@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

TomF

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place

Graphics coder and HW architect, currently at Rec Room, previously at Muckyfoot, RAD Game Tools, Valve, Oculus and Intel.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar
  1. Get a MSTeams meeting invite.
  2. Install Teams. Easy!
  3. Test Teams. Video works. Audio works. Easy!
  4. Close Teams.
  5. wait 30 minutes until meeting starts.
  6. Run Teams.
  7. ...er... Teams?
  8. Close Teams, reopen Teams.
  9. Taskkill Teams, reopen Teams.
  10. Fuck it, dial in with a phone 5 mins late.

Thanks for helping, Teams!

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@AngryAnt I felt so smart for being diligent and testing everything worked beforehand. Didn't want to look like an incompetent amateur! Alas...

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

huh. turns out if you write unit tests you can catch a lot of bugs. who knew!

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko Holistic tests >> unit tests.

rygorous, to random
@rygorous@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

TFW there is a fire alarm test tomorrow morning despite there being an actual fire alarm last week

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@rygorous As soon as you give up and go in, the alarm will go off. It's inevitable.

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I have two screens I use for work, a big 4k screen that's front and center, and a smallish 1080p screen that's off to the side. The small screen has only my work communications, always visible, because otherwise I'll miss them. Notifications are useless for me. Everything else goes on the big screen in front.

This is a new arrangement which puts most of my work in a position that's very good for my posture & has been doing wonders for clearing up my pain problems

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Any single posture is bad. We're humans - we're not meant to be still. Gotta keep moving, keep stretching those muscles. Set an alarm, take frequent breaks, etc.

(I believe that "ergonomic" chairs are terrible for this reason - they make you adopt the same posture every time. No! You need 10 different postures!)

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva I've never tried one, but the concept seems fine. I did use a kneeling chair for a while, but same problem - it basically forces a single position. Yes it's a good position, but it's a single position.

I used to use a Swopper. They're fantastic. They encourage you to bounce around like it's a frikkin space-hopper. Downside is it's pricey. Also, the wheeled version is... odd. So if you have multiple keyboards/monitors you have to move between a lot...

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Now I use a crappy old office chair with wheels, with lumpy old seat padding, and I've removed the back and armrests so it's really just a stool. This is moderately uncomfortable in all positions, so I fidget a lot, rotate the bottom, sit at strange angles, get up and make a coffee, etc. It's perfect!

I realise this is very eccentric, and partly adapted to my own physiology of being a rower, but it's a demonstration that other approaches can work just fine.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhvINHW9nG0

Their tops are made out of rubber.
Their bottoms are made out of springs.
They're bouncey, trouncey, ouncey, pouncey
Fun fun fun fun fun!

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

there's finally movement on our cyprus residency stuff and i'm a ball of stress and anxiety because of all the trauma from having to deal with US immigration in the past 😞

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@clarfonthey @eniko Of course the only thing worse than trying to enter the US is trying to leave the US...

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko @clarfonthey Right. And they chase you for tax for years after. By comparison when I moved UK->US the UK just said "oh you live there now? Byeeee!"

kruemel, to random

Here is one for the true connoisseur. Thought maybe people like @janbeta or other retro enthusiasts would get a little chuckle out of my small weekend photo project made at @daslabor. Drew a little inspiration from some 80s perfume ads.

I am considering having stickers printed. Needs some work tho b/c the font does not lend itself well to small printing, as I learned from a small test batch.

BTW, this particular capacitor came out of an old lab centrifuge.

image/jpeg
image/jpeg

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@kruemel @janbeta @daslabor
Perfect! Reminds me of the classic car equivalent. The Lucas company were somewhat infamous as maker of shonky electrical fittings. Some say their corporate motto was "get home before night" - which was a threat, not a promise.

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Oooh - a lightbulb went on about judder. I was clamping to 30fps by flipping the screen, then waiting until two Vsyncs until the last flip. THIS IS WRONG.

The problem is if your render was taking 40ms and just dropped to 30ms, the flip will happen a frame early - but just once! Then when it goes back to 40ms, the flip will happen a frame late. So there's a slight judder every time the frame render time changes.

If you wait THEN flip, it fixes the problem and it's lovely and smooth. Derp.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva You ask the impossible.

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

is a powerful beast! Aliens & player done by blitter, parallax background layers with streaming tileplanes, and bullets & sparks done with sprites.

Almost runs at 60fps, but drops during hectic stuff, so will be a VERY solid 30fps even with extra fripperies.

(and yes, all the graphics are ahem borrowed placeholder right now - will be replaced in due course)

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@jakesimpson It's a 12MHz 68000. Think of it as the love-child of an Amiga and a MegaDrive (but with a bunch of crufty bits removed, and no frikkin bitplanes!)

Dev environment is Windows/VisualStudio/C, and there's a bunch of libraries to help you rip data out of PNGs and "burn" them into sprites etc in the "ROM". Very coder-centric, everything's in C, no GUI or whatever. Cycle-counting and racing the beam is absolutely encouraged! I think you'd like it.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@krisso @jakesimpson Soon(TM). I honestly don't know - I'm mainly the alpha-tester here and doing some of the blitter work - this is really @eniko project. I try to tag everything with

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Mac users are constantly going on about how much better it is then when they have to use ugly klunky Windows to get stuff done.

Windows users never do this. Because they've never had to know or care about Macs.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

WebGPU, the new graphics API for JavaScript, shipped in a stable web browser (Chrome 113) about… an hour ago!

I have written a blog post about it, covering a brief (okay, not brief) history of graphics APIs to situate WebGPU in a context, a brief general guide to writing WebGPU, and some specific resources for making WebGPU projects in TypeScript, Rust, and C++ (you can use it on desktop! it doesn't have to be in a browser).

I think WebGPU is really good.

https://cohost.org/mcc/post/1406157-i-want-to-talk-about-webgpu

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva @aras @mcc Literally everybody. The goal of VK/DX12 was to stop the driver doing significant work, and let the software folks do the significant work instead. Well... you have to admit - Mission Accomplished!

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

What's everybody's favourite Mastodon client for Android?

llamasoft_ox, to random
@llamasoft_ox@toot.wales avatar

Owen has eaten my parsnips.

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@llamasoft_ox I'm happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.

TomF, to random
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Retro games are so damn FUN to make. Even a fool like me can make a pleasing experience.

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

Making games is so hard y'all

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@MoistHorse @eniko Software is never finished, it is abandoned.

aeva, to random
@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

I saw a physical therapist today! Also I may have referred to the spine as a "PEZ dispenser" 😎

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@aeva Good! "Use it or lose it!" :-)

nivrig, to random
@nivrig@mastodon.social avatar

If you have a problem... if no one else can help... and if you can find them... maybe you can hire...

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@nivrig Now I can hear BOTH THEME TUNES AT ONCE.

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

god i hate excel

TomF,
@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@eniko Noooo... my favourite baby!

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • tacticalgear
  • DreamBathrooms
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • Youngstown
  • everett
  • anitta
  • slotface
  • GTA5RPClips
  • rosin
  • thenastyranch
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • Leos
  • modclub
  • osvaldo12
  • Durango
  • khanakhh
  • provamag3
  • cisconetworking
  • ngwrru68w68
  • cubers
  • tester
  • ethstaker
  • megavids
  • normalnudes
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •