New look and new files!

I've been having doubts about the efficacy of the yellow backgrounds that I've been using for most of the October's updates. I am firm believer that the best websites highlight true contents and not evasive pretty looks. And nothing reads better than black on white, or vice versa.

So I am back to the good old white #FFFFFF background, and I've decided not to board the current trend for plug-in sites, that don't work unless you have the plug-in installed... The only technologies that I will support are the ones with a strong, undeniable future, such as JAVA.

Despite that, I feel that my web now delivers contents enough to justify more links, than the mere references to the previous updates, thus the look you are seeing, where every feature is organized in three columns: picture + article + related links.

I think this is a great option, but I would like to hear from you! E-mail me.

I will try to update ALL my satellite websites in the next 24 hours, so stay very tuned...

APAA - I am working on a design that will allow frequent updates to APAA

APR - Alain Prost Racing will be integrated / assimilated by ArturMarques.com, but there still is no proper fusion

audiopt.com - audiopt.com is an independent domain on its very first weeks - expect ~100 pictures for its next update, in a few hours time...

smg - Sarah Michelle Gellar is very hormonal... This is PP's sites, and he does promise novelties...

Meanwhile, check the shortest PC gaming history, the Age of Empires 2 feature, and a new computer project!

PC Gaming - The shortest story ever written

When the first games for Windows appeared, gamers of short sight complained of how stupid it was to bet on an OS that clearly didn't allow proper access to hardware. For example, when Microprose's GP2 was the best racing simulator you could buy, the most impressive piece of action entertainment available for Windows, was a version of Doom 2, that was barely playable even with high end hardware, while the DOS version delivered fast "3D" regular machines...

The DirectX API was maturing, and people with a minimal knowledge of multimedia architectures, could really understand that something big was on the way. In a few weeks time, Microsoft kicked the Games' Industry with two revolutionary products: Monster Truck Madness [MTM] and Sidewinder devices...

MTM was a showcase of something called Direct 3D, with Direct Sound sounds and Direct Input reading of control devices! So many new technologies! Surprisingly it was / is also incredibly playable... and fast... and it with such nice and unusual features as multiplayer support over IPX protocol... MTM was really jaw dropping, and even tech ignorant gamers started to understand that DOS was plain dead. With the advent of DirectX, no one would ever invest on old tools and write games dependent on hardware. Hardware dependency was old news. From now on, software could be written from an higher level, leaving the compatibility issues to the DX team.

Nowadays Windows is the best gaming OS you can find. In fact, it is so great, that Microsoft is planning an entertainment console that will use its portable version - Windows CE - plus the DX7 API, and fight against the heavy weight Playstation 2! If the Project X console comes true, the Japanese are going to need a huge shift on their approach to the console market, traditionally limited to NINTENDO, SEGA and SONY proposals.

Yet, on a world where people try to arrange combats wherever imaginable [Windows vs Linux; Bill Gates vs God;...], there is a tendency to NON neutrality, meaning that no matter their products, software / hardware authors are @ risk of being evaluated on just the light of the label that makes their work available

For example, no matter how brilliant & precocious MTM was, many gamers were still underestimating Microsoft, saying that the game was no more than a tech demo.

OK, but then came Age of Empires...

Age of Empires 2 - The Age of Kings

Age of Empires [AoE] is a real time strategy game that delivers the most interesting multiplayer sessions and very defying skirmish missions. On its original release, AoE didn't allow the player to tweak the computer's "intelligence", but patch 1.1 introduced the possibility to eliminate populations' size limit and manual choice of the accuracy of the path finding algorithms.

In AoE you have to grow a civilization from stone age to the iron age, in a world of limited resources: food, wood, stone and gold aren't forever and they are needed to build new units, new structures, and for the investigation of new technologies. You are not alone in the world - there are other civilizations, your friends OR your foes... You can trade, you can give and you can fight. There is diplomacy, there is a tech tree and nearly everything you can find in harder core alternatives, such as Civilization, but in a sexier fashion.

The AoE's multiplayer games are amazing and can last for hours. A typical 4 players game can have over 400 units on screen, each doing its own business: agriculture, fishing, hunting, cutting trees, mining stone, mining gold, fighting or just waiting an opportunity to act. The programmer's approach to the game is also very interesting: in order to deal with exponential growth of complexity that a typical top down coding brings, there was a shift towards the concept of intelligent software agents, although not in a very formal way.

Now, AoE 2 arrives! The BETA testing - as referred 25 July 1999 - is done and the software is delivered. The questions are: what's new? is it better? how much better?

There are many novelties in AoE 2, but not as many enough to make it a really new game. And that is a good thing, since the AoE style is very unique and nearly perfect on the balance it achieves between realtime interaction and solid strategy.

You get better looking graphics, a default of up to 75 units per civilization, more units, more buildings, more options per unit, female units, faster gameplay, better maps, much greater importance of relics [that will auto provide you with gold...], spectacular and effective attack & defense formations, more natural farms [units can walk over them], and much greater relevance of the way you build your protections. Buildings are harder to destroy, fights tend to last more, and badly planned aggressive raids can bring you very severe defeats.

AoE 2 improves a lot in both looks and gameplay, but AoE 1 gamers will only really feel that, deeper into the game. The two-button mouse interface is unchanged, but for those who like keyboard shortcuts, there are literally dozens of re-definable actions.

I am just starting with AoE 2. There is a superb tutorial, where you take the cause of William Wallace, aka Braveheart! That does touch me. Check about Braveheart day 10 March 1999.

Humanoid, à la VRML

Me and my friends Carlos Ferreira and Miguel Antunes, under guidance of João Pereira, did a cool humanoid on VRML97... The project is a candidate to be presented @ the 9th portuguese meeting on Computer Graphics [nono encontro português de Computação Gráfica], to be held @ Marinha Grande, on February 2000.

For now, you can only download the final BETA of the proposed paper, but in a few days time, the whole project will be available for your VRML' pleasure.

So, go to the Computer Projects page and check it out.