So I picked up my machine about two hours ago; they filthied up the screen with their messy fingerprints but the machine is rather fast now. Fast, fast, fast, fast. And cooler, too.
They switched out the logic board, so I got a new copy of the install DVDs. Hooray! Free software!
In other news, when I was walking back I saw Pouya stuffing a small child into a wastepaper basket. I was very saddened by this.
The service tech called me back today; apparently they shipped out $1500 in replacement logic boards, internal components and other goodies to find out the problem was a three cent video cable. Go figure.
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Posted - 7/27/2006 2:36:35 PM
So, erm, the parts came in for my MBP and the guy is apparently putting my machine together now. Hoorat! This means that Glow will proceed very quickly from here on out, and I will always remember to back up my active projects to SVN. I would not be surprised if you had a copy of Glow in your hot little hands next month, while I throw up in the background from pure fear. What if you don't like my game!?!?
In other news, Ravuyanauts will be pleased to know that I am still working on the Propane UI system. Soon I will have text-boxes and draggable items, as well as cleaning up the interface to make life better for you. Then, it's off to the races for videogame technologies.
Also, tomorrow is my birthday. I hope not to spend much time working, but instead a liberal application of alcohol to the mouth region.
I was looking at this thread again, and I was sort of wondering what a million bucks would do for my indie gaming adventures.
Personally, if I had to spend it on the game, rather than living expenses, etc (so I could quit my job/school and just write games all day) I'd probably divvy it up into quarter-mils (1 mil = 4 games) and get professional artists and musicians to work on my game full-time as I sit back and hack away. Then I could hire some games industry consultants to root out bugs and whatnot, and figure out how to spend some money to get some representation.
Then, I'd go to IGF and have everyone scream at me for being a filthy traitor to the 'indie way' because I spent big money on it.
So what game(s) would you build with a million dollars?
So, still no laptop (apparently they can't keep up with the demand for replacement logic boards, as they just discovered Quanta really fucked up ) but I worked on the new immediate-mode GUI module for Propane Injector.
This thing is really nice. You've got buttons and sliders, fully themeable through XML, with a tight immediate-mode GUI.
I know it doesn't look like much now, but I wanted to do it to see if I could start duplicating Programmer16's excellent GUI library with a lighter, cleaner interface. Next up are probably some more useful UI elements, like text boxes, list boxes and dropdown menus.
I've also been playing with learning Erlang. It seems hella powerful but esdl is total shit on OS X.
Looks like the logic board and the ACPI chip and the little cable that goes to the display is bad. So I guess I have to wait for awhile for the replacement parts to come. Thanks, Quanta! You guys are fuckups.
Since all of my code is on the aforementioned Macbook Pro, and I haven't committed the last week of Glow updates back to SVN before handing it over to the repair shop (d'oh! I realized it right as I got home from the store) I'll have to start on a new project while waiting for my primary project to return home so I can work on it.
So I'll probably be writing something tiny, and then put it on hold when the laptop comes back so I can release Glow (less than a month ETA -- hold me to this).
This is almost too cool not to include in a videogame.
In other news, my Macbook Pro goes back for service. It turns out my graphical artifacts under Windows XP are probably a hardware edge case due to the rough-and-tumble ATI drivers for Windows as opposed to the exceptionally conservative oh-god-if-this-thing-lights-on-fire-the-oversensitive-starving-artist-Photoshop-users-are-going-to-make-a-documentary-about-it driver for OS X, and so they're going to replace the entire motherboard, and the inverter while they're at it since a new revision of both is available.
So I'll be without Intel Mac goodness for a couple of days.
But luckily I just found a copy of Freelancer at a discount shop on my lunch break. So I'll be playing that! Keer! Keer! FSHOOOOOOOOM
Anyone doing PocketPC GAPI/DX development? I should write a lite version of Propane Injector to wrap them -- "Propanol Injector".
Macbook Pro: Fast, fairly hot, awesome. Runs Glow like you wouldn't believe. First universal Mac OS X version here; it has full AI and whatnot. Try it out on your Mac and let me know how it runs.
The Windows XP driver that Apple gave me for the X1600 Mobility video card is kind of crappy; the RAMDAC timings are bad so I have some banding on my display and 'sparkling' pixels when running it. I suspect it is a software problem related to heat, as when I go into OS X there is no difficulty. I'll have to figure out some kind of way to change the timings or cool the chip down.
In any event, I'd buy another one of these in a heartbeat. It's so very fast. And Xcode compiles/links two files at a time, one on each core. I hear on the G5 Quads, it compiles and links four files at once using Xgrid. *drool*
Glow is going great; I got visible weapons on the enemies last night. It works well, except for the giant. His guns are offcentre due to some hardcoded maths. I'm looking forward to doing a new game; the relentless enthusiasm of 2ddev is making me want to make it in 2D. I think I'll hold off on the big 3D shooter for awhile, and do a smaller game first, as planned previously.
Even Windows is pretty good on it. Unfortunately, my Deus Ex CD got scratched somehow, so I can't install it until I fix the disc or make a copy. But luckily I think I already made an ISO somewhere out of paranoia.
Then it's off to the races to christen my new machine by entering the world of conspiratorial cyberpunk doom, and beating DX for about the 30th time... can't wait.
The OS is still a bit rough from the Intel transition (power management and sound drivers are obviously not the best they could be). But damn if it isn't the best computer I've ever owned.
I fixed a couple things in Glow, including enemy aggression rates, weapon firing rates and derms are now reversed properly upon death (this one was a bitch!)
I'm also working on the Ravuya Labs website; I'll launch that when there's more content for it. Some of you may already have seen it.
You can get a bug that occurs when you try to respawn the player twice.
I foolishly equipped the Giant Zombie with the lightning chaingun, and he made such short work of me next to the respawn point that the game went like this (all in the same method):
1. Respawn the player by creating a new player object with full health. Go to a subfunction, and update the world to make sure he was added properly.
2. Player object is dead inside the update step (in less than a frame)
3. Finish the function by doing some extra work with the freshly spawned player object when refreshing the UI -- uh oh! What happened to the player? Holy shit...
Normally, this wouldn't happen. However, it was happening so fast that I was respawning, dying and encountering this bug all in the same frame (about once every 300 respawns -- and yes, I was dying and respawning that fast). Bizarre.
The enemies now attack you from long-range. This is totally awesome, except they shoot way too fast. I'll have to add a "dummy pistol" that fires not-so-quick so your ears are saved.
Posted - 7/28/2006 4:28:55 PM
Posted - 7/27/2006 2:36:35 PM
Posted - 7/25/2006 11:57:03 PM
) but I worked on the new immediate-mode GUI module for Propane Injector.
Posted - 7/18/2006 8:41:16 PM
Posted - 7/10/2006 9:42:00 PM
Posted - 7/9/2006 9:02:18 PM