April 28, 2010
I have to admit, looking back at the original Moose images I posted up, they look a little, well, crap.
I've kicked off another iPhone adventure, but am slowly skinning, rigging, UV mapping, and texturing the Moose in the background. I've only got the antlers and goatee left to do before I can star…
I've kicked off another iPhone adventure, but am slowly skinning, rigging, UV mapping, and texturing the Moose in the background. I've only got the antlers and goatee left to do before I can star…
February 23, 2010
I've started to do some preliminary prototyping for my next project, and one of the things I need is (very basic) ragdolls. So over the next few entries we'll be following the buildup to get there.
My first thought was that, given ragdolls are pretty complex animals, that I'd have some Ragdoll contr…
My first thought was that, given ragdolls are pretty complex animals, that I'd have some Ragdoll contr…
February 04, 2010
It's with great pleasure that I introduce to you the newest member of the Milkshake family: Moose!
I haven't decided on a name for him. I'm writing games under the moniker Chocolate Moose Games - so perhaps he'll be called Chocolate. But I quite like a few other foods too, so we'll have to see how t…
I haven't decided on a name for him. I'm writing games under the moniker Chocolate Moose Games - so perhaps he'll be called Chocolate. But I quite like a few other foods too, so we'll have to see how t…
August 30, 2009
Wow, 4 months since my last entry. Scary.
Milkshake (the cow) has taken a bit of a hibernation, but he's now out and about running around again. One of my boys is actually running him around as we speak on the iPhone. He actually survived the transition quite well - so far the only things missing ar…
Milkshake (the cow) has taken a bit of a hibernation, but he's now out and about running around again. One of my boys is actually running him around as we speak on the iPhone. He actually survived the transition quite well - so far the only things missing ar…
April 12, 2009
Starting to add some dialog support this week, it's still a work-in-progress at this point. I've got the basic "Get this character to deliver this line of dialog" working, but now need to tackle the harder cases of working out how to present a conversation, and handle player input.
When I first star…
When I first star…
March 27, 2009
I still need to writeup the last few bits of the rendering work (for fullscreen effects), but Milkshake (the cow, not me) has been off shopping for spaceships this week, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to show you the two he's currently test driving:
I've started messing about with how these t…
I've started messing about with how these t…
March 18, 2009
I've been on a massive Lighting bender this last week. Not a huge amount of this is immediately obvious in a screenshot, but it's been a serious hack for a long long time now.
The Light objects themselves used to be created as renderer specific subclasses (GLLight, DXLight). The problem with this is…
The Light objects themselves used to be created as renderer specific subclasses (GLLight, DXLight). The problem with this is…
March 16, 2009
At the end of last entry (which was now a long time ago ... my journal entries are lagging months behind the code unfortunately), we'd decomposed the render system into a set of reconfigurable building blocks, but those building blocks were still using the default fixed function render pipeline. To…
February 03, 2009
Following on from the "teaser" depth-of-field shot in the last entry, today we'll start to look at how Milkshake evolved from a monolithic single-pass fixed-function render loop, to a modular, multi-language-programmable-shader based architecture. I must admit, hardware shader support is something …
January 21, 2009
It's been a long time coming, but hardware shaders have finally reached the distant world of Milkshake! I'm going to try and write it all up over the next few entries - but for now, here's a quick depth-of-field shot (in true "unplayable-effect-overkill-but-I-think-it-looks-cool" style) to tempt yo…
December 22, 2008
In the spirit of the mighty Zzap64, welcome to the Milkshake Christmas Special!
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (i.e. it's been over a month since my last post), things have been very busy in the little world of Milkshake. It's time to give the Elephants tusks, so to speak.
We'll st…
Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (i.e. it's been over a month since my last post), things have been very busy in the little world of Milkshake. It's time to give the Elephants tusks, so to speak.
We'll st…
November 05, 2008
Last week, we equipped our little Elephants with some sensors, so they could tell when the cow was sneaking up on them. This week, we're going to start giving them some more interesting things they can do about it.
But before we go there, there's some plumbing in our way. As I hinted in a few previo…
But before we go there, there's some plumbing in our way. As I hinted in a few previo…
October 29, 2008
So, last time we had some Elephants walking around and changing direction when they hit something: pretty much the simplest sensor a game can have. This week, we build on that a bit looking at a more extensible scheme for sensing who and what is around you in the environment.
For any long-time reade…
For any long-time reade…
October 16, 2008
Welcome to another week of Milkshake development.
