july 15: embedded jKilavuz inside this site.

december 13: my new gift to open source community: Postvayler. stills seems as a very handy and good idea :)

13 january 12: finally arranged the page for my Android game Sky Maze 3D

07 january 10: published an early release of Bones, a skeletal animation system for jPCT. these are the first steps of using skeletal animation in karga

25 november 09: after my hosting company firewalled karga ports and requested more money to re-open them, i migrated karga to a new server. all seems ok for now but problems may occur..

15 november 09: re-fixed the bug in movement sending mechanism resulting in unnecessary bandwidth usage and movement dis-continuation at other clients. strange, it's somehow re-broken in time :/ made png textures default in avatars. fixed the string displayed at selection panel (it was incorrectly displaying debug info)

25 october 09: bound keys 1 to 6 to actions. keys up to 9 are reserved for future actions.

21 october 09 (v1.10): adapted jPCT version 1.19. karga now runs multi threaded on multi core cpu's and uses jPCT's embedded mipmaper by default. multi threading performs up to %120 better depending on number of cpu cores.

5 october 09: finally found some time (lie of course, lazy me ;) and upgraded karga for a recent version of jPCT. serialVersionUID's was the problem, all serialized data need to be converted.

1 september 09: my wife's site yolculukarkadasi.com is opened in beta. useful site

4 july 08: published a page for karga at facebook

12 march 08: found and fixed a bug in movement sending mechanism resulting in unnecessary bandwidth usage and movement dis-continuation at other clients. strange, it's somehow broken in time and even stranger that nobody has reported it :/

13 june 07: released the first public version of jKılavuz, the first and only path engine for Java and a sister project of karga ;)

12 june 07: implemented a download and cache mechanism for scenes, stopped depending on web start's lazy downloading. may not take effect till browsers reload jnlp files. added breath and look around animation. fixed a bug about processing PayPal transactions.

6 march 07 (v1.08): first karga game is in ;) it is the simple 'rock paper scissors' game. thx for the idea chi ;) right click over a user to suggest him/her to play, ALICE also plays it :) the implementation is an extension to the current suggestion mechanism and hopefully will help to add more panel games in time. some minor gui enhancements

16 february 07: as guest login feature is often abused, guest users aren't allowed to talk anymore :/ they will see what others say but their messages won't be delivered to others

15 february 07: turkish users may now buy papels with bank transfers. it's not an automated mechanism but still implemented necessary parts

11 february 07 (v1.07): switched to delta time approach, refactored movement and other relevant code pieces accordingly. especially on slower machines, this will result in smoother movement. it's still a limited fps approach not to use fast cpus to their limits. updated avatar panel to use jPCT's new support of alpha channels in frame buffers, this will relax the color restriction on avatar textures. limited maximum messages per second, since overuse of it results in overload on server. some minor gui ehhancements. somehow messed up updating site, all application should be downloaded from scratch :/

2 february 07: placed google ads to site, hope she didnt become ugly

10 october 06: because of some other nasty users, changed the promotion system so that initial papels can only be used for changing dressing

4 october 06: since some nasty users misuse it, i've slightly changed promotion system. from now on away periods do not count for promotion time. hopefully fixed another bug resulting some users lost in world. some more admin stuff

29 september 06 (v1.06): karga now has a money unit called papel ;) from now on some of the dresses and later on some new services will be rented by karga papels. implemented necessary mechanism and also updated the site and avatar panel accordingly. users will earn papels by just spending time in karga or buy papels via PayPal. users will also be able to request papels from their partners for dance and kiss ;) hope people wont blame me for encouraging prostitution :p old users are promoted with some papels and right to use their current dressings forever :) today there is an online party at karga to celebrate papel system, so i've slightly modified the mushroom club as a party arrangement. i've done some more but to tell the truth i've forgotton what they were :s

13 september 06: completing animation in slow motion seems to be cool, added support for that :/ added some more admin stuff. minor gui enhancements and bug fixes. preparing for commercial version. this update hides the preparement but is required to collect some data.

29 august 06: for sensitive eyes, added support to optionally use png textures for avatars. binded dance animation to :samsam: action

28 august 06: fixed a bug about completing animation cycles resulting in slow motion at ends. found and fixed some possible memory leaks: well it wasnt a real memory leak indeed, but was preventing retrieving of heap until a new scene is loaded when current scene is discarded. found a workaround to screen size problem: it seems to be java bug, componentResized event isnt dispatched corectly after successive display mode changes. added support to resend temporary password email.

