OK, Time For Another What Did You Get Done Today..

... threads.

to keep everybody motivated and working, and to keep the trolls at bay :) i'm gonna bother people every now and then with this sorta stuff...

ok, i spent most of the day skinning what is gonna be the final model for the sub sim...



still got a few small touch up things left to do, but this is basically gonna be it... another day on the exterior, and then the interior gets the once over... after that the characters and the enemy ships...

then the ports (buildings and docks), and after that...

... hey, maybe the post where i claimed to have 69% of this thing finished was a bit of an optimistic appraisal (in short, a lie) on my part...

it seems as if this stuff never ends...

--Mike

Finished the viewport class for my editor.

Not much done today, what with it being Mothers Day and I've got a massive bout of flu! :(

Though, I'm currently writing a sorta automated invoicing thing for a mate, he has a web store (www.powermagnetstore.com) and more often then not, people buy his stuff with PayPal. Though, they only send comfirmation about a sale though email (With the consumers details), so I'm sucking the data from his emails (Well, a test email in my inbox), and placing said details in a database structure that (should) work with his current invoicing application.

Bit fiddly, but it's coming along! :)

Dabz

P.S. Forgot to tell you, he's giving me £200 to get it working... which is nice! :)

Race is on today, I didn't get anything done, lol. I generally don't work on the weekends anyway, but last week I was working on my site and working on my writing.

I learned Hulegu Khan destroyed Baghdad, then Timurlane, then the US.

Released update 1.32 for Pacemaker :)

I found another way of cheating in Oblivion.

I helped a madman spy on his fellow villagers, found a rare herb, ripped off some people, took up base jumping from the count's castle and discovered that I'm probably going to have to steal a horse long before I can save up enough to afford one legally... oh and I visited my dad too.

I hacked up mineqweeper and added my own pics. Wrote an article on it, and joined a cyber gang.

I fine-tuned up Typing Tank a little, then started a new game called "b0mb3r."

I spend most of the day (mis)diagnosing a niggling hardware problem and then rewrote my BMax 3dVector class in C#.

I weakend the Tattaglia familly even more and I also finished (pretty much) a standing pose for one of my game characters and got the outline of him in his first running pose.

I was multitasking a lot today.
I stared at the work ahead of me, and every now I switched back to the web browser and hit Refresh.

I don't know how I managed it, but I did!



Began developing with my blazing slow junk computer (aptly named "The Antichrist")... then it got the Internet so I'm back to square one again.

Over the weekend

Finalised the powerups interface design.

Tweaked shield regen and turbo boost. Added these features as explanatory sections in the training level.

Designed the particle fx that will serve as an 'e-smokebomb', which confuses enemy tank targeting.

And in Oblivion

Travelled up above the treeline and discovered a ruined fort guarded by skeletons.

Spelunked a couple of caves.

Met a woman living in a house and stole her rake.

Maybe this thread should contain "IT-related" or "developement-related" in the title to avoid all the other crap I'm about to tell you.

1) Achieved lie in until 10am (did get woken up twice though by kids) to help with hangover caused by Indian Meal, neat Vodka and Project A DVD.
2) Cooked massive roast dinner for inlaws
3) Tweaked my website to have direct links to Cloverleafs shopping cart
4) Figured out how to use Gimp to get PNG Alpha Channels working in BlitzMax. I still have MORE questions though.
5) Checked out loads of potential portals for my game and emailed Publisher about them
6) Had long rewarding talk with partner about self-improvement, habits, kids, work etc.
7) Gave someone some hopefully useful advice and had a nice chat.

uh, yeah and various minor things. It's good to recap. Thanks Red.

Today, I...
1. Started creating a verlette-based physics engine in C++, as a DLL (for Blitz3D) .

Recently (in the past week), I...
1. Finished the "Line Draw" tool in my editor so you can "draw" fences on the terrain (or hold Shift for straight lines)
2. Finished load/save functions for the editor.
3. Begun work on the terrain editing tools in the editor.

That's a really nice looking editor, John!


Hmm... I've just achieved an occasional strange rumbling effect on game boards which is likely the result of me really @#!*ing off the physics engine. (I'm using really weird numbers for everything's mass...).

Rather than fix it, I'm going to make sure that it is stable and add an earthquake sound :)

There's also some really cool stuff with objects bouncing off the board, now that they weigh a lot more and the board only weighs 1 neuton.

