Star Citizen claims Guiness World Record - Most Crowdfunded Project Overall

Hey guys, I (kind of) got into the Guiness Book of World Records!!! (well CIG did, but I backed Star Citizen so ... =P)

Guiness Book of World Records 2015, page 17:
- Flash/HTML version
- SEO version

And this was when Star Citizen had raised $39.6 million back in March, and it's now over $55 million!!! Note that sponsorships and subscriber monies do NOT count towards the total you see on the funding goals webpage.

In the latest Letter From the Chairman, Chris Roberts describes CIG's budgeting planning, and how 'feature-creep' is actually part of the agile development process, with "creeped" features coming after Persistent Universe v1.0 release, although others may come before that since they're able to with increased funding, like higher fidelity ship models.
Go agile! (I'm glad I'm being taught Agile at my current uni, whereas I in the previous one I only touched waterfall/Vmodel. Maybe it's because I switched from hardware to software, but the idealogy should be taught/learnt anyway!)

You can also see other crowdfunded projects (also on page 16, it's a double page spread), including the pebble smartwatch (which came out before all the latest watches like Samsung, Sony and Apple's current-gen offerings). It features e-ink which is cooler and less battery draining than LED/LCD but is monochrome. I wrote about both Star Citizen and Pebble last year here. 

Nvidia launches GTX 980, GTX 970

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/maxwell-architecture-gtx-980-970



Wonder if the "Advanced Maxwell Architecture" is different to my 750 Ti's Maxwell Architecture meaning I won't get the same driver functionality nearer to its end of life .. =(
My 8400 GS is now stuck on Nvidia's 340.x Binary driver.

Ah well, with Star Citizen supporting Linux, and probably going the OGL route for that through CryEngine's Linux builds, there'll be no need for DX 12 (which nVidia promised for current cards anyway). MS is also now on board Khronos, if only for the WebGL part (since IE sucks in that department).

Also, with Khronos asking for OGL Next (or nicknamed 5.0) comments/proposals when they announced OGL 4.5, I'll be waiting until OGL 5.0 hardware comes out for my next graphics purchase. I'm glad I moved away from notebook gaming though - that was breaking the bank for less than half the performance (for similar model names' mobile versions).

The return of the ISEE 3

http://spacecraftforall.com/home


Great website with cool interactive documentary-like experience! Check it out! Also, it'll be live-streaming the fly-by of the moon in a few hours (Sunday, August 10th 10:30am PT - 12:00pm PT) , but I'll be asleep. Also includes live data anytime! =)

This whole project was crowdfunded and they (the hackers/makers) work in a hackerspace/mission-control in an old Maccas building! Lol! And with NASA's blessing =) Them talking about *SCIENCE* so much reminds me of stuff like Portal, xkcd, KSP (get them science points!) haha.

Also, great post about SoftwareDefinedRadio; been meaning to get my HAM radio callsign sometime soon ...

Also, the initial swing-bys to get to the 1st comet flown through by man is so cool and complicated, it reminded me of an epic version of this:

I mean, orbiting in one plane is hard enough to learn (in a fun way) in KSP. Add in polar plane and crazy manoeuvres and orbits like Quasi-Zenith and I have to spend more time wrapping my head around more simulations, models and reading.
P.S. My short-term goal is to build and launch a (nano)sat in one of them Quasi-Zenith orbits servicing Australia =P Hopefully I'll get to crowdfunding when I've actually done work on it xP.

1st interview published online

So another Star Citizen post. With a very Linux-y twist. Here's all the previous SC related posts.

1st interview published on web-@CzenStar:New Org Profile: #StarCitizen's own #Linux User Group http://t.co/TJms4Iur0n pic.twitter.com/7FwhkDlNVB
— V C (@pd_12) August 9, 2014

I've blogged a bit before but never have had anyone blog about me (I think ...)
Here's my first interview published online! It's about our 'org' (i.e. clan, guild, outfit, etc. in the Star Citizen universe) called "Linux Users Group", based on the LUGs around the world. (Link is to Australia, VIC LUGs but hey, that's where I am =P)

Obligatory iframe for this momentous (=P) occasion:


It'd be great for anyone interested in Linux to join our LUG org! It'd also be cool to see you in the Unofficial Linux Thread. Hope to see you around the verse!

P.S. recently re-watched some Firefly (among other things) on my new 1080p 3D TV setup with 5.1 =3

Space Update 16/7/2014

Quick Space Update =D

 

AITC installs Wombat XL

Close to (my) home, Australia is finally moving along in the space industry with our first satellite testing facility at the Australian National University! The last time I was there they didn't have the Wombat vacuum tank in the big testing room. Let's see if I can upload a picture of what I saw (great view!): on second thought, he's some pics from the AITC from when we toured there!

The room where the Wombat XL Space Simulation Facility now sits

Dang, that view (Canberra's pretty!)

Crane in the clean room

Clean room

soon-to-be vibration platform

Sometimes moving images around is so difficult, even in this WYSIWYG blogger editor I would rather LaTeX. (html layout formatting is horrible imho)
ANU hopes to test their HDLT plasma thruster there. (Past research students in the group have said their previous conclusions were "need bigger vacuum chamber", so here it is! =P)

SpaceX launches 6 OrbComm satellites, gets aproval for Texas private launch site, and passes 3 flights EELV requirement

100% mission success. Reusability testing was good (again) up until splashdown.

