Today is my last final exam, and then it's just on to finishing off my rendering project (which hasn't made much visible progress, but stuff is getting done behind the scenes).
As for Afterglow, I'm still working on it, but I haven't had much of a chance. I start my summer job on Monday and hopefully when I get settled I will have some free time to work on it again. My plan is to start implementing "mission" entities (conversations, triggers, etc) and revise the editor to be able to place and define entities and NPCs.
I got stalled out on decals; there are a bunch of corner cases with decals that I kind of hate, but I really really want to implement them. I'll spend some more time with that.
I also want to implement the implants - I just need to spend more time defining the internal code interface (base type, etc) and figuring out exactly which implants I want and how the user will trigger them. I want to try and avoid the clunky "hunt for the f-key" keyboard interface that made me avoid the use of most biomods in Deus Ex.
After that's done, I need to implement the store, various kinds of enemies and then start building game content in earnest.
Anyway, the deadline has hit for my games class project and it ended up looking pretty good. The camera is massively broken which is why everything looks like you're filming it from Mexico, the car-car collision detection really sucks and there are a lot of sound bugs.
I haven't yet gotten far enough away from this project to have any kind of perspective on what I learned. When I do my own racing game it will be a lot different, that's for sure.
I'm not sure I'm going to do a release quite yet (or ever); I have to think about fixing some things.
I've got finals this week (my first one is in about 2.25 hours), and then hopefully work on Afterglow can resume. I'm looking at starting to implement the important story components of the game, such as conversation entities.
You might be interested in my rendering class project, which is still ongoing and will complete in May. We are implementing this double-sided refraction method, and so far we have these two videos (and this one too).
It's the last week of lectures, so hopefully things will go a bit smoother once this week is over. The final release of my games class project is due on Monday, but first I have a major paper and rendering assignment left to do.
Once I get free, some actual work on Afterglow might happen - I haven't been making updates but a large amount of the game is there and needs some editor fixes before it can really start to get used.
Milestone 4 (of 5) is now done with my game class' racing game; implemented newly is basic passing AI, a bunch of other features (weapons, turbo boost) and most importantly prettier art. I am still not super happy with how it controls, but it is there and works, which counts for something in my book, considering it's only been about three months of part-time work so far.
Afterglow had a lot of fixes this week too, like the ability to drop items onto the ground and a minor AI fix.
Mostly this week I just had job interviews - looking for work for the summer term is not a lot of fun In This Economy. This is to be expected since looking for full-time work is hard enough, so why would NoCredit, Inc, take the large training/orientation/equipping overhead of hiring people for a short period of time? Still sucks, though. Looking into local research opportunities - actually sort of glad I'm graduating late so I don't have to look for a permanent job when it's like this.
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