Actions system is in place, allowing for new objects to be added easily. First object to make use of it is game boards, and I have also tested the waters by throwing in little fans that are useful for tipping/stabilizing boards. (And if they work well, the gameboard auto leveling will be greatly reduced).

It doesn't look like much, but I'm happy with where this is going.
...And the best part is, it makes use of my other two projects which everyone thinks I've abandoned, thus forcing me to finish them!!


Now, if I'd started this programming a few hours ago instead of drawing squares on my desktop trying not to highlight any icons (great fun!), it would be even better.


Edit: Um... angering the physics engine.

Well, for my Plasmorg project, I got through testing out an opening sequence to spruce up the game a little. Since this is going to be based around an X360 joypad, then I better consider how to get just the right button controls programmed throughout.

The last 3 days I've had really crappy adsl download speeds (<5kb/sec) so I've been eliminating any fault on my end, but I've found 2 other people in 1km radius who have the same problem that started at the same time. So have spent a while on a phone/email to tech support to the isp/telco. Got nowhere so far though.

It gets better though...

Had a lightning storm kill my netgear dg-834 last night. In the morning went out and picked up a dlink dsl-200 just to get me online again. Spent an hour setting that up. Works fine but still download speed problems.

Then a buddy rings saying his pc's fried. So I donated a socket 370 mobo I had in the shed to get him going again.

I tell ya, doesn't rain unless it pours around here.

Aww crap....i caught a SpywareQuake thing and it won't go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dumped my Plasmorg project, going to build another game based on the same idea. I'm probably going to build a game where you shoot down Tetris blocks (yeah, you got me right, combining Tetris and Astrosmash into one mish-mash game). I'll try coming up with a good name for it, and it'll probably be one of the better hybrid games to make. The Tetris blocks'll spin around, and you have to shoot it down to score a point. Once you get 20 points, you win. Of course, you only have 5 ships to shoot with. Once the Tetris blocks crash into you, you lose a point, and lose a ship. I have that idea now. Okay, I'll have to think about this one...

Edit: I got the name in mind now... Hopefully it'll be cool to call it, Tumblocks (clever, tumble and blocks, that is what they're gonna do when they fall). Maybe a good X360 game, possibly? I have a good passion for both classics, and think combining the two will turn into another classic, eventually.

TetroSmash?

..I realised that my DVD is not good so I cant play it, and I'm going to torture guy from shop, most probably show him some aikido tips and trick since I'm damn nervous..I'll report later whats happen..grrr..

Just came up with a title logo for my game project, should be a great game project this time around (makes NES revivalists happy already).



Looks almost like a bunch of Tetris blocks that make up that word. At least this game's a little bit different, but still classic.

Your game's called "Illegible Mess"?

A bit of spacing between the letters might help. I'm not sure it would, but it would be worth looking into.

And a spell checker could possibly help, but probably not.

Iron Bob: yeah gotta say you need spaces between letters even 2 more pixels would help, maybe.

..hey..thats his logo anyway..maybe he like it like that..

Perhaps if the letters were different colours, or shades (rainbow colours, alternating colours - whatever works)...

I found all 5 empty grand soul gems, plus two other full ones, got sent on yet another errand. And got a letter of recommendation from the mages guild. Stabbed some dragon lady with an enchanted dagger and now prepare to set of tomorrow, hunting some grand master vampire or other.

1. Made voodoo dolls of everybody who's confusing reality with Oblivion. Later I shall buy pins - its only 11am.

2. Begun researching alternative religions. I want one that doesn't require me to send silly bits of cardboard to people every other week, or celebrate the birthday of a fictional character every December and buy stuff for people I don't even like. Satanism's looking good....

3. Had coffee.

4. Changed my MSN pic to the Grim Reaper. It'll probably be Dangermouse again before the day's out.

Ummm... like I said, its only 11am. :/

Worrying.... I hope you're on about Oblivion :P



*decides not to write what he did in oblivion*

lol! afraid of needles Cyg?

I'll post something at the end of the day, not 25% through like some poeple ;-)

Agreed, though the outcome will be the same!

what 0 + 0 = 0?

Pretty much!

BTW, Welcome back GFK.

Well, just got done tweaking my "Tumblocks" logo, now it looks more like Tetris blocks made up the title:



Might as well download the Oblivion demo, see if it's worth all the hype. If I like it, may as well grab the XBox version, just because it feels more like it should be a console game.

ooh Oblivon demo... tempting. Logo is better still pretty bright, blinding in fact. how about more pastelly?

