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Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 11 September 2012 - 10:56 PM
Replies To: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 06:19 AM
Are you looking to be a 3D modeler or a programmer? I mean, there's no reason you can't be both, but you're likely to get a job doing one or the other. It takes many many years to get good at one of them let alone both at the same time. Still, it's good to have at least a little of both skills regardless of which path you're going for.
As a programmer, you should be taking a whole lot of math. You should be taking Trig, Calculus, and Linear Algebra, because you will use them on an almost daily basis in game programming. You should also, at least be taking C++ and Assembly language and possibly other computer classes on data structures and what not. Basically, you should be pursuing a Computer Science Engineering degree.
As a modeler, you should be learning art. I'm less knowledgable about the career of a modeler or game artist because it's mostly just something I've dabbled in. But you should basically be taking the same subjects that you would as a professional sculptor and painter, because that's essentially what modeling is. It's just a digital medium rather than a physical one.
You indicated that you want to actually get a job in the game industry. And that's a lot different than just dabbling and playing around with some home made game making. School should be a big part of that.
But you didn't ask what classes to take in school, so maybe I should get back to answering your actual question. School is really the place to learn a lot of this stuff. You can teach yourself this stuff (I've taught myself a lot of it), but learning it in school is a easier. On the other hand, if you have any chance of being a professional programmer you will spend most of your life teaching yourself. The computer industry changes so fast that you have to almost relearn everything every 4 years and you can't just keep going back to school for that.
Anyway, for modeling, I would suggest learning Blender. It's free. There are tutorials and even a book or two out there on it. I have also used 3D Max, but it costs about $3,000 last time I checked. I think Blender is almost as powerful, especially for the first couple of years you are using it.
Either way, what you want to learn is called "box modeling". Basically, you start with a box and you keep deforming the box by pulling and pushing on it like a piece of clay. Eventually, you can end up with something that looks as complicated as a human being. You're probably thinking, "I want to make real models, not box shaped stuff." But you would be suprised at how many models you've seen in computer games that were box modeled. It's an extremely powerful technique, and probably the one that is most widely used. But you can do box modeling in any 3D modeling program including Blender, Maya, and 3D Max.
You'll also want to learn texturing. I would recommend getting started with modeling first, and then move on to texturing. Starting out, you can kind of just slap a texture on your models. Eventually though you need to actually learn to paint. As you get into modeling, it will start to become more clear what you need as far as textures and how they are produced.
As for programming, start by learning a language. Any language to start with really. In the beginning, you will just be learning the things that all computer languages share, like looping and conditional statements.
I always recommend learning C# and then getting into XNA. C# is very much like C++ but 100 times easier. For a beginner, that's a good thing. It kind of "eases" you into C++. By the time you've mastered C#, learning C++ will be 100 times easier. XNA is the game library/framework for C# that allows you to do 2D and 3D games. Once you've read a couple C# books, you should be ready to dig into XNA.
XNA has managed to get a "bad rap" as "not a serious" game design language. I'll tell you straight up front that it's not quite as "professional" or as ridiculously powerful as programming in C++ with DirectX or OpenGL. But it's 1000 times easier to work with. The power that you are losing by working in XNA is power that you aren't likely to see much benifit from unless you are working on a team of more than 10 people. And although it's 1000 times easier, you still can get very deep into game programming in XNA.
In XNA, you still get into very advanced game programming topics. For example, I'm learning High Level Shader Language in XNA right now. HLSL is also used in C++ with DirectX. HLSL is taking control of the graphics card and doing the math in the graphics card yourself that causes things to be drawn on the screen. Basically, you use Linear Algebra and Trig to produce the eye popping graphics of today's modern video games the same way that the most advanced professionals do. You can't get any more "professional" than that. It has me studying rasterization, z-buffering, g-buffering, and the entire graphics pipeline from end to end on the "mathematical" level where you can do what the graphics card does yourself with pen and paper. Because really, it's all just math that takes numbers that represent 3D points and textures and turns them mathematically into dots (pixels) on the screen.
Anyway, that's just one example of how XNA allow you to get into the absolutely most advanced subjects in game programming in an environment that's a whole lot more friendly to beginners and where there are numerous books written to help you along the way.
So, I would recommend finding a couple of C# books for beginners. You want one that teaches the basics such as "if", "for", and "switch" statements. After reading a couple of C# books and playing around with it for a couple of months, then start going through some XNA books. I would recommend starting with 2D games, as almost everything you learn about 2D game programming will apply to your 3D programs.
Both C# and XNA are free downloads from Microsoft. C# 2010 goes with XNA 4.0 and C# 2008 goes with XNA 3.1 and they are not really compatible with one another. Examples written for one will not work for the other without knowing what to adjust in the code to make them work.
I might also suggest to go through Riemer's tutorials and RB Whitiker's tutorials once you've learned C#. In fact, Whitiker has some C# tutorials as well.
Also, check other posts in this forum. This question is asked on almost a daily basis. So there are some permenant posts to answer the question as well as the fact that you can go back and read some of the replies to the other posts on this subject here. And if you decide to go the XNA route, check out the XNA sub-forum as well.
And while XNA may not be useful for any actual job you will ever get, C# is used heavily in the business world. And C# is great for making tools for your C++ programs. And most importantly, if you master 3D programming in XNA, learning DirectX or OpenGL game programming with C++ will be 1,000 times easier.
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 08:14 AM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 08:36 AM
If you've already taken a C or C++ class, learning C# should be a lot easier. C# looks like C++ a lot, but you don't deal with a lot of the more complex topics of C/C++ such as pointers and advanced data structures. The two really go hand in hand, C# is kind of like C++ with "training wheels". But that being said, C# is still powerful enough to put together serious applications for business and what not.
Give C# a try. It's a free download from Microsoft's website. I would expect to have to read a couple of C# books before you start to "get it". I find that different authors explain things from different perspectives and their combined perspective is what I generally learn from.
I'm sorry I can't recommend a lot of specific books here. I started programming when I was 12 in Basic. By the time I got to C# and XNA, I had already worked as a professional (business) programmer. I kind of skipped all the "beginner" stuff with C# and XNA. I never read a C# book (I just already knew it from years programming C++ and Visual Basic.Net) and I almost immediately jumped into 3D programming with XNA, kind of skipping all the 2D stuff. (Which now I'm thinking I need to go back and learn to use sprites in XNA, since I totally skipped that pretty much. At the very least, I need to do 2D sprites in my 3D programs.)
But I say, go download the free Visual C# 2008 Express version from Microsoft and the Visual C# 2010 Express version (that way you can take advantage of both XNA 3.0 and XNA 4.0 tutorials). Or just download 2010. Then go order a C# beginners book or two. And while you're waiting for the books to come in, go through RB Whitiker's C# tutorials. He teaches game making in XNA, but has C# tutorials to start you from the very beginning. I think he even has a tutorial on how to download Visual C#. Here's a link to my links page on my website, which will lead you to RB Whitiker's site as well as Riemer's site:
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 08:45 AM
I made straight A's in my Pascal, C, and Assembly Language classes, largely because I started as a kid in an easy language (Basic) and so I already knew the "basics" on the first day of class. And I just kept learning harder and harder computer languages as I went. Pascal prepared me for C and Assembler.
And any "good" computer programmer will know half a dozen languages or so. Learning C# is a great stepping stone towards learning C++.
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 12:05 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 12:44 PM
So, there are two questions there: the one you asked and the one you meant.
You asked, "In order to be a good programmer, is it really essential to have good math skills?" The answer to that question is an absolute no. I knew most of the math I needed as a professional programmer when I was 12. If you know the meaning of "A+3=7" and maybe some basic math functions like Floor and Ceiling you're pretty much there. I always heard growing up that you had to be really good in math to be a computer programmer and that's just a flat out lie. If you get really deep into it you need to know some things that are a little more complex like binary math so that you can use binary and hexadecimal. But again, that's not that far beyond grade school math, and you're getting to the advanced level by the time you get into that.
Now for the question you intended to ask, "In order to be a good game programmer, is it really essential to have good math skills?" The answer to that question is an absolute YES with a capital Y-E-S.
The math skills are necessary when you are programming scientific or engineering programs... or games.
Getting started in game programming doesn't require much beyond middle school math. For a lot of 2D game stuff, the math just doesn't go that far beyond addition, subtraction, and division.
Now you "can" put physics into your 2D games.
My experience with physics (assuming that you aren't going to just use someone else's physics library) is that you need to know trig. Personally, I don't know calculus and that's never been a problem. The only time I ever really regretted not knowing calculus as a game programmer was when I was trying to understand the physics of how a car engine turns octane(gasoline) into presure in the cylider which then drives the crank shaft through a torque force. The accelerator pedal constantly changes the octane (gasoline) going into the cylinder and you get a constantly changing cylinder pressure that is also constantly changing by the fact that the other cylinders are driving the crank shaft that then pushes and pulls the cylinder even when it's not firing. Blah blah blah... but suffice it to say that I think you need calculus to really model the problem of how a car engine actually works.
I "have" however seen most of the physics books written for games written entirely in calculus notation. They really like to turn simple algebra equations like Force = Mass times Acceleration into differential equations and such. I have a college physics text book that I have read (I took physics in high school but only Chemistry in college). And in that text book there is basically no calculus in it anywhere. That's two symesters worth of college level physics and it didn't require a lick of calculus. So, I think it's safe to say that 95% of the game physics you will need does not require calculus.
It did require a fair amount of algebra and trig though. So, I consider those mandatory for game physics, but not necessarily calculus. Calculus would be a real plus and maybe let you go a bit further, but I really don't think it's a requirement most of the time.
