Dev-Scene.com

This is a new site just opened, and it looks pretty neat. The goal is to be an all-in-one DS homebrew website, and it already includes over 100 homebrew DS games, with screenshots, descriptions, and download links. They are also working on being a resource for homebrew developers, with tutorials and guides. There’s a Welcome Message for new users, a news site (which I believe will become the successor to drunkencoders.com, with many of those posters moving to dev-scene), as well as a RSS aggregator for 18 DS-related blogs.

PS: They got ‘dugg’ and amassed nearly 700 ‘diggs’ as of last count. So it seems to be a hit so far.

Screenshots from Nintendo’s Big Brain Academy for DS:

I know you’ve all been waiting for this, it’s not completely functional yet, but here’s a preview:

(gfx shamelessly stolen from )

If you can’t wait, and need to get some drawings done ASAP, you can download a previous version.

UPDATE: It also seems I’ve defeated the long-standing issue of the ‘jumping lines’ once and for all!!! I need to do some more testing to confirm it, but it looks good so far!!

A quick update to the mandelbrot explorer, this improves speed when you are not zoomed in very far. When you are zoomed below 175x, I will use 32 bit (1.17.14) fixed point numbers, which greatly improves speed. However, if you zoom beyond that, then it switches back to 64 bit (1.35.28), which provides greater precision. I’ve measured, and you can zoom to approx 200,000x before you start getting pixelated due to lack of precision, at which point I switch to floating point (which slows it down a bit), but you can zoom a bit farther then.

Next, I will start looking into optimizations of the algorithm itself. Two things I have heard of, but not really researched, are ‘boundary tracing’ and ‘periodicity checking’

R05 Download: .nds and .ds.gba
Changes since R04: Minor optimizations and quality improvements.

Here’s some more PNGs saved out from my app:

I was inspired to make a fractal explorer for the DS, and what better fractal than the classic Mandelbrot Set! If you don’t know what a Mandelbrot is, or why it’s in a set, check trusty Wikipedia.

This is an initial version, I’m still working on how to best balance speed and quality. This isn’t the fastest it can be, but it’s not the best quality either. You can zoom a ways in, but not as far as I would like. You’ll know when you’ve hit the limit of precision, because edges start getting very rough and strange patterns (stranger than normal mandelbrot, that is).

Features in R04:

• Zoom by dragging a rectangle
• Save screenshot to PNG
• Panning, Zooming, Adjust Iterations by buttons
• 14 different color palettes

Download .nds & .ds.gba

Minor update here, no new features. Only change from last version is I’m testing with the new alpha version of libfat. Currently loading is DISABLED as libfat does not support directory listing yet. If you want a fully functional version, please see this previous post.

I have tested saving on GBAMP and Supercard CF. Please, test it on your devices and let me know if saving works correctly. As I recieve reports, I will update the info below. Thanks.

Tested, working: GBAMP, Supercard CF
Tested, seems to create 0kb files? M3 SD
Untested, but should work on: M3 CF, Supercard SD, Neoflash MK2/3
Untested, may or may not work: Max Media Player/Dock, EFA2

NDS version
.DS.GBA version

And here are the two test images I made:
   

I’ve had some reports that the upper screen does not display correctly when launched directly. Apparently, a workaround is to launch it through moonshell. So if you find that you cannot read the information on the top screen, then try running my app from moonshell, instead of directly from your flash cart menu.

After much waiting, and much complaining by the community, Stephen Stair finally got most of the basics working! WEP, DHCP, TCP, ICMP, DNS, WFC data, and various other acronyms are all supported now!

Expect to see many neat things from the homebrew community in the coming weeks!

Link to wifi lib release

Next revision of my draw app is released, here are the new features:

• “Smudge” tool — will smear the colors around, can be used to create a ‘watercolor’ like effect
• “Picker” tool — the standard ‘eyedropper’ tool, select a color from off of the canvas
• Color picker enhancements — L button now exits the picker, also shows the current selected color in top right
• Controls change — Change the current tool using the Left/Right buttons now.

Latest update

As always, I welcome feedback, and please send me your pictures as well!