24 august 06 (v1.05): added singleton actions: they're available from either popup menu or by typing hot words :action name: in talk panel. some avatar improvements: ear for girl, sun glasses. started to use gif images instead of png for avatar textures, this drastically reduced jar size and improved image processing performance. restricted long user names on balloons. added support to automatically save and restore settings locally. implemented a mechanism to daily backup users. re-organized jnlp files. minor gui and admin stuff improvements

11 august 06: after some unpleasant events, added support to ban an ip :/

10 august 06 (v1.04): preventing jump by collision meshes broke some part of camera placement, fixed that. fixed another bug resulting users stay hanged after jump. also fixed a bug about replicating user movements (resulting in unnecessary turns). added support to rotate and move camera with dragging mouse and wheel respectively

8 august 06: added shots gallery to site. since i still couldnt find a reasonable way to move a user comfortably when another is on top, i simply prevented jumping on top of and over another by using collision meshes. minor bug fixes about balloons and variations lighting

5 august 06: adapted the new dresses. many thanks for those lovely designs and for your help ganima :) fixed a bug resulting sometimes users lost in world.

4 august 06 (v1.03): fixed a bug resulting users sometimes hang at air. slightly changed custom camera movement. changed user selection mechanism: now pressing control is necessary to select a second user. improved paired animation preperation movement. improved the look and placement of balloons. added support for configuring balloons options. further compressed animation meshes with a slight modification in jPCT with Egon's help.

18 july 06: virtual beggary is in, added a PayPal donate button :/

07 july 06: alice bot is in ;) she just chats and accepts all suggestions but doesnt move around at least for now

04 july 06 (v1.02): started using Ogg Vorbis encoded sound. added the invisibility mode. added support to edit visible/invisible list, to hide details, to delete account and to close ambient sound. some minor bug fixes and gui improvements

23 june 06 (v1.01): i've forgot about jnlp download servlet. slightly improved mipmapper by using primitive collections. refactored the movement and camera placement code. made some gui improvements. fixed some turkish character problems. added away mode. added dance animation. added dance and kiss music. improved sounds somewhat. implemented some server side admin staff like system message and kickout a user.

19 may 06 (v1.00): this time much effort has gone into network efficiency issues: started to compress rmi streams too. started versioning and version based incremental jnlp downloading. integrated world loading with jnlp download service (download on demand). added basic sound support. added options panel. added basic help. some more minor gui enhancements.

05 may 06: except a couple of minor bug fixes there is nothing new on coding side. i've just reorganized the site and added some cosmetic makeup

29 march 06: implemented an area based mip mapper: mip map level per polygon is decided according to ratio: area of polygon on screen / area of polygon on texture. it effectively handles texture aliasing. karga looks quite better now. thx Egon for skeletal implementation ;)

24 march 06: to deal with texture aliasing i've added support for over sampling: use shift and +/- to switch among modes. i dont know who has a such monstrous fast machine but it's there to use ;)

23 march 06: fixed the 'climbing problem' for non avatar objects too. added the LightsPanel to configure (place, move, delete, set color etc) lights in karga. changed the scene with a better one. found and fixed a silly bug by chance: although one is always invisible, i was adding the same object twice for LoD purposes :/ several other small improvements

09 march 06: fixed the so called 'climbing problem': avatars were climbing over others when ones tries to walk through other. thx Egon for the tip ;)

08 march 06: re-wrote balloons: changed the way they are drawn (i dont know why, previous mechanism hangs a bit on windows during first popup), changed their appearance, added some smoothness to their movements, and they are kind of (not that much) smart now: they try to avoid overlapping each other. still needs some improvements for a clearer view in crowd

27 february 06: added the new boy avatar. improved avatar mechanism to allow mixing texture and mesh based variations. changed avatar panel to use thumbnails. improved avatar tool to test and fine tune paired animations (can be found at demos section). slightly changed camera behaviour based on distance: one may feel it while adjusting camera with shift + arrow keys. i'm not quite happy with the new default angle but i have to since those avatars arent made to be viewed from above back.

16 february 06: added the new girl avatar. fixed a bug about setting default accessories. finally implemented normal talk mode at server side :/ improved user movement resulting in smoother movement and less stuck. added spring period to jump

09 february 06: fixed run mode for windows & linux (hope it will run at MacOS & Solaris too). extended LoD mechanism to cover avatars too. some more small improvements for sending user movements

02 february 06: added run mode: double tap forward key to run. improved animation load mechanism to allow using same mesh in multiple sequences: resulting in reduced load time, disk and memory usage. seperated walk forward, backward, turn, strafe left, right and run animations. improved footstep synchronization. improved the way user movements sent to other clients: they are almost replicated now in an efficient way.

