Planet Blender

Weekly update December 28-January 10
Freestyle integration into Blender - 2010-01-10 19:33:20

During new year holidays, the development on the Freestyle branch was quiet as the dev team was looking into the longstanding instability issues regarding the view map creation.  As described in the previous blog post, the main cause of the instabilities concerning the view map constructoin was a bug in the previous image-to-world inverse transformation algorithm.  In [...]

Quick Tip: Creating Procedural Noise Textures that are Stable During Animation
Blender Newbies 3D Video Tutorials (Learn to Create 3D Graphics with Blender!) - 2010-01-10 16:57:00




In this quick tip, we’ll take a look at how to easily create a procedural noise texture that’s stable during animation, unlike the default “Noise” procedural texture that’s available in Blender.

Version Compatibility: 2.4x, 2.5 alpha zero
Tutorial Level: Beginner

You can check out the tutorial at BlenderCookie.com

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

#48: 01/10/10
Us the Robots - 2010-01-10 09:52:11

Emacs TAGS for Go
goplexian.com - 2010-01-10 06:54:00

Tool creation is, to me, one of the most enjoyable things about knowing how to program, but unfortunately it can also lead to a huge waste of time if you let it get out of control.

The reason is because while it is true that a good environment can make writing code faster and easier, the speed gain is offset by the amount of time which it takes for you to build and maintain the environment.

This past week I finally got around to doing some of that maintenance to Emacs with regards to writing Go programs, and now, I am happy to pass that time investment on to you by sharing the results of my tinkering.

Allow me to introduce Tago, Tago is Emacs TAGS for Go.

You may already be aware of a program called ctags for Vim[1] or its Emacs equivalent called etags.

What etags does is parse a list of source files and generates a TAGS file which is an index of all the objects, functions, and variables in the source files. Emacs then uses this TAGS file in a couple of interesting ways, first of all it uses it to quickly find and jump to tags (functions, variables) in the source code where they are defined. Second it can be used to complete tag names as you are writing, sort of like a weak intelisense.

Such a tool is great for large code bases like the Go package libraries, but the problem is that etags does not support Go and it is written in C.

Tago is my replacement for etags, it generates an Emacs style TAGS file for Go source code, and it is written in Go.

Please check the included README file for instructions on compiling and usage.

After installing Tago you probably want to generate a TAGs file for the Go package libraries.

To do so just follow these three steps:

FIRST := Generate

Use the "find" utility and "xargs" to recursively search all of the Go pkg directory's and send a list of all the Go files to Tago, Tago will then write a TAGS file in the currect directory.

$> find /complete/path/go/src/pkg -name *.go | xargs tago

SECOND := Load

Tell Emacs to load the TAGS file

Emacs cmd: <M+x> visit-tags-table <RET> /complete/path/to/TAGS <RET>

THIRD := Use

You now have access to tag-completion!

Type something:     "fmt." 
Use Emacs cmd:      <M+TAB>  
Or alternative cmd: <M+x> complete-tag
Result:             "fmt.Printf"

Continue to press <M+TAB> to cycle through alternative completions.

You also have access to tag-finding!

Type something:      "ProbablyPrime"
Use Emacs cmd:       <M+.> 
Or alternative cmd:  <M+x> find-tag
Result:              The file "int.go" will open on line 359.


Emacs cmd: <M+*> // Will send you back to the previous file.
Emacs cmd: <M+x> find-tag-other-window // Will display the tag in a second window

Tago is, of course, also for creating TAGS for your own Go source code, simply run `tago myfile.go` or `tago *.go` and then add the resulting TAGS file to Emacs as explained in step #2.

This is one of those things that once you have and learn to use you will find to be indispensable, and of course all of these Emacs commands can be bound to other key sequences if you prefer.

I originally planned to explain how to change these key sequences and how to modify go-mode with hooks, but I'm going to put that off until next week.

Now in conclusion I am going to make a completely shameless attempt at earning a little cash from you, that's right you heard me, so if such a thing offends you then you should stop reading immediately:

I own the O'Reilly book "Learning GNU Emacs" and so I can personally recommend it as a great book for learning Emacs. It has gotten many positive reviews over the years and is now in its third edition but by far the absolute best part about this book is that if you click on this link and buy it then Amazon will give me a small slice of their profits!

I highly recommend all books with this feature.

Thanks for the clicks, goodnight!





[1]Michael Elkins wrote "gotags" for Vim, but it seems the link to that project no longer works.

Emacs TAGS for Go
goplexian.com - 2010-01-10 06:54:00

Tool creation is, to me, one of the most enjoyable things about knowing how to program, but unfortunately it can also lead to a huge waste of time if you let it get out of control. The reason is because while it is true that a good environment can make writing code faster and easier, the speed gain is offset by the amount of time which it takes for you to build and maintain the environment. This past week I finally got around to doing some of that maintenance to Emacs with regards...

Tip: Creating Stable Noise Textures for Animation
Blender Cookie - 2010-01-10 04:29:00

In this quick tip, we’ll take a look at how to easily create a procedural noise texture that’s stable during animation, unlike the default “Noise” procedural texture that’s available in Blender.

http://blendercookie.com

Rebirth
Morevna Project - 2010-01-10 04:01:10

As some of you may know, four months ago Morevna Project was suspended because of personal issues. Now I’m happy to inform everyone that we are back on track. Stay tuned! Punk not dead! Etc, etc…

Testing Sculptris
Reyn's Blog - 2010-01-10 02:31:00

Recently, I've seen a news feed from a Blender site describing a new free-to-test alpha version Sculpting application.  Doodling with it last night, it looks promising and very functional.  The realtime view of the mesh tesselation is so great and so far the speed of the application is one of the best yet (aside from the fact that Blender's new sculpting tools work great as well).By the way, the