GameDev.Net Developer Journals

GameDev.Net Developer Journalshttp://www.gamedev.net/community/journals/Most recently updated Developer Journalsen-usGameDev.nethttp://www.gamedev.net/pics/gdnet-88x31.gifhttp://www.gamedev.net/Maximum Game Development!Horror Stories of RanBlade's game development, by RanBladehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=349064Just stumbled on a tool/engine called Unity. It seems really cool and to be able to do 3D in a web browser is really intresting. My cousin and I have decided to use it for our development on our current game. So I plan on keeping everyone posted on Unity and our trials and tribulations with it. peace.Ramblings of a partialy sane programmer, by blewisjrhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=389173Well my Python Dev environment is almost complete. Currently I decided to go with Mercurial seems SVN is not content with putting a repo on my external HD. That was the biggest decision factor right there. If somone knows how to get svn to work on a external HD let me know. I really don't want to have to go through the trouble and get a source control host when it is not really needed. As for editors I decided to go with Programmer's Notepad 2.0.10. The reason for this is that it is a non bloated very configurable editor. Currently I can run my python scripts, execute pylint, and run unitests all right from the editor after some configuration. Was not the easiest config but I got it to work non the less. The hardest thing I had to setup today was Pylint. I started by getting it with easy_install. Then I ran into the issue where it kept closing my command prompt so I could not see the output. So with some diving I traced it back to the batch file that executes it on windows. Originally the batch file looked like this... &lt;pre&gt; @echo off rem = """-*-Python-*- script rem -------------------- DOS section -------------------- rem You could set PYTHONPATH or TK environment variables here python -x "%~f0" %* goto exit """ # -------------------- Python section -------------------- import sys from pylint import lint lint.Run(sys.argv[1:]) DosExitLabel = """ :exit exit(ERRORLEVEL) rem """ &lt;/pre&gt; we can immediatly notice the issue is that after every pylint command it calls exit(ERRORLEVEL) so I made a slight change by commenting that out and using a ECHO. to print a newline after it executes instead. I ended up with this. &lt;pre&gt; @echo off rem = """-*-Python-*- script rem -------------------- DOS section -------------------- rem You could set PYTHONPATH or TK environment variables here python -x "%~f0" %* goto exit """ # -------------------- Python section -------------------- import sys from pylint import lint lint.Run(sys.argv[1:]) DosExitLabel = """ :exit ECHO. rem exit(ERRORLEVEL) rem """ &lt;/pre&gt; The next issue was to config Pylint to abide fully by pep8 and that meant changing a regular expression for global variables from all caps to all lowercase. So I used pylint to create a pylintrc.conf file and I tweaked it and added that conf file to my PYLINTRC env variable. Tada it works. Then I had to get it to work in pn2. Issues issues issues. Turns out pn2 does not execute these things through the regular command prompt. So after a few min I realized I had to give it a path to the bat file and not just the command you use in the prompt. Then I had the issue of it not using my env vars so it was not finding the config file. So I had to force specify the config file location before the file name param. Now all that is done I can happily code with only a mercurial prompt open and ipython open. The full dev environment atm consists of the following: Python 2.6.4 Programmer's Notepad 2.0.10 Pylint (for code metrics and code standards) IPython (supper powered interactive python shell) Python Built in PyUnit (for unittesting) Mercurial (for source control) Tesseract's Game Development Journal, by Tesseracthttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=397837I haven't had much time to code this past week, but I have thought quite a bit about how the different parts of the game will fir together. Right now I am sorting out the logic of re-creating a biosphere from scratch, and how the elements of propagation and evolution will fit in. Research has led me in some interesting directions; I picked up a &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Botany-Introduction-Plant-Biology-Textbook/dp/0005912679/"&gt;college text-book on botany&lt;/a&gt;, and spent a good long time browsing Wikipedia, specifically looking at &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_succession"&gt;Ecological Succession&lt;/a&gt;. I also grabbed a book called &lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Where-Our-Food-Comes-Retracing/dp/1597263990/"&gt;Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine&lt;/a&gt;. Put together, these sources prompted me to change the focus of my game, from re-starting a global ecology, to something much more local - create a regional ecosystem, over the course of some decades or centuries, which will ultimately be (a) self-sustaining, and (b) be able to support a population of recently-thawed humans. Yeah, the basic story/plot is kind of weak at the moment, but the technical issues with putting such a game together are quite interesting. Because I have no experience in ecology, biology or botany, I found myself at a loss as to where to begin. So I have started an exercise which has previously helped me make sense of information architecture problems: make a long list of simple, declarative statements, then order them, add to them, and flesh them out, until I have a design document. Here is my "ecology" list at the moment: &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;All plants require sunlight.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;All plants more complex than algae require a solid surface for growing&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;All plants have chlorophyll, which reacts with sunlight to create nutrients&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Algae scattered on ice will trap sunlight, and heat up enough to melt ice&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Lichen can grow on bare rock&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Moss can grow on bare rock and in minimal soil&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants growing on bare rock will begin to erode the rock, creating sand.