November 24, 2009
Blimey, ages since I posted here last. I've been quite busy but not really felt like journalling for a while for some reason.
Latest craze has been downloading Psycle and putting together sequences using freeware VSTs so that I can create proper music for my game.
Here's a quick little tune I threw t…
Latest craze has been downloading Psycle and putting together sequences using freeware VSTs so that I can create proper music for my game.
Here's a quick little tune I threw t…
November 11, 2009
Just wanted to show off the new look to the website.
I'm using tableless web design now and properly separating the HTML content from the CSS styling. Anyone wanting to get their head around this can do a lot worse than checking out Douglas Bowman's video presentation on the subject.
It's proper cool…
November 09, 2009
Very long time, no post by my standards. I'm still here and all is well but work and life have been a bit nuts recently.
Got the book I won in the recent competition through yesterday and it rocks. Thanks to all involved in that one.
I've been focusing mainly on web development experiments rather tha…
Got the book I won in the recent competition through yesterday and it rocks. Thanks to all involved in that one.
I've been focusing mainly on web development experiments rather tha…
October 21, 2009
Busy busy learning ASP.NET. Love it, dead easy.
I've got a login system for my site so I can access an admin page, a private blog poster that creates files in my webspace ready to be formatted into a blog and a contact form that uses System.Net.Mail to send me an email from the site.
All of the progr…
I've got a login system for my site so I can access an admin page, a private blog poster that creates files in my webspace ready to be formatted into a blog and a contact form that uses System.Net.Mail to send me an email from the site.
All of the progr…
October 18, 2009
Just a quicky - I've put a slightly better site up now:
www.aardvajk.co.uk
All just bodged together with Notepad and a quick plunge into CSS tutorials but I think it looks okay.
Comments welcome.
www.aardvajk.co.uk
All just bodged together with Notepad and a quick plunge into CSS tutorials but I think it looks okay.
Comments welcome.
October 17, 2009
So I finally got my own website and webspace, happily hosting the image above for around GBP4.99 a month. Seems like a pretty good service and was recommended by a client so all good.
Nothing there so far but: www.aardvajk.co.uk is open for business, or I'm available at admin@aardvajk.co.uk.
The cogs…
October 07, 2009
Took a quick break from Squishy tonight to develop a new command line tool.
Basically I've given up on SVN as I found it overkill for a solo developer working on two machines on a home network, plus having to manually remove files from the repository and manually add new ones was becoming a pain.
I t…
Basically I've given up on SVN as I found it overkill for a solo developer working on two machines on a home network, plus having to manually remove files from the repository and manually add new ones was becoming a pain.
I t…
October 05, 2009
Evening. How's it going?
Decided on the drive home from work today that I want the world of Squishy to be based around a hub world that contains a large machine that is missing cogs. Squishy's task will be to collect the cogs and attach them to the correct parts of the machine so that when a lever i…
October 03, 2009
Bit of a spot the difference but I hope having the two images to compare will show it off nicely.
Basically it is now possible to use a texture much larger than a single cell to texture cells, as per the rocks in the second picture, but without having to worry about generating vast amounts of tiles…
September 28, 2009
I've been working on a silly little deformation shader to make the inside of the portals a bit more interesting.
As ever, you need to see it in motion. ">VIDEO HERE. I'd recommend watching in high quality and fullscreen to see the effect properly.
It's a pretty simple shader that I've come up with…
September 26, 2009
Portals are now finished, as per the above.
">VIDEO HERE.
I did mess around with some shaders to morph the image inside the portal but it didn't look right in the end so I'm just leaving it as it is. The image inside the portal is just a static texture as I'm not going to get too complicated.
Like …
September 22, 2009
I've been working on Cloud Portals tonight, which are going to probably be the way you enter and exit levels.
The above looks a lot better in motion - the ring pulsates and spins while the little blobs of cloud drift off and shrink away.
Squishy is currently masked off by a circle under the portal in…
September 12, 2009
Not a lot to say, but I've been working on having a large font to display messages like the level complete above.
This required updating my font generator program to allow me to specify specific letters to put into a font file so that I don't have to waste too much texture space. It can now optional…
September 10, 2009
Had my first big success in the new job today and got a job outcome for two clients that are on a programme that means big money for my company as a result, plus two people who'd been out of work for several years are now in paid employment. Good feeling. Got the day off tomorrow so celebrating ton…
August 31, 2009
The water is back in Squishy again. My friend was playtesting this for me over the weekend and convinced me that the water was too nice-looking a feature to leave out.
