Wild Magic's site down?

I guess they moved.. I seem to have found the site.... they must have changed it from www.magic-software.com to www.geometrictools.com. Very strange thing to do only 3 months after publishing a book that references the original site.

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Original post by BobV I guess they moved.. I seem to have found the site.... they must have changed it from www.magic-software.com to www.geometrictools.com. Very strange thing to do only 3 months after publishing a book that references the original site.

I had mentioned this in another thread at this site: A company called Magic Software Enterprises (www.magicsoftware.com) owns the U.S. registered trademark for "Magic" regarding the software industry. They threatened legal action if my company did not "cease and desist" using the www.magic-software.com domain name. Another company owns the U.S. registered trademark for "Wild Magic", so I shut down both sites and consolidated into www.geometrictools.com. I looked into fighting the claim, but my company lawyer believed we would lose. What can I say other than the U.S. trademark system is just as much out of hand as the U.S. patent system. Sorry for the inconvenience.

That's interesting because I had considered that. When searching for wild magic and for magic software I did run into many other companies. I would think that you could just have those existing domain names forward to geometrictools.com without any further reference to those trademarked company names. After all you do own the domain names and they are governed by ICANN, not the us trademark system. And if that doesn't satisfy your lawyers, I'm sure that the companies in question would allow you to put up a simple page that says something to the effect of, "Do to some confusion...Click here if you meant to go here... click there if...", then it's mutually beneficial. Just some thoughts, as I'm sure there are people who picked up your book and will never figure it out :). I met one of those people at the bookstore who also bought your book at the same time I did. Anyways, just some ideas.. I'm going to get back to reading.

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Original post by BobV That's interesting because I had considered that. When searching for wild magic and for magic software I did run into many other companies. I would think that you could just have those existing domain names forward to geometrictools.com without any further reference to those trademarked company names. After all you do own the domain names and they are governed by ICANN, not the us trademark system. And if that doesn't satisfy your lawyers, I'm sure that the companies in question would allow you to put up a simple page that says something to the effect of, "Do to some confusion...Click here if you meant to go here... click there if...", then it's mutually beneficial. Just some thoughts, as I'm sure there are people who picked up your book and will never figure it out :). I met one of those people at the bookstore who also bought your book at the same time I did. Anyways, just some ideas.. I'm going to get back to reading.

Forwarding of the links from the magic-software.com domain is still viewed as an infringment on the trademark. Thanks for your feedback, but you are not a lawyer :) A Google search on my name will lead to my new web site. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers has the updated links at their site. And other folks posting here wondering what happened to the old site have been given the new site name. I think there is sufficient means to find the new site.

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Original post by Dave Eberly Forwarding of the links from the magic-software.com domain is still viewed as an infringment on the trademark.

Would it be possible to have a simple page that links to both your new site and to the www.magicsoftware.com site, with a short note explaining why the site was changed?

Since the mystery book web site does not have a forum I will ask this question here.

Did anybody have issues compiling the first time? I am following the release notes .pdf very closely but even though I am following the compilation order Application\Application.vproj fails to compile because its looking for Open GL header files.

The compile step before compiling Application.vproj was to pick one of the renderers: DirectX or OpenGL. Well I picked DirectX and it compiled just fine and the post build step of copying files to \Include worked also. But Application.vproj is requiring header files in \Include. I don't want to have to compile OpenGL with all the GLUT or GLEW stuff if I don't have to right now.

I looked around the mystery web site for more clues on any bug fixes for compilation but didn't find anything.

Has anybody seen this also?
I'm compiling in MSVC7.1 (Visual Studio.NET 2003)

BTW, Source\Source.vproj also compiled just fine.

-SJ

I found the problem and it compiles OK now. Seems Mr. Eberly is fond of configurations and there was one for DebugDX in the Application.vproj project. I was choosing the default Debug configuration.

So one beef I have with that is that his Release notes that shipped with the source code did not mention it.

On a positive note, I DO like his programming conventions. Being the person that I am I immediately jumped to the Appendix to read his coding conventions and found that his conventions are very similar to mine. I like that.

Is there any other reason than naming why Wild Magic version 3.0 which shipped with the book I just got and version 3.2 (from web site) changed Source to Foundation?

-SJ

That is so true.
I had www.geometrictools.com already in my bookmarks and didn't notice that it is your new website when i bought the book.
It was when i watched an interview with you and Mr. Tim Cox that it made click. ;)

I also have a question concerning the Wm3Transformation - class:
Why did you decide to store the Rotations in a 3x3 Matrix and not in a Quaternion?
Is it easier to composite all the Transformations together in the end when using a Matrix?

Thx in advance for your reply. :)

As for the compilation question i had no troubles at all compiling on Windows. Only on linux it complained about the Reference Counter being unknown i think but i don't know exactly. I am using Suse 9.1.
I'll post here later when i got it working.

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Original post by smjones Since the mystery book web site does not have a forum I will ask this question here.

The mystery book web site does have a "Contact Information" page. An email address is provided to send questions. Maybe someday I will put up a forum.

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I looked around the mystery web site for more clues on any bug fixes for compilation but didn't find anything.

Try the Source Code page, then the Frequently Asked Questions link, item #4.

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Original post by smjones Seems Mr. Eberly is fond of configurations...

Yes, I am. Why are you surprised? Some folks want to link in static libraries, some folks want to use dynamic libraries. I provide debug and release versions of both. Some folks want to use OpenGL on Windows (wgl), others want DirectX. Some folks use Linux, some the Mac. And some folks want GLUT. Some applications do not need a window (my engine is not all about graphics). When you start adding up what *everyone* wants, you get a large number of configurations. I try to provide what folks want.

