Avijit Paul -Mostly Technical

Git newbie: Fatal : Cannot use user as an exclude file

2010-08-26T00:29:00.000-07:00

So I started using Github. Since everyone is using it I thought, well just go ahead and use it. Should not be that hard right? Oh well, I guess people forgot to mention that you will loose some hair first before you can upload things - specially if it is related to iphone / xcode.

So after initial git commit etc, I have happily created a new xcode and tried to upload. Terminal says, sorry cant upload some items. So I Googled and found that you got to put .gitignore for iphone / xcode things.

But the problem is, I dont know where to add the ignore file. And to make it worse, I have NO IDEA how to create it. After many many search I found, to create - I got to use

nano .gitignore

And vola, now I can create a gitignore file. So I added those and saved it and then I tried to git it and there you go, a new error popped up.

fatal : cannot use /users/avi/ as an exclude file

I searched high and low what might have caused it. Tried all sorts of command only to find more and more errors. Here are a few :

1. fatal: bad revision 'HEAD'

After many many tries, I finally found the solution

nano ~/.gitconfig

This will bring you to the main config file which has these

[user]

your user details

[core]

exclude users/avi/

Once I deleted those lines, I could commit and upload it right away.

fixing repeat export error in imovie or any other i-things

2010-08-22T22:28:00.000-07:00

One of the most annoying thing of built in i-things (iphoto, imovie etc) that once you want to do more than what is there, it is very hard. However, what makes it worse is, when you export it and you got it wrong, you just keep getting it wrong.

Yesterday while exporting a video from imovie found the solution - duplicate the project and change the settings in that duplicated project. If you do that, you can export again. Else - oh well!!

Sessions for Google speech project

2010-06-18T23:24:00.001-07:00

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iTunes automatically deletes from iPod, iPad or iPhone

2010-06-08T23:35:00.000-07:00

This articles shows how to prevent iTunes automatically delete your apps in 4 simple and easy steps from iTunes itself without any codes etc.

After purchasing your app and downloading, a lot of times iTunes tend to delete apps that you have bought. And in case you have jailbroken with sprit / cydia, the moment you connect and sync your iPod or iPhone with iTunes, it is bound to delete your apps. And if you ask not to sync your apps, iTunes threatens to delete all apps from your touch or phone.

Fortunately the solution is right inside iTunes.

Step 1 : To stop automatically sync itunes with ur iPod or iPhone, first go to "Preference" in iTunes.

Step 2: In Preference window, go to "Devices"

Step 3: Check / tick"Prevent ipods, iPhones and iPads from Syncing Automatically.

Step 4: Now connect your iPod / iPhone / iPad. Once connected go to File > Transfer purchases from your ipod / iphone / ipad.

Once you do that, now your apps will never get deleted. Now you can sync it back.

If you wish to enable auto-sync, you can uncheck from step 3 now. But I recommend manual sync.

