The Word of Notch

Snowman Needs Your Help!

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 01:10:18 +0100

Check out this thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?id=4453

He convinced me to join in, and I signed up for the final line (then I heard what it sounds like and started regretting it). I will record myself singing it on Thursday, and he needs about 15 more people to help out.

Please consider helping out. =D

Game complete!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:57:10 +0100

The Europa Arcology Incident

Click here to play the game

I recoded myself making the game, and make a timelapse. You can watch it on youtube, or download the high quality version from thepiratebay.

I also broadcast the entire thing on livestream. If you’re really patient, you can watch me writing the game in real time. (That’s just the first part. The rest are in the Video library below)

Ludum Dare is (almost) go!

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:47:06 +0100

For the next 48 hours and 15 minutes, I will be making a game. =D

You can watch me, right now, live, here: http://www.mojang.com/live/

Whoops, gmail thinks I'm sending too much spam

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:08:00 +0100

Today was pretty crazy. The X-mas gifting seems quite popular indeed, I’m very happy with the response. An especially big thank you to everyone who donated and/or sent me an X-mas greeting.

However, my server’s been cranking out emails at a silly rate, and since I send my emails via GMail, I tripped some limit on outgoing mail, and now I can’t send any more emails. It will be restored within 24 hours, they say. But it’s kinda clear I’ll have to figure out a better way of sending the emails.

There’s a rather scary looking error message now, but all gifts go through just fine.

Also, I just realized I might’ve been a bit early with this X-mas push. :D I just get into the whole holiday vibe pretty early. I like this time of year. =)

Server 1.10.1 is up

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:21:54 +0100

+ Fixed grow-trees again

Also, if you ran into problems with the local ip fix I blogged about before, I’ve added a work-around for it: add “&override=true” to the url to force it to use the external IP.

http://www.minecraft.net/xmas/

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:51:22 +0100

http://www.minecraft.net/xmas/

And another fix

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:36:27 +0100

From now on, if minecraft.net detects someone trying to connect to a server from the same ip as the server, it will direct the player to 127.0.0.1 instead of to the server ip.

This means you should be able to play on your own servers now without having to turn off verify-names.

New minecraft-server.zip (version 1.10)

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:23:17 +0100

+ Added a HUGE warning for running without verify-names turned off
+ Fixed grow-trees
+ Fixed a bug where people with long usernames could connect
+ Added admin-slot to server.properties. Setting this to true prevents people from logging in if the server is almost full and they’re not admins.

Get it now!

The warning reads:

######################### WARNING #########################
verify-names is set to false! This means that anyone who
connects to this server can choose any username he or she
wants! This includes impersonating an OP!

AND SINCE THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVER, IT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU!

If you wish to fix this, edit server.properties, and change
verify-names to true.
###########################################################

Watch me coding live!

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:54:58 +0100

This weekend, I’ll be competing in Ludum Dare, a 48 hour game development competition. I will be streaming the entire thing live via livestream here.

If you watch it, you’ll be able to see me develop a game from scratch, see how it progresses and comment on my work LIVE.
I’m considering doing live coding sessions for minecraft as well, but I’m a bit scared of leaking the source code.. We’ll see how well the livecast goes this weekend.

Whoa, five days since my last blog post? Anyway, here’s...

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:26:43 +0100

Whoa, five days since my last blog post?

Anyway, here’s the MD3 loader running in the game. Those are q3 models with very low res textures. Obviously, we will have more fitting models later on. =)

Craaazy

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:01:42 +0100

Craaazy

In case you can’t tell what’s in the last...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:09:57 +0100

In case you can’t tell what’s in the last screenshot, it’s ten thousand of those!

That’s a fully animated, textured and lit MD3 model, which is the file format Quake 3 uses. So I’ve built the renderer against the Doom model from Quake 3.

The Doom marine will be replaced with a custom model, and this will go in the game.
It’s much faster than the current procedurally animated models, and it gives a lot more control to artists.

Photo

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:39:34 +0100

Minecraft Model file format: MD3

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:39:18 +0100

I’m adding MD3 support for Minecraft. There are a lot of advantages to this format:

It’s fast!
It lets me turn the torso and head procedurally!
It has fairly wide spread support!
It’s very easy! Adding linear interpolation after having written the loader took about 30 minutes

Linear vertex interpolation slows down rendering by quite a bit, so it’ll only be used for models near the player.
I’ll post a screenshot of 10000 non-interpolated (but fully animated) MD3 models running at 30 fps now. :D

Film Festival Reviews. Part 12.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:42:03 +0100

This is the last one! Finally!

The Countess

After her husband dies, Countess something-or-other falls in love with a young nobleman. Several important and power hungry men drive them apart, and trick her into believing she’s been abandoned. So naturally, she goes mental and starts killing innocent girls by the hundreds.
On the surface, this movie is a violent costume drama, but below that it’s so much more. Most of the story is told by a more or less unreliable narrator (he retells the story as it was told to him), which leaves a lot of puzzling up to the audience. Since this was established early on and done in a credible fashion, I really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, they chose to be extremely explicit about the resolution towards the end of the movie, and that took away some of the fun and mystery of the movie.
I probably wouldn’t watch it again (perhaps just once..), but I really enjoyed the first see-through.

