David Laurie

Email Address:

krimzon@nullgmail.com

Account Type:

member

Location:

Southport, United Kingdom

Member since:

February 2, 2003

Last Login:

April 23, 2010

Last Update:

February 26, 2009

Bio:

Skills

Primary Skill:

Skilled Programmer

Secondary Skill:

Skilled Web Developer

Tertiary Skill:

Intermediate Musician

Summary:

Game type programming in C/C++ mostly with GL & SDL at the moment. Web and CLI programming in PHP.

With PHP I have been working on various iterations of a template system, to allow us to deploy client editable promotional/advert sites with ease. This came about because no other software I could find would run on our host.

I also use PHP for any quick commandline scripts I have to do, mostly because I am already pretty familiar with it.

Most of my C++ work has been related to procedural generation, with the ability to regenerate small sections rather than store them. I spent a while looking into generating star systems, initially very roughly modelling their formation from planetesimals. I concluded that generally, for a sci-fi game, it is simplest and most effective to pick objects from a list as Frontier does. This can throw up some odd stuff, which is then either accepted or prevented from happening formulaically. However my understanding of astronomy has grown since, and when I return to the code I wrote I would most likely add more types and tweak the parameters for orbital distance a lot.

I have also had in mind a system for generating terrain procedurally in chunks, specifying the generation parameters over a lower frequency so that a smaller amount of data can generate a pretty huge terrain. I have implemented a fairly simple (but also very stable) version of this, but I still have a way to go before it is exactly as I want it.

I have also looked into random maze generation, though there is good code to do that out there already, so I mostly experimented with how it could be used with an isometric engine, and lately I had felt tempted to see how it works for a Wolfenstein-looking 3D engine.

My current fixation is with generation of logical situations. For a start, I want to make simple randomly-generated missions more complex and varied. After that I would be aiming more at making situations that require logic, resulting in some kind of 3D first person detective game.

I am also pretty skilled with the slightly obscure QuakeC scripting language. It is now most notably used in Darkplaces (Nexuiz).

At the moment with music I make synth metal using Jeskola Buzz and various VST and native plugins. See http://profiles.myspace.com/sparticusmiles

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