Watchaball!

Taking a brief break from qoob to play with TokaMak and create another mad screen saver(ok not hugely original but who cares, not me)

Early shot...

What would be really cool would be if you made it like those simple marble contraptions that you could get when you were a kid. And could build different structures using about 4 different pieces. They were really simple, but I loved it anyway (when I was 4/5 at least)...

Marble run, my 4/5 year old has one :-)

Well the idea is to do a small, quick simple screen saver to learn TokaMak. But thats what RetroSphere and Vorboils started life as, small, simple quick and turned into bloody monsters!

Another screenie to tempt you...

I vowed to finish Watchaball after JUST 7 calender days of development, I'm on day 5 and close to a finished product. Web site is done. Installer is done. Configuration application is done. Main screen saver code is mostly there.

About Watchaball

Watchaball is a truely mesmerising and watchable 3D screen saver!

Watching Watchaball whilst it constantly spews balls made of various materials onto platforms, spring boards, rotating paddles and other animated objects never becomes tiring especially as they all behave with totally accurate physics.

Bouncy balls bounce, metal balls skid and fall with a thud, even tennis balls become fun to watch as they collide with each other, everything around them and sometimes even explode in a burst of smoke and flame!
Watchaball is highly configurable and can even run in interactive mode! What are you waiting for? Start watching balls with Watchaball...

Once I have this out the door (on Saturday - YES JUST 7 DAYS DEVELOPMENT) then I'll think about a bigger project using the TokaMak library! You really have to see this in motion to fully appreciate the physics...

OK lots of people don't want/use/like screen savers but judging by the interest I have in Vorboils then I would say otherwise. Anyhow the brief was - learn TokaMak and produce a finished app in 7 days. I'm well on course...

The ball and chain theme...

There seems to be zero interest in this but still I carry on...

Golf balls this time...

Looks pretty interesting!

I was curious to know why you chose tokamak over JV-ODE for your physics?

The simple answer...

EasyTok

I really don't have the time to learn a physics engine as I have many projects on the go and EasyTok gives me a very quick easy access to a physics library without all the bother.

As far as I could tell JV-ODE / TokaMak were pretty much of a muchness...

get on with Qube (Qoob sorry), naughty!

erm it's qoob and yes I do feel like I've been neglecting it...

Please let me play around with TokaMak for a few more days -- it's fun!

Whatever next? Exploding tennis balls? Erm yes ;-)

Now you can actually download the demo...

http://www.boiledsweets.com/Watchaball/bin/WatchaballDEMO.zip

Any more ideas for wachy themes please let me know.

Probably the last theme - very close to a final and finished app - all in 10 days!

Verison 0.8 is out...

• Added 2 more explosion types
• Added another theme – steps.
• Added fireballs!
• Added 4 more background images.
• Added an F1 help display.
• Rubber theme now has 3 different sized/coloured rubber balls.
• The background image now has a random alpha value.
• Allow the basic FPS display (F10) and the extended engine information display (F11) in demo mode.
• Changed the demo nag overlay, now fades in and out...
• No longer show the version information at the bottom of the screen in the full version.

I'm gonna do 0.9 in the next few days then 1.00 and it will be put to bed - so i can finally finish qoob!