DirectX 9.0c SDK now availible

The DirectX 9.0 SDK Update - (Summer 2004)  aka DirectX 9.0c is now availible here...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/directx.asp

Wow! Where the heck did the last 12 months go! Were already downloading a second year of directx "summer update" SDK's

Possibly a new site is in the works

I am probably going to be upgrading my account over at http://www.brinkster.com/ from a "instant web site package" to a "developer package" that should allow me to do much more with this site as well as add more content to my site. Right now I only have about 1mb left. (Kinda why I have not uploaded any content lately) Hopfully then I will not have to keep posting my works on other sites like PSC, gotdotnet etc, and will be able to host them myself.

Although I probably will not be doing the upgrade for another few months.

I am thinking I should create a new section when the  new site is setup, where people can submit there desktop screen capture videos for a particular topic like Direct3D, or gaming. Kind of a community TV station.

Cool Scent tracking AI

Well as mentioned in my prev post I have successfully got a Scent tracking AI up and running. Basicly the principle is this. As the player moves around the world they leave scent molecules behind. Each scent molecule has a decay rate so that there scent strength is reduced over time until it completly dissapates. 

As for the enemy AI, I gave the enemies 2 scent detectors. One on each side of it's body that extend foward. When a scent detector detecs a scent molecule the enemy will turn in the direction that it's scent detector was facing and move in that direction. I was caught compleatly off guard by how simple the code is to get the enemies to track your characters scent.

I was going to try and do a video screen capture but the screen capture software is unable to capture the AI at work. But I will keep trying.

So why did I try my hand at coding some scent tracking AI you ask? Well first off for gamming, but also it can be a cool feature to have in games like RPG's where you could have a pack of wild dogs or monsters that will catch your scent and start fallowing you!

Once I have played around with the code some more I intend to add additional AI both for vision and sound tracking.

One problem is that the Scent tracker AI is written in VB.NET 2005 express beta 1 and requires the .NET framework v2.0 beta in order to compile and run. So I won't be uploading the code just yet. Not until .NET 2.0 and VB.NET 2005 are offically availible.  But if someone wants the code anyway, I can provide it to them, just email me at createdbyx@gmail.com.