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  Last entry! | 
Posted - 10/28/2007 7:06:33 PM | Final Entry
This will be my final entry into my journal here on GameDev.net. My premium account expires today, and so I will be moving entirely over to my External Development Journal.
If you're interested in continuing to read my adventures of game development, than I urge you to bookmark or RSS'alize my new location for your viewing pleasure. Please?
Good bye GD.NET -- don't forget to write. It was good times here, but it was about time this bird outgrew its nest. 
One more try!
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| Thursday, October 25, 2007 |
| Jobs, jobs, jobs. | |
Posted - 10/25/2007 10:38:31 PM | Jobs & Co-Op
Now that I've finally finished all six of my interviews, we get to see tomorrow if I get any job offers, and from whom. I had interviews from Sony Creative Software, Harris Corporation, Research In Motion, GEOREF Systems, and two at the University itself.
Sony and Harris Corp. were both graphics-based developer positions, so I'm vying for them the most. I think I'm in for a killer Winter term in any case. Expect a nice "woohoo job!" post within the next 24 hours. 
Metaballs Article
Oh yes, I'm still working on this. I really wanted to be done this a long time ago, but it just..
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Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
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| Back on the horse! | |
Posted - 10/21/2007 9:39:23 PM | Project Skirmish Rekindled
There's quite a bit to talk about, too much for this one journal entry, so I'll be sure to keep it short.
After all of that talking last night about getting back onto Skirmish development, I finally put in a good evening development session tonight, for the first time in a month. According to my auto-log files, the last development session I had was way way back on September 23rd. Far too long! :)
Tonight's development saw the addition of the player animation system -- which are linked directly to whatever Prop is currently being handled (eg. throwing a grenade, carrying a box, preparing to toss a rock) -- as well as a big clean-up of the logging system and a dozen other little refactored items all around the codebase. Not a decisive night, but it certainly puts me yet another step forward towards the end goal.
At least I can throw my guns around with the proper animation now. :P
Now that..
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Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
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| Saturday, October 20, 2007 |
| Of articles and online games. | |
Posted - 10/20/2007 10:50:13 PM | Article almost done!
That's right. The written portion is nearly done, I just need to write up the parts about making other Meta-Shapes (covering donuts, ellipses, and squares), list/explain a few optimizations that can be done, and then write up the demos/examples that come with the article. This will be the long part. I really want to additionally include a "Meta-Playground" *snicker* that lets the reader toy with a bunch of different types of shapes and optimizations to get a feel of what all of the theory discussed looks like in an actual program. This might take longer than I originally thought, but I'm going to just keep hammering away at it, one day at a time. :)
Project Skirmish
With the..
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Read the rest at the new Development Journal location!
(Don't hate me for my guerrilla posting tactics.  )
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| A tale of inspiration. | |
Posted - 10/19/2007 10:53:41 PM | What You Can Make if You Put Your Mind To It
I originally found the link on Lachlan's development journal, so kudos to him for unearthing it for my jaw-dropping pleasure. :)
The name of the game is Machines at War, a Real-Time Strategy game that borrows from old favourites such as Command & Conquer and Total Annihilation. The graphics are top-notch, sound is good, polish is impressive, and it was all done by one man: design, programming, art, and mostly everything else. He started the project about a year ago, stuck with it for a year, and ended up with an extremely impressive product.
Screenshot 1 | Screenshot 2 | Screenshot 3
It's impressive, but then again a rather horribly dangerous conclusion can be drawn by the wrong developer: "Oh wow, if one man can do this, so can I!".
This is a wonderful attitude to have, but not if you're walking blind. It's true that with time, practice, patience, and some luck :), one can complete something of this calibre. However, if you only just finished writing a Tetris clone, you might be looking at this the wrong way. The author already has seven completed games to his name prior to taking on this project, all of which show a similar level of polish and professionalism. He didn't just sit down and learn it as he went; it was an incremental process.
In fact..
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Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
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| More rasterization! | |
Posted - 10/14/2007 10:12:14 PM | Today saw more progress on my 3D rasterizer project. Clearly most readers aren't nearly as fascinated by this topic as I am, so I'll have to try and fit some more game development-y content in here rather soon. Yay or nay?
Step 2: Triangle rendering
After the tedious step of getting DirectDraw working, the main thing any rasterizer needs to be able to do is draw triangles. And fast. My algorithm is pretty fast, but the current code is only my first shot at it. As time goes by I'll work on optimizing it further, and squeezing out as much performance as I can out of this. This and the below step are the workhorses of a 3D engine. I can venture into some detail about the algorithm I'm using if there is any interest.
