Kenneth Weiss » OpenGL

iSand-HD even more fun at the beach…

Kenneth — Sat, 01 May 2010 01:16:28 +0000

It’s iPad fever time and I just finished upgrading iSand for the big screen. More screen + More grains = more fun. Spent some time optimizing the graphics to maximize the amount of particles on the screen. The verdict is that the iPad’s processor rocks. I just doubled the amount of grains compared to the 3GS, and it’s smooth as can be. It also seems to handle multiple touch with no effort, which is all done on the CPU. It was challenging to get the orientation right. The main OGL view should not move while the toolbar and the status bar do.

Here are some screen shots:

And of course the link… iSand-HD

iSand – iPhone/iPod Touch Sand Art Particle Simulator

Kenneth — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:01:20 +0000

Apple just approved another app of mine, iSand. I know it’s cheesy adding the i but it was available and i wanted to be the one… Any way this is a sand art simulator with simulated particle physics. This app pushes the OpenGL ES on the iPhone to the limit. I wanted to be able to produce as many grains as possible without becoming unresponsive. Allot of optimizing and I got it to 9600 on the 3g and 17066 on the 3GS. The 3D hardware upgrade and the processor speed increase the 3GS makes a big difference. I’m gonna continue to try and push in more sand particles in the next update.

If you got it, make sure to give it 5 stars!

iSand – iPhone Sand Art Simulator

iPhone application – Infected Mushroom’s Smashing the Opponent

Kenneth — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:34:05 +0000

Things don’t get cooler then this.
An iPhone first person shooter game for none other then Infected Mushroom. I met Infected at their show in Dublin early this year. Erez Eizen wanted an iPhone game that would allow the band to get in touch with fans and promote their new album “Legend of the Black Shawarma”. Inspired by the album art conceived by Jeff McMillian, I worked on bringing it to life as a simple whacking game. But I got carried away and decided to challenge myself and create a first person shooter, something I had not attempted before. The challenging parts was getting a decent frame rate while rendering the forest. I found out that is was more efficient to do the transformations of the field objects on the CPU and not using the OGL matrices. Memory as always is tricky on the iPhone. I used the Oolong Engine for the texture compression and the audio streaming. Tip: Don’t mix this with the AVAudioPlayer, they will compete on mp3 decoding, I was amazed to find out that this gave me drops in frame rate.

Check out the game:
Smashing the Opponent at the App Store

Native iPhone Application: Tap-N-Flip

Kenneth — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:11:51 +0000

Ok some changes. Othello is just too easy. That is why there are about 10 different versions of the game in the app store. So this game is an arcade version of Othello. It has levels, Score, lives and can be played multiplayer. I implemented the GUI with OpenGL ES and added some sounds using the Open AL api.

Waves Tune – Working on a new plug-in from Waves

Kenneth — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 14:54:09 +0000

A year and a half in the making, this is an awesome project that I was privileged to work on. Waves Tune is a Vocal Tuning Plug-in that is used for fixing out of tune singers or can be used as a modern vocal effect.
From Wave Tune Product Page:

The singer has just wrapped up an amazing take. The phrasing, the emotion, the delivery, it’s all there. But there are notes you’d like to change, and others that need to be fixed. You need perfect pitch transformation. You need precision realtime editing capabilities.
You need Waves Tune. With full ReWire support, formant correction, and an extensive palette of pitch shaping tools, Waves Tune lets you do all your editing right there within your DAW environment – no need to export sections or work offline. Better sounding and more flexible than any other pitch correction processor, Waves Tune will get your vocals back on track.

In this project I became more acquainted with OpenGL and 3d graphics programming. There was allot of room to explore, so I could focus on making the interface smoother and cooler. There is a nice zooming effect I created and when the pages are moved the screen will slide into the point of view. You can see the zooming effect on this video: Waves Tune Video on YouTube
Another cool aspect was using ReWire not for the audio capabilities but for the synchronization and ability to control your host application from within the plug-in’s GUI.

This Plug-in will be released soon and will support the following platforms:
VST – Window and Mac OS X
Audio Units – Mac OS X
Pro-Tools/RTAS/Audio Suite – Window and Mac OS X
MAS – Mac OS X