lol! I feel like I'm introducing myself, it's funny after all this time.
3D:
I'm using jMonkeyEngine. It's open source, java, etc. I have not tried Unity, but I heard that Unity is very easy to use. But that wasn't really my objective. Just like I developed Legacy of Kain: Revival to learn C#, I develop my other project with jME to learn java. I like it a lot and there is a lot of freedom, but there is an awful lot of work to do. Since I started working on the project, I'm mostly developping my own 3D game engine based on jME. I try to wrap as much stuff as possible and create a library of tools and shortcuts. After 2 years, I think I'm almost done with the tools library, after that I'll create a first game, probably something like a simple 3D shooter. With the tools library I have made, I can create character controls (1st person, 3rd person, top view, flying, you name it), I can create dynamic sky boxes (moving clouds, sun and moon, changing sky color, all managed by an internal schedule), atmospheric effects (rain, wind, snow, fog, etc), an infinite seamless terrain (generated with height maps), physics (gravity, collisions, zones detection which works a little like plans in SGDK2), game speed and time, water system with buoyancy simulation (with waves, sky reflection, etc) objects attached to a specific location (or that can move around) that are loaded when you get close and unloaded when you go far and pretty much any configuration can be overridden for any specific object. For example you can set up a general gravity or game speed or anything as a general rule that applies to everything and a different value for a specific object. It is also possible to "fade" between two values, allowing for many cool effects like a "matrix jump slow motion" to occur or an object with a gravity that gradually changes so it starts to float up, etc. The thing I'm working on now is an automatic vegetation system to generate forests, fields, etc automatically rather than having to place every plant, rock, tree or bush on my own. I'm getting somewhere too!
I'm trying to embed pictures of my project to show you. Follow the links and it should work. Tell me if it's not working. It's not as interesting as a video, for sure, but I don't have any tool to generate a decent video right now. Keep in mind that these are all test models and textures, there's nothing final in all of this. With my tools library, you can generate a test project that does all of this with about, hum... maybe 500-600 lines of codes. It's pretty easy to use.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=95F82D4A2AD34FE6!126&authkey=!ACwQDIQkuf9W5oAMartial arts:
I started with international taekwondo at age 7. It's not like the taekwondo you see at the Olympics, this style of taekwondo is much more like kickboxing. Anyway, I trained in tkd for about 10 years, got my black belt, kept going to get further belts and I started teaching as well. I kept doing this for another 2-3 years, then at college I rented a sparring room (with tatamis, etc) and opened up a mixed styles class. So basically people from all kinds of martial arts came in and trained. That was great fun, I kept this up for 2 years and it really broadened my horizons. I learned a lot of stuff from different styles and I had to opportunity to fight people from many styles too. When college was over, I got back to teaching (opened up my own dojo for about 5-6 years, then moved on), train in other kinds of martial arts (various styles of tkd, started Brazilian jiu jitsu, also started boxing a little very recently...) That's about it. So my main style is international tkd (which I prefer to call Korean kickboxing to avoid confusion with Olympic tkd) and the other style I am most proficient in is Brazilian jiu-jitsu. But it's all a hobby. I'm in shape and I could most probably win any 1-on-1 fight against an average person, but I'm not a professional fighter by far. I'm more a teacher than a competer/fighter.
