09/13/02: Progress Report #1

Plan

Before I can start anything, I'll have to write up my first Project Proposal draft.  For this iteration of my project, my goal is to research OpenGL...especially lighting and textures, which are integral to my project plan.  The technical links I found would come in handy for my research.  I also have to find out if it's possible to run a video file through OpenGL, and if it's not, I have to figure out if I can move the whole program to the Internet.  If it turns out that I'll have to modify the program to work on the Internet, I want to do a little research on Internet2.  Also, I want to work out a blue print of my museum and test to make sure the old museum program still works. At the end of this iteration, I should be ready to start coding modifications to the museum.

Results

I started reading the NeHe OpenGL tutorials, but I only got to the fifth tutorial.  So I haven't gotten to lighting and textures yet; perhaps I'll read them for the next progress report.  I have, however, found that there's a way to play avi files in OpenGL.  I was scanning through the NeHe OpenGL tutorials, and I saw a tutorial about playing avi's near the end.  I may still try and figure out a way to put the program online though.  We'll see.

I'm also sorry to say that I completely forgot about the blueprints to the museum, but in retrospect, I think I should wait and see how many and what kind of video clips I can find before I start organizing the museum.  Speaking of video clips, finding them has been on my backburner for the last three weeks.  I can't really focus on taping video clips until some relevant ones come on the History Channel, and that's just going to be a year-long waiting process.  Finally, I did check some of the old museum code.  I can't seem to find the code that contains textures or the map, but I did find the code that's just the museum without textures.  That code seems to be working pretty well, and I'd have an animated gif, but those are so tedious and time-consuming to make.  Maybe that'll be my next project.