Now linear algebra is another story. I've never taken Calculus let alone Linear Algebra. However, I've taught myself a lot of the linear algebra stuff that you really have to know for 3D game programming. Specifically, you need to be pretty solid in Matrix Algebra and Vectors which are primarily studied in Linear Algebra. I'm reading a linear algebra book right now to get better at it. Linear Algebra is probably also useful for physics and collision detection. But again, most of it is Matrix Algebra and Vectors.
I was introduced to Matrix Algebra in middle school, although we didn't cover it after that. I read a couple game math books and basically taught myself Matrix Algebra. However, I never used it after that. You may not use it at all in 2D game programming. In 3D, you may get fairly far without really knowing it, especially in XNA. My website discusses matrices and what you need to know about them to go almost to the advanced level in XNA.
Now, right now, I am finally getting a "little" into using my matrix algebra knowledge. I'm studying High Level Shader Language and the math involved in drawing computer graphics. XNA obscures a lot of this math from you. But HLSL does not at all. When you start doing HLSL you need a solid understanding of what a matrix is and at least a basic knowledge of matrix algebra. But, HLSL is an advanved topic for XNA. You might even be able to do DirectX and OpenGL without HLSL. I haven't dabbled in either for several years since I found XNA. But I know I will be much more knowledgable when I finally do go back to DirectX. HLSL is exactly the same in DirectX as it is in XNA.
In several of the books that I'm reading on how to use HLSL to do things like draw shadows and have multiple lights in your scene, it's all matrices and vectors. They just "assume" you know vector math inside and out and that you're pretty solid with matirx algebra. If you do, understanding the books is fairly easy. If you don't you won't understand them at all.
Now Vectors are a subject from Linear Algebra that you need to really understand well to do 3D games. You will be introduced to them in 2D, but they get misused in 2D so much that it's easy to get deep into 2D and not know what a vector is at all. It's best if you can learn them in 2D because they are just easier to learn in 2D. By the time you get to 3D you pretty much have to understand them well and know how to use them correctly.
I learned vectors mostly by studying game math books. Then I took a trig class and was formally introduced to them in trig. However, we spent "maybe" two weeks on them and I think I understood them better than the guy teaching the class due to my years of studying game math on my own. So, technically Vectors are part of Trig. However, they are focused on primarily in Linear Algebra.
Really, trig is what I use constantly in game programming. But I consider matrices part of high school algebra and vectors as part of trig. I think Linear Algebra is mostly reinforcing the use of matrices and vectors.
Oh. And then there are quaternions. I'm not sure what class teaches quaternions. Quaternion class, I think. lol Quaternions are used in place of matrices to store orientation information. Matrices use Euler Angles to store the orientation and run into problems such as Gimbal Lock. Quaternions are used to avoid the inherient problems with using Euler Angles to represent orientation. I "just" finally figured out how to use quaternions about a month ago. Suffice it to say, that you really don't need to know what they are or exactly how they work as long as you know how to put them to work. The same can be said for matrices in XNA.
So to sum it all up. As a business programmer you don't need to know squat about math. As long as you made it all the way through high school math you're good. If you want to program games, you are going to be using Trig constantly for everything from making waves to measuring angles to vector physics. But that's really it. Calculus is a real plus, especially for physic simulation. And Linear Algebra really spends a lot of time on vectors and matrices, which are used all over the place in 3D game programming.
So, bottom line is, you really only need trig if you're doing more than a fairly simple 2D game. But you can get really deep into game programming knowing nothing more than trig, vectors, and matrices. Calculus and Linear Algebra are just "icing on the cake". Any math you know beyond that may prove useful at some point, but that's really the bulk of it.
If you're finishing Calc II, you probably know more math than you are likely to ever need for programming games or business apps. If you're weak on Vectors and Matrices, you might think about picking up a game mathematics book. If you find yourself with some extra time, you may want to study linear algebra on your own.
This is one of the books I'm currently reading and I love it:
Really good stuff for programming 3D games. But you need to know matrix algebra before reading it and need to be very solid with vectors as well.
I can also recommend this book as a place to start learning about vectors and matrices:
You should definately read the Primer book before the Linear Algebra book there, because it will kind of build on what you learn in the Primer (matrices and vectors).
But all that is really very advanced for XNA. You probably shouldn't worry about either until you've written a few 3D programs of your own in XNA. Until you are ready to dig into HLSL in XNA, neither are really required knowledge.
But I definately think you could teach yourself most of any additional math you need to know once you're pretty solid in calculus.
This post has been edited by BBeck: 12 September 2012 - 01:04 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 01:12 PM
It's a college text book that I read on my own. (Although I went to a school that used it for the Physics 101 class. I just didn't take the class.) It's easy to read on your own if you know algebra and trig. And it provides a good foundation for game physics.
It got mixed reviews, but I would give it 5 out of 5 stars. I just wished it was a 2 or 4 year book instead of a 1 year book, because I wish it went deeper into the subject. What it covers, it covers very well. And it's pretty easy to read.
I took the time to read some of the negative reviews. I might mention that I took honors physics in high school. So, much of this book was "review" for me. That may skew my opinion of it a little. A lot of the negative reviews suggest it's hard to read and poorly written and that the exercies don't match the text. I didn't go through the exercises, and my prior knowledge may have made it easier to read. But I'm still a big fan.
But again, you don't need this until you get to the intermediate game programming level. Even in the advanced level of 2D you can probably find a library to do your physics for you. In 3D you may start having to do your own. I prefer to do my own anyway, but I'm not doing a lot of super complex physics.
Right now, you should probably just focus on learning C# and then XNA. That along with modeling should keep you busy for the next couple of years and then you can get into the physics and then HLSL and all the Linear Algebra. Just start getting familiar with Vectors in 2D XNA and get very familiar with them as you go into 3D XNA, and start to learn the basics of matrix algebra.
This post has been edited by BBeck: 12 September 2012 - 01:26 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 01:52 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 02:33 PM
I got interested in girls in middle school and they didn't like computers, so I dropped it (had to play the part of the cool guy). Then after I got out of high school I decided to go to college and women liked to see a guy have a substantial sized paycheck and so I decided to study computers in college. I dropped out of college after I got a job as a programmer half way through.
I've always read a lot. And I took honor chemistry and physics in high school.
But to answer your question. There are a lot of different levels of "game programming". When I was a kid I programmed text games like "21", or "Guess this Number", and some simple graphics games like pong and whatnot.
I think if you read a couple of C# books cover to cover, you'll be ready to get into game programming. Depending on how much time you have on your hands, you could probably get through one of those books a month. So, in two months you could probably be ready to get started. With your background in C++ in school, it may actually only take one book on C# and one month. But don't get discouraged if it takes 3 or 4 months. If you find C# too difficult after reading a book on it, then consider trying Visual Basic, but C# is not a whole lot more difficult than Visual Basic and with your prior knowledge of C++ you will probably find C# easy.
Once you've kind of got an idea how C# works. You're ready to start XNA and game programming. Now, don't get me wrong. You're not going to be programming Grand Theft Auto VI at that point. If you can do a simple number guessing game you're off to a good start at that point.
Then you start getting into XNA. At first you'll probably just be playing around and experimenting. You'll see if you can draw a sprite on the screen. You'll learn to put up a picture in the background. You'll learn how to play sounds. You'll learn how to get an XBox controller working on the PC and receive input from it. This is just going to be a playing around stage and quite frankly, I'm still in that stage.
You'll basically be building up a "bag of tools and techniques". You learn one technique, like how to play a song in the background. That's not going to make much of a game. You learn another technique about how to draw sprites to represent the player and the enemies. Still not much of a game. You learn to move them around the screen. Now you're getting somewhere but it's still not a game. With 5 or 6 of these techniques you'll be able to do pretty much nothing. As you start learning 100 or 200 of these techniques, you may be able to create a fairly interesting game. Pong probably only requires something like 40 such techniques. The more you learn the more you will be able to do and the more you will start seeing the road ahead of you and what the next step is.
Honestly, with your background in C++ and math, I'm guessing you can be through a C# book and ready to start XNA in a month as long as you can read well enough to study for college classes and it sounds like you can.
Once you get started with XNA, you can probably start doing simple games like pong or maybe even Tetris or Angry Birds within a couple of months. The main thing is that you enjoy the "journey" because you are going to be on that journey for a very long time.
I've been trying to learn 3D game programming off and on for about 8 to 10 years. But that wasn't consistant working on it every year. I tried a lot of different things including Torque game engine, C++/DirectX, level editors for various games and producing content for them. I took a game programming class that I mostly didn't understand and a really good 3D Studio Max class on modeling. I used to sit around building stuff for the Second Life game all the time, but got board after about 6 months to a year because there wasn't anything to do except just build stuff. Still, I got a lot of experience producing game art that way including modeling, sound effects, animation in Poser, texturing, scripting, etc.
So, my point is that it's a journey, expect to spend the next 10 years learning a lot of the "basics". But I'm not sure you will ever stop learning about game programming. There's just too much for one person to learn and it gets more complicated every year.
Get comfortable with C# and XNA before you start digging into 3D in XNA. But you could probably start dabbling in 3D within the next 6 months. Almost everything you learn in 2D will get used at some point in 3D. So stay in 2D as long as you can force yourself to stay there. For me, that wasn't very long. I did a little 2D growing up and was working on a 2D tile engine in DirectX/C++ when I discovered XNA. Pretty much as soon as I started in XNA I discovered that getting started in 3D in XNA isn't that hard. So, I just pretty much immediately went into 3D. I suppose you can always go back to 2D if the 3D stuff gets to be too much.
For one person, it's much more realistic to produce a complete 2D game. The 3D games one person can produce are probably more simplistic than the 2D games because there's so much extra work that goes into 3D.
A game like GTAIV requires a team of hundreds of professional programmers and artists many years to produce even though they are working on it at least 5 days a week all year round. Keep that in mind, and realize that even small victories in 3D are victories.
