Its so awesome

Hellgate London is here...

Hellgate London is awesome...

The Gates of Hell.....

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS,
FL, US
10/30/2007 9:05 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY

10/30/2007 7:25 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
ORLANDO,
FL, US
10/30/2007 6:54 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

10/30/2007 6:05 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE,
KY, US
10/30/2007 4:14 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

10/30/2007 1:29 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 10/29/2007 11:22 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

For the last time

Okay I am finally done f'in around with DirectX. This is the last prototype. The next demo will have actually game play (including player health and enemy health as well as 2 weapons).

Updated demo

I created a new version of the DirectX wrapper that we were given. This one uses a 2d quad in screen space to blit the textures rather then using DirectX Sprite class.

Check it out.

Ultimately....

I have a feeling that liking Star Wars is more fun that actually watching Star Wars....especially after 1,2, and 3.

We built this city on updates

Don't fret, I'm still alive and kickin.

Download my prototype here.

Progress on Zombpocolypse has been slow. I've been trying to keep up and have been able to pull off a prototype that for the most part proves all the base technology. I've got some base code up to start setting up the weapon system..but I haven't really put that together yet.

I am not sure what is causing me to be so lazy. I think I've been allowing games to enter my life a little too much and have been playing copious amounts of Hellgate in my free time after school. Hmm..idea: I should post one or two features I am going to implement here as a reminder of what I need to get done.

So whats next? Well I want to get spawner placement / editing into the editor and also get a table up to edit at least one weapon.

Ryan Ellis gave me some good ideas and suggested I focus on enviroment-affecting weapons. So I think with that in mind, the next "features" are going to be the basic pistol(s) and bubble shield drop. It would also help to place actually getting damaged in the game.

Back to the Animation Tool

While working on the first tech demo, I realized I need some new animation data and decided this was the best point to retool the animation editor I had made for my SGP class. The editor fundamentally worked but the code was so garbled up and laid out in a very unfriendly format that I decided to take some of it and move it into a new project. I did some retooling with the buttons and got the basic components working again. It'll take at least 1-2 more days to get it back up and running but the new version is so far a lot friendler then old one to debug!

I've been learning that UI programming can be very tough. There are so many special cases that it can be hard to find a good design that will fit em all and allow you to add more features if you need too. I went with a really basic state system which really breaks down to a few switch statements running behavior in certain spots (Mouse Down events, Mouse Move events, etc). I find that UI stuff can be the most challenging to design since its the most noticeable by the user and they will call you out on everything wrong with it.

A quick note

This is really a note to myself.

I spent the last 2 days trying to implement OpenGL into my Zombie Game and while it worked, there were several bugs under the hood. I was going to go off into r&d thing to fix em all but realized I would only move about an inch forward. I decided to just stick with the DX wrappers we have been given by our school. They are simple and allow me to get to the stuff I care about: gameplay!

While learning about how all that stuff works under the hood (graphics api wise) would be cool, I feel that actually making more games is more important.

So even though OpenGL does provide some nice features, I would get stuck making an "engine" when I really just want to make a freakin game!

Just reverted all the code to a previous version and going to get rolling with Tile Map collision tests.

Chunks and Tools

I've got a new work method which has been going well over that last couple of days. I've been setting myself a few tasks from my goal (in this case the basic demo I mentioned before) and limiting myself to only those tasks in that day. While in some cases I could get more done, I've been forcing myself to quit and just do something else once my tasks are done. I feel this system is gonna be a good fit for a few reasons:

1. Prevent Burnout
2. Keep my mind and time free for school
3. Hellgate London

So I am gonna keep to this. The basic Tile Editor is working in the Map Editor. Right now I have a basic map with a simple navigation graph tied to it saving and loading. The next step in the schedule is to produce a simple tech demo that shows the map and has one moving object using the navigation graph. After that, we go back to the editor and add some more features to place objects such as spawners and items. I'm gonna keep bouncing back and forth between the engine and Map editor. The Animation Editor will be left as it is for the time being but I will need to come and make some definite changes to the interface but I am putting that far down my list for the time being since the editor works in its current form (just not very clean and riddled with bugs). In fact, when I get back to it, I may take certain parts of the code and just rebuild the damn thing but not until the Map Editor is done.

I've been keeping the mantra "one tool, one game" rather then letting myself become overwhelmed with "one tool, any game." The latter thought is my personal enemy and what seriously hampers me a lot of times.

So now for some more promo stuff for Zombpocolypse. I have been getting some test sprites ready to work with. For the SGP game, I made some "circle men" sprites which were so damn simple to draw and animate. Keeping with that tradition, take a look at the basic player and zombie test sprites.



Yeah..thats awesome programmer art.

Warning: Cheezy Post

While my life is filled with several moments that brought or continue to bring me great joy, I have a few very small and very simply moments that when I reflect on them, I can't help but smile.

I just added a new one. Be warned, this very cheezy. I was in my first lecture for Machine Architechture 2 and our instructor was doing his "welcome to the class" slides. Through the slides, he kept showing various movie/tv clips to keep it funny. A lot of the clips were from the Turtles movies. "Some of you may reckognize those clips from the turtles. I grew up with turtles. Now just so you know, I grew up with them through my son since as you can see, I am way above the average viewing age."

Yup thats a keeper.