Recent content on Transdimensional Phoenix
I want to study my centroid methodology more conveniently and later prove formally that what I came up with actually results in aligned VCRs. So I have been working on a physics model of the VHS playback - specifically the impact of mechanical aspects of playback on the RF envelope read by video heads. »> The VHS playback simulator can be accessed here «< I’m not that good at…
I found a CEA-608 encoding anomaly on the Little Shop of Horrors VHS (catalog no. 11702). At some point during the showing there is a subtitle encoded as “CANAPé” instead of “CANAPÉ” as following the style would call for. The usual style for captions is all-uppercase letters for dialog, normal case letters for whispering. A later extension (CEA-608-B) added extended italic…
Attention: this is not yet working methodology, just my drafts of what I am considering of including in the final document. While I am working on writing the centroid methodology document, I will be publishing draft sections of what I am working on. The text is intended to be followed by technical illustrations and pictures - these will be in the final document, but are not going to be included in…
Sometime during the video club operations recently an anomaly was noticed: on VCR7 BR-S800U the ideal position for tracking was off-center. Actually, multiple commercial tapes exhibited better tracking meter values for adjusting the tracking knob about 1/3rd in tracking+ direction. Because the A/C head alignment was known to be reasonably good but X-value was never adjusted before now, I assumed…
Today I will be showing Tank Girl at the video machine… but yesterday during testing the tape exhibited a particular kind of a fault: CTL counter is not advancing (which means the servo system is not sensing CTL pulses) The image is unstable (it works fine for a bit, but then snow covers the screen for a moment) Tracking meter is unstable (wobbly and unsteady suggesting that FM envelope is…
Here is an analog gremlin that appeared in the video system a couple weeks ago and has been annoying me a little. The specific issue here is very poor luma-chroma separation - crosshatching patterns and apparent ringing: First I checked if it was any form of interference - however the patterns remained regardless of the current signal chain or which equipment was turned on. This required further…
Some time ago I updated the video machine subtitle-related features, specifically: New custom CEA-608 subtitle decoder, which captures subtitles directly from the VBI waveform New custom CEA-608 subtitle encoder, which generates caption bytes that then get used by subtitle encoder hardware or can be transmitted elsewhere Added a CEA-608 to Pango markup converter and switched subtitle rendering…
In order to implement an early version of pre-rendered 2D skybox I needed to compare the skyboxes with sun enabled and disabled in order to obtain the required tinting of the sun for 2D skybox (so the sun doesn’t render on top of it, shining right through dense clouds). This system is no longer used, now a texture mask is used instead to remove stars, sun and moon and other background…
I have improved the sprite for the re-entry effect. It still needs some polishing, but now the re-entry effect looks like this up-close. It is a very simple particle-based effect implementing some basic hypersonic entry physics (just the most generic unitless heat flux + radiation model with basic burning-down). It uses very simplistic “blob” shapes as base particles (bright tip,…
Tachy, a friend of mine, helped me considerably by calculating a star catalog for the year 2994 (when the events of the game take place). Some of the stars experience a considerable drift over the 1000 years - it might not be a very important detail to most players, however it is a nice little detail to have. Here is a simple comparison between the two starfields (move mouse over the image to see…
While working on the sky system, I had a thought about adding random space debris re-entering atmosphere. It would be a really telling and interesting piece of narrative that illustrates the state of the world - in the setting of Synesthesia, in year 2994, most of the space operations have been abandoned and overall there is no organized effort to monitor space debris anymore. There are still…
(this entry is a work in progress, last updated: 2023-06-26). These are the different elements considered or planned for Synethesia. Narrative Gameplay Elements These are the gameplay elements that enhance the narrative, provide extra flavor or information to player and may be used as part of a quest. Computer terminals Similar to dialogs, but longer text replies and shorter user prompts. Computer…
Primary Gameplay Loop The primary loop is explore - cover - shoot. The player moves around complicated urban terrain, engaging human and creature enemies in tactical gunfights, managing their resources (maintaining weapons, keeping up with ammo counts, making sure equipment matches the enemies player is facing). The game is influenced by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, Fallout: New Vegas and Arma 3. The…
While working on the new pre-rendered skybox system for Synesthesia, I came up with a way to render a cloud mask that would allow masking out objects that are supposed to be located behind the clouds - since skybox is a two-dimensional opaque image, there is no “behind”, things could only possibly render in front of this image. However, with the cloud mask, objects that are rendered in…
See the previous post for more about how the skyboxes work in Synesthesia. One of the issues with the pre-rendered skyboxes is that the image of the stars in the background cannot properly rotate with the movement of sun. The stars rotate over the sky as time progresses due to the rotation of Earth. However, since the stars must be behind the clouds and the current implementation of the…
In Synesthesia, the sky is displayed by taking a skybox cubemap texture and applying it to the sky sphere surrounding the game world. This texture is pre-rendered and stored on disk, allowing the sky to be displayed at a very small performance cost. I have now improved the skybox system to support a full day/night cycle, including the smooth movement of the sun and the moon. Because each skybox…
Short Blurb In this open-world roleplaying videogame, you play as a manufactured lifeform (a synth) waking up in a world in crisis. It is a first/third person tactical shooter, your goal is to collect valuable technical artifacts and documentation to help humans revive their golden age and save their civilization. However, the old cities are now dangerous, full of industrial accidents and decaying…
I use Hugo to generate the static HTML pages for this website. One of the projects I’m working on involves a storyline which some of my friends do not want spoiled to them. So for this, I had to add a simple spoiler shortcode. This spoiler shortcode works like this: in-line spoilered content. It can be used to mask out individual phrases or whole blocks of text, as seen below.
My name is Phoenix… …and this is my personal website. Here I post articles, updates about my personal projects and anything else I want here. My interests are complex systems engineering, art, writing, programming, music, architecture, drafting and many other things. Mastodon: @phoenix@pawb.fun / E-mail: fluffy.vuuli@gmail.com