Xbox One

Microsoft finally put a name and face to their once mysterious console when they introduced the Xbox One. With 15 new titles and 300,000 new Xbox Live servers promised, I'm already gathering what little money I have.

We are faced with a sleek rectangular console, void of any awkward curves like we've seen previously. They confirmed Blu-ray support in the slot-loading drive, good news for larger games as we'll no longer be faced with the dreaded "Insert Disk 2". We've lost our front USB ports, but they've likely added just as many on the back for multimedia devices and this time they've gone 3.0.

It doesn't stop at its good looks though, we now have a massive 8 cores to play with. The 8GBs of system memory will allow for their '3 Operating Systems' to run, this makes switching between movies and games almost seamless. We have a HDMI In/Out as expected and a 500GB Hard Drive to store downloadable content and gameplay videos after editing them naively right on your console.

Xbox One's controllers bare a similar resemblance to the 360's but this time packing updated ergonomics, a taller base and thinner holds. The Xbox Guide button is wider than before and is positioned next to the bumpers. They've changed the D-Pad design to something more accurate and thanks to the internal battery you'll no longer have to hide your AA batteries. And for the first time ever we'll have feedback resistance for our fingers, something I've wanted for a long time.

The new Kinect looks more visually pleasing than the previous model being shorter and more square. It is more accurate at tracking motion than before as displayed at the reveal event and will interact with the '3 operating systems' allowing you to use voice commands to switch between apps.

All of these amazing features combined with the 15 release titles I'm sure we're in for a great December. Next stop: E3 where we'll get a chance to see some more of the Xbox One in action.

First 3Ds MAX Tutorial

It's here, my first 3Ds MAX tutorial for this blog

As I already mentioned yesterday, I'll be posting a lot of CG related stuff in this blog, so if you're interested in the field, you should definitely become a regular to Querks.
Anyways, it might not be as much of a tutorial as it is a comparison of an editable poly and an edit poly in 3Ds MAX. This is obviously intended for beginners since intermediate users will already know everything I mention in this video.
Sorry for the bad "essing" in the audio track, but my microphone really seems to amplify any s-sounds I make.
Other than that all I can say is: If you're beginner who wants to learn a tad bit about 3Ds MAX and its modeling pipeline, check out the video below.

GUIs in Java

I might not be the first one to mention this and I'm certainly not going to be the last one, but creating a user-interface in Java can be a pain in the you-know-what.
Swing is a rather unintelligible API to begin with. Coding every single line from scratch is tedious and annoying, especially so if the result looks nothing like you intended.

I'm usually more of a .NET guy to begin with, so I'm used to a drag-and-drop UI-Designer and a XAML-parser that takes some of the coding work off my hands.
Creating a Layout that stays the same once you resize the window is a ton easier, too.

Unfortunately, the curriculum of my computer science class pretty much forces me to use Java for every app I create.At first I figured that I was the one to blame for a malfunctioning GUI, but after digging deeper and searching Google for answers I quickly realized that I wasn't the only one having problems getting my head around Swing. The different Layout Managers have their quirks and hard-coding every single value is obviously not an option. Generally speaking, the level of frustration is a lot higher than it would need to be. I recently stumbled across some ingenious IDEs that include some very sophisticated and easy-to-use GUI-Designers.
We'll see how that's going to work out for me. It's safe to say that it's going to be a lot less frustrating than coding everything from scratch.

Xbox Reveal

We are finally faced with a new generation of consoles. Xbox fans all over the world are preparing themselves for the big reveal tomorrow. This is something that I won't be missing, especially after all the money I've dished out on Xbox products. So what exactly will Microsoft be sharing with us tomorrow?

New face

Any guess is as good as the next when it comes to the name, but perhaps we can take a stab at the shell that will house our components as they melt from over-use. Following the changes Microsoft has already made to their 360 model, we can probably assume they'll go for something slim, black and glossy. I'd personally like anything that fits nicely underneath my Samsung without being intrusive.

It's what's on the inside

As with desktop computers, performance should always come before looks. Judging by the rumored specs, Microsoft may have taken this to heart. Similar to the PS4 the Xbox will be seeing a 7000-series AMD GPU. Some claim crossfire is a possibility, but considering the lower price range they will likely use two independent cards, one integrated with the CPU for multimedia and another dedicated for intensive games. This is an approach that is growing in popularity in laptop hardware as it saves energy and will prevent noisy fans while watching the latest blockbuster. 

Some rumors suggest a generous 8GB of RAM, combined with the use of AMD CPUs designed for Desktop systems the new Xbox might finally support native HD and anti-aliasing. Thanks to the x86 architecture we will also see backwards compatibility with 360 games, good news for long-time Xbox gamers struggling for shelf space. The x86 architecture is different from the 360's so unfortunately we won't be seeing backwards compatibility.

It is common knowledge that Blu-ray takes the lead when it comes to disc space, so there's a good chance Microsoft will use this technology in their new Xbox. I believe discs are a dying race, downloads are taking the lead but with what Microsoft charges on their 'Games on Demand' I'm more than happy to see a disc drive.

Pricing

Microsoft will likely keep it similar to their previous launches. You could buy an original Xbox for around $300 at launch, with the 360 set at $100 more. From this we can probably guess that the new Xbox will be somewhere between $300 and $500 on release, likely closer to the latter due to the high-end components.

Only time will tell

It's just one more day to wait until we find out what we'll be spending the next eight years of our life on. Until then, stay eager and prepare yourself for the big reveal.

The obligatory introduction

What can I say.
This is where I'd normally mention how thankful I am that Google provides a free and simple way to air your thoughts, but Nathan already beat me to it, so I'm going to have to come up with something more original now.
I suppose I should just give a basic introduction of myself instead.
Here's what you'll probably need to know:

• My name is Alex and I live in Germany, Bavaria to be a tad more specific.
• I am currently in my senior year, hoping to take my final exam one year from now.
• I show a great interest in computer-generated imagery 
• While my taste in music has grown more diverse lately, I still prefer alternative rock over anything else
• I might come across as a nerd, but I perceive myself as a challenged artist (just kiddin')

That's probably all you need to know for now. It's also very likely that I'm going to be posting some CG-related stuff on this blog as the topic comes up in my life, so be prepared for some awesomeness.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the blog's name is misspelled on purpose, think of it as a weird form of creativity. 

Are you ready?

I'd just like to thank Google for handing me the opportunity to let my opinions hang from my belt. Get ready for some biased ego-induced posts by Alex and myself.

Are you ready?