MIT Photographs Light at One Trillion Frames Per Second

Using a pulsing light source, and a sensor array with 500 sensors, each triggered a trillionth of a second after each other, you get a video that lets you see the light move.  Now Its not as simple as pointing a camera and selecting the really really slow motion option, whats really happening is that they are taking pictures of a line across the scene at 1 trillion frames per second, then recreating the entire image by stacking the lines.  


This video from the MIT youtube channel describes how the picture is taken, and shows the result.  A pulse of light being scattered through a plastic bottle.

From the MIT News article:
"After an hour, the researchers accumulate hundreds of thousands of data sets, each of which plots the one-dimensional positions of photons against their times of arrival. Raskar, Velten and other members of Raskar’s Camera Culture group at the Media Lab developed algorithms that can stitch that raw data into a set of sequential two-dimensional images."
The video and article go on to explain how this could be used in medical and chemical engineering processes.  Where if you can determine how light scatters through a body, you can make ultrasounds with light pulses.

Sources:
MIT News Office
Tested.com
Youtube

Skyrim Mods Issue 3

There isn't much important news about mods right now.  Bethesda said the SDK will be out in January sometime.  I have not spent too much time lately with modding, because of exams.  But I did download and install a bunch of tools to get me started once I have a little more time.  I was able to make a simple mod where I changed the colour of the ebony armour, but that's was more of a test of concept then an actual mod.  One annoying thing about modding so early after the release of the game is that there are constant updates to mods.  Within a day I can be two or three versions out of date.  Thankfully the mod manager has a little alert for updates to mods, also installs them automatically sometimes. 

So in this Issue I will just show a bunch of cool/interesting/funny mods that I've seen pop up on the nexus site.  Also I have an updated "Mods I'm using" section.

Mods I'm using:
jump 250  makes the jump height about 4 times higher
Telthalions Finer Hair:  makes the hair textures softer, better appearance
Better females by Bella:  Makes females prettier, works on character and NPCs
True Darker nights:  This changes the lighting at night.  Makes it much much darker.
Enhanced Distant Terrain:  texture improvement for distance terrain
Enhanced night skyrim:  Higher resolution night sky.  a lot more stars.  This mod also includes a "Colour Galaxy" option that makes the galaxy brighter and more colourful.
Saturn as moon with rings:  changes the moon to Saturn.  Pretty cool to look at.
Moon size Tweak:  makes the moon up to 3x bigger.  I'm using this with the Saturn mod, looks great.

Cool Mods:
Lightsabers yup lightsabers
Zelda: Link Play as link from zelda.  The mod includes clothes, master sword, shield, and bow from the zelda games.
Play Skyrim With Kinect:  Not a completed mod yet.  Only computer science majors could probably figure out the installation process, still an interesting mod none the less.
High Res Galaxy: Uses a really high texture (8000x4000) for the galaxy.  looks great in the pictures.
Naks Magic Animation Overhaul very cool mod that I will probably get myself at some point.  This changes the animations used in third person for magic.  Watch the videos from the link to see.
Cool Items Pack  adds some more weapons to the game.  Some are completely new, and some are retextures of two handed weapons that can be used as one hand ones. 
Laugh Track Mod Causes humiliating laughter when you fail at something(break lockpick, fail to create potion etc)

Jpop: Holiday PVs from H!P are in full swing

Its been just under a month since the Busu Ni Naranai Tetsugaku single went on sale, from the collaboration group Mobekimasu.  A combination of the current Hello! Project groups Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou, ℃-ute, S/mileage, and soloist Mano Erina.  Personally I thought this single was great.  The Combinations from some of the best singles of different groups made a great new sound.

And now H!P is releasing new PVs for the holiday single releases.  First up is was S/mileage with their single Please Miniskirt Postalwoman! Its the first single to feature the new members in a singing role.  It sounds like there is a lot of sound effects being done to their voices in this single.  I think this is because the new members are not all too great at singing yet, so the effects will help mask that at live performances.  There is clear difference in ability between the more experienced members and the new ones, as to be expected.  But I think the group would have been better off taking one or two members from Hello! egg and keeping the group size smaller.  Rather than finding 5 new people will very little experience.  I predict that the Morning Musume will have the same problem after taking on another 5 members so early after the 10th generation was added.  There's too much fresh talent in H!P it will take some time before the new members can perform as well as their predecessors.