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;When plants die, they mix with the sand to create soil&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;The more complex the plant, the more nutrients it needs to grow&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;The larger the plant, the stronger its root system needs to be.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Taller plants need deeper roots.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;The more surface area a plant has, the more sunlight it collects.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;More leaves mean the plant needs to be either wider or taller&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Faster growth means faster propagation&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Faster growth means shorter life&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Faster growth means more fragile plant&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants can propagate by water, wind, or mechanical means&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants which propagate by water can only propagate downstream&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants which propagate by air can only propagate in the direction of the wind&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants which propagate by air can disperse to a wider area&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants which propagate by water propagate more densely in any given area&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Fitness is the likelihood that an individual will produce viable offspring&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plants need to reach a certain maturity before they can reproduce&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Plant populations need to reach a certain density before they can effectively propagate&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;plants need to reach a level of complexity where they create fruit before they can be considered food plants&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;plants which contain sufficient nutrients to be worthwhile as food must get nutrients from the soil&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; Obviously this list is simplified to meet the needs of the game. I am sure any botanists reading this are shaking their heads. Anyway, I consider it a good start. More updates to follow.IfThen Software LLC, by VBStriderhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=497856&lt;center&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ifthensoftware.net"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.ifthensoftware.net/images/banner.png" border=0&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/center&gt; &lt;b&gt;News&lt;/b&gt; No news to report this week. &lt;b&gt;From the Programmer&lt;/b&gt; &lt;font size=1&gt;Written by Invisible&lt;/font&gt; The file I/O system will provide classes for I/O operations on various file formats. For example, there will be a class that handles reading/writing from/to an INI file. This class will make use of a basic file I/O object that handles the details of reading and writing bytes from/to the file. The INI handler doesn't care where the data is, so it is possible for data to be in memory, on disk, or even on another computer. The system will also support archive formats, allowing multiple files to be stored in the same file. This will also allow a more advanced archive system, similar to a file system, which has directories and file names. The entire archive could be encrypted, as well as individual files within it. If all game-data is stored in an archive, a game could (in theory) consist of only an executable and the data file. However, there is a disadvantage to doing this. As an example, if a particular API to decode an audio file permits no way to give it the data directly rather than a filename, the audio file must reside in the normal file system. You could get around this by unpacking the audio files into the file system when the game starts, and then deleting those files when the game ends, but then you run the risk of cluttering these files on the user's hard drive in the event of a crash, not to mention longer load/shutdown times. &lt;b&gt;Artist's Easel&lt;/b&gt; &lt;font size=1&gt;Written by GreyKnight&lt;/font&gt; &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.iscribble.net/"&gt;iScribble&lt;/a&gt; Sketches #11&lt;/b&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.ifthensoftware.net/greyknight/iscribble_sketches17.png"&gt;&lt;font size=1&gt;(Click to enlarge)&lt;/font&gt; &lt;img src="http://www.ifthensoftware.net/greyknight/sm_iscribble_sketches17.png"&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;b&gt;Community Spotlight&lt;/b&gt; &lt;font size=1&gt;Written by Jay, Dead9000, and Invisible&lt;/font&gt; This passed week, InvisibleMan made some improvements to the &lt;a href="http://www.ifthensoftware.net/StickAdventuresOnline/"&gt;SAO&lt;/a&gt; server, and Acaceol has fixed various things in HAL (the SAO chat/moderator bot). The change to the server got rid of a bug known to the community as the "pit glitch" (RIP). A couple problems with the banning system were fixed, and various small things were done to the moderator commands. The swearing filter has also been upgraded, and will now block the message and issue a private warning. Hopefully this encourages players to not swear. As far as HAL is concerned, some changed were made to moderator commands, moderator-only messages are no longer sent to the non-mod channel, and message colors now reflect the ones in-game. It has only been about 6 months since he started, and yet he rose to heights most reach in a year if not more. He surpassed players in the &lt;a href="http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1139"&gt;Top 10&lt;/a&gt; weekly, sometimes even daily, without breaking a sweat. I speak of Toraneko of course, and this week he achieved level 52 making him rank 2nd on the &lt;a href="http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1139"&gt;Unofficial Top 10&lt;/a&gt; list. An &lt;a href="http://saomods.webs.com/"&gt;SAO mod archive&lt;/a&gt; has been made recently by a player named Zecronious. This site features news about up-and-coming mods, a list of mods, the option of uploading your mod to the website, as well as Ace's "Automatic Mod Installer".Merry Prankster Games, by gdunbarhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=503512"10 Fantasy Fights" needs a small town for recruiting party members, buying items, etc. So I've started in on getting a tileset ready, and I've got the building tiles done. In the level editor, here is a basic layout: &lt;a href="http://members.gamedev.net/gdunbar/blog/2009_11_19/senginn1.