Source code is a computer file that contains a set of instructions that tells the computer what to do.

Source code is written in one of many “computer languages”. A computer language is an artificial language that allows people to write instructions in a way that they can understand, yet still easily convert the instructions to “machine code” that the computer can understand. A special kind of program that converts source code to machine code is called a “compiler”. Some languages convert source code to an intermediate form and execute it a little bit at a time, instead of converting the entire source code file in advance. A special kind of program that does this instead is called an “interpreter”.

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New to 3D? Make sure you know which axis is “up” with this primer on 3D coordinate systems. (more…)

Click for larger view, or download the high-res image.Did this the other day, just practicing some sketching myself! This image was painted in Corel PhotoPaint with a Wacom tablet. Unlike most of my work, it does not have any 3D elements–I’m trying to improve my skills at drawing people, especially trouble-points like mouths and noses, so this is a purely a 2D work. For some real fun, watch the time-lapse video of the creation of this image. I really love UNDO. 🙂

For longer than I can remember, I have been on a quest for a good e-mail client. I need something fast, reliable and–this is where everything falls apart–able to handle at least 10,000 e-mails in a single folder quickly with complex automatic filtering. Some of my support mailboxes receive many thousands of messages in a single day. Ideally I’d also like an integrated calendar, to-do list and a pretty UI.

I was beginning to suspect that I had tried every known e-mail client on planet earth, when today I ran across one I hadn’t tried before. Without really reading what it was other than “e-mail client I haven’t tried” I eagerly downloaded it. To my surprise, this is what I saw when I ran it:

Yes, the readme did say “LCARS interface” before I downloaded it, but somehow I didn’t put two-and-two together.

Now that wasn’t what I was expecting! Unfortunately, it doesn’t support IMAP. 🙂

New for AC3D! This plug-in adds quick reload to the tools menu, allowing you to reload all your textures in just one click. It also includes a tiny disk monitor client that automatically notifies AC3D when your texture maps are saved to disk by your paint program. With this plug-in, you can see your changes made in Photoshop, Corel or your favorite paint program show up in AC3D right away–without any additional clicks.

* UPDATED 5/14/2008: New version with faster reload! This version tracks textures more intelligently to prevent the same texture from being reloaded more than once per cycle, even if it’s used multiple times.

* UPDATED 11/27/2008: The texture monitor is now obsolete. As of 6.4, AC3D now includes its own, much better texture monitor.

Download the plugin. (Requires Windows XP, AC3D 6.2 or above. Disk monitor feature requires TCP\IP loopback support for communicating with AC3D.)