If you want to produce finished games, stick to 2D or simple 3D that works like a 2D game but has 3D visuals. I saw a guy that teaches game programming that said he was able to produce 3D Pac Man in a week with a little bit of help from a couple of friends (mostly to do the music I think). I "might" be at a level where I could produce the same thing in about 2 months working entirely by myself if I worked on it on week nights and all my weekends.
For something more along the lines of a first person shooter, it is likely to require a lot more learning and a lot more time to build. Expect to spend at least a couple years learning the basics of how to do that.
Really, if you have any hope of learning 3D game programming, you have to love just learning it, because successes of any substantial size are many years in the future. But if you love the "journey" you won't care about that so much.
This post has been edited by BBeck: 12 September 2012 - 02:38 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 12 September 2012 - 10:32 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 13 September 2012 - 07:31 AM
Game programming, especially for modern 3D games is ... what's the word I'm looking for ... difficult ... no ... impossible would be a better word. It's an almost impossible skill to learn. By that, I mean that if you were to learn all the skills that go into a game like Skyrim or GTAV you are looking at many life times of study.
You need to be really good at: C++, DirectX and/or OpenGL, Data Structures, the target Operating System (PS3/XBox/and Windows - learning Windows under the hood is a major acomplishment in and of itself), Foley sound effect creation like in the movies, Scoring, Music Composition, How to play every instrument in the song (most people say it takes a life time to master a single instrument), Cinematatography, Lighting, Modeling/Sculpture, Texturing/Painting, Animation, Physics, Trig, Calculus, Linear Algebra, and probably a whole host of other skills I can't think of off the top of my head. A lot of the skills involved are things that people spend an entire lifetime studying. So, for all the skills combined you could be looking at several life times to learn.
So, to say that it would probably take very roughly 10 years to get good at enough of that where you're producing something halfway respectable, I don't think is much of a stretch. It might even be a bit overly optimistic. I don't see a ton of 3D independent game makers here or anywhere else. It's a rough skill to learn. Or more acurately, it's a whole bunch of rough skills to learn. But it's largely dependent on how much time you dedicate to it every day.
It takes time. And it takes a lot of time. Kids who got started at it when they were 15 or younger already have a 5 year jump on you. You may have met some of those guys in your programming class. So, if it takes 10 years they'll have that 10 years at age 25. Honestly, that's why it's important to decide what you're going to do with your life as young as possible and get started on it.
Now as far as a portfolio. I've never worked for a gaming company. I worked for one company that produced games, but it was an enormous company and I had nothing to do with the gaming part of the company. But I have gone through a lot of tech interviews for big name companies. Generally, it consisted of about an hour of being drilled by people that were experts in the field about arcane technical things. As a programmer, expect to get an hour of questions like "How many bytes is a float datatype on the heap?" or "What's a mutex?" Generally, it's going to be a lot of stuff that's well beyond the stuff that they teach you in school. But it will be questions that are focused on whether you know enough to do the job well without supervision. In a nutshell, "Do you know what you're doing?" After that they generally, have a manager drill you with manager type questions for an hour such as "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?". They tend to be pretty brutal job interviews, but as long as you know the job and how to perform it really well, you'll shine. One of those companies said they had been interviewing and turning people down for 6 months until I got the job. And I did well because I knew the answers to all their obscure tech questions.
So, bottom line is that it's a safe bet that they are going to want you to be really skilled at the job they are asking you to do. They probably aren't going to care if a programmer can annimate or if an annimater can compose music. They know it takes many many years to get good at any of those skills. They're probably going to focus on "Prove to us that you can do the job we want you to do better than anyone else that we can find in the world."
I don't know exactly what job you're trying to target. You said you wanted a business job with a gaming company. To me, that sounds like they aren't even going to care if you know squat about programming games. If they are hiring you as an accountant, they are probably going to want to know that you are a CPA and that you know the difference between accounts payable and accounts receivable. I can't imagine they would care whether you know anything about games.
It's going to come down to, "Show us that you know how to do this job and that you know how to do it really well." If that involves programming, then you need to get really good at programming. And the easiest/fastest way to learn game programming is probably to get a computer science engineering degree, although I think a lot of game programmers would tell you that only gives you the foundation to "start" learning game programming.
Maybe start by picking a very specific job that you are going for. I'm sure gaming companies have a business side, but even in "marketing" there are likely to be several jobs to choose from. Once you've got a specific job title, then maybe start asking around as to what skills are expected from a person with that job title. Then maybe start asking how most people get those skills.
It just seems to me that most companies would not care if a business person knows how to build games, even in a gaming company.
Oh. And incidently, I'm a college dropout and I've worked in IT for several Fortune 500 companies. Even in college I was mostly self taught. The professors just threw books at us and gave a descent lecture (if we were lucky). You absolutely can learn to be a great programmer on your own, but I just think it's easier to get a good foundation to start your journey as a programmer by getting the CSE degree. It's difficult to know what to study without the type of guidance you get in college and so when you're self educated you often end up with a lot of gaps in what you know. For example, I don't know Calculus and sometimes I think I would probably be using it if I knew it. (But that's just for game programming. Business programming doesn't require any math to speak of.)
This post has been edited by BBeck: 13 September 2012 - 07:36 AM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 13 September 2012 - 08:31 AM
Sonic Keyblade-007, on 12 September 2012 - 11:32 PM, said:
I thought you said you were going for a business job in the game industry, not a programming job. :-)
I've never worked in the game industry, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. All I can say is from my experience working in the IT business world.
I personally think the game industry is looking for people to take advantage of. Kind of like the military. The older you get the less willing you are to get shot at for a living. That's one of the reasons the military is mostly full of young recruits. I hear that game programmers are a bit abused, forced 80 hour work weeks, low pay until you've really established yourself, and there are 90 other candidates ready to take your job from you the second you are no longer willing to put up with the abuse.
I found this video yesterday and it pretty much sums up my impression of the video game industry (although I'm admitadly an outsider):
That kind of sums up why I decided several years ago I would just stick to the business world where I could make tons of money on a 40 hour work week instead of desperately pursuing a job as a game programmer. With the extra time on my hands and plenty of money to buy computer books and a new graphics card, I can spend my weekends playing around with my own creations rather than working on someone else's project that I hate. I've spent enough time in the business world to know that when you work for a living, you almost never get to work on what you want to work on. Usually, you're working on what your boss tells you to work on. I was a photo-journalist for a small town newspaper in high school. I really liked photography, but I spent most of my time developing other people's pictures or taking the picture that I was told to take rather than the ones I wanted to take. I hated it.
So, yes, I'm thinking they would probably want a 24 year old college graduate that would put up with the abuse of 80 hour work weeks, rather than someone in their mid-thirties who has a wife and a newborn at home that he needs to get back to and spend time with.
Someone with a CSE degree has proven that they know a little something about computer programming and math, which are absolutely necessary skills for game programming. Without the degree you are going to have to prove even more that you know those skills as well as someone who aced those classes.
College is tough and I think they push people too fast. One of the last classes I took was Biology. 75% of the class dropped out by the drop date and I was making straight A's. Even the teacher was ticked off at me because I was throwing off the grade curve. But I think the reason was mostly because a lot of those students were taking a full load and I wasn't. I think the reason was that I spent easily 6 times more time studying then they did because I wasn't taking a full load and had the time available to me.
My advice is to get the CSE degree if you want to be a professional game programmer. And if you graduate with a C, go back and reread your text books until you could go back and get an A. It's not about passing the class, or even getting the grade. It's whether you know the subject well enough to teach it and that means making an A. When you get the job, you will need to know it and it won't matter whether you learned it in class or you learned it on your own as long as you know it.
In the real world of game programming, it's not whether you can answer a trig problem on a test. It's whether you see a problem that needs to be solved in the program and realize that you can use a trig function to solve the problem and how to use that function. That's totally different than passing a test. That's recognizing how trig is used in the real world to describe real problems. It's closer to solving word problems, which tend to give people a terrible time in school. But the word problems are easy if you actually understand the subject. They're terribly difficult if you just learned enough to pass the test.
As far as being 24 and straight out of college as opposed to be 30 and experienced, I don't know that age would matter so much as long as you're willing to put up with the abuse. But candidates who are younger are more likely to be willing to put up with the abuse.
With age tends to come experience, and that can give you a tremendous advantage. I mean, if you're 30 and you've got 6 years of experience working as a business programmer in C++ and you can show that you know the math and that you have a portfolio with some simple 3D games in it that demonstrate that you know what you need to know, then I think they are going to give you the job over some guy that's 24 and fresh out of college who has no job experience and doesn't know the specifics of game programming because they don't teach collision detection and animation/model deformation in a CSE degree.
The game industry is extremely competitive because we all at least want to work for them a little bit. And a whole lot of people want to work for them a whole lot. And a lot of those people are going to spend every weekend of their life perfecting their craft, not because they want the job, but simply because they love programming and they really love programming games. They're going to give up friends and girl friends and everything else so that they can spend 24 hours a day with their computer. And that's going to put them at the front of the line for those jobs. Honestly, to have any hope of competing against them, I think you are going to have to spend most of your weekends doing the same and accept that you will never be quite as good as them at it.
I worked one job where several of the guys down the aisle from me were published. You could go to any major bookstore and find their books on the shelf. Honestly, I don't want to be that good. I want to have my own life and not spend all my spare time studying computer stuff. I've probably spent 50% of my free time studying computer stuff during my adult life if you include the gaming stuff. And that's been enough to land me pretty good business IT jobs. I just really have no interest pushing it to more like 90%. And I believe that's what it takes to be known as the best in the world. The more time you work at it the better you're going to be. It's really that simple.