Wrote the first bit of code for my computer language - boy C++ is cryptic (it's been a while).

I remember playing the original Tetris, but I can't really remember the exact colors that they used in their cubes (don't forget that the game was almost two decades old, too). Of course, there's so many clones, that it's hard to know what they used in the original anymore. Then again, the Game Boy version was the most popular version, which was monochrome.

Well, I can always go into PSP X and do some shaders on the logo. I've done that before, but at least I'd like to think I know what I'm doing this time around...

Let's hope that the "Lights" effect in PSP X will do...

Learned how to make an imagestrip work in CSS, saving me from making a folder crowded with images labelled from 0 to 9 for a score chart.
(course I could have just used a plain old font, but I like my custom "font" images)

Bob, how about having the T and B larger than the other letters? It might define the words better...Or maybe just the T...just an suggestion of course, Im no artist as anyone will tell you ;)...

Aymes: I agree. Now it's hard to read again with that shading.

I 'finished' 1 of 2 CAD drawings of road layout options in a town I've been working on since last Thursday. The engineer I'm working for booked 1 day's worth of CAD from the project budget for both drawings.

Engineers have no idea how long it actually takes to complete a drawing (when it's done properly).

As for Blitz stuff, erm... pass

Came up with this, hopefully this will bring it out more for ya:

Much more legible. Dunno about the shading, but at least I can tell what it's supposed to say without someone telling me first.

Today I have been mostly playing with Blitzmax.

(Don't tell anyone, but I'm actually starting to like it... pity I can't use Protean IDE with it, though)

Yeah, I may keep some elements of the Plasmorg project around, like the Purple Planet, just the name changed, and some of the art, like the Tetris tiles, and the player's cannon.

Back on topic, besides changing the game a little, I also did play some Tetris Worlds on my XBox today, hopefully that'll get me some influence.

I got bored today while browsing through my collection of icons and put some of them together.

Tons of stuff. The biggest time sink was attempting a nice, simple, water effect.

Thanks to fredborg for suggesting this technique:

Iron Bob: much better. see how useful these forums are :-)

me too ... me too. Best thing in Blitz Max is Strict, that will save me hours of bug hunting!!!

Kuron: cool

John Pickford: COOL!

OK, what did I do:

- Got the finished web version of Easter Bonus up and spammed forums and friends.
- Had a surprising flurry of Easter Bonus sales :-)
- And ... drum roll ... got Easter Bonus on Reflexive Arcade tonight, woo. BFG to follow soon. Thanks Indiepath :-)

wow, that is a great looking screenshot JP...
that will surely help sell your game to anyone seeing it...

i didn't get much done today... a lil more work on the sub textures, that's all... spent most of the day writing up my response to the divorce action i'm in the middle of... then went out back and bar-b-qued a bit for dinner...

tommorrow looks like it'll be another unproductive day... maybe wednesday i'll be able to get something done...

--Mike

Just added animated materials (not textures) to my engine. Somehow I forgot to put them on my todo list.. anyways, took all of five minutes to do, so eh. Also added diffuse, specular, emissive, and ambient color properties as well as shininess (part of the fixed-function pipeline, which I'm trying to stick to for the most part as the GL programmable pipeline is still a bit iffy with the changes that have occurred lately -- there's GLSL support in, but I'm trying to discourage the use of it in my engine since I can't really say what will and won't work shader-wise) to the material script format.

Also wrote a material viewer for my engine so I can view the materials in without having to write examples to test them.

Working on the material editor next (which will probably completely replace the viewer).

Made a couple of interesting tweaks last night (well, interesting to me), to Tank Universal.

If FPS drops too low, then glow fx is turned off/on dynamically. Sucks how B3d has no RENDERTOTEXTURE function. However I seem to recall Mark explaining that it's not a feature fully supported, or supported the same way on different vid cards. I see though that Seyjahin (spelling?) is promising a 'DreamFX' library soon. Will see how that turns out.

Also tied ParticleCandy's emission rate to FPS. These two tweaks have helped with framerate issues considerably. Still needs more optimisation though.

Ahh, that looks like something only the Sega Genesis would be happy to have on its console (looks a lot like a game Sega would do on top of that). Great going.

Edit: Oh yeah, just got done with trying some tile blocks for the game (I call 'em Plasma Tiles, but that's because I don't want any infringment on that one Russian's idea for Tetris, but I still wanted to use similar tiles, because it would be an easy thing to make a game out of).