I’ve been on a Call of Cthulhu/H. P. Lovecraft kick lately. It’s pretty cool stuff actually. Weird thing is that three years ago, I could not stand reading Lovecraft yet now I can’t get enough. Funny how tastes change.
I’ve also been messing around with a rotozoomer. What’s that, you say? You know those funky visualizations that you see in Windows Media Player and WinAmp? Same thing. Basically you draw an image (in my case the words “Ia, Ia, Cthulhu Fhtagn” — told you I was on a Cthulhu kick) then you take that image, rotate it slightly, enlarge it slightly, then draw it onto itself half translucent. It’s called a feedback loop.
If you want to try it out (and you are running Windows), download this zip file. Maybe if I get motivated enough I’ll turn it into a screensaver.
On the technical side, I’m using GapiDraw to do the graphics. It’s wonderful graphics API that can compile for a bunch of handheld devices (Pocket PC, SmartPhone, Symbian 60, Palm) as well as Windows. On the Windows side it basically ends up calling DirectX. I love it. If you are doing any kind of 2d graphics work, check it out.