So last week was an unfortunate mishap of technical glitches. Dead laptop, new mainboard in the desktop, setting everything back up while scrambling for an internet connection since my laptop was providing the up-link before it died the day after I reformatted my system... such timing! Anyways I will catch up in this edition of Weekend Reading - here are your entries from 4/22 - 5/6
Featured GDNet+
Journal Entry[color="#4169E1"]kiwibonga's Blog[/color] - kiwibonga notes that it's a lot easier to stay motivated on a project when you have people poking and prodding you to get it done. I agree wholeheartedly with this and personally always feel like I'm doing something worthwhile when other people are pushing me along with their interest and feedback. So rather than wait for his cheerleading squad to form around his latest project, kiwibonga"hired" them with a Reddit post. He now has 60+ people interested in heckling him to finish up his work and will be updating on the progress of his project and experiment as time goes on.
Featured Member Journal Entry
[color="#4169E1"]Digitanks Development Journal[/color] - I got to meet personally with BSVino and his compatriot at the East Coast Games Conference last month where they were showing off DigiTanks and am glad to see that he was able to find a creative way to make use of other contacts he made at the conference - namely from locally media company The Escapist - to get DigiTanks featured through their website. How did he do it? With some good old fashioned bribery and ransom all mixed together! Check out his tale - it reminds me of stuff like the guy who [color="#4169E1"]dressed up as a Stormtrooper to get a job at Epic Games[/color].
Say hello to the newest Journal Land members from the last two weeks - [color="#4169E1"]bandicootzcrib[/color], [color="#4169E1"]DarkByNight[/color], [color="#4169E1"]Slyxsith[/color], [color="#4169E1"]r1ckparker[/color], [color="#4169E1"]Suspense[/color], [color="#4169E1"]PREDATOR_UK[/color], [color="#4169E1"]freeworld[/color] and [color="#4169E1"]Zeocyte[/color]!
Welcome back, [color="#4169E1"]a_insomniac[/color]
, [color="#4169E1"]Matt Carr[/color], [color="#4169E1"]Smeagol[/color]!From The Staff
- [color="#4169E1"]GameDev.net Staff Journal[/color] - I have an update on my progress working on restoring the old articles back to something that is readable and useful, and I also am willing to accept volunteers who would like to lend some of their time reformatting simpler articles like interviews. I currently have three people working on them and could certainly use some more!!
Project Updates
- [color="#4169E1"]Rendering Systems[/color] - RSI has an update on Woody3D the details the procedurally generated compound leaf types you can work with in the Leaf Painter editor: Palmate, Pinnate, and Compound Pinnate
- [color="#4169E1"]/* Why you crying? */[/color] - JTippetts returns to playing around with procedural textures via his Accidental Noise Library, something he likes to do to clear his head every now and again. Besides producing some cool textures, he talks about using genetic algorithms to create the algorithms that create procedural textures. Yea. Deep
- [color="#4169E1"]Wavesonics Pseudo-Random Journal Generator[/color] - congrats to Wavesonics and his pal for releasing their first Android game, Oceans Unleaded!! Got an Android platform device? Check it out!
- [color="#4169E1"]MysteryMeat's Journal[/color] - As promised, MysteryMeat has been faithfully updating his journal each day during his time off work that he's been dedicating to prototyping a game project. Stop on by and catch up now that he's all wrapped up pretty much. Thanks for sticking to it and letting us all follow along!
- [color="#4169E1"]Journal of Aardvajk[/color] - Aardvajk has decided to take a break from Squishy for now and work on a new project that will pay homage to an old turn-based strategy game of his youth called Lords of Chaos that was released for the Spectrum
- [color="#4169E1"]Venfer's Riddle RPG/Puzzle game devjour[/color] - TristanHodges is looking for feedback on the battle system that is currently in place for the RPG project Venfer's Riddle. Spare a moment and check it out then let him know what you think!
- [color="#4169E1"]owl's Blog[/color] - the latest in owl's collision detection progress is an octree class that he uses to handle mesh geometry. He lists the steps in his collision detection algorithm, details why this method increases his FPS and then has a video demonstrating his ragdoll in action
- [color="#4169E1"]IfThen Software LLC[/color] - InvisibleMan has stopped the presses on the newsletter-only journal updates and has instead switched over the IfThen Software journal to reposting his daily programmer blog posts. It's always nice to see a journal with regular daily updates. Look forward to seeing the regular updates continue
- [color="#4169E1"]A non-programmer's programs[/color] - szecs implores you not to steal the latest game idea of his that has little Timmy trying to piss in a toilet while an earthquake is happening. You'd think this would be a stupid idea, but given the fact that there are [color="#4169E1"]real life pissing urinal games out there[/color], adding an earthquake doesn't seem so far a stretch.
- [color="#4169E1"]Radioactive-Software[/color] - dgreen02 shares a link to an article on him and his work by Technician Online. Congrats on the press!
Game Dev Stuffs
- [color="#4169E1"]Lost in the Catacombs of Game Development[/color] - BIASxEnvy decides to go the homebrew route for the scripting system for his FPS game and shares his code and experience in creating the "parser from hell"
- [color="#4169E1"]__Homer__'s Journal[/color] - __Homer__ continues to discuss his R&D project that is required of his schooling - he talks about how he will use BSPs as the intermediate tool to finding convex subspaces that will eventually lead to generating the cell and portal graph. It's best to reference back to his first journal post for more information on the purpose behind his project.
- [color="#4169E1"]Just Let It Trickle[/color] - adeyblue has done some hefty digging and uncovered another way to detect whether UAC is enabled or not besides the commonly-known (relatively speaking) method of reading the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA registry value. He admits this isn't a widely-useful thing but it does have an advantage that could be useful if you care about whether UAC is enabled on the machine your program is installing to or not.
- [color="#4169E1"]New Old Things[/color] - Over the last two weeks Endurion has released [color="#4169E1"]step 2[/color] and [color="#4169E1"]step 3[/color] in his series of entries on creating a Commodore 64 game. Keep it up!
- [color="#4169E1"]Rock, Paper, Glue[/color] - zarfius has released the beta version of his Glue Editor Lite scene editor for Ogre3D. Be sure to swing by the website and check it out, let him know what you'd like to see added and if you encounter any problems that need fixing. He hopes to do monthly releases
- [color="#4169E1"]The Realm of Trial[/color] - DecipherOne is reading the book Hackers: Heros of the Computer Revolution and reflects a bit on how Apple started, spawned EA (no I didn't know that either!) and while both were such creative enterprises in the beginning you can't quite say the same of them now - especially EA. Now he sees indies rising up and pushing the creative edge and wonders if it will all repeat itself in the years to come as indies grow into businesses?
- [color="#4169E1"]Abwood's Coding Notes[/color] - abwood.gdnet has posted some source code samples for his previous two posts on interfacing C++ and Python.
- [color="#4169E1"]I am a duck[/color] - Mike Bossy reminds us that you have a finite amount of time in anything you do - use it wisely and use it on stuff that is enjoyable and not on stuff that you feel is useful but really isn't
Thanks for stopping by, [color="#4169E1"]RanBlade[/color]
, [color="#4169E1"]yckx[/color].