Step 3: Vertex attribute interpolation
Sounds fancy, but what does it mean? Lots of values get interpolated -- or "shaded across" -- a given triangle, such as colour, surface normals, and texture coordinates. I've managed to implement per-vertex colours at this point, but have yet to abstract the values more so that it can be used to interpolate virtually any value across the triangle. What does this mean in terms of graphical shininess?
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Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
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| Saturday, October 13, 2007 |
| Sucked into academia. | |
Posted - 10/13/2007 10:45:26 PM | Hello! It's been a while.
Recently I've fallen into a world that revolves around school and general self-education. This consists of classes, upcoming midterms, administrative (and programming) work for the uni's GameDev Club, researching/writing my article, and now taking another spin at developing a software 3D rasterizer. In a nutshell, Project Skirmish is sitting at the back of the stove for the moment.
The Article
I'm still making slow progress on the game development article, but progress nonetheless. I've always had a hard time writing reports/essays/articles in the past, so I didn't expect this one to be an exception. I would say that the article itself is half-way done, and I've begun playing with the demos/source that will come alongside it.
As I work on the article more and more, I find myself learning more and more about Metaballs and isosurfaces, which oftentimes means going back and changing chunks of things I previously wrote in order increase the overall accuracy. I don't think I'm in too hot of water, since most of the articles on Metaballs I've read just explain how to get pretty-looking gooey balls on the screen, rather than understanding the math, ideas, and concepts behind them. I'm eager to bring a little more of that into the world with my article. :)
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Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
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| Generic Journal Entry | |
Posted - 10/9/2007 9:27:33 PM | Whew, it’s just been plain busy around here. Had a solid [Canadian] Thanksgiving with the family, which is always nice, although the bus ride home seldom is. Wasn’t able to focus on my assignments while at home, so I’ve been up to my neck in work so far this week. The worst of it is nearly over though, which will hopefully mean a little more activity on my end. :)
The article is moving, albeit slowly. It’s felt a little like a blockade that keeps me from pursuing any other gamedev-related activities concurrently, but that’s arguably a good thing. In any case, I hope to get it done very soon so I can slap it up on the ‘net and get back to work on Skirmish. Knowing my timing, this will occur just as I get into the middle of co-op interviews and midterms in the next couple of weeks. Whoops!
The GameDev Club is going well at the ‘ol university. It looks like we have a solid number of people interested in the club on a long-term basis; many more than any previous terms. It’s shaping up to be a very whirlwind term indeed. I’m learning more about XNA myself as I convert the old tutorial Powerpoints from SDL.NET over, as well as working on the engine for the Intermediate project that we’re making. Feeling a tad in over my head at this point with the workload, but it’ll all turn out swell. Right?
Things will (hopefully) get more lively around here by the end of the week. Just wait and see. :)
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| Exclusive interview (or somesuch)! | |
Posted - 10/5/2007 11:26:42 PM | World (In-)Famous?
So, Jon caught me the other day for a fun little 2-hour interview, on the topics of game development, Membrane Massacre and Skirmish, as well as a few 'fun facts' about myself. I know I'm a bit of a gabber, but hopefully there's an inspirational/motivational tidbit or two in there to make you want to jump into some juicy game development. :)
Read the Interview
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| Closer and closer! | |
Posted - 10/1/2007 10:22:17 PM | New Header?
As part of my foray into web design (slowly!), I supposed that making website graphics is something that I would also need to gain at least a basic skill in. So, I used a Skirmish Online screenshot as a base to make a nifty little header for the journal. I’m quite happy with it, but then again, I’m a little biased. I’m open to criticisms and suggestions, of course.
NOTE: For GD.NET'ers, you'll need to click on the link below to actually see it.
Article Progress
The article — if you didn’t read prior entries, I’m working on an article on the ‘Metaballs’ effect — is coming along quite well now that I’m over the initial hurdle. Getting started is certainly the hardest part, but once the ball is rolling it isn’t so bad. In particular, it was difficult to get writing because of my subconscious fear of accidentally writing inaccurate content, but I’m now pretty confident that what I’m writing is accurate. If I’ve made an oopsie here or there — which I’m sure is only natural — someone will surely correct me.
The other problem was the way “a simple article on how to create the ‘metaballs’ effect” quickly became “discussing the theory and ideas behind metaballs and isosurfaces, examining their implentation, optimizations, and current/possible uses in the field of game development”. Whoops. At the very least, it should be a much more interesting read now!
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Read the rest at the new dev-journal location!
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"Good night, Monster Land."
"Good night, brave warrior."
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