So I'm not going to hit my months-end goal of being able to jump to another system. I've been making incremental changes (starfield, skybox) to make the game engine look better while I'm trying to implement some of the controller classes. My new goal is to get my system-jump goal by 1 Jan. In order to accomplish that I have an Amazing To-Do List:
Finish star system load, save, activation
Finish actor manager, so other ships are created in the system with you (even though they won't have brains attached yet, so they'll just sit there)
Start on Named Actor table, allowing some "special" NPCs to survive the load/save of systems
Write prototype HUD and menu system so you can choose which system to warp to
Write system deactivation/activation code when witchdrive is activated
Write proper game class to run all of this from, and make a clean main loop.
Expect more after my exams are done (somewhere near 20 Dec). I'm very disappointed in my performance this semester, both in class and working independently, but I suppose it can't be avoided due to work overload and family stuff. I really should probably push this aside for now and do a 'tiny' game just to get myself happy for now.
Next semester will be much better -- I have four courses plus a research position, but the research position has a relatively minimal amount of work and pays pretty well. Next year, I have a great research position which I can't wait to tell you all about when it happens.
Anyway, enough moping about. Time to provide some screenshots for you chaps and lasses.
By the way, the new project name is now Novarunner. HopeDagger suggested it, and I really like it because it reminds me of Shadowrun and Gridrunner. Now just to figure out how to get Xcode to *properly* rename a project and target without breaking all of my code!
Here's the new logo:
I want to do more with it (like gradient-ize the cockpit) but it looks great as an icon in OS X.
As for other stuff... I've been working with a few .NET developers to port their engine frameworks over to Mac OS X, and preparing to build the first PropaneInjector.NET application on OS X so I can provide that as an option for those of you who really like C# but are turned off by Tao's bad alternative platform support, such as myself.
Please love me. EDIT: Have a screenshot from my raytracer assignment. Them's some two spheres getting their Phong on. Next up will have to be reflection and refraction and shadows and multiple lights. Yaay!
Complex: I'm planning out the game framework. It probably won't be as script heavy and insane as my PropaneCore design (hello, UT2004!) but it will be pretty robust and thick with the scripting.
Sexy mini update: I can now load star systems from XML. Next up: Saving, and then trying to get the game framework up and running so I can get my goal for this month completed. Thank HopeDagger for getting my lazy ass in gear.
Tiny Game Project: On the way to starting, I hope. I think you'll like it. It'll be fun!
School: Again, this is what's been consuming my life. I've been working on a raytracer for classes, and I'll post the source to it after I get it all marked. Woo!
Secret Mystery Event: OH SHIT IT'S RIGHT BEHIND YOU WHAT THE HELL RUN YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD RUN
Now just to get back to Complex and figure out how to draw my md2s faster...
Yeah, I might as well tell you guys the name of the game project. Does the name suck? Yeah, actually it does. Suggestions on the back of a postcard to...
Oh, also the skybox works now. Phantom was talking sense, I was just too dumb to interpret his sense at the moment. Compile more sense, brain!
I'm going to bed, but in the morning I think I'll take some time out to work on my game "skeleton" and then start bolting together a menu system (I heart Lua). Those of you who enjoyed the Glow menu system will probably enjoy this one even more.
But please, don't do it here. I just cleaned those linens.
I got skyboxes working. Unfortunately there are weird seams that neither Phantom nor I can figure out (1:100 near:far ratio, CLAMP_TO_EDGE enabled... strange).
Expect more in-character skyboxes soon.
Tiny Game Project
I dunno right now. We'll see what happens after this upcoming weekend is over.
Porting
I've been working on testing the Morning's Wrath port for Mac, and trying to port String Theory and HopeDagger's bacterial game to Mac as well.
Amazing Game Project -- Some work here and there, mostly getting the FBOs and VBOs working properly. I'll have to try this out on some older hardware to make sure the fallbacks are in place, and then I can probably start building the rendering framework proper. I took a movie earlier, and YouTubed it. Hopefully it's "processed" by the time you read this entry. I'll have to make a promo video of Glow -- iMovie is surprisingly awesome for editing clips of video together and slicing them up with hard rock music.
Classwork -- I have a lot of it. Luckily, some of it is related to my game activities. I'll have to start picking my assignments apart and figuring out what parts of them should be rolled back into Propane Injector (first up: vector, matrix, quaternion classes, as well as my raytracer's math, md2 and image functions).
Amazing Tiny Side Project -- We'll see if I have the patience for this. I'd rather not get bogged down in too much stuff right now but I'd like to spend some time fiddling with it nonetheless. You'll hear about this more soon, and hopefully not at the expense of the AGP.
Link of the Day
Run Linux on your shiny new PS3 -- with full Blu-ray support.
I've spent some time working on my game, so there's some good stuff coming out. Improvements to my vector and matrix class and some other stuff for dealing with the complexity of 3D.
It's a real head trip moving from 2D to 3D; if Hopedagger weren't on my case about not making any more top-down games, I'd just say "fuck it" by now. But it does look really impressive sometimes, and I get to work on all kinds of high tech intertrons. A very frustrating day yesterday nonetheless.
For some reason my FBO is eating the depth buffer, so stuff no longer properly draws. I'll have to figure out how to add the depth buffer to my FBO so stuff renders accurately again, but for now I've disabled the FBO and it still looks very attractive.
I'll also need to work on a way to have simple lighting and fogging when the shaders are on. Next up is working on some sort of star background skybox/skydome/skysphere (perhaps sphere mapping can help), a materials system, and the base game code.
My goal for the end of the month is to be able to jump between systems. My goal for the end of the week is to have the basic game framework stubbed out, at least.
Glow -- Version 1.2 is posted on my site, and after HopeDagger gives the OK, it'll be posted to the Showcase as well for Mac OS X and Windows. New features: Save/load, animated conversations, UI tweaks, monster tweaks.
Amazing New Game -- Screenshots: Un, deux. Yeah, not much right now. Just working on getting the bounding box working to look at who you're targeting. Wish I had more time.
Classwork -- At least some of it is actually related to game development, and is teaching me a hell of a lot about graphics. I'm kind of psyched for making this game actually proper for once, and very expandable. I might even get a dreaded engine out of it. Freaky.
Second Life -- Yeah, I've started making crap in Second Life to see if I can make some money off of the non-programming saps. So far I've made a crappy pet script which doesn't seem to work properly, and actually will get me banned if I give it to anyone to use (due to a violation of the 'bumping' griefing rules ). Back to the drawing board!
I really like SL because, as you're testing your software, you can crash your simulated tank through a fence, over a pool and into the side of someone's house, where they will run outside, wave their hands in the air like they're typing and then scream at you in all caps to get the fuck off their lawn. SHilbert asserts this behaviour is "surreal".
It leads me to believe a Ravuya MUSH would be awesome.
Propane Injector -- I'm working on a Lua binding class and adding a bunch of stuff to the shader class, like arbitrary-resolution render-to-texture (using FBO). You can see the effects of the latter in the two screenshots up above.
I think the work is starting to settle back down again. Expect to see wonderful and fantastic products from the Ravuyajournal soon; hopefully by the end of the weekend.
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). Back to the drawing board!
