Avalanche in SSX: 'Survive It' Trailer

The recent SSX-'Survive It' trailer revealed the first look of the avalanche feature. My colleague and I have been working on it for a while. We were challenged by limitted performance budget, visual and dynamics target. One thing we are certainly all proud of is that the avalanche dynamics are simulated in real time. It means every avlanche you see in the game is different.

SSX 3D Globe UI: First Public Appearance in SSX Production Video

So glad to see the 3D globe UI appeared in the latest SSX production video: "Massive World Producer Video - Part #1". It took us a few good months to implement it, and we are so proud of the results that we have achieved so far. My colleagues and I are still polishing it towards the final quality.

WebGL: Water Simulation

Recently, a lot amazing work has been done with WebGL. Water Simulation from Evan was one of those. The water heightfield is simulated using a floating-point texture and the caustics are rendered using the GLSL derivative functions. Take a look if you are interested.

Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 G ED vs. AF 50 mm 1:1.8 D ( Amateur Test )

I am really tired of switching lenses. So I went out today and bought this Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 G ED from a nice lady photographer. After a few test shots, I am very impressed by its performance. So I decided to compare its image quality against my nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8 D prime lens.

Although it's not very fair to compare a prime lens and a zoom lens, it's fun to see the results. Test images were shoot at different ISOs with the same fixed manual settings on my D200. Since I am an amateur, I forgot my prime lens wasn't DX format, and shot with 18-200mm also at 50mm. This made the image frame sizes not match exactly :( But it's good enough for an amateur.

Here are the results: 50mm definitely has much better bokeh ( isn't shown in the comparison image ), but the sharpness and details from 18-200 is as good as the prime lens. Of course in this comparison, I set the aperture of both lenses to 1:5, otherwise, the prime lens will have better image result. In general, I am very happy that I bought this lens.

Photos taken in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic 2006

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

This was the first stop when we visit Czech Republic in 2006. We almost lost when we arrived, and we ended up asking for help to find where our hotel was. Later on we found German is sometimes more useful than English in this little spa city. My guess was there are a lot German Tourist, and its historical relationship with Germans since early 20th century.

Photos shot in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic 2006

Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic

This is the first batch of re-post-processed photos I shot in Europe. Cesky Krumlov is a lovely town. We stayed there for a few days in 2006, and it's been so far the greatest travelling experience we had in Europe. My wife kept saying to me that we should re-visit it and stay a bit longer.

Enable mounting of remote CD/DVDs on any Mac

My old Mac Mini couldn't read certain DVD format, so I decided to try to remotely mount the CD from another computer. MacBook Air has the remote disc integrated, however for other Mac machine, there's a trick to turn it on.

I shared the DVD on my windows 7 computer, which has Apple "DVD or CD Sharing Update" installed.
Download Link

If your Mac has Leopard or above system installed, you should have "DVD or CD Sharing Update" integrated. Otherwise, install it on your mac as well.
Download Link

On both system, go to System Preferences, and enable 'DVD or CD Sharing.

Then, on the Mac that uses the remote disc, go to a Terminal window and enter:

$ defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true
$ defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true

Reboot this machine, and when the reboot is finished, you'll see the remote CD/DVD under Devices in the Finder's sidebar. Thereafter, you can remotely mount a CD/DVD from another machine.

A German built a fully functional Sukhoi Su-27 Jet.

You know we all sometimes fix things by our own hands. I also occasionally do some work to my car. But a German, Harald Huf, made his own Sukhoi Su-27 jet.

This isn't a still model, but a fully functioning RC jet. I can't call it crazy. Because being only crazy won't let you finish a project like this. I am not only amazed by his skills but also the support from his family.

Here is a link to the project website

Glad to see my blog transfer to Blogger went smoothly

I used to host my blogs on my own website. However, I got tired of maintaining all the updates, plugins, and so on. That even made me stopped blogging for a while.

Like what happened to my self-hosted photo gallery (moved to Flickr), I decide to transfer my blogs to Blogger. If you ask why not WordPress? I have to say it's just a decision.

Only one problem in this process is Blogger can officially only import its own backups, while my old blog server uses WordPress. After some reading and testing, I chose a open source tool Blog2Blog, which works like a charm. Very glad to get the whole migration done smoothly.

Replacing the rear mid-range speaker of my 325i.

About a few weeks ago, I notice the imbalanced audio sound in my car. My early thoughts was the loose contact, but it turns out that both mid-range base in the back were broken.

Considering that letting broken speakers connected could damage my amp, I decided to replace them asap. On the other side, the performance of  BMW stock mid-range speakers is really basic, I can also take the chance to do a bit upgrade.

Unfortunately, the speakers have weird size and mounting structure. It thus become hard to find a perfectly replacement. Even there are several aftermarkt or OEM products, they are over-priced to my opinion. WTF???

After some investigatons, I decide to modify some mid level products from branded manufactors and let them to fit in my car. Finally the one I went for is Pioneer TS-A1673R, a 3-way speakers.

Here is a compare picture

(left: stock BMW speaker with paper cone, foam edge and plastic frame, righ: Pioneer speaker with  injection-molded polypropylene woofer, rubber surround, and PET dome tweeter)



Here is some pictures showing the modification

:









Results:

 It's a bit pain when I try to mount the modded speakers, as it became a bit "fat". So I have to trim down the frame a little bit. But they eventually fit in the back of the car, and I can still use the original speaker cover :)The sound is indeed improved and after the work I stayed in the car for 20 mins just listening CDs. Very happy about the cost and the quality :)   

Time to share my car wheel project with you :)

Hello my friends,

As some of you have known that I have been doing my “wheel business” for a while. It took indeed long time on finding rims, collecting tires, selling tires, and so on… I think it’s been 6 or 8 weeks.