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 13 September 2012 - 11:02 AM
I work for a living. So, I can't spend 8 hours a day on weekdays coding or even studying. And generally, I'm pretty tired when I get home and not up for it either. That pretty much leaves the weekends and a little bit during the week nights.
I'm currently trying to put together an interior level editor. I've got it to the point where you can model walls in Blender and then import them in. And the walls are solid (they have collision detection that prevents you from walking through them). And the floor and ceilings are done as tiles that can be placed and rotated with up to 64 different tile textures used in the scene. I've also got a door placed in the scene, but I still need to make the doors solid and include the code to allow you to click on the doors and animate them to open and close when clicked on.
Anyway, with standard Blinn and Phong lighting that you get without High Level Shader Language interior scenes look "flat" and completely fake. That has prompted me to try and learn HLSL and how to do point lights (light that shines outward from a point like a light bulb or candle) and shadows.
I spent about two weeks reading various books and Internet tutorials on the basics of HLSL. What I discovered is that most of the tutorials and whatnot cover Blinn and Phong shading and the types of shading that you can do without using HLSL. From an XNA perspective, they're just teaching you how to make your own version of "BasicEffect" which is built into XNA. So, you've gained nothing except a knowledge of how BasicEffect works to light your scenes. But the whole reason I'm studying this is because BasicEffect doesn't do point lighting or, really, shadows.
So, I spent all weekend last weekend just trying to figure out how to do some sort of shadow. Now keep in mind that you can produce 2D games all day long and not know anything about HLSL, Point Lights, or Shadows. You can even do a whole lot of 3D outdoor type games and not know about any of this stuff. The built in shaders will light an outdoor scene quite nicely and quite easily. But interiors require complex lighting. I think that's why you almost never see a tutorial on how to do a modern "dungeon crawl" type game or anything on how to do interior scene type games. It's because it requires HLSL to get the lighting to look half way descent and that requires a firm knowledge of Vector Math and Matrix Algebra. Not to mention, reading through probably a dozen, or so, text books written at a college level.
I've read through this book to learn about HLSL, as just one of several books I've been reading through:
It's very well written and explained several things I would not have learned anywhere else. It explained a lot of how graphics get drawn to the screen from one end of the process to the other. It assumed that you know Vector Math and Matrix Algebra as well as most people know addition and subtraction. Fortunately, I had already started studying this stuff from other sources.
But the book really only discusses handling a large number of point lights and shadows at a very high level. These books have taught me how to do a point light, but if you do it without defered rendering your frames per second is cut by the number of lights in the scene. Because it has to redraw the entire scene for every light in order to combine their lighting effect. So, if you have 6 lights your FPS is your normal FPS divided by 6. So, a FPS rate of 120 (very nice) just went down to (20) unacceptable. And that's only a mere 6 lights. Handling a large number of lights requires defered rendering which is considered a more advanced subject in these books. I mostly know this because I've been reading through these books.
Here's another book that I read select chapters out of:
Notice that these books are not cheap and they are written at a college reading level. And that last book over a thousand pages. Incidently, I don't think it's a very good book, but I already have it on my shelf. So, I might as well read anything it has to say on any subject that it covers that I need to understand.
I've also read through this book trying to figure out HLSL and ultimately how to address point lighting and shadows:
This book has example programs that do exactly what I want to do, but the book doesn't include half the source code. You have to give your email address at the publisher's website and then most of the code wouldn't compile once I got it downloaded. I had to go in and fix them in order to get the examples to work. And the book does a terrible job explaining the examples or how they work. And the code doesn't have really any comments in it to speak of. Not only that but he includes a lot of stuff in the current example that applied to another example but have nothing to do with the current example. So, you have to figure out which half applies to what you are trying to learn and which half has absolutely nothing to do with the current example or what you are trying to learn. The only hope you have of understanding how to do what the example programs do is to read the extremly high level "flipant" explination of it and then reverse engineer the program line by line until you understand why every single line of the program has been included in the program and exactly what it does. I spent probably a good 6 hours reading and rereading the example code on how to do multiple point lights last weekend. I tried using what it taught in one of my own programs and "almost" got it to work with great frustration.
So, now I'm going through Riemer's tutorial on HLSL to at least understand defered rendering. I'm not sure his examples include one to do an arbitrary number of point lights, but he at least covers using defered rendering to do shadows for a spot light. I'm still going through the examples. And, again, I'm reverse engineering where I'm reading and rereading through ever single line of code until I know exactly why it's included and what it does and what it contributes to the overall program.
Assuming that I will figure it out, I'm probably looking at at least another 16 hours of study before I get the basics of how to do mutiple point lights and basic shadows. So, that's over a month spent on something that a lot of gamers might not expect to be complicated at all. I mean it's "just" how to include 10 light sources in a night time scene without killing your frame rate and having those lights produce appropriate shadows of what you would expect from 10 lights in a scene.
I just got this book last night:
And it may be required reading for understanding shadows. The back of the book says it covers every shadow technique in the industry. I flipped through it this morning. It very obvious expects you to know Vector Math and Matrix Algebra as well as most people know addition and subtraction from page one. It's only about 400 pages. And it appears to be a college text book and appears to read like a college text book. I won't be suprised if I have to read most of it before I figure out how to do shadows.
But notice no one is pushing me to do this. I spend countless hours trying to figure out one single technique that in some ways doesn't even have anything to do with the game. I mean game play has nothing to do with the shadows unless something hides in the shadows or something like that. In a 2D game, or maybe even in a 3D game, you could just draw a dark blob under things and call it a shadow and the game would work the same. In 2D you probably wouldn't even worry about rendering shadows.
Producing shadows is just one very small part of producing 3D games. There are 100s of subjects like this before you can even produce a simple 3D Shooter. So, when you figure it takes a month or two just to learn this one little thing and thousands and thousands of pages of reading, you can start to see why I say it takes 10 years to get where you can produce something fairly respectable in the way of a 3D game.
But the bottom line is that if you enjoy game programming, you don't have to produce a top notch game any time soon. If you enjoy game programming, (with your knowledge of math and having taken a C++ class) you could be working on simple 2D games in a couple of months and be producing working 2D games in under a year. And in probably less than a year you could be fooling around with 3D stuff. If you enjoy doing it, that should be a lot of fun for you. And if you don't enjoy doing it, you'll never make it as a professional game programmer anyway, sorry to say.
This post has been edited by BBeck: 13 September 2012 - 12:45 PM
Re: Best 3D Modeling/Video Game Designing Book/Software for beginners?
Posted 13 September 2012 - 10:29 PM


text:
'In Poway, it was either sports or bands, and I don't do sports," says Sean Barrett, guitar player for the Perils of Being. "Poway is just a small town, a city in the country. There wasn't much to do except music." Many San Diegans are aware that Poway was the starting point for successful bands like blink-182, Unwritten Law, and Louis XIV. Does this make Poway, as the city claims, a "launching pad for world-famous rock bands"?
"I don't know if it's a launching pad," says Brian Wahlstrom of Hornswaggled. "It might be an area where bands start, but bands start all over San Diego." Both Hornswaggled and the Perils of Being will be performing at Poway's first "Character Rocks" street fair on Sunday, November 13.
"It's, like, when [the band] the Used came out of Utah, there were no bands coming out of Utah," Barrett says. "But they came out and made it big in two years, and all of a sudden it was like, 'It must be because they came from Utah.'" Most bands in Poway begin playing at house parties. "Occasionally [bands] will rent out the community center." The Perils of Being will be hosting a show at the Poway Community Center in January to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"I think people just have more time [in Poway]," says Wahlstrom. "It's easier if you're in the 'burbs.' You can build a fan base through friends, which grows into people you don't know. In downtown [people] are not as loyal. It's hard to get a start-up of fans. The most core fans we have even today are people we've known since we were little kids."
Barrett classifies his band as "ambient rock," and Wahlstrom refers to his as "heavy rock, even metal." After Seattle's boom of grunge music in the '90s, one might wonder if bands cultivated in Poway have their own specific sound. "It's got a punk edge," says John Riley, president of Trigger Direct, a direct marketing agency helping to organize the Poway street fair. "I think there are different flavors of punk and alternative, but it's definitely that kind of heavier hard rock. Some of it is more melodic than others. Some is poppy -- blink [182] is certainly poppy. I think it's just easy for a teenager to pick up a guitar and learn from it and learn from their friends [in Poway]."
When Riley took a closer look at the music scene in Poway, he was surprised. "At first glance, it's sort of a 'wow.' I had no idea. You scratch your head and you wonder why. Poway is a very suburban town. It kind of has this reputation of having a great school district and reasonably solid families. Generally speaking, you've got good kids. We're not next to the beach -- these kids don't have a whole lot to do, and they gravitate towards music. Because there have been bands like blink [182] that have come out of Poway and been so successful, they tend to be an inspiration for a lot of teenagers."
"I hope that music doesn't have to do anything with financial upbringing and stuff," says Wahlstrom. "A lot of our music in the beginning was this 'f-you' attitude about society, and it was very political. At some point, though, we realized we didn't have it so bad."
"Parents of a lot of these kids are very supportive," says Riley. "They're good-quality moms and dads that really support their kids' artistic effort. There are a lot of dads that play music in my neighborhood in Poway." Riley has two young children and plays cover songs with his band. "[These dads] play at neighborhood parties, block parties, and dive bars. They've created a culture that makes it possible for their kids to be musicians."
Though he doesn't think there is anything unique about Poway, Wahlstrom recognizes one aspect of small-town living that can help to launch a band. "It's a hometown for a lot of people who stay here for many, many years, and for the band to have that -- a core fan base to start off with -- really helps to get things going. Back in the Soma days [the club on Morena Boulevard] these kids would play a house party and then say, 'We got a gig at Soma,' and then hundreds of kids would go down to check them out at Soma."