Flight 10 of Falcon 9 was good. All six ORBCOMM satellites deployed on target.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2014

Rocket booster reentry, landing burn & leg deploy were good, but lost hull integrity right after splashdown (aka kaboom)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2014

Detailed review of rocket telemetry needed to tell if due to initial splashdown or subsequent tip over and body slam
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2014

They got approval for their first private spaceflight facility. It even has a wiki page! This allows SpaceX to"provide SpaceX an exclusive launch site that would allow the company to accommodate its launch manifest and meet tight launch windows." Especially that rapid reusability time - land on your own launchpad, recover, reintegrate, refuel, launch without worrying about range clearance blocking you because it'd be planned already.

Also, USAF certifies SpaceX's Falcon9 3 successful flights, amid the legal battles they have had.

UK Spaceport and user roundup

Astronomy Agregator does a good UK Spaceport and reusable/SSTO/Sub-orbital round-up of the Spaceport's users and critique.
Speaking of my favourite space outlets (apart from the big ones like NASAspaceflight, spaceflightnow, space.com) I haven't been on AA or ParabolicArc or Spacevidcast in a while. I'll be happy to get back into it! =)
Spacevidcast's new show is now called TMRO ("tomorrow") and are on Patreon, so support them, because they do really great weekly shows!

Space Games

Space genre games have seen a resurgence, imho in no small part due to Star Citizen's rocketing success, and a lot of them are on Linux =D Here's updates from the biggest 2 (and my personal favourites) space games!

CIG at RSI.com on StarCitizen surpasses $48 million in funding and has almost 500k Star Citizens at time of writing! All the stretchgoals!! It doesn't look like we'll get the bagel carrier mentioned in an old WMH episode xP but we do get complete alien languages with the hiring of linguists!!!

Kerbal Space program is releasing 0.24 soon and has prepped this FAQ for us. After the NASA-partnered 0.23.5 Asteroid Redirect Mission update (with a stock asteroid grapler/claw), this is a welcome update with funds, reputation and contract functionality to further enhance the career mode! No longer will you build with unlimited money and have no repercussions of killed kerbonauts! =P I hope those interstellar mods and life support, real communication link, KOS and MFD mods still work ... Would love to do a full mission in first person!


Hurray for indies and startups! (All news items today have had a connection to this theme). Especially newspace! =)

Gaming Update & Arena Commander launched for a couple of weeks!

LoL, Dota 2 and SC2 are now collegiate sports.

Dota 2 nears 10 million prizepool money, which includes USD$8.4 million from compendium and compendium point purchases. That's $33.6 million of total compendium related revenue, and $25.2 million for Valve from compendium related revenue alone! This is getting big, just like TF2 hats =P
Current PrizePool:

Btw, Steam Summer Sale is on, get them daily/flash deals! Isthereanydeal.com is also a great website to track your wishlist and if it goes on sale on many different storefronts - it saves heaps of browsing time! 
You know Valve is doing something right when they release things gamers want (Steam Cloud, Cross platform SteamPlay, Dota2, TF2, SteamOS-Linux) and aren't shy to get it properly done and delay releases according to Valve Time, much like CIG does with Star Citizen and their DFM release. =P


Speaking of, the Star Citizen DogFighting Module has been released (launch trailer here)! It's named Arena Commander (as a in-universe combat sim game). Currently it's at v0.8, check the above link for the planned version update roadmap. Some interesting stats and tutorial videos for different control devices (m+kb, joystick) released ~24hrs after the DFM release.
Also, the most watched Star Citizen streamer on Twitch - Nyaandere - streams almost daily! (Pretty punny username if I may say so myself).

 
Alternate Launch Trailer, the one I prefer - especially with the lovely Bach Prelude 1 =P

Everyone has single player (free-flight, Vanduul swarm) access if you have the Alpha or "Arena Commander module" access. Most recently they've updated it with Hangar Patch 12.3 (which is still v0.8 for Dogfighting module/Arena Commander version numbers).
Want to know if you have multiplayer access? Check your UEE Citizen Record # on your Citizen Dossier like so https://robertsspaceindustries.com/citizens/pd12
Then match it up with the roll-out updates on https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13947-Arena-Commander-Multiplayer-Roll-Out-Begins

Also because a lot of people have been complaining that the ships' handling doesn't "feel right" CR (Chris Roberts, project director) has written up this lovely post full of the details of how they simulate and model the flight physics. It's beautiful! (And therefore obligatory iframe which doesn't work atm, someone tell me why):

Star Citizen (finally) Officially Confirmed for Linux by the man himself!

YES, Star Citizen (finally) Officially Confirmed for Linux by the man himself!!!

"... by the way, we'll gonna be supporting Linux."

"We'll be on Linux ... we like it. I think most engineers will tell you that they prefer Linux ... to Windows actually, especially in the back-end server world."