Unity3d class schedule for Sem 43 - 2010/2011

2010-06-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

Date	Titles	Topics
7 June 2010 Week 1	Introduction to BEHAVIOURAL MODELLING	1. Getting familiar with Behaviour Modelling 2. What to expect in the class 3. Marks distribution
14 June 2010 Week 2	Lecture: Virtual Storytelling: Narrativity and Authoring Tut: First unity3d project, Unity interface, Terrian creation	1. Interactive drama 2. Character focused narrative generation 3. Plot conduction 4. Gameplay into interactive dramas 5. Developing believable body language in virtual actors
21 June 2010 Week 3	Tut: Creating workflow in untiy 3d, assets, importing, versions, Lecture: Workflow pipeline setup	1. Benefits of setting up workflow 2. Incorporating version control system (GIT, SVN) for 3d workflow
21 June 2010 Week 3	Exercise 1 Brief – 20%	Total marks 20% Focus: Importing and animation
28 June 2010 Week 4	Lecture: Interaction basics Tut: Basic Interactions in Unity3d, using simple javascript, applying scripts to imported assets and animations	1. Why design interaction? 2. Four Approaches to interaction design (User centered, Activity centered, System, Genius) 3. Scaling interaction design from prototype to larger content
5 July 2010 Week 5	Lecture: Animation in Virtual environment	1. Interaction with animated characters in virtual environment 2. Recycling and Reducing animation data 3. Simulating humans 4. Motion planning
5 July 2010 Week 5	Tut: Importing rigged character and assigning controls and animation
12 July 2010 Week 6	Tut: Generic Scripting (Prefabs, Collections and HUD) - Picking up items	Principles of animation 1. Squash and stretch 2. Anticipation 3. pose-to-pose 4. straight-ahead 5. Follow-through 6. Overlapping 7. Slow-in and slow-out 8. Arcs 9. Secondary action 10. Timing 11. Exaggeration
12 July 2010 Week 6	Lecture: Animation and physics
	Submission of Exercise 1 Briefing of exercise 2	Total marks – 30% Focus – Picking up, physics, explosion and scoring
19 July 2010 Week 7	Tut: Instantiations, Rigid Bodies and Particle System - Prepping the grenade - Creating fire	1. Visual effects in films and how they can be applied in virtual environment 2. Image compositing 3. Matte painting to create background 4. Visual effects in games
19 July 2010 Week 7	Lecture: Visual effects in Virtual Environment
EXTRA CLASS	Bonus Class: Iphone games development part 1	1. Obtain digital certificate 2. Provision your device to use with iphone / ipod touch 3. Common errors and solutions
9 August 2010 Week 9	Lecture: User interface designing with user in mind	1. What does user do (in web, games, vr)? 2. Benefits of having an interface 3. Designing for scanning, not reading- users just want to play 4. Giving first impression intro page
9 August 2010 Week 9	Tut: Graphical User Input Design - Adding 3d menu - Scripting GUI
EXTRA CLASS	Bonus Class: Iphone games Control setup	Setting up controls Materials and shaders for iphone
16 August 2010 Week 10	Lecture: Physics in virtual environment	1. Adding realism with physics movements 2. Why physics engine? Advantages and disadvantages. Nvidia Physix, a case study 3. Laws of motion 4. Springs and hooks 5. Collision – face, boundary 6. Rigidbody 7. Constrains
16 August 2010 Week 10	Tut: Applying physics to the scene
EXTRA CLASS	Bonus class: Iphone collission	Collssion setup Trigger setup
	Exercise 2 Submission Briefing of Exercise 3 – 10%	Total Marks: 15% Focus on Networking
23 August 2010 Week 11	Tut: Multiplayer networking part 1	1. Connecting user 2. Server and client concepts 3. Ping, delays, 4. User home and destinations 5. Firewalls, ports
23 August 2010 Week 11	Lecture: Why multiplayer?
EXTRA CLASS	Bonus class: Iphone GUI setup	GUI – CREATING AND SETTING UP Adding Game Over Screen Creating personal Game intro screen
30 August 2010 Week 12	Tut: Multiplayer networking part 2 - badumna	1. Virtual Crowds 2. Crowd simulation models 3. Presence in virtual crowds
30 August 2010 Week 12	Lecture: Autonomous character
EXTRA CLASS	Bonus class: Iphone GUI setup	GUI – CREATING AND SETTING UP Adding Game Over Screen Creating personal Game intro screen
6 September 2010 Week 13	Lecture: What difference does Audio make? Invited Lecturer: Mr Norman	1. Importance of Audio in virtual environment 2. Background music and suitable genres 3. Sound effects
6 September 2010 Week 13	Tut: Mixing real time 3d with Audio and Video
EXTRA CLASS	Bonus class: Iphone distribution	Setting up distribution Collaboration between teams
	Submission of Exercise 3
13 September 2010 Week 14	Might be cancelled due to Hari Raya Haji. If there is a class, it will be followed as such Lecture*: Ubiquitous and Pervasive interaction: Post desktop model	1. What is everyware 2. How is everyware different from what we are used to? 3. What drives the emergence? 4. Issues of omnipresent data 5. Building your game / vr / application based on location
13 September 2010 Week 14	Tut: Provisioning device for interactive environment, interactive with accelerometer and position support

Teaching staff

Avijit Paul

Rom 1048

Phone: +6 03 8312 5610 / +6 016 357 2576

Email: avijit.paul ' at ' mmu.edu.my or avijit.paul.1992 ' at ' gmail 'dot ' com

Why I do not want to help students anymore

2010-04-29T22:16:00.000-07:00

Every semester I try my level best to help my students. I was a student before and I always wanted to do well and when I see them looking for help I remember my student time and I help. A lot of times I may not be able to help as much as I wished, but I try.