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/gdunbar/blog/2009_11_19/senginn1.jpg" width="320" height="240" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; And, here is the layout with the tileset applied: &lt;a href="http://members.gamedev.net/gdunbar/blog/2009_11_19/senginn2.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/gdunbar/blog/2009_11_19/senginn2.jpg" width="320" height="240" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; The biggest annoyance is the giant doors (20 feet wide!), but unfortunately they have to be that big for the pathfinding algorithm to work reasonably with a multi-character party. Things are zoomed out a bit more in the actual game, so they shouldn't look quite so giant; the upper building is really pretty small for something in-game anyways. Next to work on some furnishings to go in the buildings; tables, shelves, etc. istar's Game Life, by istarhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=540621&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Reasons for using agile in game development&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Reduce waste&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Finding fun first&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Agile manifesto for game development&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; People & Communication &gt; Process & Tools&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Working game &gt; Design document&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Customer collaboration &gt; Contract negotiation &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Responding to change &gt; Following a plan&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--The Scrum project community&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Team member, Scrum master, Product Owner&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Sprints&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Releases&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Release Execution&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Scrum master&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Adaptive actions&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Sprint planning & execution&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Product backlog -&gt; Sprint backlog&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Moving to a "Pull" System&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Use tool properly&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Self-organized team&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Define "done"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Scalability of Scrum&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Mix team to lower the integration effort:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/istar/Images/091116_MixTeam.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; The matrix team structure:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/istar/Images/091116_MatrixTeam.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Lean Production&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Production is an expensive part of development.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Scrum is not the best choice for production, but we don't want lose the benefits of agile:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Continuous Improvement, Collaboration, Focus on value and reduce the waste.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;Pre-production vs. production&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Lean Game production (Follow the deming cycle):&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/istar/Images/091116_Deming.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; &lt;i&gt; 7 Lean Principles:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 1.Eliminate waste&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 2.Amplify learning&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 3.Decide as late as possible&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 4.Deliver as fast as possible&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 5.Empower the team&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 6.Build integrity in balance discipline&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; 7.See the whole&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Repeatable works (Parallel Production)&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/istar/Images/091116_PP.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Tools&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Time-boxing Assets:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/istar/Images/091116_TB.