1st quote is at 21:45 (already skipped to in that video link above.
2nd quote is at 45:20 (question & answer). CR (Chris Roberts) also says "all the major engines are supporting Linux" at [47:25]. =)


Here's another great video of Linux love and DRM hate (with an interesting developer's opinion on piracy) from last year's PC Gamer panel with more indies and game devs at PAX:




Click here for a brief history of speculation of Star Citizen on Linux on my part.
And here for an article about the rise of Linux (including gaming on Linux).

Here's also a new blog I discovered covering gaming on Linux which updates fairly frequently (multiple articles per day) as opposed to steamonlinux.com
It's like Phoronix but for games! (Since Michael is a self-professed non-gamer).

Facebook Acquires Oculus Rift VR

So earlier today, we saw this: FB buys Oculus Rift for $2bil in ~300-400mil cash and rest stock and the internet has been virally complaining.
People have been massively disappointed (myself included) and posting things like "FACEbook is taking things a little too literally", with a FB logo plastered on the front of the OR, but I think our fears shouldn't make us lose hope as explained throughout this article. 

Great article analysing both sides and future outcome of things:
http://gizmodo.com/facebook-could-give-you-the-oculus-you-always-wanted-1551561433 
Some other news outlets:
http://kotaku.com/facebook-buys-oculus-rift-for-2-billion-1551487939
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/facebook-to-buy-oculus-vr-maker-of-the-rift-headset-for-around-2b-in-cash-and-stock/
Minecraft backs out of OR:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547626/minecraft-oculus-vr-cancelled

At first I was like "What. In. The. World." Mark Zuckerberg's even considering ads!?

Palmer tries to allay concerns, which is nice, but to small effect, although does confirm their independent status and FB not screwing them over like MS or Apple buying out a company and disassembling it (which was amusing for me, as most indie techs/devs probably has similar sentiments, especially supporters of Linux and open source or just people who were screwed by M$/Apple):
http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey/comments/?sort=hot

But now that OR ultimately seems to be able to operate independently and do stuff as they've always had without excessive FB intrusion like needing an FB account to connect to OR, I am cautiously optimistic again. Especially with Palmer saying stuff like: (double quoted passages are Palmer quoting redditors)

Sure, we could have made more money down the road, but this deal was not about making the most money. It was about doing the best thing for the long term future of virtual reality.

This lets us make CV1 everything we want it to be, which is going to drive much larger sales and adoption.

We defined the milestones. They are exactly in line with our prior plans.

We promise we won't change. If anything, our hardware and software will get even more open, and Facebook is onboard with that.

They are champions of open hardware and software.
Our relationship with the community is not going to change, and we are not going to spy on anyone. Feel free to rag on me if things turn out the way you predict, but you have my word that nothing will change for the worse.

However, if anyone has more control or say on ANY decision then Palmer and John do, then I'm out. They were the top, they didn't answer to anyone but the consumers.

We have had to answer to people since the Kickstarter, and even more so after raising two rounds of funding from investment partners to hire the people we need. This deal gives us more freedom to make the right decisions, not less!
Facebook has a good track record for letting companies operate independently post-acquisition, and they are going to do the same for us. Trust me on this, I would not have done the deal otherwise.

Just promise me there will be no specific Facebook tech tie-ins.

I promise.
Why would we want to sell to someone like MS or Apple? So they can tear the company apart and use the pieces to build out their own vision of virtual reality, one that fits whatever current strategy they have? Not a chance.

And:

This deal specifically lets us greatly lower the price of the Rift.

We have not gotten into all the details yet, but a lot of the news is coming. The key points:
1) We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars. More news soon.
2) We can afford to hire everyone we need, the best people that fit into our culture of excellence in all aspects.
3) We can make huge investments in content. More news soon.

And:

Nothing changes. Keep in mind that Mark Zuckerberg has publicly spoken against NSA surveillance.

is that 75-100 million dollars of VC not enough to bring the CV1 to market?

It it enough to bring a consumer product to market, but not the consumer product we really wish we could ship. This deal is going to immediately accelerate a lot of plans that were languishing on our wishlist, and the resulting hardware will be better AND cheaper. We have the resources to create custom hardware now, not just rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. There is a lot of good news on the way that is not yet public, so believe me, things will become a lot more clear over time.

Why did Oculus VR choose to risk their reputation with their core supporters in such a substantial way, before there is even a real product on store shelves?

Because it is the best thing in the long term for virtual reality, and the best thing in the short term for our core supporters. We are going to stay as community focused as we have always been! We now have the freedom to make the right decisions without worrying about short financial profit or investor returns.

Facebook is making a long term bet on VR, not a short term run on profit. We have more freedom to do what we want now that our investment partners are out of the picture.

 We are already working on our own VR game platform/launcher, but we are not going to force everything to go through it. Facebook has no interest in changing that, they believe in what we have been doing all along.

 I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift.

And:

The appeal of Oculus (as compared to Sony, for example) is because it is on a PC platform, and thus allows us, the developers, freedom over what we want to do with it.

None of that will change. Oculus continues to operate independently! We are going to remain as indie/developer/enthusiast friendly as we have always been, if not more so. This deal lets us dedicate a lot of resources to developer relations, technical help, engine optimizations, and our content investment/publishing/sales platform. We are not going to track you, flash ads at you, or do anything invasive.