I do not expect any thank you note for that, but what I got today's mail was a wake up call for me. Here is the mail [minus the names]

=============================================================
From: student 1 <xxxx@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 2:22 AM
Subject: Urgent.Emergency(unity);
To: avijit.paul@mmu.edu.my

Dear my beloved Sir,

We’re having problems with our unity. The submission is due on next Monday. We’re running out of time. We don’t want to fail this course. Please, please, please help us. We are so desperate. This is not fair, we have tried our best. We give all our heart and soul to this project. Everyone else got interaction. But we don’t even know how to publish our work. Which selection to choose, ya? Is it the OSX standalone? What is OSX?

With this email we attach our unity file. Please do the third person controller with hovering, floating effect. Then the user can boost the speed of the character after collecting stuff. Please do all nicely. We don’t have enough time to do this assignment because we want to watch anime and play games. Please ya! You are my only hope.

Then put extra FX to make our environment fantastic and beautiful for bonus marks. I really really need this. We know nothing about unity, so please do everything for us, ya!

You are the nicest lecturer we know.

After you finish, please burn in CD and design the cover for us. Remember to use the thin jewel case. Please remember ya, this is very important! We don’t want to fail this course. We don’t want to waste our parents’ money.

Finally, submit the CD to [lecturer 1] on Monday between 2-4pm. Please don’t be late. We can’t go submit on Monday because we will be at Singapore “jalan-jalan cari makan”(please google this) I really really hope you’ll understand our situation. Please don’t tell Mr. Mazlan that you do all our Unity stuff. Keep it secret, till death do us part. Please please, we don’t want to fail this course.

That’s all for this sem. We’ll be back to ask you to do our assign for FYP.

PS: Oh btw, how to export Max to Unity?

Sincerely,

Student 1 and student 2

PSS: Please take this with a bit of sarcasm. Don’t take this seriously. This is the joke of the semester!

=======================================================

I replied

=======================================================

Thanks for writing this mail, although both of you probably have crossed the line by miles, but it was a good realization mail.

Even though it makes me sad to read this email as I really believed [student 3] needed help on the unity part so I tried to help as much as I could even though I did not get to help much. But after your reading your email I understand my mistake. I was trying too hard to help and most probably I am not going to help anyone ever and will show the email [minus the names] as a reference why I dont want to help.

=======================================================

Anyone who is reading it might think why cant I just take a sarcastic email? After all it is a joke and they have exaggerated a bit too much and it is probably a good fun. The problem is that, recently I took a lot of criticism from a number of faculty members for helping too much. I digested all of it thinking I am trying to do a greater good as the students probably really need help.

It takes a lot of my time and effort to find ways to solve problems. I spend a good number of hours trying to solve this technical issues that I could have used for my own work. I still did because I believed it will help.

But after this, please dont bother asking for help.

The door has been shut, at least for the rest of my time in MMU.

Underwater effects like island demo in unity3d

2010-04-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

A lot of times I get asked how to do the underwater effects like the one we see in island demo - where when you / your camera goes under water level you see blurry atmosphere.

Since most of the questions are asked by Non Programmers, (ex http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=195450 ) here is a "copy paste" style tutorial that you should be able to follow to create your underwater effects.

Level : Beginner heading towards intermediate

Things you need
1. Underwater script (comes with island demo)
2. Underwater shader (comes with island demo)
3. Blur island script (comes with island demo)
4. Glow Effect Island script (comes with island demo)

Lets get our hands dirty
0. Open your island demo project, create a new scene.
1. Create a terrain.
2. Drag daylight water in the scene.
3. Enlarge it to make it fill your scene / area that you are trying to put water on.
4. Drag first person controller to the scene. Position it where you need it to start walking
5. Click Main camera so that you can now assign scripts to the main camera
6. Go to components > Scripts > Underwater script to add underwater script to the camera.

7. Now you should have underwater effect script on your main camera. However, if you try to go under the water right now, you wont see any effect. For that, you need to add the under water surface first.
8. Go to Game object > Create other > Plane
9. Make the plane to have EXACTLY same X, Y, Z as the daylight water. (You can make the Y of the underwater a little low - just like what I did, but X and Z should be same)

10. Now drag the underwater shader from the water folder from the project window.

11. You can try to play and go underwater now and VOLA!!! You are stuck!! You wanted to see blur and now You cant even get down. That is because your plane has a collider. So remove the collider from the plane and you are good to go down.

