Software

Here you have a review on the final release of Universal 3D Chess:

Currently you can only watch it through youtube or download this version with a 1036x676 resolution HERE (encoded with Xvid).

The final public realease is already available at the project's homepage: VoilaMonsieur

When I saw that there some beta testers needed to work in the project I signed up immediatelly as I wanted to get involved in the project. The fact is that I can't tell you much about the program but I'd like to show you this image I got on my laptop with some boards opened, different zooming on each board, with the 3D ultra-high-details enabled, so that you make yourself an idea of how it looks like

The image is made on a 1440x900 resolution (but compressed with JPG, in order to save space). You should take into account that this image does not represent the actual quality of the final product.

If you want to see more images and know more about this program go here: U3DChess at GoDiscussions.com

After receiving some comments on the last post comming from Stonebase developers, I've realised I made some mistakes on my pre-review. In order to understand my mistakes here you need to find a way to make objective reviews of programs: a list of features a program must have. If I fail to find it, I use the help file. In this case, there isn't any English help file available, so the only available support is given by 10 video tutorials in Chinese made with outdated versions.

The pattern search feature, though once disabled, is finally available on this version of the program. As the comment on the last post claims, you just have to select the area which is to be analysed, and click with the right button on that area, once the database are loaded in the basket.

Now we can see the games where this pattern is found, though the games (if opened) don't directly show the pattern but start from the first move. Here we can also check the games by thumbnails, one of the nicest features of this program. On the other hand, it is not possible to apply the pattern search results to your game: you won't see any A, B...

It is in order to avoid this sort of troubles that an English version of the help file is needed. Meanwhile, I created a section at my forum so that we can create a Stonebase tutorial in English, but I can't develop it entirely on my own...

Most things don't work as I expected, to start with, I got strongly disappointed with the filtering tool: wide but limited at the same time. It doesn't handle correctly the ranks, as it understands that both 4d and 23k levels are "more than 10k", while you can only filter per one colour rank at one time (so you'll have to set up to filters in order to filter rank for both colours). It doesn't let you filter by player, only by white player or black player, so you have to set up two lines.

As already announced by the developers, the pattern search tool has been disabled, due to the strange results that usually appeared. I'll be looking for this tool... I remember the pattern search thumbnails to be of great use and one of the strongest features of this program.

The counter tool, featuring both Chinese and Japanese rules, isn't very good at calculating the life and death status of stones. Just to make a comparison, the estimation of the result of an specific game I was reviewing when my opponent resigned was in my favor for 2 points; the same estimation made by SmartGo in 2 seconds is that Black wins by 25, due to the dead status of one group. In stonebase, in order to declare one group as dead it has to be completely surrounded (just like in KGS), whenever an unoccupied space is left nearby applying "dead" to that group automatically sets all the territory to the opponent.

On the other hand, the wonderful database manager: You can have all the database categories you want, then load different databases in each, and finally filter the databases for the desired data (black player, event name...). The appearance and versatility of this program is musing, it lets you load lots of board skins which turn it into a colourful experience.

Preloading the games in thumbnails, while would work wonderfully when implemented the pattern search system, is a good tool too: you can check your lasts games with a single glance, if you want to recover a recent game where you played "that pattern" you may want to check among the thumbnails. The Guess next move tool has implemented a new radar system which informs you of the distance between what you said and the actual move.

There are still a lot of menus to explore but I don't have much time recently. My intention was to make a videoreview but I finally decided it is too soon to make a serious analysis of Stonebase. It seems like the developers are capping the product while waiting for something to happen: Thumbnails are available and you can watch them but they are a bit useless without the pattern search engine. The count tool seems to be missing something too...

I have started a small tutorial in English for Stonebase, as I think it would be worth it to have some information about this tool in English. Here is the link: Stonebase in English. Please, feel free to contribute.