, this did add unfortunately quite a bit of lag, so either I’ll have to heavily optimize it, or if that’s just not possible, I’ll have to add a loading screen, which I have no idea how to do. I also started working a bit on the UI and main menu.
That’s about it for today! Doesn’t sound like too much, but I promise you, that was genuinely difficult.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
Heya there!
I didn’t do an insane amount of progress, however, there still is a measurable leap.
I: Cells now cannot overlap over themselves. No longer are there any jebstacks!
II: Cells now spawn according to a probability depending on the black-white gradient values of a noise texture.
III: Added a new tier of movement controls. Previously, there was only fine and coarse controls, but now, behold! The hyper-coarse controls! (just a faster way to move)
That’s pretty much it for those few hours, thanks for reading!
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
Heya there!
For the past couple of days I have been working on a microscope simulation app/game. I’m still not sure whether I should lean further towards making it feel more “gamey” or a more realistic simulation. I’d be glad to hear opinions on that matter!
My progress during the few logged hours are composed of two parts. The Blender and the Godot section.
I - Blender:
I have created a simple image of a cell during mitosis (meet Jebediah, the cell!). It was genuinely painful and took me quite a lot of time to make it look even remotely realistic. I plan on making quite a few of those, so hopefully they will take less time as my progress goes on.
II - Godot:
The huge majority of my time was spent here. Partly because I didn’t spend that much time on blender, partly because I had to learn so much of Godot, as it was literally my first ever encounter with it. I also spent quite a lot of time learning shaders before giving up and searching them up.
III - Progress so far:
I’d like to point out that the controls with the shaders genuinely give off a feeling of a real microscope, it’s actually pretty neat.
Anyways, that’s pretty much it, see you next time!
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
P.S.: I might add some astrophage, who knows?
Due to the recent update to the SD payoff, I have decided to give up on the hardware side of this project. All that will be left will be the simulation itself. In the recorded time, I have decided on the engine that I will use (Godot) as well as how it will function. Essentially, I will render many different sprites of cells and microbes under different resolutions, so that Godot will be able to render them all without too much lag. I am however still unsure whether I should add a possibility to change the wavelength, as this is a fairly “niche” option on most microscopes.
I am fully open to suggestions and commentaries.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
DONE. I am finally done with the PHM Pad Vol. 1! Sent it, completed the
GitHub repository
(https://github.com/LiterallyRylandGrace/PHM-Pad-Volume-1/tree/main if
you wanna check it out). All that is left is to hope and pray that I
didn’t accidentally make it out of antimatter or something haha.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
So close! I am now essentially done with the GitHub. The only thing is that I noticed I haven’t accounted for the tolerances. Oups! Happens to the very best, I’m sure. All that is left is to adjust the affected files and voilà! My very own PHM Pad!
Almost done! I believe I am done with the firmware, as well as the PCB and the case! All that is left is to create the GitHub repository. In other words, the bane of my existence.
It took me quite a while to figure out why I couldn’t compile the QMK firmware for my PHM Pad. I couldn’t really figure out what was up with my matricies. The result was a couple of hours of essentially useless surfing across the web, until I finally thought of looking through the repo of the original HackPad, the orpheus. This allowed me to see the weird nomenclature of the matrix rows and columns. I then decided to go on a bit of an adventure to find the full table for the names of the different pins of the Xiao module. I replaced them and, would you know it, it worked. At last, I was done with the firmware.
I then proceeded to work a bit on the github and try to learn what goes where for the repository. Nothing much, really.
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
Didn’t do much today except learn and watch tutorials. At first I was searching for a way to identify the correct matrix column and rows pins, but honestly still haven’t really found the answer. Instead, I went on a whole “Side-Quest” and ended up essentially completely redesigning my PCB. That was about it, have a nice day!
Cheers!
Ryland Grace
I finished my case as well as the PCB for my PHMPad Vol. 1 (I need to figure out how to change the name of the project). I am now currently working on the headache that is the firmware. It will most likely take a while because it’s my first time making any kind of technical project, so I need to learn absolutely everything.
What is the PHMPad Vol. 1? Essentially, going to PC from a laptop, I have found the general absence of volume control keys to be very annoying. I have therefore decided to create a 2x3 hackpad with the controls as follows.
“ Previous, Pause/Play, Next
Mute/Unmute, Volume Down, Volume Up”
(stardance wanted to format it weirdly so I decided to quote myself hehe.)
In this Moment Lapse of (non-)Reasoning (wonderful album by the way, absolutely recommend a listen), I have manage to get confused an impressive amount of times. I’ll list a few of them here, along with the respective “a-ha” moments.
Why is the Xiao Seeeduino Moudle footprint missing??
I forgot to search how to add the different libraries.
Where do I even paste all of this QMK code??
Apparently you had to install the QMK MSYS program.
And WHY doesn’t any of this QMK code work?
You had to set it up. And I forgot to set it up. I can’t add two and two.
That should be about it for today. I should point out that I forgot to record a timelapse of roughly two hours, which is why I made a somewhat significant progress from an absolute beginner in 1.5 hours. Hope to finish it soon. Cheers!