12. However, you still cant see any blurriness. That is because your camera dont have any blur script to it. So, select the "main camera" under first person controller prefab and go to
a) Component > Image effect > blur (island)
b) Component > Image effect > Glow (Island)

13. One you assigned all of this, the last thing you need to assign in an audio source. That is because the default script that comes with island demo has audio and your current camera dont have audio. So click the main camera again, and go to
Component > Audio > Audio source

14. Now play it, you should have similar blurry effect.

15. If you want to control the blur, change the iteration or blur speed under blur effect island. (this is under main camera) . Here I changed the iterations from 3 to 1 to have clearer effect.

So hope you can follow this and create your own underwater effects. If you are doing it in a different folder you need to copy the relevant scripts there, but I assume if you can follow this you already know how to copy the scripts needed to your folder.

Drop me a line at avijit.paul at mmu.edu.my or avijit.paul.1992 at gmail.com or post a comment below if you have any questions.

I get that you were busy. But did you do anything important?

2010-02-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

Amazing line from Seth Godin.

I get that you were busy. But did you do anything important?

Many days I just keep doing things that are not important at all. Actually most of the days I do things that are not important. But I just do them. I think I need to print this really BIG and stick in front of my door.

"Did you do anything important today?"

2 steps to update Twitter, Facebook status and Google buzz same time with one update

2010-02-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

Here is what I did to update my facebook startus, twitter and Google buzz by updating only one.

Step 1 : Login to facebook - add http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ this will ensure when you update your twitter it also updates your facebook status.

Step 2 : Login to your gmail, go to buzz and click "connected sites" link near your profile picture. Look for twitter, add your username and click done.

Thats it, now when you update your twitter it will update your facebook status, google buzz and twitter of course.

Making things better

2010-01-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

Abdul Hafiz Abd Jamil	http://hafizvr.wordpress.com
Abdullah	http://abdullahalrawas.blogspot.com/
Adrian Lee Keat Eng	http://giorno-vrdesign.blogspot.com
ahmad faiq azhar	http://vreal-faiqazhar.blogspot.com/
Chong Hwei Teeng	http://zac-vr.blogspot.com/
Khairul Redzi	http://redzi.wordpress.com/
Muhammad Hafiz Hamid	http://apisxp.blogspot.com
LEe Zhi Fei	http://vrd2010.blogspot.com/
Liew Jia Sing	http://rikikiangel.blogspot.com/
mohsen nemati	http://ckamon.blogspot.com/
Muhammad Anas Satriya	http://1051104543.blogspot.com/
Najwa Hussin	http://najuwaju.tumblr.com/
Ooi Edzul	http://virtualrealitygamma.blogspot.com/
Retnowati Nurtanti Astari	http://vr1retno.blogspot.com/
Yong Keen Sen	http://keen89gvr1.blogspot.com

how to make a recession proof career

2009-12-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

One of the best career advice ever :

Recession-Proof Graduate

View more documents from Charlie Hoehn.

Rescuing my stolen laptop with RescueTime - Day 2

2009-12-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I have been checking and waiting for her to log in, but she is not logging in. I kept refreshing the rescuetime dashboard and I can see that the computer is not on yet [last report was 18 hours before].

I went through her friends profile and added quite a few friends. And some of the friends were starting to confirm my request. Then suddenly I see one of the friend has deleted me and put me in the ignore list. That got me upset because if you are not in the wrong side, why do you have to do that? And while I was still waiting, I see she is not adding me.

So I logged in back in the dashboard and found that she did go through my profile and liwan's profile too.

But she still did not add me. By then, I was starting to get upset. So I sent her a msg. And interestingly, she replied real quick.

After that one of her friend called and we spoke over phone for a while. I understand her situation as her mom is computer illiterate and did not know the value of it. The guy owed her mom RM 1800 so he traded with the laptop. I told her the laptop cost way more as the current price is close to RM 10,000.

After the discussion we decided to meet up and I will be meeting her soon and hopefully we can come to a solution.

Regardless of what the solution comes up, I am very thankful to rescuetime for not only rescuing my time, but also saving my laptop and my data.

On top of that, I emailed rescueTime and even during the christmas back, Joe Hruska - Founder & CTO RescueTime, Inc emailed me back with the IP address and other details. Just wow.