At the end of last week's entry, I'd laid out my basic idea for handling AI in a way that would support lots of different AI paradigms. In theory, it was very appealing - but the more examples I tried out, the more questions that popped up around ho…
At the end of last week's entry, I'd laid out my basic idea for handling AI in a way that would support lots of different AI paradigms. In theory, it was very appealing - but the more examples I tried out, the more questions that popped up around ho…
October 06, 2008
So, after much reading and thinking, I've finally settled on a plan for my AI. Rather than picking a specific AI implementation (like STRIPS planning, or hierarchical state machines), I'm going with a task-based AI framework which will (in theory) allow me to plug any combination of them together a…
September 10, 2008
A super frustrating few days for me trying to track down the skinning corruption on the little elephants. If you look closely at the screenshot from last week, you can see the vertices on the elephant's left shoulders and the top of the right leg are corrupted. Here's a more obvious shot with the s…
September 05, 2008
So after EasilyConfused quite rightly called me on my glacial development process, I've knuckled down over the past week to try and get my Elephant enemy agents into the game engine. I would have had them in much sooner - but after mapping and texturing the first version, I realised it didn't fit i…
August 25, 2008
The [it has to be said, pretty boring] journey from 3d environment to game continues this week with more energy-sapping but unavoidable user interface work. Still, I can now hurl the little cow onto the spikes until his lives run out and see this:
Lots of things under the covers to get here.
Firstly,…
Lots of things under the covers to get here.
Firstly,…
July 14, 2008
Well, I've finally done it: I've started working on letting my little cow lose a life.
This is something I've been putting off (for literally years) for quite a few reasons: I didn't know how to portray the "death", I didn't know whether I wanted lives or health or both, I didn't know how to handle …
This is something I've been putting off (for literally years) for quite a few reasons: I didn't know how to portray the "death", I didn't know whether I wanted lives or health or both, I didn't know how to handle …
July 01, 2008
Welcome back to my semi-annual series on Milkshake development. Last night I was reading the hackenslash diary ... that whole game was made in a week! I think I can safely say I haven't achieved anything close to that in the last year ... really makes you wonder if you're going about this the right…
April 01, 2008
Still basking in the newfound freedom of my game/engine refactoring of a few weeks back, I'm happily forging ahead turning my old scene graph into a real game. Before I get into the boring technical stuff, here's this week's screenshot ... behold - a real working character status panel!
(Click on t…
(Click on t…
March 24, 2008
So, after many late nights of pouring over options, photoshopping my little Cow onto all manner of screenshots, and reflecting on the type of game I wanted to make - the die is cast! I've decided to go with a nice fun stylised graphics style, as not only is it much easier to make, but I finally dec…
March 13, 2008
Well, after the enormous outpouring of support for the Cow following last week's entry, he makes an earnest return this week.
I sat down with him this week and asked him what he most wanted to see in game next, and he was keen on getting some grass to run about on. Now, unfortunately, for such a com…
I sat down with him this week and asked him what he most wanted to see in game next, and he was keen on getting some grass to run about on. Now, unfortunately, for such a com…
March 06, 2008
So a really profound change for my code this week - I think I've finally got a solution to the game world vs scene graph problem that's been haunting me for an awfully long time.
Over the past few months, I've been slowly populating my framework with nicely re-usable game objects: doors and switche…
Over the past few months, I've been slowly populating my framework with nicely re-usable game objects: doors and switche…
February 29, 2008
A lot has happened since my last post - alas not much of it has anything to do with game development. I did take a bit of time over the New Year to reflect on how little playable progress I made over the last year - and (as I'm sure many of us do) resolved to do better this year.
I also took some ti…
I also took some ti…
November 22, 2007
With a shiny new Maya plugin under my belt, I was ready to tackle the real problem: mooving parts. A few weeks ago, a friend challenged me with a ferris wheel model (a spinning wheel with platforms you can ride around on). After sorting out a few animation pivot issues, I brought the wheel-o-doom i…
November 13, 2007
Today's journal takes a look at the less-glamorous side of game development: tools and pipeline. If you've ever been tempted to integrate your game with a content authoring package (like Max or Maya) read on, and hopefully benefit from the totally unscalable way I tried to do it.
The first version o…
The first version o…
October 07, 2007
Well, I'm done with my little diversion into particle systems, and I've returned to the little part of my todo list which says "Stop %$*&@^# wasting time and make it playable". At the top of that scary little list is an item which reads "get playable physics interactions working". You see right…
September 02, 2007
When I left you last time, I was busy trying to tidy up some temporary test code I was using in my particle system so I could extend it to do some fancier stuff. The truth is though, that I'm finding it hard to cleanup the last few bits of the particle system framework. I've still not found a clean…
August 29, 2007
So, after playing about with shooting cubes around the screen for a while, it was kind of inevitable that I'd end up trying to blow stuff up at some point.
There are many different ways to depict destruction, but by far the most common these days are particle systems. Particles were something I've …
There are many different ways to depict destruction, but by far the most common these days are particle systems. Particles were something I've …
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