Flah animation guru

A friend of mine has recently pointed out that the person making animations such as this one [ http://www.cda.pl/gry-online/3/avsa2.php ] must be a Flash guru. I fully agree.

Down-shifting, or Slow Down Your Week?

Looks like Europe is moving more and more towards a more relaxed way of working: http://www.adbusters.org/media/flash/slow_down_week/ ...

Map Generators and stuff

Figure 1. My map generator: Yet Another Map Generator.

Figure 2-a. ProFantasy gallery screenshot.


Figure 2-b. ProFantasy gallery screenshot (2).

I've been recently looking into map generators for games and suchlikes.

The map generators from the Civilization (and sequels, see screenshots at http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/ ) have proven over the years to be reliable and capable of generating interesting maps. The Apolyton Civilization web site hosts a number of excellent information and/or applications for map generation, e.g., the Python API modding discussion [ http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140611&perpage=30&pagenumber=1 ], the modding page [ http://apolyton.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=257 ], the SmartMap script [ http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147547&perpage=30&pagenumber=1 ], the Tectonics scripts [ http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=145842 , ? ], the LandMasses script [ http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=160055 ] etc.

The Video Game Atlas web site [ http://vgmaps.com ] hosts a variety of maps extracted from games on PC, Nintendo, Atari, and many other platforms. The Asheron's Call maps [ http://www.acmaps.com ] hosts somewhat more schematic maps. The Atlas of Cyberspace [ http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/ ] hosts maps from various (old) games, maps of the Internet, etc.

Recently, a friend tipped me about ProFantasy [ http://www.profantasy.com/ ], a D&D map generator, apparently based on the open-source FreeCAD [ http://juergen-riegel.net/FreeCAD/Docu/index.php/Main_Page , http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/ ]. An impressive Gallery [ http://www.profantasy.com/cc3/gallery.html ], see also Figures 2-a and 2-b, convinced me to take a closer look (added in the TODO list).

Last, but not least, I am building my own map generator, is still in its infancy, but of course I'm saying to myself that it looks promissing (see Figure 1).

Movable Python and Python IDEs

Movable Python [ http://voidspace.org.uk/python/movpy/ ] is a portable Python development environment. It includes several free interpreters ( Python 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, and Iron Python Production 1.0) and a dynamic Python interpreter (Movable IDLE, http://voidspace.org.uk/python/movpy/movableidle.html ). Apparently, there are plans to include into Movable Python the excellent freeware Python editor Stani's Python Editor (SPE, https://sourceforge.net/projects/spe/ ), and support for enabling psyco (the Python pseudo-compiler, http://psyco.sourceforge.net/ ).


Speaking of freeware Python IDEs, I've been using as of late PyScripter [ http://mmm-experts.com/Products.aspx?ProductId=4 ], which is a pretty good editor, with excellent auto-complete support. However, it crashes so often that it's almost useless. Now, I've been using it because Stani's Python Editor was hard to get (web page crashed), so I settled for a while. But https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=145384 has now enough SPE distros to fit all taste, so good-bye PyScripter...

Finally, for more on Python IDEs, check:

• Integrated Python Development Environments -- http://wiki.python.org/moin/IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments
• A Review of 6 Python Editors, http://spyced.blogspot.com/2005/09/review-of-6-python-ides.html and its follow-up http://spyced.blogspot.com/2006/02/pycon-python-ide-review.html