I am surely buying the pro plan once I pay of my credit card bill to activate my card again. Thanks again rescueTime and liwan for great help.

Update: I have spoken to her again and she will be coming to MMU to return it sometime this week. We will go to police station to report about the guy who stole it. Since they also cant contact the guy anymore we have no choice but to report police. At least police will be able to find out from the phone no he was using.

Update 2: I met up with the girls in midvalley starbucks today (31st December 2009). They are really really nice. They apologized a lot of times for the trouble. I am just very thankful that I got it back. Unfortunately the girl's mom does not want to make report about the guy because she is afraid that since her shop is really small and is in not very city area, the guy's friend might come to disturb them. I wish I could report about the guy, but I understand their situation too. It is easy for me to say go report, but if really that guy's other criminal friends trouble them I would not know what to do. So, I will just go and inform police that I got my things back.

Thanks everyone for your support. Really appreciate it.

Rescuing my stolen laptop with RescueTime - Day 1

2009-12-28T01:36:00.000-08:00

So my laptop was stolen from my house middle of the night on 8th December. Therefore it was no surprise that my RescueTime (a software I installed to check my own productivity) email started to say they cant get any data from my computer.

Therefore, I was quite shocked to get the email last night saying my rescuetime is working again and I was not very productive. Really? Wow. Is it totally empty and thus not productive or someone is using my pc now?

I immediately went to check my dashboard. And vola!!! the thief must have sold it to someone else!! How cool !!! Not even a week and it already went to the market, and is already bought by someone and is working full swing!!! Who says things does not work fast here?

But wait a minute? What on earth is xunlove.com ? First thought - a porn site? So I went to the site and found it is a chinese site. Made a quick google translate and found it is something to do with romantic novel writing.

So my thief is a writer. How brilliant!!!! He steals pc to write romantic novels. Wow.

So can I get more info of what he is looking at?

Oh no!!! I am using free version. Can I upgrade!!! Oh gosh. I have totally used up my credit limit to buy my new macbook. =( Can I still see the posts?

At that point of time I was getting really frustrated. Why did not I buy the pro package. And suddenly got the solution - referrals. I immediately sent to liwan and asked her to sign up. Once she signed up I got two weeks of pro access. Cool. Anyone who is reading it, please get the pro version. It is totally worth it.

So, here both me and liwan are now looking at what the person have done. First thing first, the folders.

Ok, so the names of the person is probably the same as the pendrive. Since I am not sure yet if this is the person who stole the laptop, I will blur the name first. But lets use this information to check with his other details now.

So going in more details I see the one of the most used one is facebook. Can I get his identity of that?

So I am now going through the facebook list and I start to find interesting similarities.

For not publishing the name, I have skipped few more facebook screenshots that I got. And after going through all of the details, I have concluded for now that this person is the one who is using it.

I also found that this is a girl, not a guy as I thought at first. And based on the rest of the details, I am quite sure that she bought it from someone who sold it saying this is a second hand laptop. I am very sure she does not know what is going on. I will need to find more info tomorrow.

Update: I wrote a second post on talking to her and more updates.

solution : iphone sdk not found in appcelerator titanium

2009-12-26T11:33:00.000-08:00

This is the current solution of iphone sdk not found problem in latest titanium [as of Dec 2009]. For those of you who installed the xcode 3.1.4 from apple developer page along with iphone sdk you will face a problem with titanium.

Although xcode is installed, it thinks that it is not there. The reason probably is titanium thinks default Xcode installation directory in "/usr/bin". However, the latest xocde gets installed in xcode 3.1.4 directory. So the solution is (from the forum)

simply create a symlink to the default Xcode installation directory in "/usr/bin". In Terminal:

cd /usr/bin

sudo ln -s /Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild xcodebuild

Once restarted Titanium, the green tick appeared.

In picture

Once done, you should see the iphone part getting green. For Android, I am using eclipse

Getting my mac

2009-12-21T00:16:00.000-08:00

After my latop was stolen, I bought a new Macbook from Maccity today. Quite a good deal. If you are there, look for Amelia. Hopefully I will be able to do some iphone development with that. I was supposed to buy from Mr Rashidi, but finally went to buy a new macbook. It is quite nice and I am trying to get used it.
As an avid pc user, it is taking me some time to get used to it.