Poway has hosted street fairs in the past, but, according to Riley, "It has traditionally been a vendor event with arts and crafts, a stage with little kids that do ballet, a hypnotist, a local cover band -- a community event that attracted ten or fifteen thousand people." The Poway Unified School District is attempting to teach "good ethics, honesty, integrity, and fairness" with the "Character Counts" initiative. The promotion of this initiative, along with the town's pride for its hometown bands, prompted the name "Character Rocks" for this year's more musical affair. -- Barbarella
Character Rocks Street Fair Sunday, November 13 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Midland Road (one block north of Poway Road) Poway Cost: Free Info: 858-748-0016 or www.poway.com
More from SDReader
- More stories by Barbarella Fokos
- Hater High — July 19, 2007
- Who Killed Ramonastock? — Oct. 26, 2006
- Onward, Christian Rockers — Oct. 12, 2006
- Payable On Death or Departure? — Aug. 24, 2006
- Of Mansions and Trailer Parks — March 23, 2006

subset: commoncrawl


text:
WowWee Rovio Review and UnboxingPosted by Rudolph on Monday, 6 October 2008
Rovio by WowWee
I'm sure you've heard the buzz about WowWee's new robot, the Rovio. Billed as a "mobile webcam," the Rovio connects to your local network via Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and is controlled via a web-based interface served directly from the robot. Rovio has the TrueTrack Navigation System built in, which allows you to save various locations, allowing your robot to automatically navigate itself to a specified location. Should the battery run low while Rovio is "out and about," this same system allows Rovio to return to it's charging station for a refill.
Like many, I've been wanting to get my hands on one since I can remember first hearing about it, and now I have. Read on for the unboxing photos, action shots, and my experiences using this slick little 'bot.
Arrival and Unboxing
It all started on a quiet, sunny, Southern California morn. There I sat, minding my own business, when suddenly... there came a rapping, rapping, rapping at my chamber door. Unsure as to what may be causing this AM disturbance, I convinced myself 'twas but some early visitor, only this and nothing more. Gathering myself I approached - here I opened wide the door, and quoth the FedEx guy, "Rudolph? Sign here please."
Okay, that was pretty bad. Truly sorry about that. I'll make an effort to be less dramatic for the remainder of the story.
Having signed off for the package, I accepted a rather dull looking cardboard box. Bringing it inside, I realized my other robots were quite keen on discovering what this new treasure could be.
Before I knew what was happening, they had pushed me off to the side and were opening the package!
It was a new Rovio. And there was much rejoicing!
Okay, that was pretty bad. Truly sorry about that. I (and the robots) will make an effort to be less cheesy for the remainder of the article. Those responsible have been sacked.
Inside the Box
Armed with two energy drinks, a pocketknife, a screwdriver, wire cutters, a hammer, and wondering if I'll need a blowtorch, I began to open the box. The first things I found were the manual, CDROM, and a USB cable, sitting on top of a styrofoam clamshell packing block.
"Interesting..." I thought to myself.
Seperating the two halves of the foam I found the Rovio, battery, and two pieces of the charging dock, all in seperate plastic bags, well fit into their respective cavities in the foam.
"But... Where are the wire ties? Or the hot glue?" I wondered.
Nope, not here. I believe that a person could liberate a new Rovio from it's packaging in less than twelve seconds without destroying anything.
The manual makes it fairly clear how to set up the hardware. From my setup, and talking with others, there are a few points to pay attention to:
- Make sure the mast is aimed forward when you install it on the dock, it seems it is possible to install it backwards.
- When you aim the beacon at the ceiling, make sure the two red dots are parallel to the base. If they're perpendicular, Rovio will act fairly confused and have a hard time navigating its return to the charging dock.
- You may want to attach the base to the floor in some way. I've found that it slides around fairly easily on linoleum when Rovio is docking. Even on carpet, some method of attachment is handy, as Rovio will occasionally run over its base while driving about (even with IR Radar turned on) and move the whole thing out of alignment. If you have a permanent location for the dock, you may want to tape the beacon lens in place as well, it seems to jar easily, moving the beacon out of alignment.[[ad]]
- When everything is plugged in and the battery is installed in the robot, make sure the robot is turned on when you place him in the dock. It seems Rovio will not charge unless its switch is in the on position.
Now that everything is plugged in and charging, it's time to take a break. Mostly because Rovio will want about two hours to charge up the battery for the first time. You'll notice the blue lights around the perimeter will turn solid when the charging is completed.
Rovio Software Setup
Again, the manual makes it fairly clear how to configure the Rovio. Insert the CD into your Windows computer (XP or Vista) and follow the prompts.
You may find when plugging the mini USB cable into the robot that it takes a little more force than you're used to putting into a cable. When finished, it takes a similar amount of force to remove it again.
Just for the sake of messing with things I also tried connecting to Rovio with the Windows "Advanced" instructions. Following the steps in the manual resulted in a quick and easy Ad-Hoc connection, allowing me to complete the configuration of my wireless setup via the settings menu.
First Impressions
While I used Windows XP for the setup and initial uses of Rovio, I just couldn't bring myself to keep using Windows. Happily, Rovio seems to function just as well under Linux with Firefox as it did on Windows. The two way audio feature only works with Internet Explorer, so I had to give that up, otherwise things seem about the same.
As mentioned, Rovio navigates via a beacon that is projected onto the ceiling from the charging base. Unfortunately, my house isn't well designed for ceiling based navigation. The living room has vaulted ceilings, and the dining room has a beam running lengthwise through it, which seems to obscure Rovio's line of sight. This has, however, created a great source of entertainment in watching Rovio try to navigate to places near the edge of its view of the beacon. I will definitely be buying additional room beacons in the future so it can more easily visit other parts of the house.
From time to time while auto-navigating to a waypoint Rovio will become hung up on something, like the corner of the throw rug, or the transition from kitchen floor to carpeted dining room. You can click the Stop button and take over driving manually, or wander over and pick it up and re-orient it. Turning off Rovio's IR Radar seems to help with these little obstacles.
The headlight mounted in Rovio's "chest" illuminates a small spot on the floor directly in front of the robot. Some people might like to see more light, so I expect to make an attempt at adding additional lighting for the Rovio... Keep your eyes peeled for more information on RoboCommunity!
The Moving Picture
Here are a couple videos I took of Rovio doing its thing. You may notice some interesting tidbits here.
- When you tell Rovio to go to a specific waypoint it will locate the waypoint stored before that one and navigate from there.
- Large obstacles, especially shiny ones, seem to confuse the Rovio a bit during auto navigation.
- You'll be surprised how amusing Rovio's "Happy Dance" after docking actually is.
The End
All in all, I find myself impressed with the Rovio. The ability to control it from almost anywhere definitely adds a certain groovy-ness factor. It certainly didn't take long for the little robot to endear itself to the family, we are all guilty of talking to it more than we should (eg "Well, go around it!" or "What happened?" or "Ha! You kinda missed a bit, didn't you?")
It certainly is a refreshing change from the walking variety of robot that is so prevalent in my home, and I hope to enjoy it for some time to come.
Quick Links
Learn More About the WowWee Rovio
Mon, 10/06/2008 - 12:03
Love the picture with Robopet
Love the picture with Robopet scratching at the box. Nice to see other Robosapien RS media owners like you, nocturnal, crmfghtr, and myself.
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Mon, 10/06/2008 - 12:37
Any robot review that
Any robot review that involves Monty Python, even if it is only a fey senteces, is a winner.
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Mon, 10/06/2008 - 12:54
I'm so, so, so jealous! Nice
I'm so, so, so jealous! Nice video!
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Mon, 10/06/2008 - 13:41
How did you get your Rovio so
How did you get your Rovio so early?
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Mon, 10/06/2008 - 15:35
Do you need to buy a beacon
Do you need to buy a beacon for every room the rovio can enter?
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Mon, 10/06/2008 - 15:53
Yeah, pretty much, unless it
Yeah, pretty much, unless it can see the beacon from the other room. Rovio can navigate my living room, dining room, and kitchen okay with the Dock in about the middle. It can only get about 5 feet down the hallway before the signal is lost.
However, that's only for self-guided navigation. If you want to explore manually (driving Rovio yourself using the web interface remotely), you can drive wherever you like as long as you have a strong WiFi signal. In other words, Rovio should be able to go to every part of your home where you can connect reliably with a PC or laptop, while driving under manual control. The TrueTrack beacon signal is not pertinent to the manual driving range, only the WiFi signal.
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Mon, 10/06/2008 - 17:00
One other tip. Remember when
One other tip. Remember when manually piloting your Rovio outside the TrueTrack range to reenter the room with the primary beacon before you sign off, execute a Go Home operation, and then sign off. Trying to self-dock manually without rearward facing vision would be a real challenge. Fortunately it is not necessary.
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Tue, 10/07/2008 - 20:11
i love how the robopet fell
i love how the robopet fell over when the box opened lol.
i actually have two of the separate true track beacons, but no rovio :(
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Tue, 10/07/2008 - 20:24
from wowwee of course. they
from wowwee of course. they posted very fast. but they did warn me they were in testing mode still and may not work correctly yet. (this was a while back)
i should point out that I work for a company that is involved in telepresence and I plan on demonstrating rovio to customers as a mobile telepresence example.
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Tue, 10/07/2008 - 20:48
from wowwee not the wowwee
from wowwee not the wowwee store...they are not available as far as I know.
definately a vital addition to the rovio setup though. hopefully they'll be out soon so i can get some more!
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Wed, 10/08/2008 - 09:58
The only downside to the
The only downside to the movie soundtrack is that we cannot tell how noisy the little beastie is as it trundles about.
Are the drive wheels and mast control noise on par with the typical WowWee robot motors, or something a little more subdued?
