Progress made. Lighting is all on, and I figured out the problem that was bringing my frame rate down so drastically (not sure *why* yet though): lighting. If you set the light position before you set the camera, that's bad anyway because the position is messed up, but not only that, it must be recalculating its position for every vertex or something. Still got a few white lines (which go away when you remove specular light) but the problem is not as noticeable as it was before. This took a lot of dang debugging time and a lot of reading to figure out. On the plus side, during that reading I learned a lot about vertex and pixel shading programming, which is pretty cool shit.
New things include full camera control with flythrough and an untested smooth camera follow; a lighting model minus spotlights. Metal highlights are working. I have no idea what I'm going to do with terrain yet, but it's time to tackle that along with terrain collision detection. Then a skybox and (shudder) shadows.
I wonder if moving the light around like the sun will cause the same performance problems.
Posted by jkeiser at May 7, 2003 3:22 AMAdopt Sheets. I really like the use of Sheets in OS X. The use of Sheets lets me know which window my dialogue belongs to without hijacking my system.
Posted by: Cecily at January 24, 2004 3:41 PMThe simple fact is that, when all other factors are equal, where will consumers spend their money? I believe that in the long run, the best looking, easiest-to-use applications will also be the most successful. I think that's why Apple encourages developers to write programs that are 100 percent Aqua-compliant.
Posted by: Digory at January 24, 2004 3:42 PMTo help you become a good Aqua citizen, Apple has created a few guidelines. I've put together a brief overview of them, and we'll be tackling many of them in the months to come.
Posted by: Theodosius at January 24, 2004 3:42 PMDock Animation. Sometimes animating icons in the dock can be useful in communicating the status of the system or application.
Posted by: Mildred at January 24, 2004 3:43 PMSo far in these articles, I have only dipped a toe or two into Aqua's pool. I have covered basic aspects of building an Aqua-compliant application, including the building of photo-illustrative/3D application icons. Now it's time to address other components of our Mac OS X application.
Posted by: Abraham at January 24, 2004 3:44 PMAdhere to Layout Guidelines. Did you leave 12 pixels between your push buttons? Does the positioning of your pop-up menus make sense, and when do you use a pop-up versus a scrolling list? Are you using the right types of buttons for the proper functions?
Posted by: Silvester at January 24, 2004 3:45 PMDock Animation. Sometimes animating icons in the dock can be useful in communicating the status of the system or application.
Posted by: Gilbert at January 24, 2004 3:45 PMFor example, if you see an AIM window peeking out from behind your browser and you click on it, that window will come to the front, but the main application window will not. The Mail.app/Activity Viewer is another example. The Aqua system of layers works well in many instances, but not in all. Thank goodness that the Dock is always there to come to the rescue. I know that clicking on an application icon in the Dock will always result in not only the application coming to the front, but also any non-minimized windows associated with it. And if the application is active but no windows are open, clicking on the Dock icon should create a new window in that application.
Posted by: Oliver at January 24, 2004 3:46 PMUser Assistance. This is helping the user with the proper "next step" when performing a task. Less guesswork for the user on what to do next makes for a better experience.
Posted by: Daniel at January 24, 2004 3:47 PMHelp! Did you include help tags in your applications? (I'd be lost without them.) Also, be sure to take extra time to develop your other help files. The Apple Help Viewer supports HTML, QuickTime, and also AppleScript. Take advantage of it! There isn't anything I hate more than going to the Help menu and finding there isn't any help.
Posted by: Edmund at January 24, 2004 3:48 PM