The Rift is absolutely targeted towards the gaming population, which tends to be teenage to early 20s/30s, which is the exact population that Facebook is currently losing. By partnering with Facebook, you are gaining access to a massive userbase of people that the rift is not targeted towards, which people might feel is a very bad move.

Almost everyone at Oculus is a gamer, and virtual reality will certainly be led by the games industry, largely because it is the only industry that already has the talent and tools required to build awesome interactive 3D environments. In the long run, though, there are going to be a lot of other industries that use VR in huge ways, ways that are not exclusive to gamers; the current focus on gaming is a reflection of the current state of VR, not the long term potential. Education, communication, training, rehabilitation, gaming and film are all going to be major drivers for VR, and they will reach a very wide audience. We are not targeting social media users, we are targeting everyone who has a reason to use VR.

What we fear is not that Oculus will be partnering with Facebook, but that you are selling out the company to Facebook and no longer retain control over Oculus. I can say that I, personally, support Oculus because I believed in the goals and visions that you had.

This acquisition/partnership gives us more control of our destiny, not less! We don't have to compromise on anything, and can afford to make decisions that are right for the future of virtual reality, not our current revenue. Keep in mind that we already have great partners who invested heavily in Oculus and got us to where we are, so we have not had full control of our destiny for some time. Facebook believes in our long term vision, and they want us to continue executing on our own roadmap, not control what we do. I would never have done this deal if it meant changing our direction, and Facebook has a good track record of letting companies work independently post-acquisition.

If I ever need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift, I'm done. - You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift.
If I ever see Facebook branding on anything that's not optional, I'm done. - Not really reasonable in a literal sense, but I get your drift.
If I ever see ads on anything that I've already paid for, I'm done. - That is a developer decision, not our decision. If someone wants to sell a game with built-in ads, they will have to deal with the natural consequences.

I'm just wondering if OR will go public and about how kickstarters don't actually get shares in the startup ... I know some kickstarters already feel betrayed, screwed over and that OR sold out.


Update: More interesting articles -
From a VR non-believer
A positive spin on things (or devil's advocate =P)

The rise of Linux

The Downfall of Windows (xP)

So I just read (or re-read) some news about ISS laptops being changed to Linux last year (2013) as Windows XP nears its EOL in April this year with no more security or technical updates. With Windows 8 being hard to use and the UI being unfamiliar, that's prompted me to write this post instead of sneaking it in a section within another post like I normally do =P
By the way, all those Windows XP users, it's a great time to switch to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, since Win 8 users will have to familiarise themselves with a new UI anyway. WinXP/7 users would probably want to use Kubuntu/Xubuntu to have a familiar desktop environment (you can set the UI up to be almost exactly like Win XP/7). You want LTS versions because they're supported for 5 years, although you're free to upgrade to different versions anytime when they're out. (LTS versions happen every 2 years, and non-LTS versions are supported for 9 months now, instead of 18 months previously.)

The adoption of Linux in the world

So why use Linux anyway?

• It's free - as in financially and in the sense of free speech. You can freely modify and customise it to suit your needs and use it however you like!
• It's stable and reliable - updates and patches happen quickly as it's open sourced, and won't fall into the traps of things like the Mac OS/iOS SSL bug. Security by obscurity is wrong in an OS context.
• It's efficient - My Linux (Kubuntu 12.04) is pretty fast and does things faster than my Windows 7 HP 64bit, even with KDE, which is a relatively intense DE compared with things like XFCE and GNOME/forks.

In Science:

Used by people and places like:
CERN
Experiment Platforms
NASA
-MSL (Curiosity Rover)
-ISS (probably almost everything since the move to Linux on desktop laptops).

Linux in Space

United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor that supports the laptops on the ISS used the Linux Foundation to train their devs to migrate and port apps over to Linux.
Apparently they have over 140 laptops with 80 online at any time; they chose Debian 6, it being Google's choice of distribution too. They also have Scientific Linux and RHEL/CentOS on some computers already on the ISS. Robonaut R2 uses it and the ISS has used it since Linux started, but rarely on the desktop PCs.

We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable — one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust, or adapt, we could.

ZING! Apparently they have faced a few random crashes (probably BSODs lol) and in 2008 had some virus infect the ISS LAN.

Consumer Devices:

Android (kernels are being merged, and hopefully completely in a few years)
Tesla Model S

So why is adoption important at all? I think it's especially important in gaming where the catch 22 can clearly be seen - 'everyone' uses Windows to game, so game devs only build for Windows and so 'everyone' has to use Windows to game. So when devs have this alternate option instead of being locked into Windows (and perhaps DirectX), they can build for it and the Linux gaming community can back them and get rid of this catch 22 problem. Things like the humble bundle clearly show the Linux community is ready to throw money at devs who make games for Linux.

In Gaming:

Wow, GDC 2014 just prompted announcements of Linux support everywhere!
And look, someone else did a great article about the rise of Linux gaming! =)
While Phoronix downplays (or is disappointed by) the interest in Linux at GDC, it's a great improvement, from having 0 Linux announcements at GDC to having a Linux presence with SteamOS, CRYENGINE, AMD, etc. Valve's SteamOS and Steam for Linux official release announcements were only last year, so AAA devs haven't had time to announce and demo Linux games at GDC yet - but we've already seen heaps of indies get onboard. Like a Phoronix forum user said:

We have gone from "it would be cool to have a game on Linux" to "omg the next-gen CryEngine with its OpenGL 4.3 renderer might not be perfectly ported".