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Wed, 10/08/2008 - 12:35
Rudolph, what are you using
Rudolph, what are you using to record you Rovio videos? I tried Camtasia studio which usually works fine but got very choppy video.
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Wed, 10/08/2008 - 19:49
thast great it has very
thast great it has very robotics sounds i love it thanks for posting the vid with audio.
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Thu, 10/16/2008 - 10:36
Did you install the two LED
Did you install the two LED lights by the camera yourself? 'cause I don't see them on other Rovio... its a great idea tho.
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Mon, 10/20/2008 - 08:14
The rovio is still not
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Mon, 10/20/2008 - 10:04
Wed, 10/22/2008 - 00:20
I got mine today and just
I got mine today and just configured it and played a little bit. The only thing I did not like and disappointed the pic quality in low lights, it is way too dark. I dont know either they are going to fix it or not.
PS: Watch out if you dont have very brightly litted rooms or area then it is useless to spend 300+ on it.
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Fri, 10/24/2008 - 13:50
Hmm... watching the Rovio
Hmm... watching the Rovio move on it's wheels and the navigation is making me wonder if I could hack a Rovio to a Roomba. The ability to set a defined cleaning pattern would be interesting and I think the wheels might be a designed a little better for certain environments. You'd probably lose that height to get under things.
Still an interesting combination.
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Wed, 10/29/2008 - 15:28
Where do I line up my IR LEDS? You forgot to better describe the relationship between the homebase and the parallel two red dots. then, How are the red dots parallel to the home base?
A or B?
> = HOME BASE(open port left side)
: = IR LIGHTS (option A)
.. = IR LIGHTS (option B)
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Fri, 10/31/2008 - 23:04
Nice video!, Just one qustion
Nice video!, Just one qustion, when installing it, any chance to apply WPA encryption to secure the WIFI?
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Fri, 10/31/2008 - 23:13
Xas74 said:
Xas74 said:
Nice video!, Just one qustion, when installing it, any chance to apply WPA encryption to secure the WIFI?
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Fri, 10/31/2008 - 23:23
WAP encryption doesn't
WAP encryption doesn't compute with Rovio. you first need to setup your router for WEP encryp and then your able to take over the world with Rovio! ;)
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Fri, 10/31/2008 - 23:32
I have my IR setup like this
I have my IR setup like this :> and rovio is excellent to locate flagship. I just started using IR like this ..> maybe it will work better but what happens to your eyes if you look at IR light to much. then my concern is that there is dangerous light beaming 25 feet away accross my room. so what works and whats safe?
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Fri, 10/31/2008 - 23:38
I have no time to tinker but
I have no time to tinker but if someone with more time wants to give me faint praise or rebuttle my conjurement please welcome
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Sat, 11/01/2008 - 00:42
why is my rovio not following
why is my rovio not following the path I programmed? anyone else having this problem? I'm starting the path from the dock/flagship and then I stay within NAV signal and in 15 seconds I amm done with the path, and then I send him home to see what he learned and rovio isnt doing anything I told him to do. every path rovio attempts is a huge failure. rovio does everything wrong. rovio is very confused when trying to copy the path that wowwee said works. I even tried setting up the NAV lights like you told me to do. like this ..> and he hasnt copied one path or movement I recorded the right way, not even close, not even close at all. I'm pretty upset and I want to return this piece of shit. help!?
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Tue, 11/18/2008 - 11:27
Nice presentation Rudolph,
Nice presentation Rudolph, The only snag was I cannot see your video for some annoying reason. Does not even show up on my PC weird. But the rest of it was fun to read.
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Tue, 11/18/2008 - 11:37
Looks like my Zone alarm
Looks like my Zone alarm security suite is blocking all y-tube vids and my web site system, M'mm.This was an upgrade from pro.
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should i get one? and were do
should i get one? and were do u buy the extra beakons
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should i get one? were do u
should i get one? were do u get the extra bekons
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Fri, 11/21/2008 - 19:26
should i get one? were do u
should i get one? were do u get the extra bekons?
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T. Wayne
Fri, 12/26/2008 - 20:31
Great job for rovio, took a
Great job for rovio, took a day to tweak the bugs out. All my issues not rovios. Now works like a charm. Docks great, goes around and keeps the dog moving. sound is good , and controls from my Ipod, laptop and desktop. Impressive.
Thanks for the fun
T. Wayne
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Fri, 12/26/2008 - 20:41
It really is a great product.
It really is a great product. I am down at the beachhouse and love checking in on my place just to make sure all is good (ps3 mainly). Well done wowwee
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Robosapien V10
Sun, 09/20/2009 - 12:15
Wow! Rovio looks cool.
Wow! Rovio looks cool.
My Dad lives in California and we tried to get a webcam going but it kept braking. I told him about this and he said cool! Problem is, he's SOOOOOOOOOOOOO Mac, and Rovio only works with Windows. But then, you can have windows running on a Mac.
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Sun, 09/20/2009 - 13:32
Hey V10, Rovio actually works
Hey V10, Rovio actually works pretty good on the Mac OS nowadays. However, a decent webcam is definitely a better way to stay in touch than Rovio. The reason are endless (mediocre sound & video w/Rovio, can be a steep learning curve to set-up Rovio, many things can go wrong), so I would recommend getting a new webcam (or try a different video chat service) to keep in touch with someone. Rovio has it's benefits, but unfortunately, it's a fairly bad device to keep in touch with someone, not nearly as good as a computer webcam.
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Tue, 12/08/2009 - 11:34
Reality Check:
Reality Check:
First, tech support explained to us that incredible lag times in the control software could only be solved by "using Firefox or another browser, you can't use Internet Explorer". OK, nice to find that out after a week.
Then there's range and control. For some reason, ours would often just die once it got 15-20 feet away from the base, even when there was good wifi coverage. Tech support eventually could only guess "maybe it has a bad radio" send it back and try another one. Sometimes it worked 40-50' away, sometimes it couldn't get 20' away, no consistency at all.
Then there's the camera and headlight. Come on, Wowwee. That camera needs an awful lot of light to work, and the headlight is a cruel joke, it doesn't produce any images with the camera.
Then there's paths. Tech support never spoke enough English to help us figure that out. Can Rovio memorize a path down the hall to another room? Or does it need optional (unavailable) IR remote towers in each ceiling, in order to do that? Heck, there were 'bots ten years ago that didn't need that. Who wants to put IR towers in every corner of every hall?
This could be a great little critter, but some serious attention needs to be paid to the problems, and Wowwee isn't paying it. There are a dozen serious applications Rovio could be used for, if Wowwee would only treat it more seriously than a six-year-old's toy.
Terribly disappointing.
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Tue, 12/08/2009 - 14:39
Where is Rovio overrated?
Where is Rovio overrated? Most ratings I see online for Rovio aren't that great. And this board has loads of complaints about the problems with Rovio (I've certainly been a big complainer about the camera and light, and back when there was only WEP security).
But, what other options are there, besides Rovio and Sypkee (and DIY bots)? It's clearly not so easy to make one of these things run well... iRobot dropped their attempt.
I will say, I've had no bad experiences with Rovio range, and don't remember reading other complaints about it. I think people complain about wi-fi issues in general with computers, and I'm not sure your range problem is a Rovio issue (and the Rovio base is completely out of the loop in communicating with Rovio, you don't even need the base to be plugged in, unless you're charging, docking, or running paths, so I'm not sure what your 15-20 foot issue from the base is all about).
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Wed, 03/10/2010 - 11:28
Hi my english is very bad.
Hi my english is very bad. Pleasy i need meet What microprocessor or microcontroller use rovio? Thanks your comments Bye
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Mon, 04/26/2010 - 12:39
That was VERY well done and
That was VERY well done and more than a little entertaining.
Very cool job ya did man....had me laughing.....
Zoobag ~~~^..^~~~
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Wed, 08/18/2010 - 11:39
I have 2 Rovios at 2
I have 2 Rovios at 2 different addresses. How do I control with my lap-top, which is on Wi-fi, the two from a third address/site ? One is at BT Home hub whilst the second is at Virgin-media connected to a wireless modem.
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text:
UFC 170: Ronda Rousey stops Sara McMann in 66 seconds
- Rousey dropped McMann with a knee to the liver%2C then pounced with three quick strikes that stopped fight
- Fastest women%27s knockout in UFC history was Rousey%27s first win by something other than her trademark armbar
- Rousey improved to 9-0 with her eighth first-round win%2C while McMann suffered her first loss and fell to 7-1
LAS VEGAS — Ronda Rousey made some more history on Saturday.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship women's bantamweight champ notched the fastest knockout in UFC women's history, and she also finally won a fight by something other than her trademark armbar. Rousey stopped Sara McMann just 66 seconds into their fight with a TKO stemming from a knee to the liver.
The women's bantamweight title bout was the main event of UFC 170 event at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
REACTION:Rousey's win at MMAjunkie.com
CO-MAIN EVENT:Cormier dominates Cummins
Both fighters came out swinging right away, and after the dust settled, Rousey pushed the challenger to the fence and landed knees on her. Rousey looked for an opportunity for her trademark judo throw. But McMann defended it.
But soon after, Rousey hit McMann with a knee to the body. She followed it with an elbow, another knee, another elbow — and then a final knee that put McMann on the canvas.
Once there, Rousey was quick to pile on with three strikes before referee Herb Dean jumped in to stop the fight. McMann wasn't covering up.
The crowd booed what it deemed was an early stoppage. But for the first time in her career, Rousey had a non-armbar finish. The TKO win came just 66 seconds into the fight.
"We studied her videos and knew it was the best thing to concentrate on the liver shot for this camp," Rousey said. "The knee has been working for me the most throughout sparring in this camp."
McMann stayed gracious in defeat and wouldn't say Dean's stoppage was early.
"I thought it was a good fight. I got hit in the liver, and no matter how hard you train, you can't get your liver stronger," McMann said. "I hope to get a rematch and come back here and put on a better fight. I was trying to get back up, but it's my own fault. I should've gotten back to my feet quicker."
Rousey (9-0 mixed martial arts, 3-0 UFC) stayed unbeaten and notched another first-round win, the eighth of her career. McMann (7-1, 1-1) suffered the first loss of her MMA career.
Full UFC 170 results:
Ronda Rousey def. Sara McMann via TKO (strikes) — Round 1 (1:06)
Daniel Cormier def. Patrick Cummins via TKO (punches) — Round 1 (1:19)
Rory MacDonald def. Demain Maia via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Mike Pyle def. T.J. Waldburger via TKO (strikes) — Round 3 (4:03)
Stephen Thompson def. Robert Whittaker via TKO (strikes) — Round 1 (3:43)
Alexis Davis def. Jessica Eye via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
Raphael Assuncao def. Pedro Munhoz via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Aljamain Sterling def. Cody Gibson via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Zach Makovsky def. Josh Sampo via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
Erik Koch def. Rafaello Oliveira via TKO (punches) — Round 1 (1:24)
Ernest Chavez def. Yosdenis Cedeno via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 30-27)
Matt Erickson writes for MMAjunkie.com, part of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group.


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Phone: 1.800.352.5988
Address: 37 West First Street, Ocean Isle Beach, NC 28469
Gaze at the beautiful Atlantic from your private balcony or experience an impressive view of the Intracosatal Waterway and scenic marshlands. The Ocean Isle Inn offers Oceanfront or Soundview rooms with a Polynesian flair. All our rooms are air-conditioned and non-smoking, with either two queens or a single king bed with quilted-top plush mattresses. Tastefully decorated with hand-made teak wood furniture, our rooms also feature beautifully tiled floors, in-room coffee service, refrigerator, microwave, wetbar, hairdryer, color cable television, and data port phones with voice mail. Daily housekeeping service, complimentary deluxe continental breakfast, heated indoor pool and ocean side pool, Jacuzzi spa, and private beach access will make your stay relaxing. Ocean Isle Inn's friendly, professional staff is available 24 hours to ensure our guests a vacation to remember.
Phone: 1.888.325.4753
Address: 57 West 1st Street, Ocean Isle Beach, NC 28469
This modest oceanfront hotel is a 1-minute walk from the beach, a 5-minute walk from Ocean Isle Beach Pier and Arcade, and a 7-minute walk from the Museum of Coastal Carolina. The simple rooms all have traditional-style furnishings, some with tropical decor, and come with free WiFi, TVs with cable channels, microwaves, minifridges and coffeemakers. Oceanfront rooms also have balconies. Free perks include continental breakfast, WiFi and parking. The hotel offers direct beach access while other amenities include an indoor heated pool and hot tub, an outdoor oceanfront pool and a gym, along with a seasonal tiki bar and a poolside snack bar.
By Sloane Vacations
Phone: 1.866.931.5201
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NIGHTLY ACCOMMODATIONS AT THE CAUSEWAY INN! Sloane Realty Vacations is proud to offer nightly accommodations at the Causeway Inn on Ocean Isle Beach. The Causeway Inn is a recently remodeled condotel with each of its 35 rooms having their own unique decor and bed layout. The Causeway Inn is located on the main Causeway on Ocean Isle Beach and only 200 yards to the beach. This is a family-oriented inn with convenient access to dining and entertainment, including miniature golf, Museum of Coastal Carolina, arcade, fishing pier and much more within walking distance. Reserve your room today!
Phone: 1.800.334.3581
Address: 310 East 1st Street, Ocean Isle Beach NC 28469
Framed by palm trees and sand dunes, The Winds, on Ocean Isle Beach, NC, is a sanctuary to escape from the real world as if time has stood still. From a six bedroom cottage to your own beach side, single guest room, these Ocean Isle accommodations offer a range of choices. We offer a variety of Rooms, Suites & Cottages all with access to a host of free amenities: Three pools (one indoor), a complimentary hot Southern breakfast buffet, free WiFi, bikes to explore the island and much more. Oceanfront hotel rooms and 1, 2 & 3 bedroom suites (with kitchens) overlook palms, banana trees, hibiscus flowers and our breathtaking island beach. The Winds also offers 4, 5 and 6 bedroom Resort Cottages (with full kitchens and large living rooms) to easily accommodate a large family or group. No matter what your needs – we've got it covered.


text:
Photo courtesy of Harvard Athletic Communications.
The Particulars:
Harvard and Yale will meet in a pivotal Ivy match April 18 at the Beren Tennis Center. Both teams are still alive in the hunt for the Ivy League title.
Last Time Out:
The Crimson picked up its third consecutive win over an Ancient Eight opponent, downing Brown 5-2 April 16. Harvard claimed all three doubles matches to put the pressure on early with a 1-0 lead. Alexei Chijoff-Evans cruised to victory at the No. 1 singles spot. Harvard captured wins at the No. 4, 5 and 6 singles positions to secure the win.
About Harvard:
The Crimson is 12-10 on the season and 3-2 in the conference heading into the match. Harvard has won its last three matches, defeating Penn, Princeton and Brown. The Crimson sits in fifth in the Ancient Eight standings. Alexei Chijoff-Evans leads the team in singles wins this spring with 18 at the No. 1 position. Alistair Felton is close behind with 16 victories. The doubles tandem of Aba Omodele-Lucien and Christo Schultz has accrued 15 doubles wins this season at the top spot.
About Yale:
The Bulldogs come into the match with a 14-7 overall record and a 4-1 mark in the Ivy League. Yale is riding a four-match winning streak after earning wins over Ivy foes Cornell, Columbia, Penn and Dartmouth. The Bulldogs are narrowly in second in the Ivy League behind Columbia.
Photo Finish:
Columbia sits atop the Ivy League standings with a 5-1 conference record. Yale is just off the lead with a 4-1 mark in the Ancient Eight. Cornell and Princeton are within striking distance at 4-2 on the year in the Ivy League. Harvard is 3-2 in the conference to remain in the mix to claim the 2010 Ivy League crown.
Up Next:
The Crimson closes out the regular season with a home match against Dartmouth, April 21. Harvard will honor its lone senior, Michael Hayes, before the match.


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Refine Your Search
Choose Your Sizes
Choose Your Colors
Choose Your Styles
Waverly Bedding
Dip into Waverly® bedding; superb fabrics and attractive designs allow you to choose a bedspread, comforter, quilt or coverlet attuned to your unique style.
Luxuriate in Waverly Bedding
Peruse our selection of Waverly® bedding, and find a fashion-forward ensemble for your bedroom. Launched in 1923, Waverly is a premier home fashion and all-encompassing lifestyle brand and one of the most recognized names in home furnishings. The "Waverly Signature Look," including the company's famous Glosheen chintzes, florals, stripes and plaids, is synonymous with American decor. This signature look is expertly translated into countless classic styles among home furnishing products including bedding and window treatments. Old-world tradition, classic styling and clean, contemporary patterns merge into the many styles for the Waverly® bedding collection. This stylish assemblage includes quality fabric print comforter sets as well as matelasse bedspreads and coverlets.
Waverly Comforters & Bedspreads
Luxuriate in cottony bliss with one of our Waverly® comforter sets. Jacobean print, scrolling florals and mosaic designs rollick across the soft surfaces of these bed coverings. Emphasize rich patterns with matching bedskirts and shams, then strew the entire ensemble with decorative pillows. Our Waverly comforters feature vivid hues, from mango to celadon, that will serve as a bright focal point for your bedroom.
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Waverly Quilts
Lend an artisanal touch to your bed with Waverly® quilts. Stitched designs provide texture to cotton quilt faces decorated with blossoms, vines and even small birds. On the back of the quilt, a different pattern in coordinating colors creates a stunning reverse you'll be eager to display. Finally, assure your ensemble matches perfectly with one of their convenient quilt sets. Waverly comforters and bedspreads, shifting effortlessly from sleek and modern to simple and classical, have a place in your home no matter your taste. Revel in the high-quality fabrics and timeless designs of this illustrious home decor company.


text:
4920: RiversEdge Bowl
215 S River St.
Janesville, WI 53545
Download our Flyer
View our Tournaments
View our Leagues
View Center Dashboard
7528: Saturday 101's
Bowls On:
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Download: App Store or Google Play
XBowling provides an exciting and rewarding way for bowlers to improve their game, connect with others, and win real money
For more information, visit our website: XBowling.com
Steve Boettcher, from team 4 B's, is bowling on Lane 13 on 01/25/2020. View the Lane Assignments page to see who they are bowling against.
Steve Boettcher needs to bowl a 521 to increase his/her average by one pin and earn a Virtual Award.Below are some of Steve Boettcher accomplishments:
Current Average: 166
Current Team Place: 11
High Average: 166 on 10/19/2019
High Scratch Game: 223 on 10/19/2019
High Scratch Series: 566 on 10/19/2019
Click on a column heading to sort by that column ascending. Click again to sort descending. For printing of this data, use the icons to the right on the top of the list below. This will export the data into a printable format.


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Satomi Kousa Dogwood
Cornus kousa 'Satomi'
Kousa dogwoods are native to Japan, Korea and China. Small deciduous tree grows to 30' tall and wider than 30'. Autumn leaves turn a reddish purple. The fruit looks like large raspberries. The flowers are small, greenish yellow, and are surrounded by four large, pointed bracts. "Satomi" has bright pink bracts. Bark on older trees develops a camouflage-like appearance. Prefers moist, fertile, acidic, well-drained soil in full sun. A very useful four season tree.
