Barely Functional Theories

Musings on science and game design by James Furness.



The Drunken Bishop Algorithm


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Accurate Atomic Orbitals Tool


I’ve recently added a new tool to my Scientific Tools page. It is a python module that evaluates an accurate set of orbitals for spherical atoms. I have found myself using it a lot recently while searching large parameter spaces during functional development and needing fast, accurate densities with which to apply the new functionals.

I’ve put it online in the hope it can be of use to others as well.

Enjoy!


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The Dance of the Electrons and the Scientist


The LSCO crystal structure.

At a recent meeting in Philadelphia I heard about the ‘Sound ∩ Science Podcast Contest’ Read: The intersection of sound and science being held by the US Department of Energy (DOE) titled, described as ‘[…] an opportunity to share the excitement and mystery of science using sounds.’ I had a quiet hotel room evening ahead of me and an idea forming in my mind, so I set about creating a piece of music from my research data to enter.

Now my entry is complete and submitted, I though I’d take the time to write a few words about the science behind the music and a few of the creative decisions made along the way.
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Project Tanks 1: Simple Fake-3D Wireframes


The 3D tank

With Probus finished I’ve started out building a new game to keep me busy at the weekends, “Project: Tanks”. I’m sticking with the HTML5 canvas platform again, but aiming at PC web browsers this time. I’m hoping to play around with supporting player made content in this one, so I set out on making a slower paced ‘twin stick’ shooter inspired by the Wii Tanks game I enjoyed playing with my brother years ago.

I had a basic engine running pretty quickly and filled it with programmer art using the vector drawing functions of the HTML5 canvas. I intended to update this ‘art’ later in development but to my surprise by applying a simple technique to turn the dull 2D shapes into ‘3D’ wireframes I was able to make the programmer art into the games full visual style. I was so happy with the results that I wanted to share the technique in this post.

Over the course of the article we are going to develop a drawing routine to take a Tank model from the humble beginnings shown on the left, to the glorious ‘3D’ seen on the right.

The drawing functions will be detailed in pseudocode along the way and the Javascript that powers the examples can be downloaded here for reference.

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