Game Engines: Unity,
Unreal (announced 19/3!),
CRYENGINE (dev tools, CrySDK coming to Linux),
Source & Source 2,
Leadwerks (and the editor/IDE is on Linux thru Kickstarter too!)

Game Publishers: Steam On Linux (on a sidenote, Valve wants to move from Greenlight to a more easy self-publishing system where any dev can post something),
Desura,
 GOG.com (announced 18/3) 

Consoles/Hardware:
SteamOS, Ouya/Android, Oculus Rift

Games & Devs: Steam Library Catalogue, Upcoming games on Steam,
Devs liking OpenGL and freedom of Linux and hating Windows restrictions.
Recent announcements of games on the PC usually announce on Linux in addition to Windows.
GabeN also said devs like Linux! =)

Valve: check out these awesome vids at Steam Dev Days 2014 (where there are a whole lot more Linux and VR related stuff including):
Getting started on Linux (incl Myth-busting),
Valve seriously supporting and working on moving to OpenGL exclusively,
Modern OpenGL reducing Driver Overhead (by nVidia which looks like their portion of the GDC talk below).

Vendors: nVidia, AMD, Intel @ GDC "Approaching Zero Driver Overhead", nVidia sponsored video posted in the future. There'll probably be more news from them with the GPU tech conference in the next few days as well.
AMD plans to open-source kernel space driver support, while keeping user-space binaries for their Catalyst driver (so they can keep their "secret-sauce" optimisations away from prying eyes of nVidia). AMD roadmap/info summary from GDC here; I'm not feeling as much love as I was hoping, but tbh I mostly just care about GFX performance and that means high performing nVidia drivers, even if they're binary blobs. 


On a related note, check out all the awesome vids from Steam Dev Days (click for PDFs, etc.)! They have at least 4 talks related to Linux and OpenGL (including debugging hehe)!

Updated: 24/3 to include links to latest Phoronix wrap-up articles. 

BREAKING: CryEngine on Linux Officially CONFIRMED (and therefore Star Citizen =P)

Yes, after years of speculation, Crytek has announced that CRYENGINE will finally officially build natively for Linux.
Here's the excerpt pertaining to Linux:

During presentations and hands-on demos at Crytek's GDC booth, attendees can see for the first time ever full native Linux support in the new CRYENGINE.  The CRYENGINE all-in-one game engine is also updated with the innovative features used to recreate the stunning Roman Empire seen in Ryse – including the brand new Physically Based Shading render pipeline, which uses real-world physics simulation to create amazingly realistic lighting and materials in CRYENGINE games.

I first learnt about his when someone posted to the Star Citizen forums of a thread I was following. 
Obligatory Phoronix post. 

My speculation history to date:
Just recently Star Citizen advertised Kingdom Come: Deliverance which utilised the same CRYENGINE and promises a Linux port.  It's triply funded on Kickstarter now!
Remember in this post I talked about that Linux programmer position they were hiring for Frankfurt (Crytek HQ) as proof of "almost fully official" Linux builds? Filled.
Or that time Chris Roberts said in the 24 hour livestream for Star Citizen that they can't say anything about non-Windows builds yet but Linux (and Mac) users will be "pleasantly surprised"?
And then me wondering about it here?
And these posts were a year after I read Phoronix' article back in 2012 where I first speculated about CryEngine on Linux. Of course, at that time I thought the more the merrier, but in 2013 Star Citizen changed that thought into "Come out on Linux already!"

Linux is complete with gaming rant
Yes, you're getting another (slightly reworded) one ;P
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal and CRY Engines being native on Linux, games ARE moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game -Star Citizen- is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop.
Games I also like and play on Linux are: Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series, Bastion, Killing Floor, Gemini Rue, Dust, Monaco, Surgeon Simulator, and an ever increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability on Linux is a deciding factor. I also find I can usually get a good old game on Windows that wasn't built for Linux working on Wine. Especially with WineHQ database and PlayOnLinux. =P

The past year has been - and the next few years will be - very interesting for Linux =)

_________________________________________________________________

Star Citizen Update!

So they just reached $40 million and every backer who pledges/pledged before the $42million mark will get a special Galactapedia (Hitch Hiker's Guide, if you will) viewer. They'll also get a TOWEL! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! xD

Also, since I've done an SC update on this blog, a lot of things have happened - they're at patch 11.1 with OR support in the Hangar Module; check out the stretch goals, which are just examples of the ways SC improves with the money and were usually planned long ago.
Also check out their new monthly reports (link to Feb 2014) for those of us who don't have time to follow every website post.

And they now have 3 update videos every WEEK:

• Monday - 10 for the Chairman where Chris Roberts answers 10 questions from subscribers (monthly pledgers of $10/$20).
• Wednesdays - Wingman's Hangar (now moved to Wednesdays; the original development update show). 
• Fridays - The Next Great Starship, a kind of reality TV show featuring a competition for teams to make the next starship in Star Citizen with the judging and feedback of some folks from CIG (Cloud Imperium Games, RSI's real-world company name)!

