So spent almost the entire day checking the lighting pipeline, from all the inputs, to the final rendered image. And came to a conclusion. It was all correct. Unfortunately reality can be a bit dull, and trying to explain to an artist that a headlight parallel to a flat surface doesn’t actually light it a great deal. Then I got into a conversation about the Lambertion lighting model. Then I worked out it wasn’t a particularly good idea at about 11:30 in the morning. Walked the dogs with Jamie. Walked to the gym, did Pump, did a session with Laverne and then walked home in heavy rain, which shouldn’t have been there. Did a bit more work and then transferred the Voigner. Ten days before I add the finings and it’s ready to start clearing. Time for pizza.

Working again on an odd bug from previous game. Then we had a bizarre issue with colour cubes. I was convinced the artists had completely lost the plot. It worked absolutely fine on both my PC and both consoles. We synced code and swapped all sorts of shit. He had a wonderful effect where if he put in a black and whit cube all the high lighting values would remain colour. After many hours I twigged what it was……we’d had an issue with a certain range of AMD cards, so I bought one and swapped it out. As it happens its a driver issue so I had to do a workaround. This converted the 10bit cubes to 8bit. I still had this card in my machine. When I did the workaround I cocked up the normal path and it wasn’t doing all of one channel. Still, people would pay good money for that effect. We now have another odd one, where spot lights seem to be attenuating far two quicky, I’ve probably cocked that up as well. Weather a bit better, did an eight mile run. Got the projector screen back up again, ready for tonights torture porn.

It was nice to speak to you last night Al, I hope I gave you a good chuckle. I’m certainly going to run more tests on that particular method, I need to get better async compute support up and running first (in the new compiler I can now optimise for wavefronts rather than raw speed, this should be a big advantage in this case). So much to do, and so many artists to keep quiet. If I don’t speak to you before, have a good Christmas and hopefully there may be some opportunities in future.

So the pills worked okay I guess. I fell asleep fairly quickly, woke up at about 5AM. Went to sleep again. Can’t say I awoke feeling fresh or anything. Started work, ended up tracing that rather odd bug. Turned out to be caused by a floating point error on a divide, going into an arccos and giving a qnan. Weather was awful again. Then had to knock up a test app for a video card manufacturer to demonstrate a bug in the driver. Finally finished off with some lighting stuff. Drove to the gym, did Pump. did a bit more work. Now on to touching up more of the painting. Got an email from mother. She’s apparently been offered a ‘free’ 3 piece and 2 piece suite. Lovely, the only issue is getting it to her place and getting rid of the old one. Now I’m sure the donators intentions are very honourable, but isn’t it handy when your new couch arrives you can just get rid of the old one on demand? Sorry, call me cynical, but having to hire a van, lump the whole lot around, plus then getting rid of her old one (no charity is going to want it) is just a total pain in the ass, and will cost more than ‘free’. Count me out.

So today I ended up doing a lot of small work jobs, which was good as I had a hell of a lot outstanding. Got the bulk of them done as well. Got one odd issue with the SDK update which I’ll have to look further into. Weather is awful, rain and gales. Took Sasha out but it didn’t last long. Finished work at a reasonable hour, still longer than I should have done mind. Started off the next wine kit. Also went round and started touching up the paint. Need another good session on that. Taken ‘Zopiclone’, looks like fun. Lets see if it works.

So two things turned up today, my sampling jar for my wine as I broke my other one on Saturday and the new PSU for the firewall. That was pretty good going considering I didn’t order it until about midday yesterday. Works fine, plenty of output. Today was very cold. Walked Sasha. Work was mainly an SDK update, which isn’t totally going to plan. Went to Combat, very ordinary. Did a home check for a couple of kittens. Did the accounts, oh the excitement.

So this morning was somewhat blighted by the firewall PSU going bang. Thankfully bodge central managed to sort something temporary out. Managed to get out of scheduled sex. Got on with the painting, this really was a full day slog. Two coats down and it still looked patchy as hell. Managed to lay down a third and finally all looked good. Got in the bath at just gone nine. Jamie cooking tonight, I’m pretty much fucked.

So yesterday was all about painting. Went out in morning so Jamie could meet tattoo woman, she looked like a school teacher. Then we visited the kennels where the dogs are going new years, then picked up my prescription. Came back and masked all the coving, then applied three coats of paint. Got the first of my wine kits going. We then went out in appalling weather and ate at the Swan. Came back and went to bed. Tried the iPad this morning, wouldn’t connect. Found the firewall was dead, PSU had blown. Managed to bodge it for now using a giant 12V radio PSU and some interesting soldering. Ordered new PSU, now on to some more painting.

Really couldn’t get out of bed this morning, so started very late. Worked through though. My wine kits arrived. And then unexpectedly a Fed-ex van arrived, and so did my pilots license. That’s it then, it’s official, I’m a fully qualified helicopter pilot. I must admit I currently have no desire to fly, mainly because of the weather. Who the hell wants to see the sights in rain and high winds? Bugger that. There is nice weather in winter, and when we finally have some I look forward to flying to some nice restaurants and having some very poncy sandwiches, in the meantime I’ll crack on with the decorating. Walked the dogs with Jamie, then I went out to the doctors and picked up prescription for something I can’t pronounce. Dropped that off at Tesco’s and got some petrol. Drove to Pump tonight as it was due heavy rain. It didn’t happen in the end though. Came back and did way more hours than I was planning on. Did the washing and emptied the dishwasher. It’s now been over three months since Jamie has washed anything other than his work stuff. No one has that many pairs of pants.

So woke up late, actually with a headache, which is unusual for me. Cracked on with work anyway. Stripped out a load of crap out of shaders, fixed a load of tone mapping issues and finalised my UDP streamer. So unexciting day all in all. Walked Sasha, it’s gone very cold. Went for a nine mile run, that was somewhat warmer. Had a shower and did a bit more work. Scanned an A4 sheet full of my signitures and sent it off, it’s for some posters or something. Did the shopping list, mine contained the usual stuff, Jamie’s had hot chocolate and ice lollies, so may be he hasn’t decided on the weather yet. My wine kit order has apparently been processed.

Yet another nights wonderful lack of sleep. So started grumpy and late. Actually work wasn’t too bad. Artists behaved. Cleaners arrived. I walked Sasha, weather is still shit. Tried to make an appointment at the doctors. Oh no, can’t do that, I have to fill in an online form. So I fill the form in, it has nothing for insomnia, so I fill in the stuff for depression. Mid afternoon I get a missed call from an Indian lady doctor. I phone the reception and they get her to call me again. Apparently I need to take a hot bath and a massage before I go to bed. By this time I was getting somewhat pissed off with her and actually said, ‘Is this something that can be supplied on the NHS or can I train one of the dogs to do it?’ At this point she offered me pills, I accepted. Walked to gym, did Pump, walked home. Did a bit more work. Actually this bit was a bit embarrassing. We’d always said we wouldn’t get a certain tool to work on a certain console as it would take too long. It took me less time to actually do it, than it took to write all the forum posts saying I wouldn’t. Ordered wine kits. Ordered electrical stuff ready for the next DIY session. Now putting many coats of plaster sealer on my lamps. Oh, I’m back on the wine, couldn’t handle another sleepless night.