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Asset Streams:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Try the best to keep the steps in a harmony to eliminate buffers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Handoffs&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Handoffs create a sense of handing-off responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Scum vs. Kanban&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Kanban:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;center&gt;&lt;img src="http://members.gamedev.net/istar/Images/091116_Kanban.jpg" /&gt;&lt;/center&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;Under a ShadowyTree, by Black Knighthttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=453546At last a new release after 6 months.This release contains lots of stuff so I will just post the change log.I have added the first skills to the game.There are 9 skills in total but two of them are not working at the moment.Lock picking is not working as doors can't be locked at the moment.This is will be enabled in the next release.Also detect traps skill is not working as traps are not in the game yet. Here is the download &lt;a href="http://www.shadowytree.net/downloads/download.php?url=darkage_v0.4.869.zip"&gt;link&lt;/a&gt; Here is the change log and a few new screenshots from the game : &lt;strong&gt; -Version 0.4.869-&lt;/strong&gt; -Added Deheza. -Added city tower and wall models. -Added city and dungeon doors that can be opened by left click. -Added skill training from trainer NPC. -Added skill interface. -Added dungeon doors. -Added shadowmap size to userPrefs.ini file -Added smooth texture tool to world editor. -Added shadows too all objects -Added the reflection of the sun. -Added a slider control to the world editor that controls cloud density. -Added sun billboard. -Added a feature to save user settings made in options to userPrefs.ini file -Added a progress bar showing enemy attack progress. -Added an attack delay to NPCs which can be changed from the world editor. -Added four new terrain textures. -Added highlighting to targets that are mouse overed. -Added energy and armor rating to units. -Removed the interaction panel for animals. -Fixed a bug in skyplane rendering. -Fixed armor rating icon and position. -Fixed enemies attacking through doors in dungeons. -Fixed GUI items in 16:9 aspect ratio. -Fixed collision detection in dungeons.Enemies no longer pass through doors when they are not visible. &lt;a href="http://www.shadowytree.net/darkage/screenshots/game021.jpg"&gt;&lt;img width=300 src="http://www.shadowytree.net/darkage/screenshots/game021.jpg"&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.shadowytree.net/darkage/screenshots/game022.jpg"&gt;&lt;img width=300 src="http://www.shadowytree.net/darkage/screenshots/game022.jpg"&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.shadowytree.net/darkage/screenshots/game023.jpg"&gt;&lt;img width=300 src="http://www.shadowytree.net/darkage/screenshots/game023.jpg"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Robot University -- a 2D DirectX Puzzle, by puzhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=543527Hi. It's been a while since I updated my journal. In a project not related to game programming, I just resolved a nasty bug I've been tackling for close to two weeks. Once every several million transactions, data got corrupted because two processes, one belonging to the main thread, and the other belonging to an event driven ISR (interrupt service routine) were writing simultaneously. The function belonging to the main process tried to attain exclusivity by disabling the global interrupt near the top, but this was not taking effect. At first, I suspected the compiler was ignoring the "volatile" keyword for special function register access, but turning off all optimizations didn't help and the disassembly looked fine. After extensive searching, I found that a totally unrelated timer-driven ISR was inappropriately re-enabling the interrupt through the side effect of calling an I/O function. But how could the timer interrupt happen AFTER interrupt was disabled? It is because, based on empirical evidence, the interrupt controller has about 10 to 20 CPU clock latency to take effect, owing to the fact that the interrupt controller runs on a slower clock than the CPU. The bug went away when I re-wrote the timer-driven ISR in a manner that does not re-enable the global interrupt.Journal of EnemyBoss, by EnemyBosshttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=323170 Last week I competed in Vortex '09 in Toronto. The contest was to deliver the best pitch for a game idea or prototype. I didn't give myself time to come up with a solid game pitch, so I thought of jumping on the classic-remake bandwagon and remake the IREM NES classic "Metal Storm". There's alot of retro remakes free on the web but I didn't see one for this game, so I thought it might be an interesting project to pitch. &lt;a href="http://members.gamedev.net/enemyboss/files/metalstorm2.pdf"&gt; METALSTORM2.PDF&lt;/a&gt;. When I pitched the idea, the Judges only asked if I tried to obtain a license for the trademark. Maybe they were hoping for a yes? Let me know what you think. Vortex was fun and I learned alot. I think I'll attend the next IGDA and Hand Eye meetings in Toronto from now on, even if I'm not working on anything worthwhile these days. Journal of matt_j, by matt_jhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=507563Improved HUD &lt;img src = "http://members.gamedev.net/matt_j/VC/vc_iphone_20091108.png" /&gt; New curvier buttons: &lt;img src = "http://members.gamedev.net/matt_j/VC/vc_iphone_20091107.PNG" /&gt; A screenshot I took because I'm going to use it to decide how I want to finalize the HUD layout: &lt;img src = "http://members.gamedev.net/matt_j/VC/vc_iphone_20091107_2.PNG" /&gt;Beals Studio's Development Journal, by Programmer16http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=329580Didn't really get any work done tonight, spent all night trying to find a couple sprites that I need. I really need to just sit down and catch up on my spriting, but I'm just not patient enough for it XD. I changed the animation system again. I re-added the Name attribute because I need it for animation sets. Added the AnimationSet class, which is just a collection of animations. The AnimationSet file has a bunch of the Animation tags wrapped in a Animations tag. The Name value is required for animations in a set (and it has to be unique.) I've also decided on the two movement schemes I'm going to use: the current key-based one (up moves forward, down moves backward, left rotates counter-clockwise, and