Also Jump Point print copies are available, they look gorgeous! They're also a great example of how the folks at CIG tend to over deliver on promises and are always looking for the good of the game and the players - they promised 4-6 full colour pages of magazine format development updates for monthly subscribers and now they're averaging 50 pages a month! They've released some past Jump Point sections  to everyone before, check it out on their website (link goes to all slideshows in Comm-Link)! Check all their WIPs and Jump Point stuff at the link.

Can't wait to try the Dog Fighting Module after PAX East in mid-April!


Last Updated: 2014-03-16 06:39:53 AM AEDT; corrected Jump Point frequency to "monthly", added a few links.

KSP: Multiplayer and Squad's backstory

So at Porygron or Polygon, they had a really well written and good insight into the company that is Squad and how KSP came to be. Obligatory iframe:


or just click here: http://www.polygon.com/features/2014/1/27/5338438/kerbal-space-program

Go dreams, crowdfunding (thru early access model), doing what you love, and space! Also, do what NASA wants to do with asteroids in KSP (coming soon)!


So still no multiplayer announcement I can see, but NASA project confirmed:
http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/74888946036/devnote-tuesdays-the-almost-forgot-to-title-this

Dev blogs on tumblr ... hmm... anyway, I have a tumblr too in case you were wondering, check out the "about me" page.

AMD Mantle

Having announced all their new value/bang for buck Volcanic Island cards - with one being reviewed by Phoronix here - AMD/ATI have now announced their new Graphics API Mantle.

It pretty much replaces OpenGL and DirectX, giving developers a closer, lower level access to the graphics card chips and such. This being similar to NVAPI and Glide from 3dfx. Firstly heard it from Star Citizen, which will be supporting it, characteristic of it supporting all cool advancement in PC technologies like the Oculus Rift. What this means is considerable improvement in GPU utilisation, and hopefully a Linux client via Mantle. There could also be a PS4 version if Sony lets CIG do their stuff on it, how they like. Here's some more info:


However, John Carmack (now at Oculus VR) says OpenGL can reach that (9x faster draw calls) performance, when utilising extensions from nVidia. Speaking of Oculus, a post about that should come somewhat later. =)

There should be a lot more info released during the AMD Conference on the 11th-13th this month.

Ubunchu ch.08 and PSA: Sudo powers

Here's a double release of art projects geared towards new(ish?) users/discoverers of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution.

Ubunchu chapter 8 typeset by me took a year (lol, I had no schedule and it was very on-off, next time I'll schedule it properly so I don't forget what I was doing). It's my first official type-setting/translation manga release, hope you like it. =) I was going to try and perfect it but because the project dragged on so long I thought I should just try and quickly push it out and release/ship it.
Ubunchu is about a school club in a Japanese high school which is tinkering with Ubuntu.
Read the whole series (and a better synopsis) here: ubunchu.net
My latest release (ch8): on google drive - zip of PNGs (click File -> Download),

        Shared folder here - DL in PDF (recommend you DL the zip of PNGs instead and use MComix to read get MComix1.00), 

        and on the ubunchu website (when it gets uploaded there someday).

Getting to work on an open sourced manga/project like this one is pretty nice. Especially without having to clean 'scans' using levelling, and other more sophisticated techniques. xP All of it was done in GIMP which is open source and is also available on windows due to GTK magic (but it feels nicer on my Kubuntu). I've never used photoshop properly (to a certain extent) but I can say GIMP is competitively advanced and has nice plugins too. Mostly used Blambot's fonts - free for non-commercial use.

Also would be nice to get a Wacom tablet/ergonomic mouse/SteamController (check out this demo vid!), I get RSI with at least my index finger when using conventional mice. Currently use a trackball for everyday use, but gets annoying since it doesn't have a scroll wheel. Steam controller definitely looks promising since my HKD20 PS-like controller definitely has bad resolution, and I don't imagine my PS controllers or the XBox ones will be much better. Although having fond memories of my Saitek joystick (which is so old it used a serial or parallel connection), I might use that for Star Citizen, although I'll have to test the Steam Controller first, like how I tested the OR. Which reminds me, Oculus Rift post coming soon =)

[Linux is complete with gaming rant]
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal game Engines being native on Linux as well as CryEngine soon, games seem to be moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game (Star Citizen, which has gained 4mil in crowdfunding since I last blogged about last month - 1.5mil of which was from the last 4 days) is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop. It's on CryEngine 3, so can't wait for that to build natively for Linux.
We've got Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series and an increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike natively on Linux already or coming. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability is a deciding factor. These next few years will be very interesting for Linux =)

[/rant]

Here's the PSA (it's related to Ubunchu ch.8), sad to say I learnt this the hard way one too many times:




_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Came across an interesting blenderguru post about why and how Blender's UI is broken and the principles of making good UI, how Blender can be fixed. The folks who made Unity should have a look =P [Sincerely, KDE/XFCE user]

UPDATE: Blenderguru made a video with suggestions, here it is!


