Christmas theme

Published November 30, 2006
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Just kicked in the Christmas theme for GameDev. I wonder if I'll be able to last out until New Year before I change it back. [EDIT - Nope. Changed it back about an hour later].

Does this theme now appear for everyone when they view my journal? And how on Earth does Trapper Zoid get that awesome theme in his journal?

These are the questions I am currently musing.

Nothing dev-related to report except that I am pushing forward with the platformer but progress is slow. I'm trying to really work from the outside in this time, so I want a system in place to switch between menus and game modes and pause mode menus and so on before I even start looking at the actual game mechanics.

I'm hoping to implement this as a game mode stack, and I want a system where by any part of the program can queue messages that the main engine will process to either push or pop states, rely messages back onto the various modes and so on. I implemented a simple version of this in Orc, with a delayed messaging system so that you could sort of:

SendOrcMessage(FadeScreen,0);
SendOrcMessage(EndLevel,2);

where the second value was a delay before the message would be actioned. Worked quite well since you could sort of fire and forget, so there wasn't as much of the usual horrible finite state machine stuff interferring with the normal game loop. I'm hoping to build a more complex and flexible system for the next game.

The next game is called Udo, by the way. I have an obsession with programs with three letter names that dates back to console programming days. I found a website that lists every three letter word in the English language which is now a really good resource for naming things [smile]. Udo is a Japanses herb, apparently. Someone please let me know if it is also a really offensive swear word or something.
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Trapper Zoid
Quote:Original post by EasilyConfused
Does this theme now appear for everyone when they view my journal? And how on Earth does Trapper Zoid get that awesome theme in his journal?

How To Make Your Own Awesome ThemeTM For Your GameDev Journal
  1. Read a few web tutorials on HTML stylesheets so you understand the basics. Bookmark or save a few for later reference. (If unlike me you already know a bit about stylesheets, skip this step).
  2. Save a local copy of your journal's HTML to your hard drive for easy editing. Save a copy of some comments in your journal too. Save a spare version using a different theme from the one you are used to using.
  3. You now have a copy of your current GameDev theme style sheet located on your hard drive. Find it and make another copy with a name like "journal.css" and hack your hardcopy HTML versions of your journal to link in your new style sheet.
  4. (optional step) You might also want to save copies of other GameDev themes for ideas of how other people approach this problem. Have a look at the style sheets from a few of your favourites in the journals.
  5. Now you're all set up to make your own journal theme! Think for a moment what kind of style you want. Ensure that your idea is good enough for an Awesome ThemeTM.
  6. Open up the style sheet in an XML editor and/or use a web editing tool such as the web developer toolbar in Firefox (which allows on the fly CSS editing) and hack the hell out your style sheet until your journal HTML vaguely resembles your creative vision, starting with the main elements and working your way to the small fiddly details. This may be a long and painful process, and many referals to style sheet tutorials, online references and general cursing may be required.
  7. Once you're satisfied with what you've got, add a link to your stylesheet in the header of your journal and everyone can enjoy your new Awesome ThemeTM!
November 30, 2006 07:03 AM
Aardvajk
That makes a certain amount of sense. I don't know squat about stylesheets but I have a rough idea what they are. So I modify the existing style sheet, then just specify it in the header.

Groovy. Thanks.
November 30, 2006 07:24 AM
Jotaf
Nice tutorial there, TrapperZoid :P

EasilyConfused, regarding your last blog entry, you said you were using the 'normal' equations:
Pos += Velocity * TimeDelta
Velocity -= Gravity * TimeDelta
But the first cinematic equation is assuming an acceleration of 0; this should be more like:
Pos += Velocity * TimeDelta + 0.5 * Gravity * Gravity
Velocity -= Gravity * TimeDelta

The 3-4 pixels error should go away now :)
November 30, 2006 07:32 AM
Aardvajk
Thanks for the tip, but I think that problem is that with a variable rate timestep, any method you use to interpolate is subject to some degree of error over time, especially if some background activity causes some unusually low frame rates over a few frames.

While I'm sure your equations would reduce the error, I'm far happier working with a fixed time step for the physics and the use of interpolation to smooth out the rendering.

It means that rather than reducing the error, you get rid of it completely. It also massively simplifies the physics code. My last game used variable rate physics and had to take account of that in bascially everything - movement, velocity, animation, game timers - the list goes on and on [smile].
November 30, 2006 08:41 AM
jjd
Or you could just make your pixels smaller and then it's not as a big of a problem [wink]
November 30, 2006 09:15 AM
Aardvajk
Quote:Original post by jjd
Or you could just make your pixels smaller and then it's not as a big of a problem [wink]


[grin][grin]

Or, keep the pixels the same size, but get the user to sit further away from the screen. I could even ship the game with a keyboard with an extra long lead.

Genius. Thanks, jjd.

[EDIT]

In return for your expert advice on pixels, here is a Christmas avatar for you. Please equip it immediately.

November 30, 2006 09:51 AM
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