right rotates clockwise) and the absolute movement scheme (the character's aim follows the mouse while the movement keys move up, down, left, and right.) I'm currently working on the sprite system so that I can start implementing the object system. Hopefully I'll have something to show on that here in the next couple days. In the meantime, it's time for bed.Reinvention and Further Development of the Wheel, by Staffan Ehttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=316817One of the things I picked up while on the team was doing unit tests on written code. Mainly because the person I worked in pair with is sort of a &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development"&gt;TDD&lt;/a&gt; evangelist. He recommended me reading the book &lt;i&gt;Test Driven Development By Example&lt;/i&gt; by Kent Beck, a good book which I've got half way through. I've felt deep in my stomach for some time that sooner or later I had to start testing the Citizen code-base but you know how it is. Attacking from this new angle I've tried to test drive the design of new components that I've added to Citizen. This has been very informative and have proven why it is best to start test driving from the start. One of the inherent problems of testing code that has been written earlier is that the code is not likely that easy to test. Even though I consider myself to be a fan of clear structure and responsibility between modules I find myself in a mess of cross-dependencies and couplings when I begin test driving new classes that depend on old code. It is worth pointing out that with TDD the code automatically gets test-friendly which solves a serious problem in software design. Now, it's time for me to get off the high horses and admit that the main reason I'm into TDD is that it allows me to look at my code with new eyes which is interesting. Whether I'll make a habit out of it or not remains to be seen. I also had to restructure my project in order to easily test the code. Simply adding the same source files to the test app would cause a double compile so I needed to make the original Citizen app into a library that the test app could call into. So right now I use three projects: one static lib for the code base, one test app that runs the suites and one launcher app that simply pushes the run-button in the library. I also noticed that pre-compiled headers in VC++ don't play nice over project borders so I have to use one PCH per project even though they contain the same code. Oh well, you can't win all the time.All Things Scheme, by okonomiyakihttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=292963This is definitely not an interesting post, but rather a request. Does anyone have 3ds Max that would be willing to convert a model from the .max format into something more standard? .obj would be the best, but .3ds is fine too. I have found a few good free 3d models online for my game, but they all come in .max format unfortunately. It's unfortunate that this is a proprietary format for something far beyond my budget. Here's the one I found: http://www.3dxtras.com/3dxtras-free-3d-models-details.asp?prodid=6912 I hope this kind of request isn't in bad taste. I am certainly not a modeler and that one looks great. Just PM me and I'll send you the model I downloaded if you're willing to help. Thanks! EDIT: Nevermind, I was able to get the trial version of 3ds Max and use it once.Raptor's Den, by Raptor85http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=263732&lt;a href="http://www.midnightfragfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/spriteeditor.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.midnightfragfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/spriteeditor-300x180.jpg" alt="spriteeditor" title="spriteeditor" width="300" height="180" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-76" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Another update to my editor, new features. &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Onion skinning for previous/next frames&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Ability to load, scale and position a background image as another onion skin layer, for tracing&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;cleaned up the drawing routine, draws to a wxImage now and only draws to screen once, much faster.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;a href='http://www.midnightfragfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/SpriteEditor-1.4.zip'&gt;Download Now!&lt;/a&gt; (note: the image in the background being used to trace is iris, from &lt;a href="http://www.nisamerica.com/games/ai3/"&gt;Atelier Iris 3&lt;/a&gt;)Battlefield simulation engine, by Thomas Brinckhttp://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=537678This post is really just an update for the &lt;a href="http://www.thomasbrinck.dk/Source-09-10-21.zip"&gt;scheduling algorithm&lt;/a&gt;. I ran a lot of tests, to see which factors had an effect on performance, and ended up with removing all function calls (including the inline'd ones) and changing strutures inside the threads to arrays, two of which were placed on the stack, while the third (and now only expandable one) is on the heap. The result was an up to 20% improvement in speed (or rather - reduction in the overhead), so that now, jobs of sizes smaller than a single microsecond can be scheduled efficiently. New efficiency measurements with relation to my previous post (again in ns): 100 - 131.6% 300 - 293.6% 1000 - 370.5% 10000 - 400.7% Note that we exceed the hard-limit of 400 % in the last case. I reason that this is due to OS scheduling overhead in the single processor case, which should be reduced in the multiprocessor case due to me forcing each of my threads to run in a specific core, and due to the loadbalancing, rather than a simple four way split (meaning that if a single core turns out to have a lower throughput, it will receive fewer jobs). I am currently satisfied with the scheduler, so I do not expect to perform major updates on it again. If anyone has a chance to run this algorithm on a computer with more than 4 cores, I would love to hear how it handles.