=)

Valve and AMD reveals

So Valve has revealed their SteamOS a couple of days ago which is based on Linux, so it's pretty much a Linux distro. It will be a living room entertainment OS, so think console+xbmc combined. It is also free and open source!
Today, they also revealed SteamBox, and are offering 300 beta units for testers to be randomly selected, as long as you earn the Steam Hardware badge level 2.Unfortunately, actual specs are not disclosed, although they are saying the system is open, and you can upgrade individual components (like a PC!), as well as being free to install any OS on it or turn it into a robot! Gotta love Valve and their open/hacker/community culture. First open console since the PC =P. They are also claiming to have different boxes available in 2014 from different vendors, so PC and linux gaming seems to be ever on fire and advancing, thanks in no small part to Valve! [S2] (companion cube). It's great to see games like Dota 2, L4D2, Kerbal Space Program, X3: Albion Prelude and Guns of Icarus Online (and hopefully the Crytek 3 Engine soon) on Linux!
In a couple of days, Valve will reveal something else. Using symbols 'O' as the SteamOS reveal, and '[O ]' as the SteamBox reveal, they are revealing something along the lines of 'O+O'. They've already suggested streaming video from your gaming PC to the steambox via LAN, and family sharing for games, but it could be something different. Check the reveal here below in 33 hours:



AMD has revealed their newest line of GPUs at every price point, and personally I'm rooting for them as they are actually supporting open source linux driver development. Unlike a certain competitor which only releases binary blobs, although they run alright. In the livestream other game devs were also featured as were a lot of audio technology.
Check out Star Citizen's Chris Roberts at 1hr 44minutes of the livestream and some new hangar module features! (And an Aurora take off sequence in the new trailer demo!). It's also set to break 20 million in crowdfunding within 24 hours. See you in the 'verse!

Watch live streaming video from amdlivestream at livestream.com

KSP update 0.22

Kerbal Space Program is one of the funnest games ever, superseding The Sims and will probably take 2nd place in my all-time favourite game list, after Tribes 1. That is, until Star Citizen comes out and dominates the list. I love the open and mod-able, community driven aspects of this game. =)

This most recent update finally gives the option of inserting sub-assemblies to new designs, so you can finally import 2 assemblies/designs from different saved designs without having to build from scratch! Kind of like importing parts into a CAD assembly. I have no more excuse to not play this game (it's on Linux! via Unity =D) ... although uni study beckons Dx



Also, an abridged list of stupid things that I have done (a full list would be way too long). These are rookie mistakes which experience, if not proper systems engineering would (hopefully) have mitigated.

• Not realising you forgot to put parachutes on your spaceship until you've re-entered the atmosphere
• Using all your fuel to achieve a high orbit and realising your Kerbonauts are now stranded ... hope they're not hungry
• Forgetting to activate solar panels once in orbit so your spacecraft (a planned addition to a collection of spaceships docked together forming a "space station") runs out of electrical charge. It's also unmanned so can no longer be controlled. Recovery mission is being planned (yes, one is also being planned for my stranded Kerbonauts, though admittedly with much lower priority xD)

And there we have our top 3 "oh crap, I'm so stupid" moments so far =)
The game has also prompted learning of orbital mechanics and stuff and is a great companion to: The Basics of Spaceflight - brought to you by JPL, "we do everything cool".

Star Citizen Hangar Module!!! (Patch 3)

Star Citizen, currently at >USD18mil in crowdfunding, getting past the halfway point of the ambitious Ubuntu Edge's goal. I've been screenshot-ing the daily pledge amount graph so analysis can be made later, but currently it's averaged >1mil/month since March, and in the 7 days during Hangar reveal it raised >1mil.

So after reading this forum thread detailing how someone ran Star Citizen's Hangar Module (a pre-pre-alpha) on a DirectX10.1 card, I was totally excited because before I thought I might need an eGPU. Star Citizen runs on CryEngine 3 and officially needs DX11 (and probably some high OpenGL level once Crytek supports Linux - hope they get a good hire). However, now I can wait for later to buy a new rig/Graphics card and get the best bang for buck =D Will probably be using a desktop > laptop to play this intense game though.

The graphics here look amazing!! And I loved the holo-table and being able to sleep in my RSI Aurora! =D I played this on low settings with a resolution of 1280x720 but I'm guessing my FPS was below 10. Maxed my GPU (GT330M) on my Samsung R580-JS02AU with i5-520M and 8GB DDR3.

Originally my GPU was overheating at ~100C and decided to turn my computer off when that happened (although I don't know how I was doing constant 105C while gaming last year before I took apart my laptop and cleaned it, reducing temperatures by ~20C (should make a post about that sometime with all the pics =P).
This time, I opted for the quick airduster into the fan intake, ejecting some dust and that seemed to cool the GPU down 10C so it hovered around 90C during gameplay.
Was doing dual screen 1366x768 and 1280x1024 had Star Citizen windowed at 1280x720 and used Greenshot. Afterwards I realised I could've just used FRAPS and got FPS data. -Facepalm-.