Today(09/12) the PV for Mano Erina's new single Doki Doki Baby was released.  From the first few seconds you could tell that this single is going to be much more popy than My Days For You.  As soon as it said "Mano Erina in Akihabara" I could tell.  The cute image suits Erina really well, even with her deeper voice.  The new single has some interesting points, the first thing I noticed was the cinema like 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  The wider screen allows for more to be shown to the sides of the main target, but I hope this new aspect ratio doesn't catch on because I'm not buy a new TV for awhile, and I like how 16x9 looks, and how it fills the screen.  Another interesting point is the appearance of the iPad1.  Its only on screen for about a second, but it's nice to see two of my interests combined in such a nice way :)

I look forward to the new releases, especially Morning Musume.  I'm curious about these new members I've heard so little about.

Why You Don't Need Antialiasing

I read a great article on Nvidia's website on the different graphics effects, what they do and how they work.  Specifically in Skyrim.  This lead me to do my own tests with different settings and trying them out in game.  What I found was that antialiasing was not worth the substantial FPS (frames per second) loss.  However Anisotropic Filtering was definatly worth buffing up to the highest level.

Starting with Antialiasing.  AA smooths out the jagged edges in games, simple as that.  The more samples you use (2x 4x 8x) the more work it its for the GPU.

This screenshot comparison I made shows the difference between no AA at all, and the max Skyrim setting of 8x samples.  Note that the only difference the AA makes is the jaggedness of edges

This chart shows the FPS change between the different AA settings on different resolutions (from the Nvidia article)

almost 20 FPS difference

Now for Anisotropic Filtering.  Anisotropic Filtering improves the clarity of textures, making a noticeable and fantastic difference.  This picture comparison is from the Nvidia article, I cut it together and added the thoughtful comparison emotional response indicator.

The difference between no AF and 16x AF

Now to show the effect on FPS

So there you have it.  You can significantly improve your FPS by turning off AA (or putting it to 2x) and pushing up AF to the maximum setting.

References:
http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-tweak-guide

5 Great Anime series of 2011

I was planning to do a top ten list of my favourite anime series of all time, but quickly found that there would be too many "Honourable mentions"  so instead I'm just going to show 5 anime series from this year that I found particularly good to watch.

In no particular order:

1.
Fate Zero

This is a great new anime that just started a few weeks ago.  The animation quality is top notch, especially during the action sequences.  The world is very interesting, modern day tokyo where magic exists, and is learned by only the most prestigious families with magic bloodlines.  The story is about a war between 5 parties over the holy grail.  The holy grail grants 1 wish to the victor.  The 5 groups each summon one legendary warrior to fight for the grail.

• well animated violence
• interesting dynamic characters
• Interesting world.

2.
GOSICK

This is a great anime, a mix of serious storyline, subplots, and bits of comedy.  The world takes place in the real world just before world war 1, in a made up European country called Sauville (were people speak Japanese for some reason).  The main characters (A Japanese exchange student, and a girl with special deductive reasoning powers) go around this country solving mysteries.  All of the characters are a lot of fun.

• Interesting well realised world
• Fun Characters
• interesting 1-2 episode sub plots

3.
The World God Only Knows

Despite the strange title, this anime is about a dating simulation game obsessed student, who enters a contract with a demon (see those cute girls in the picture?  yup demons)  The main character Keima has to get girls to fall in love with him so that the evil soul in their hearts is released, and can be captured.  Its a strange story, but its all about the characters, who are lots of fun to watch.

• Funny strange characters
• Relatable(if you are a gamer) main character
• Adorableness

4.
Iroha, and Hanasaku Iroha

First non-fantasy anime in this list.  This anime is more of a character driven drama.  It takes place in a very traditional Japanese style inn (ryokan), and follows the life of Iroha.  Iroha moves from Tokyo to a small town to work in her grandmother's Inn.  The story is about her life; making friends with the other workers, cooping with a life of hard work while going to school, and dealing her feelings about her friend she left in Tokyo.

• Interesting Characters
• Good comic moments
• Authentic look at Japanese life

5.
Wagnaria

Another non-fantasy anime, somewhat similar to Iroha but less serious, more comedy.  This anime is about a bunch of people who work in a restaurant, and how they interact.  Each character is strange in their own, funny way.  This is a great anime to just jump into and watch an episode just for a good laugh. 

• Fun characters
• Funny situations

Extra Anime

Oreimo

This is another funny anime.  The main characters are a middle school girl with an obsession for litter sister eroge (porn video games), and her older brother.  The story is about how this girl deals with her embarrassing secret hobby, while trying to keep her social life as a popular middle school girl, and part-time magazine model in tact.








The Mystic Archives of Dantalian

This anime has a similar artistic style to GOSICK, but more fantasy based.  The characters go around killing monsters that are summoned by phantom books.  The fighting scenes were a little underdeveloped, but It was still fun to watch.  It too bad this anime did not get the second season it needed.