Family: Cornaceae
Type: Ornamental
Origin: Asia
Season: Spring
Type: Ornamental
Origin: Asia
Season: Spring


text:
adnanmateen1 wrote:when uploading via ftp if the folder is not present already the software gets stuck and have to restart the upload process. i.e. if the directory is not present it creates a directory but doesnt upload the files and get stuck at the check directory stage... when you cancel the upload and start again it checks the directory is there and then just uploads the files need help
tomjelen wrote:so I need to upload the tour 'all the files' as I understand into the 'public_html' in the 'chapmanRd folder' and then also to the 'index' folder as chapmanRd.htm file for it to work ?
The program renders to file as '/Users/tomjelen/Desktop/Chapman Rd Horsefarm/build/virtualtour.swf" then I can change the name to what ever I want before I upload it so I can keep all the folders separate online on the server.
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text:
Truelux LED Spotlight (GU10)
Beam Angle 24°/36°/60°
Yunsun Patent Kulad Lens
35-50W Halogen Equivalent
90% Energy Saving
Dimmable(Match Both Leading &Trailing Edge Dimmable)
NXP Dimming IC 0-100% Dimmable
- Question: What is the Minimum Order Quantity?
- Answer: 100 pieces
- Question: Does it match to other brand dimmers?
- Answer: yes, not only Lutron and Leviton based on the dimming IC technology we are using, but we only made full tests on Lutron and Leviton.
- Question: What kind of dimmer can be used?
- Answer: All kinds of triac dimmers
- Question: What about your complaint strategy?
- Answer: Free replacement with return shipping cost on our side
- Question: Do you have ISO certificates?
- Answer: Yes, we have been certificated with ISO9001 and ISO14001 issued by SGS company
- Question: Do you have distributors in North America?
- Answer: Yes, now we only have distributor in California, if you want to our distributor, please kindly let us know by E-mail, we are open to any kinds of cooperation.
Our company want distributor all over the world.
- Question: Do you offer free samples?
- Answer: Yes, we do.and please contact us to confirm.
- Question: Do you offer OEM and ODM?
- Answer: Yes, we offer OEM and ODM for Led recessed downlight,Led bulbs,Led filament,Led panel and so on.we have led light production line myself.
- Question: Are you a factory?
- Answer: Yes, we are led lights/lamp manufacture china.we do wholesale to all over the word.if you want to bulk buy from china.welcome inquire.
- Question: Do you offer customized.
- Answer: Yes,we offer kinds of customized led lights follow your requirement.for more details,welcome inquires us.and more we frequently publish led lights new product.please
Focus us.
Product Name:Caoscaps


text:
Boys' Life
Your resource for fun and adventure! Become an inventor, play challenging games and puzzles, and check out Cub Corner designed just for Boy Scouts!
Everyday Mysteries
Ever wonder if you can really tell the weather by listening to the chirp of a cricket? How about why camels have humps? Find the answers to your most bizarre science questions at this website developed by the Library of Congress.
Cool Math 4 Kids
Math never looked so easy and fun! Take a stab at Monster Mind Reader, the Number Monster and many more interactive learning games designed for fun and learning.
Biology 4 Kids
Check out the study of life at this interactive website geared for not only kids but everyone with biology on their minds! Check out cell structures, functions, scientific studies and more.
Scholastic Weather Watch
Observe up above to investigate climate conditions, forecast the weather and track clouds in the sky. Explore the science of volcanoes, earthquakes and more with online activities to measure, determine and calculate everything you need to know about the weather!
LEGO Cool Creations
The official LEGO website where you can build, play and chat with other kids! Sign up today to create yourself as a mini-figure, send in stories, upload your LEGO creations and much more.
Bill Nye the Science Guy
Learn about your favorite scientist, Bill Nye the Science Guy! Check out Bill's favorite experiments, send Bill Nye e-cards to your friends and family, make your own Mars 3-D glasses and much more!
Extreme Science
Go for an adventure with Extreme Science! Dive deep in the ocean to meet the creatures down below, climb the world's highest mountains, learn what type of shark won't harm a hair on your head and much more. Challenge science to the extremes!


text:
Only move those programs which you have personally downloaded after receipt of your computer. These should be things like Google Earth or anti-spyware or word processing programs that you added to the computer. When you installed them onto the hard drive they SHOULD have given you the option of which drive on which to install them--some programs fail to do this and automatically load themselves to the C drive. The result is a full C drive and empty D drive like we have now.
The NOVO button is the one-button-restore feature on the computer. On the Y-410 it is located in the upper right hand corner of the keyboard. Refer to your owner's manual for usage or go on-line and download a Y-410 manual if yours is not available. By usage of the NOVO button, your hard drive will revert to the state in which it was when it was new from the factory--everything else placed on the hard drive will be lost, so back up the programs and data before using the NOVO button. The NOVO button was placed on the computer to allow a recovery from a virus that would disable the computer and is a fairly radical method to achieve the results we are looking for--a usable C drive rather than a full one.
Good luck!
PS. I'm NOT an expert on these things but I can't seem to get any help either so this is the only way that I can see to get the hard drive issue resolved. If someone else has a better idea I would love to hear what they have to say.
John Stephens
12-27-2008 02:42 PM - edited 01-04-2009 07:28 AM
I have Lenovo 3000 G410. Partitions C: and D: have a strange size: 100 Gb - C, 30 Gb - D. C is too large for the system only, and D is too small for keeping all neccessary files on it. Also I want to install Linux. So I need to resize partitions. Is there a way to resize them but keep One Key Recovery working? Or can I install some other soft instead of OKR that will do similar functions and reacting on Novo key?
01-18-2009 11:26 PM - last edited on 01-19-2009 11:32 AM by JaneL
I do have the same problem but mine is more worse, having 400MB + free space on C.
Does shrinking the drive D space will increase the size on drive C ? If i do it on the disk management ?
Any thoughts ?
Note from Moderator: Resolved formatting issue.
me to same as this problem, Drive C is 20 gb but currently 1.2 gb free space only, space is lower and lower, now 300 mb ONLY let.
please help!
I figured this out. You need to turn off your rescue software and delete any and all backups of your hard drive. The back ups are complete copies of your drive. They take up tons of space. You should get most of your drive back when you do this.
Go to Start,all programs, Lenovo Care and navigate to the back up files.
Good luck.
Hello everyone.
I have a lenove 3000 Y410. It has onekey recovery 4.65 version. It does not have system backup. Im getting tired of whenever I recovery my C drive, I have to install some softwares and drivers not included in the default image backup the lenovo has. Like printer drivers, windows updates, anti-virus updates, and more.. So here's my question:
1. What onekey recovery version have a backup features? or does 4.65 have this that I failed to know what to do/how to do/go there?
2. Is the onekey recovery 6.0 compatible with any lenove notebooks, specifically, is it compatible with my 3000 Y410?
I have search the lenovo site, and also this forum, but I failed to see some results concerning compatiblity, and other matters concerning my inquiry.
Thank you so much lenovo community for any help or information you can share.
I'm hoping someone has come up with an answer to the question that John Stephens posted on 10/14/08 --
Problem: The C drive on my Y410 is nearly full; the D drive is nearly empty.
I haven't loaded many new programs, but those I've loaded go to the C drive; I don't get the option of putting them on the D drive.
How can I move some programs from my C drive to my D drive?
I've deleted the lenovo service partition to recover windows, but it didn't work. After trying a lot, i deceided to pay for the recovery discs form lenovo.
Now I try to recover but it doesn't work! I get the error "Couldn't find service partition". And that is where the installation ends. My laptop is useless now. Does anybody have a solution? Is there a way to get the service partition back?
Many thanks,
I having the same problems with my daughter's Y410 -- on 30GB on C: (now full) and 105GB on D: (mostly empty). Most everything seems to want to go automatically to C: (such as Java updates), but there is no room. Hasn't anyone out there found a solution other than a system rebuild?
The problem being faced by me is the OKR not working in the model G530 model no. 4446-23U. Service centre not able to help.How can this happen that the feature provided by IBM, if corrupts then its not possible for rectification. Help.
|Kudos Count


text:
The launch of the 1940 US Census Community Project is now less than 40 days away! Thousands of people and hundreds of genealogy societies and other organizations have signed up to help provide free and open access to this amazing collection by indexing the census images to make them searchable online.
The indexing infrastructure has undergone a significant upgrade just this week as we make final preparations for the launch of this monumental effort.
Get Ready NowMany indexing projects are now available to help you learn how the indexing software works and to help you train for the release of the 1940 US federal census on April 2. These projects include the following:
- Iowa 1895 State Census
- New York 1855 State Census
- WWI Draft Registration Cards (multiple states)
- WWII Draft Registration Cards (multiple states)
- US Passenger Lists (multiple states)
- 1890 Census of Union Veterans and Widows
- Texas Births and Deaths
- UK 1871 Census
If you haven't already had a chance, you can download the indexing software and get started today.
The 1940 census includes those who have been called "the Greatest Generation." Get ready to index these records to ensure that everyone can be found, every connection can be made, and every legacy can be preserved.
Spread the WordYou can help us spread the word, even if you can't find time to participate in indexing right now. Getting others involved will make the indexing effort go more quickly.
Here are a few ways to let others know about this nationwide opportunity for service:
- Tell your friends to join the cause by registering at The1940Census.com .
- Are you in a society? Index census records as a society .
- Do you blog or have a website? Become an ambassador to spread the word.
- Are you on Facebook? Like our page on Facebook .
- Are you on Twitter? Follow @The1940Census and join the conversation using #1940census.
Who Will You Find?
If you are interested in finding a specific individual in the 1940 US Census, we want to hear from you. Please tell us who you are hoping to find and why. Send a message to email@example.com .
Thanks for your ongoing support.
The 1940 US Census Community Project Team
The 1940 US Census Community Project Team


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