Here is a link to my album, and a slideshow of shots I took:

Star Citizen Hangar Module Test, Patch 3, 8/9/2013

Ubuntu Edge ... Final Hours

While I posted about Ubuntu Edge before, It's at the final hours (17) of the campaign and with only 12.25mil and just under 20mil to go, it doesn't look very likely this crowd-funding campaign will reach its goal.

At the discounted price of $695/phone, that is now 46k units instead of 40k units, which is a decent manufacturing run, although I'm not sure on the exact numbers in the economical analysis of these things.

Spec-wise, and functionality-wise it trumps anything in that price-range, Xperia Z or HTC One. Unfortunately, probably due to inadequate advertisement/social media-ring and just not enough people ready to upgrade/commit (a lot of the early adopters may have already bought something this year like the previously mentioned phones), the campaign won't be breaking crowd-funding records like Star Citizen's record breaking crowd-funding dollars.

Still, 12mil is pretty respectable, it was 11mil yesterday and comes close to the 14.6 mil that Star Citizen had when I posted about Ubuntu Edge before (see previous blog post link). Right now Star Citizen has a whopping 15.7mil and growing everyday. Hangar module comes out 24th August at GamesCon, so can't wait to see the news and test it.
I hope they release something like an OpenGL version soon because apparently it'll be DirectX11 and my GT330m doesn't have that support T_T. Also, recent look at ATI's open source driver support leans me towards getting an ATI graphics next time. These nvidia binary blobs sometimes screw up and took me an hour to get my 319 driver working with Linux 3.8 and jockey -_-.



P.S. So for Systems Engineering Analysis (ENGN2226) I get to look at nanosats woot.

It's (almost) Fully Official!!! -CryEngine on Linux

Steam for linux just reported that Crytek are hiring Linux Devs to maintain their Linux support for CryEngine. 
Yep, this means more quality games on Linux and Star Citizen for Linux almost 100% confirmed. 

Hmm interesting to note they prefer C++ as the OO language ..

Is this the announcement that Chris Roberts was wanting to make but couldn't make just yet that would happily surprise Linux and Mac gamers?

Phoronix's article here. Apparently the source Phoronix had for the early CryEngine Linux rumour was recommended to Valve by Phoronix!
Previous CryEngine Linux rumour post here.

I read Phoronix's article on the CryEngine port before, but although I do have more than 50% confidence in Phoronix, it was still the only source I could find on the net before I got excited at the Wii U getting support.
To me, I think Phoronix is like the Parabolic Arc of the computing world (and Parabolic Arc the Phoronix of the space world). Great early fan-news blogs!

Linux is totally picking up pace =3

Star Citizen wows everyone (funding, backers, economy!)

 Funding Update

This week has been o.O for Star Citizen, pushing through the 12mil and 13mil and looking to push through 14mil in the next 24 hours (they're 40k away).

On the 29th June (pre-livestream), the numbers were $10.926mil and 198k citizens.
After the livestream, we were at $11.7mil and 200.3k citizens
On the 5th July, we were at $12.9mil and 206.5k citizens.
At writing, we are at $13.9mil and 210.5k citizens.

This whole grace period after the new website, and 24 hour livestream has generated >$3mil in just 1 week; now the grace period is over, LTI (lifetime insurance, no need to periodically insure your ship ingame with ingame credits) ships are now no longer available (unless you're an original campaign backer, who are able to get LTI and packages till November 2013).

With the hangar module coming out in late August, and dog-fighting module coming out December this year, Star Citizen seems like it will never run out of momentum =P Still, there's almost 1.5 years till final release, but if it takes $21mil to fund this game (as Chris Roberts has approximated), we're 2/3 of the way there already.

The ECONOMY

It's the economy, guys =)
Seriously though, we know Valve hires economists for their micro-transactions and in-game cosmetic items, but I wonder if CGI has hired any just for their universe economy and future micro-transactions. This preliminary sketch of the universe economy simulation/modelling and the physics - rigid body simulation and detail they have in this game remind me of those physics modelling we did with Mathematica/Matlab and step sizes xD.
This is like my dream game come true, achieving all I ever wanted a spacesim to be like: persistent universe, walking around instead of stuck in a cockpit, MMO, player actions affect universe, good simulation and detail -nerdgasm-.

Check out its full glory below:

ARKYD Funded & Apple buys Samsung products?

So ARKYD, the Space Telescope for everyone was successfully funded at $1.5mil, and they hosted a livestream broadcasted by spacevidcast (woot!), I'm sure you can see my comments during the livestream if you look hard enough =P

You can still join in the fun (pledge & get rewards) with the grace period: http://www.planetaryresources.com/arkyd-newsletter-signup/
I wonder if I'll actually get time on this telescope (without pledging enough for reward on time) as a student ... Was hopeful about Ardusat (1st kickstarter for me). 

Also, check out the sweet $99 pledge deal, you get planetary annihilation (a previous kickstarted game) and Richard Garriot/Lord British was backing it too! (He's so well connected, space tourist, Star Citizen friend, etc.)

Wish DSI did something like this. They seemed like the ones who would do something like this ... good thing PR got the ball rolling =)

- Break -

So I didn't know this before, but apparently Apple uses Samsung chips in their devices. As Samsung's biggest (read $billions/year) customer. Lol. #USPO&IPsucks