Day 2: Beginning Anew is Not Always a Bore

Today was a bit of a step forward than the previous class. In response to a lack of programming, I was bombarded with a large aptitude test regarding my programming knowledge of C++, revealing to me that there have been many things I have learned how to do without knowing what (not necessarily why). For example, the bit shift macro and bitmask collision I employed for collision in Bullet with my DirectX assignment I understood perfectly, but unfortunately did not understand when faced with its actual definitions (i.e. what is a macro?). The same went for the use of the template, as I used it as a generic way to spawn a Blueprint class in Unreal Engine 4. Afterwards, we had a refresher on what hexadecimal and octal systems are, which fortunately reminded me of the quick multiplication and division with bit-shifting.

As for the other classes, I was introduced to the Rapid Prototype Production course, which led me to doodle a couple of ideas (instead of cutting my teeth on programming) in anticipation for working in a group. Marine adventures and peril? 2D Katamari fuzzballs? Going deeper in a cave via foreground to background jumps? Only time will tell if these quick and small flights of fancy will be built upon. Afterward, we had a programming workshop where I was quickly introduced to the use of ActionScript 3 in Adobe Flash; I must say, regardless of having experience with multiple engines and coding IDEs, a new one is always a doozy to get used to at first. Thankfully it did not take as long as other complex engines did, and I responded to the usual Hello World code with a lovely rotating picture of a baby red panda that took advantage of the Event.ENTER_FRAME event that called every time the frame continues, resulting in a smooth rotation (as opposed to using the Timer onTick event, which is another possibility).

My hopes continue that I will be able to quickly employ complex matrix translations and rotations in all types of prototypes that we work with; that, and pictures of baby red pandas as the new "Hello, World" standard.