Best part: A very iconic scene at the start of the movie where we get to see the Count standing on top of a pile of dead soldiers.
Worst part: The very last scene of the ending..
Score: 4/5

Film Festival Reviews. Part 11.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:25:59 +0100

These reviews are by Ez (my fiancé):

City Island http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1174730/

A cosy drama comedy with Andy Garcia where lies complicates the lives of an otherwise rather normal family. Garcia plays a prison guard with secret acting ambitions. He decides to house a criminal without telling him or the rest of the family that he is his father. I kept laughing along with the rest of the audience during this film which made it a good movie experience. Although the care-for-your-loved-ones-and-don’t-lie-too-much point is nothing new, this film manages to tell it well.

Worst part: Garcia does a Marlon Brandon impersonation.

Best part: The youngest son’s never ending blunt honesty at the dinner table.

4/5

Together http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324056/

This is a film about how a family can be torn apart by loss. It also shows very well an egocentric childish mind at work. I was moved by some scenes but the film has now faded away and proves not to be that memorable. The every day life is very good portrayed and the psychology is interesting. It’s refreshing to see a film where people are put to harm but where noone is really evil. Most people do mean well.

Worst part: When the father fails to make pizza dough - it’s exaggerated.

Best part: The sudden turn in the beginning of the movie. If you’re not prepared it will hit you hard ;)

3/4

Reykjavik – Rotterdam http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233576/

A criminal drama where the main character leaves his wife and two children for one last run of smuggling alcohol from Rotterdam by boat since they badly needs the money. The film is smart and intense and although full of violence never gets too brutal as many films in this genre. The cinematography is impressive and I do like the comic relief.

Worst part: The bad guys actions where at the end out of place.

Best part: The painting.

4/5

Free source code for procedurally generated real time strategy game

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:44:00 +0100

[edit: link fixed!]

A couple of years ago, I had the idea to make a game using only procedurally generated content, so I set out to do a full version of t4kns. I spent about two months on it before giving up. The result was this:

takns

Try it online, or download the full source code. The license (included) is “do whatever you want, but I’d appreciate credit”.

I will not provide support on this.

Features:

* Fully procedurally generated graphics. NOTHING is hand painted, except for the font.
* Relatively robust A* pathfinding (try sending a car from one end of the level to another)
* The base for Dune 2 inspired RTS with resource management and base building.
* Blobs
* Particles
* Sound
* Randomly generated procedural splash screen (!)

Film Festival Reviews. Part 10.

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:26:00 +0100

Tsar

Ivan the Terrible, the Tsar from the title, trusts noone and sees sinners everywhere, but still tries to lead his country as well as he can, taking the blame for the sins of his people. He repeatedly repents for his sins, but keeps ruling with an iron fist because he either feels he has to or because he’s just plain insane. In the start of his movie, he appoints his old friend (who is now a monk) as the new Metropolitan after the old one had left to live at a monastery.
The two friends spend pretty much the rest of the movie trying to convince each other either to forgive and be kind or that violence and strictness is needed to rule a nation. That’s two hours of Russian men kissing each others bearded cheeks and talking about god’s will.
Mixed in with these are some scenes from a battle in Poland, a few religious near-miracles, and a fascinating young orphan child.
When I saw this movie, a guy in the audience kept laughing at things that really weren’t supposed to be funny. When the Metropolitan told the Tsar that he was the guily one and that he was the one that should be judged, the Tsar replied “I forgive you. Judge yourself”, and the guy laughed. Sure, what the Tsar said was kinda witty and quick and a mean way of passively agressively punishing someone, but when you laugh at someone that powerful and deranged, you really undermine the entire feel of the movie for everyone else in the room.

Best part: When the Tsar gets dressed after having prayed, at the start of the movie.
Worst part: The opening scene of the fourth act felt very out of place.
Score: 4/5

I added ads to the blog

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:16:20 +0100

Mostly out of curiosity, I added ads to the blog. I don’t know how this will play out, but it’ll be interesting to analyze whatever data I can get out of it.

I don’t expect them to make me rich. ;)

For full disclosure:
I’ve played around with the idea of having ads on minecraft.net for free players, both to encourage people to upgrade, and to get a little extra income.
In the past, I’ve been dead set on not having any ads at all, but surely there must be a reason everyone else has ads? Thus this experiment.

Film Festival Reviews. Part 9.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:12:48 +0100

Dogtooth

Two parents keep their children away from society, tricking them into believing that the world outside is dangerous and that the only safe way to leave is by car. The father takes the car to work every day, and brings back food and other things they need. The disinformation they feed the children is a great source of comedy, and that’s good since the rest of the movie is pretty intense and bleak. All sides of humanity (even if repressed and disturbing) are shown in fairly graphic detail.
I found it both shocking and refreshing to see both violence and sexuality shown on screen. Usually only violence gets shown, but sexuality gets hidden and only hinted at to the level where we as an audience find even images of bare breasts to be risque.
Either this is a result of American values dominating cinema because of the success of Hollywood, or it’s simply a result of most people not being violent so it’s easier to escape into fantasies of violence that one would never act upon than to escape into sexual themes which are much truer to what one really is like.
Who knows?
Just don’t bring your mother to this movie.
The actual plot itself feels secondary. The movie tries to make a comment on something I don’t quite understand (even despite hearing the director comment on it after the movie in a face to face), and it ends up feeling a bit over the top and weird. It’s like you’re expected NOT to get the movie. (Which, btw, is why I can’t stand David Lynch) I much prefer it when there’s something to get, but it’s well hidden.

Best part: The Elder! The most interesting character in the movie. She almost feels human.
Worst part: Nothing gets explained. Is this behavior normal in the world the movie takes place in? What happens when they grow up? Why did they end up like this?
Score: 3/5