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So one beef I have with that is that his Release notes that shipped with the source code did not mention it.

Sigh... I'll try do to better. I keep hoping folks will be less critical when they realize the amount of effort it takes one person to maintain such a large code base for multiple platforms and multiple compilers. Guess I'll have to keep hoping.

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Is there any other reason than naming why Wild Magic version 3.0 which shipped with the book I just got and version 3.2 (from web site) changed Source to Foundation?

Because "Source" sounds so boring and nondescriptive? The Source folders do contain what I consider the foundation for everything else (graphics, image processing, numerical methods, computational geometry).

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Original post by hoLogramm I also have a question concerning the Wm3Transformation - class: Why did you decide to store the Rotations in a 3x3 Matrix and not in a Quaternion? Is it easier to composite all the Transformations together in the end when using a Matrix?

Given the fears people have with the Dreaded Quaternions, I just stuck to using rotation matrices (like I did in NetImmerse). Maybe a later version will switch to quaternions. You still have to convert from quaternion to rotation matrix to feed the graphics APIS.

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As for the compilation question i had no troubles at all compiling on Windows. Only on linux it complained about the Reference Counter being unknown i think but i don't know exactly. I am using Suse 9.1. I'll post here later when i got it working.

You should email the error messages to me. g++ on various Linux platforms can have strange quirks. I might be able to figure out what the error is about, even though I do not have Suse Linux to test with.

Sigh... I'll try do to better. I keep hoping folks will be less critical when they realize the amount of effort it takes one person to maintain such a large code base for multiple platforms and multiple compilers. Guess I'll have to keep hoping.

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Because "Source" sounds so boring and nondescriptive? The Source folders do contain what I consider the foundation for everything else (graphics, image processing, numerical methods, computational geometry).

Works for me. I was just curious.

I don't mean to be so critical. It was a little frustrating to be stuck so early into the process. The book looks very promising. There is so much information on how to do many separate functions of a game engine but your book is the first (good one) that shows how to put *most* of it together into a single engine. I say most because it would take a set of books to include everything such as scripting, comprehensive GUI development, and such.

As far as being a lot of work, I don't doubt it. Maybe there are other people like the publisher or editors who can help bring important things up to date like web site names and release notes. Then again maybe not.

I own another popular engine that I'm a bit torqued (*grin*) about because it too is comprehesive like yours but the source code is anything but easy to follow. I'm a professional programmer and its imperative IMHO to have good source code comments and good structure to, at least, be able to maintain the blasted stuff. The documentation for that engine is mostly scattered all over kingdom come. You have to find out things from help files, articles from other users and forums. Its nice to have a single reference (book) that explains the engine.

So far I like what is found in the book and source files. Good job!

-SJ

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Original post by smjones I don't mean to be so critical. It was a little frustrating to be stuck so early into the process. The book looks very promising. There is so much information on how to do many separate functions of a game engine but your book is the first (good one) that shows how to put *most* of it together into a single engine. I say most because it would take a set of books to include everything such as scripting, comprehensive GUI development, and such.

I apologize for the frustration, but as a single-developer product, I have only a limited amount of time to spend on it, the remaining time spent on making a living. Technical book writing will not make you a fortune, and in most cases will not even make you a living. I am soon to post WM3.3 and will include the information about the Debug/Application problem.

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As far as being a lot of work, I don't doubt it. Maybe there are other people like the publisher or editors who can help bring important things up to date like web site names and release notes. Then again maybe not.

Book publishers will help a little, but not a lot. They have a budget for a book. The margins on sales are small enough that they are careful about expenditures related to the books. One way to reduce costs is to use cheap paper and bindings, but MKP has high standards and insists on good quality paper and bindings and on having books with significant content. So they are even more careful about expenditures. This is the Right Thing to do for their customers.

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I own another popular engine that I'm a bit torqued (*grin*) about because it too is comprehesive like yours but the source code is anything but easy to follow. I'm a professional programmer and its imperative IMHO to have good source code comments and good structure to, at least, be able to maintain the blasted stuff. The documentation for that engine is mostly scattered all over kingdom come. You have to find out things from help files, articles from other users and forums. Its nice to have a single reference (book) that explains the engine.

Taking the extra steps to have high quality code in all regards (structure, readability, comments, consistency, etc.) runs into the Law of Diminishing Returns. Code development invariably trades off these extra steps for timeliness in shipping. If it mainly works, ship it. Wait until customers start complaining until you fix the problems. Write extensive documentation only if your life is threatened. This is the way things work :)

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So far I like what is found in the book and source files. Good job!

Thank you for the compliment.

I can't open geometrictools.com now.
Is it down ?
Or It have been moved to another place?
Tell me, thanks!

Just checked, and www.geometrictools.com opened fine for me.

[Edited by - Will F on August 31, 2005 1:10:11 AM]

Oh, That's bad.
I'm in China, Both my friends can't open the site.
I really don't know what the hell our internet sp is doing.
what could I do?

greetings david eberly. im a fan of your work(writings, wild magic, books). i have your game physics books and i must say its very good. from ideas to complete code example. i say its worth every penny. i wish had the money to purchased all your books. maybe next year.

keep up the excellent work. and by the way, the magic software company is totally evil. you should have the trademarks, not them. we all know wildmagic as your outstanding work, and they steal it. lets just hope the company will defunct in the next few years. and all the success to david eberly. ;)