19 january 06: camera now moves smoothly. implemented basic paired animation mechanism: right click on a user to suggest an action. added server side configuration files

24 december 05: added third person custom view: both camera distance and angle can be adjusted by shift and arrow keys. regions panel does not show up anymore if there is only one region

15 december 05: fixed a bug resulting rotation of body vertically during jump. added the multi purpose tube. replaced the sky-box with a better one

26 october 05: finally found a long lasting bug about deciding directions. added fps/ups counter (it sucks on my box :/ ). tcp communications are now compressed now. added support to change screen resolution (shift +/-)

24 october 05: changed the way animations are loaded. this takes 25% much space but loads almost 20 times faster. added stand and talk animations (well in fact only the mechanism, animations are dummy). paired animations (like kissing each other) is coming soon. stand by ;)

17 october 05: prepared a formal business plan. for god's sake, should i ever able to find resources for this project :/

05 october 05: added basic i18n (internationalization) support. translated most parts to turkish but i've noticed that it's really hard to use turkish in computer generated messages :/

30 september 05: sligtly obfuscated client code. hope i didnt break anything

29 september 05: added one way (client to server) heart beat mechanism

14 september 05: added info panel

27 august 05: still improving gui. made some changes in the core. added 'dont see a user' option. this has no take back at the moment so use it carefully ;-)

18 august 05: added jump. some gui improvements

08 august 05: re-organizing terrain structure. added a simple LoD (level of detail) implementation. switching between nodes is more like games now (simply walk to exit). changed the way balloons pop up. some gui improvements

28 july 05: completed switching to animation loop. some gui improvements

23 july 05: after some tests, it is obvious animation loop performs better than a timer. switching part by part. added a basic sky box. thx for that EscobaЯ

21 july 05: switched to active rendering. karga still doesnt use an animation loop but a timer mechanism which adjusts itself depending on load

20 july 05: dressing and accessories now persist among sessions (for registered users only) fixed a bug about placing user initially

15 july 05: made an avatar tool for potensial 3d artists. this will help seeing all his/her work on avatar in a single place. a few minor bug fixes

14 july 05: generalized texture based dressing, this will allow virtually any dressing combination without code change. added support for mesh based accessories like hair, sun glasses etc

08 july 05: added walk animation smoothing: walk cycle is completed after movement. some minor gui enhancements

06 july 05: changed the animation structure to use a series of 3ds files instead of md2. added first texture based dressing implementation. 3d model, texture and texture mapping of current avatars are extremely ugly but demonstrates the idea. obviously i have no talent in 3d arts ;-P

10 june 05: i decided to go on. ported karga client to java web start, added full screen support

07 june 05: sad to say that but i've to postpone this project since i still couldnt find any sponsor and/or contributer :(

24 may 05: ported viewer to java web start. adapted Michael's village to viewer. many thx Michael

19 may 05: added registration

12 may 05: fixed a few bugs and improved balloons

10 may 05: now users have sex

07 may 05: changed the way balloons work. still has problems but much better now

06 may 05: cleaned up some mess. added first balloon implementation. it still needs some improvement to be readible

29 april 05: added node switching mechanism and 3rd person view. not that smooth but will do the job for a start

26 april 05: karga first used for chat. one girl logged in as shelly webster. heh

mid march 05: the idea of marketing it as a 3d viewer for web appeared and prepared a demo for it

late februrary-early march 05: toyed with and study jpct with helge's valuable helps

mid february 05: i searched for open source and/or freeware graphics engines for java and found lovely jpct

late january 05: i implemented karga up to a certain level and begun to feel an apetite to embed graphics in it

early december 04: i begun to think of an enhanced chat system similar to muds. users would move around and perform actions but all would be text based

late november 04: i soon lost my appetite for such a dictionary

mid november 04: the idea of aptal karga first appeared. it should be 'an open dictionary' to which all users can add entries and rank others etc. aptal karga ('foolish crow' in turkish) would be an entry in there: he is the crow who resurrected for revenge after his death but forgot his reason of resurrection because of the happiness of returning life again. foolish crow is not real, just an urband legend among crows

aptal karga: ölümünden sonra intikam için geri dönen, tekrar yasamanın büyüsüne kapılarak varoluş amacını unutan kargadır. gercek degildir. kargalar arasında bir $ehir efsanesidir.