Erlkönig: The Computer Simulation of Sheep

1999-04-14 15:34:55

Begin Transcript

DellGuru: hello alex!
siodhe: Hi.
siodhe: I'm playing with the Heretic sound code.
DellGuru: yeah? sounds good. (har dee har har)
siodhe: I can make it have any number of channels, rather than just 8. Currently I've made it 16.
DellGuru: yeah.. but it uses more processor cycles with each channel.. after you add enough channels, it starts to affect sound performance due to the real-time nature of the broadcast. You start getting pop noises and static.
siodhe: I'm studying making it load sounds from separate sound files instead of from wads. I've already managed to save all the wad sounds into files (all of 10 lines). I know about the performance, but it should have been user-settable.
siodhe: I plan to use it with the zland viewer.
DellGuru: It is, actually. All the DOOM-based systems had a DOS config utility that let you pick how many channels you wanted to mix with.
DellGuru: The BarberSheep Quartet
siodhe: The left-right panning should sound nice. Id's Linux code left out the selection feature, and music. I can fix one or both of these. BarberSheep? :-)
siodhe: It also looks trivial to add delays based on distance to sound source.
DellGuru: Yeah, they probably ripped it, since Linux has an iron grip on the sound card and you don't have to pick the sound driver to use.. most of the config program is choosing the sound card, DMA, IO, etc., and your MIDI preferences.
siodhe: What's really sick is that I think I can put in doppler effects, too. (For projectile/parabolic sheep) The granularity a little rough, but the basic stuff is already there.
siodhe: Making a sheep do a sonic boom is harder, but might occur as a natural outcome of doppler.:-)
DellGuru: what an odd visual.
siodhe: Hmm.. Why isn't it the case, that if a sheep goes by at mach 2, one hears the sonic boom, then the a'a'a'a'B in reverse?:-(
DellGuru: No, the sound wave is never reversed, just compressed to almost 0.
DellGuru: It would be BOOM BAAAaaaaaa-a-a-a-a--a--a--a---a----a----a
siodhe: Then you get visual doppler shift, a blue sheep coming, then red leaving, (after the boom). A compelling experience, I should think.
DellGuru: I don't think your software implementation is fast enough to get the full effect of blue shift.
DellGuru: And anyway, doppler shift in the visual range occurs at a much higher speed than a sonic boom.
siodhe: ...and then there's computing the dispersion radius of a unit sheep of homogeneous composition upon impact on an inclined surface...
siodhe: (It's a sim. rewrite the laws :-))
DellGuru: I encourage you to create the algorithm though.. astronomers can add it to their database if they ever notice a blue shift from a unknown item that is m^2 wide.
DellGuru: You could call it "SheepShift"
siodhe: If it's unknown, how do they know how big it is?
DellGuru: Of course, in space, no one can hear you bleat.
siodhe: ...and you have to fart to advance.
siodhe: (funny in a suit, especially to the other 'nauts)
DellGuru: I've seen worse.
DellGuru: Didn't some guy in 2010 use a raquet ball to propel himself to an airlock?
siodhe: I'm not sure.
DellGuru: Thesus: The effect of methane propulsion on unit sheep in an area of relatively uniform pure vacuum.
siodhe: ^area^volume
DellGuru: Sub topic: Derivation of methane generation needed to propel said sheep to a state of visible blue shit (uh, shift) from a stationary viewpoint.
DellGuru: I hope you're laughing, I'd hate to see all this good stuff go to waste.
siodhe: I'm recording it. :-)
DellGuru: argh!
siodhe: Hmm... Sheep nacelles.
siodhe: NCC-1701-SHEEP
DellGuru: Puns involving Star Trek and Sheep?
DellGuru: Picka-a-a-rd

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