Why I must never write a 3d application again ;-)

I was recently forced to remove references to a previous employer of mine from this very web site. Instead of just telling me directly (I asked them to tell me what they wanted removed six or seven times, via e-mail and on the telephone, for more than a month), I got a letter from their lawyer. Seems that it is really difficult to tell someone directly what's wrong. That reminds me of the "American way" of talking to people. ;-) Here's my good advice on that topic: never ever put hyperlinks to (or even names of) your previous employers into your online resume or anywhere else on your web site. Okay, there's not much point to having an online resume at all anymore, but that's obviously your problem.

Another point of interest was their claim that I was still in possession of source code that belongs to said company, which is of course untrue. Now I am forced to state that a third time - this time in a real legal document. Talking 'bout paranoia. Part of that source code is a 3d engine, which is not a big deal at all and just contains some Direct3D calls (my brother and I wrote the engine ourselves, so I know exactly what's inside). Since I was bound to an NDA that states I couldn't use any of the knowledge I learned there (which amounts to nothing, really, since there wasn't anything to learn), the lawyer informed me that I am not allowed to write a 3d application ever again. If that were correct, I guess that there's a lot of people that should be sued now around the globe. I am not a lawyer, but I believe that the 3d engine itself is a derivative works of someone else's technology (in this case Microsoft Direct3D), so it is not covered by the NDA. I'll keep you informed about the outcome as soon as I know it myself.

I think they're just angry that I left their company and removed a lot of know-how from their ranks in the process, so they try very hard to make my life as difficult as possible.

Extruding stencil volumes in hardware

There was an interesting little article on FlipCode about how to extrude stencil shadow volumes partially in hardware without having to use a vertex shader. I think it's a pretty neat trick. It involves, however, having to create a real silhouette, which is not what I'm currently doing (just a "lazy" silhouette created by duplicating every edge in a mesh and having a vertex shader extrude the neccessary edges).

Have a look at the article.

New wallpapers

It's always nice to find neat things on your hard drive. Especially when you've forgotten about them. And if they're things you can really be proud of. Well, I did. I found some wallpapers that I created a long time ago (if I remember correctly, there weren't even birds back then - or was is spaceships?). Go ahead and have a look, you can find them in the art/wallpapers menu. Oh, and please tell me what you think!

new saintBox design web site

After two months, the new saintBox design web site is finally online. saintBox is the name of the part-time company that my brother and I are running. Our flagship product is a 3D game engine called Randor#, with our first commercial game already in development. Check out the new site and tell me what you think.

New web site design finished - already!

Some hours ago I decided to create a blog. A moment later I decided that I'd need a new web site design to go along with that. Now, just five hours later, the redesign is finished. Wow - I'm sooo great! ;-)

This version is called ::cybospace_v4 because it's the fourth version of my web site. It's not that different from v2 (v3 was green, used lots of images, and was - well, green), which made the redesign rather easy. What do you think about it? Just send me an e-mail (you can find a link at the bottom for this, labelled "comments?") and tell me.

Friends from your past - never forgotten

Today I received an e-mail from an old friend of mine. She's from Hong Kong, and of course we have never met, but we were rather close back then (as close as two persons can be when they're separated by more than a handful of countries). I haven't heard from her in a while. That's partially my fault, since last time she wrote I didn't answer. Considering that fact, I'm even happier to hear from her.

Peggy, if you ever read this - I'm very proud to have you as a friend.

New web site design to come

Okay, now that I have a blog, and I want it to look integrated with my web site, I need a new design, probably for both. This would make the blog look as if it were part of my web site and possibly attract more people to it. :-)

I'm currently working on said redesign. For now you have to live with this look'n'feel inconsistency.

Like, welcome!!

Hooray! Now I have my own blog. Isn't that great? ;-)

What to expect from this blog? Hmm, I don't quite know yet. Probably a bit of everything. I'll probably post whatever is on my mind, like thoughts, poetry, technical articles (I'm a 3D and games developer), stuff like that.

Stay, like, tuned!