I've implemented the buoyancy differently this time. It's all very fake but works quite nicely. Objects sink slowly in the water unt…
August 30, 2009
Spent this morning implementing the First Time Run dialog for Squishy. If no config file exists when the game is run (i.e. the first time), the game displays the above Windows dialog at startup, allowing you to set the graphics options from your desktop.
Was pretty easy really since all the code to …
August 29, 2009
Got us a laptop this month as had a bit of spare cash. It's a nice enough box, a Compaq dual core 1.9 ghz. Nice thing is that I can now plug into my TV which has an RGB port so I'm typing this at my coffee table while peering at tiny letters a long way off. I'd turn down the resolution but it looks…
August 21, 2009
Man, no updates for such a long time. Wish I could say it was because I had been so busy working on my project but if I'm honest, here is a breakdown of the work I've achieved on Squishy in the last month:
Identified which fonts I'd used for my logo and the GUI, although still don't know the point s…
August 13, 2009
Scrap everything I said in my last post, I've changed my mind.
Mittens mentioned an iPhone game on Twitter called Spider that got me thinking that I really don't want to waste hours on story-based cut scenes for Squishy - they just aren't necessary. All I need is a nice, simple mechanic for completi…
Mittens mentioned an iPhone game on Twitter called Spider that got me thinking that I really don't want to waste hours on story-based cut scenes for Squishy - they just aren't necessary. All I need is a nice, simple mechanic for completi…
August 07, 2009
Man, I'm at such a roadblock with Squishy at the moment it is just untrue. I love what I have so far, but I just can't get myself pushing forward on the next step so I thought I'd have a ramble here.
Something I really want to be able to build into this game is the sense of a story that develops ove…
Something I really want to be able to build into this game is the sense of a story that develops ove…
August 05, 2009
Woohoo. My Intel bag and goodies arrived today. FedEx tried to deliver it to my house yesterday so I had to ring up and arrange for them to deliver it to my work instead. Pretty good service really getting it next day.
I got the bag (obviously), a copy of the GDNet book "Beginning Game Programming" …
I got the bag (obviously), a copy of the GDNet book "Beginning Game Programming" …
August 02, 2009
Just a quick post to say I've uploaded a YouTube video of Squishy showcasing the positional sound system and music, as well as the Sound menu.
">VIDEO HERE.
Some of the sound effects are just placeholders but you get the general idea. Comments as always welcome.
">VIDEO HERE.
Some of the sound effects are just placeholders but you get the general idea. Comments as always welcome.
July 28, 2009
Sorry to be abusing this journal as a LiveSpace but I'm just feeling so amazingly good about everything today that I wanted to balance out yesterday's angry post.
I cannot believe how relaxed, pleasant and enjoyable my new job is. I know it is early days, but I have never in my life worked in an atm…
I cannot believe how relaxed, pleasant and enjoyable my new job is. I know it is early days, but I have never in my life worked in an atm…
July 27, 2009
So I started my new job today and I can report that it all went really well, enjoyed it, nice people, very relaxed compared to my last job, all good.
However, I also found out that my previous employer gave me a bad reference.
The reference showed by attendance and punctuality as poor (complete rubbi…
However, I also found out that my previous employer gave me a bad reference.
The reference showed by attendance and punctuality as poor (complete rubbi…
July 26, 2009
I finally took benryves's advice in a recent thread and switched over from NSIS to Inno Setup and I can report that it is a lot easier to use than NSIS ever was.
I've now got an Inno installer for Squishy working that includes the DirectX 9.0c redistributable, effortlessly deleting itself after inst…
I've now got an Inno installer for Squishy working that includes the DirectX 9.0c redistributable, effortlessly deleting itself after inst…
July 23, 2009
I've got a basic 2D normal mapping shader working now. I've had to install Gimp as it was the only way I could get normal maps generated but it seems to be working okay.
I've added a sprite loading method named LoadPairedSprites that takes one atlas but two textures and treats the sprites in the fil…
I've added a sprite loading method named LoadPairedSprites that takes one atlas but two textures and treats the sprites in the fil…
July 22, 2009
Got caught up with the sound system now and I've provided sounds for all of the existing game objects. Buzzsaws now make an appropriate noise, buttons click and doors have open and close sound effects.
From now on, I'll implement sounds for items as I program them into the game.
Next thing I do need …
From now on, I'll implement sounds for items as I program them into the game.
Next thing I do need …
July 21, 2009
So I'm back from the festival and a good time was had. We met some very nice Scottish people who camped next to us and gave us free run of their gazeebo and red wine.
They did, however, persuade me to join their cross-dressing expedition to Guilty Pleasures. All the guys were wearing dresses and the…
They did, however, persuade me to join their cross-dressing expedition to Guilty Pleasures. All the guys were wearing dresses and the…
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