Finally it’s all settled, and I think it’s nice to share this experience with you guys. Of course you can use it as a DIY guide if you want J

BUT, I STRONGLY suggest NOT TO DO THIS, unless you have no friends to hang out with during weekends, or really want a challenging “work out” physically and mentally.

Alright, here we go.

1)      The original wheels with dirt and a lot curb rashes :(



2)      Clean the dirt



3)      Slightly sand the surface around curb rashes



4)      Use paint thinner to remove the grease and a bit old clear paint

5) Use some filler to fill the curb damages. I used epoxy putty, my god this thing stinks and hard to handle, better use something else :(



6) Remove the extra putty before sanding



7) Sand the fixed surface until it becomes smooth



8) Phew…



9) Ready to sand the whole surface down. I tried wire brush to do a coarse sanding. But later I found it’s not a good idea, as your arms got tired it’s hard to control and I got some deep scratches :(



10) Start…



11) Fine sanding and edge sanding with sand paper, MANUALLY… :(



12) Finally it’s ready for coating.



13) Tape and mask the area you don’t want to paint



14) First of first, twice filler primer



15) Twice color coating…. Still going ….



16) Twice clear coating… phew… coating finished here.



17) Another pic with flash on



18) It’s ready to get them mounted. I decided to do caliper painting and differential oil change along with it. But I dropped the differential oil change later, as I think there’s a leak and I have to get it checked first



19) Un-mount the wheels and spray some break cleaner to remove the dirt and grease on the caliper



20) Do a further clean and sand the surface a bit. ( compare to wheel sanding, this is just a piece of cake :) ) Mask the break disc, as I don’t want to paint the disk



21) Ready to paint :)



22) Detail painting with brushes.



23) Another pic



24) The caliper paint is so so so thin, I had to paint each caliper three times. This becomes time consuming but it gave you better result. Here it is.



25)  With old wheels



26)   With “new” wheels and caliper



27)  Different angle



28) Close look



29) Make sure you have all the protection on during the work :)



Hope you enjoy this :)

Waxed my car, it becomes shinning now :)

Saturday, a good weather we have been waiting for a long time. Since it's dry, I decided to wax my car. A couple of days ago, I have bought a polisher machine, and maguires 3 step wax/cleaning set  from Canadian Tire. The reason that I chose its 3 steps set is my car hasn't been waxed for a year, and there's a lot micro dust on the paints. I need a deep pre-wax cleaning product to remove those micro dust. Although, I have the puffer, it still took me almost 5 hours to go through all the 3 steps: pre-wax cleaning, polishing, wax. Futurnately, the results is conviencing. Nice product and good work out for me.

Replaced Drum Brakes at Canada Day

It's Canada Day today, and it's a great chance to see free shows out doors. However, I am tired of being in the crowds and decided to finish the brake work for my car's rear wheels.

The work itself is much easier than I thought, even it's my first time to replace drum brakes. But the mechanism itself is more complex than disc brakes. The material we need are brand new pair of brake drums and pads, the new springs, high temp brake grease, ....., and some tools. There are may articles out there explaining how to do it by yourself, so I decided to save my words here and just post some photos for fun. (click the picture for enlarged version)

  The Old Brake Pads On the Wheel

Brakes Drum and PadsUnmounted

Old Brake Drums and Pads ( totally worn off :(  )

  The New Brake Pads

New Brake Pads Mounted

The Brand New Shinning Brake Drum

New Brake Drum Mounted. JOB DONE !!!!!!

Replaced Brake Pads and Rotors today.

About 2 months ago, I was warned that my front break pads and rotors were 99% worn out and the rear brake shoes were 95% worn out, when I got my engine oil changed at Canadian Tire. I then asked the price for the replacement, and the answer was 600 ~ 700 bucks. Harsh! I don't have that much money and I went there for oil change only because I got a free oil change voucher. Actually the pads and rotors cost way less than the full service. Then I decided to do it by myself. Fortunately, the old brake stuffs still did their job until they got replace.

Last week I went to Canadian Tire and bought 2 pair brake pads, 2 front rotors, 2 pair brake shoes, and brake spring set for about $170 after taxes. Of course I need some tools as well.

This weekend I finally got sometime to replaced the brake pads and rotors of my ride's front wheels. I'd say it's not technically difficult by physically hard. This makes me think I'd better work out every day. It might take a professional mechanic 1 hour to finish the job but I spent 5 hours on it. What a shame :(

Anyway, I am still happy to see the old, dirty, heavily worn out pads and rotors were replaced by the shinning brand new ones :) Here are some photos to keep the nice memory.

Prepare work to protect the environment.

Prepare work to protect myself :P

Jack my ride up and ready to go!!!


Wheels are removed and "My God" the old pad and rotor were totally worn out.

I removed the rear wheel as well because I will exchange the front and rear tire later.

Hehe, Shining brand new Rotor and Pads

The retired old pads and rotors.

Actually I planned to replace the rear brake shoes as well this time. However, when I take the brake drum off, I found the the drum was also heavily worn out and I didn't buy the new drum for the replacement. Normally the drum last much longer than the rotors, and it seems I just ran out of my luck this time. So I've to replace the rear brake next time. Give me a break~~~