Evolution of visuals in racing games 1992-2014

22 years. That's the time it takes to move from barely recognizable locations to blazing reality.

I still remember when I first saw Geoff Crammond - MicroProse's Formula One Grand Prix. It was mindblowing!! 3D graphics, amazing gameplay... Best racing experience I had so far...

One of my best friends had a 386 PC that met the ultra-high-end requirements the game needed (DOS, 1 MB of Ram and VGA Graphics Card). Every time I had the chance to drop by his house, first thing we did was to play this game.

But things have changed quite a lot in this time. Comparing the Monaco environment from that game with the one from CodeMasters F1 2013 makes a hell of a difference...

[Best viewed in FullHD 1080p]

And things still keep moving forward. This year, we will have a new F1 2014 game, and some others that keep pushing the limits of visual realism in videogames: [All videos best viewed in FullHD 1080p]

Diveclub:

Project Cars Trailer:

Project Cars vs Real Life:

Awesome !!!

Cómo tomar una muestra de color en cualquier cosa mostrada en tu pantalla, con Photoshop

Esta es una funcionalidad de Photoshop que no conocía. Si alguna vez te has preguntado qué color exactamente utiliza un icono, un botón de una aplicación, o cualquier otra cosa que se muestre en tu PC, puedes averiguarlo con Photoshop siguiendo estos sencillos pasos:

1.- Abre una imagen cualquiera, en Photoshop

2.- Selecciona el “EyeDropper” tool, para tomar muestras de color (normalmente dentro de la imagen en la que estás trabajando).

3.- Haz click en cualquier punto de tu imagen y, SIN SOLTAR EL BOTÓN, arrastra el puntero del mouse a cualquier otro punto de tu escritorio, a cualquier otra aplicación, icono o ventana.

Photoshop irá mostrando constantemente el color debajo del cursor del ratón, sin importar si todavía estás en tu imagen o siquiera dentro de Photoshop. Cuando sueltes el botón, ese color es seleccionado como color de trabajo en Photoshop, por lo que ya puedes utilizarlo en tus imágenes o acceder a sus componentes RGB.

Muy útil!!!

J

How to install Windows Phone 8.1, even with no developer account

If you can't wait to have Windows Phone 8.1 and Cortana, you can have it right now.

As you might have read, all you need to do is search in the Store for the application: Preview for Developers, install and open it. It opens the door to the set of updates that will trigger the installation of Windows Phone 8.1.

The thing is that one of the steps when opening it require you to enter your Live Account credentials, and in theory you must be registered as a Developer in the Windows Phone Dev Center.

Sincerely, you should consider register as so if you plan to do any development... It's only $14 yearly... But if you don't want to pay, there is a way:

1.- Go to http://appstudio.windowsphone.com
2.- Log in with your non-developer Live Account ID, and accept all the terms and conditions
3.- Click in "Start New Project"
4.- Select whichever project template you prefer (empty app will do the trick), and complete the process.

Now, you should be able to run the Preview for Developers thing, and it should accept your credentials as a registered developer.

Ta dá !!!

Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk. Windows Phone 8.1 is currently a developer preview and might contain bugs. I take no responsibility for any damage done to your phone or to your data, so better know what you are doing... :)