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Plan for Gonzo T. Clown
Plan for Gonzo T. Clown
| Name: | Gonzo T. Clown |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | May 24, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  4.7 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Gonzo T. Clown |
Blog post
Can you learn more by 'attending' a school, or by 'building' a school? I'm still pondering that one. The SSP School interface is nearing it's own graduation. Bah to pictures in my plan, you just gotta see it for yourself.
Getting Close!!!
Some of you may remember from various threads floating about that I was in the process of designing a live, online, school for teaching TorqueScript, and Torque Systems to users...
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=27132
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=25666
Well, I finally got the TorqueSchool Demo ready. Due to contract work and feature additions, I'm about a month and a half late, but it will be worth the wait. The school interface has evolved much further than I had intended, but the results are very pleasing. Although it's not completely done yet it's getting very close and classes should be starting shortly after the interface is completed and tested. So to keep things simple, my "plan" is to keep working while those who care review the demo and speak their 2 cents about it.
Thanks to everyone for being paitient.
Gonzo
NOTES!!! This Demo is automated and 30 minutes long. You do not need to do anything but pay attention and follow along. I suggest you follow the Tutor first and then come back to see the SSP hints afterwards if you just have to know, lol. If you try to read both at the same time you will likely miss much of both. Be aware your ScreenSaver may try to kick in during this demo if it's set to do so in less than 30 minutes of inactivity.
It would take at least 3 of these demos to demonstrate everything the interface already does and and there is still more to come for it. Dont be fooled by the length of the demo, it's not everything in one shot and there was plenty that wasn't even touched on or mentioned. Also note that nothing you see is a parlor trick or wishful boast. Everything in the demo works exactly as claimed.
Also note that the timing on certain events is not perfect due to various calculations that are currently being corrected and perfected. This issue only affects a few key events and you may not even notice it. As for reading time, it was tested on users that know nothing about what they were reading and they were able to read it all while having to deal with not understanding it. This should allow anyone currently working with torque plenty of time to read the dialog. I'm also aware that there are certain buttons missing(the demo refers to them), the artwork was not completed at the time I packed this up. All known glitches are on the repair list already and will be repaired in time for the second demo that demonstrates the additional capabilities not covered in this demo. For the most part however, everything you will see demonstrated is either completed, or noted in the demo as soon to be completed, not finished, or some other indication of status will be given. If no status is mentioned specifically for a feature it can be considered finished and ready for mass testing.
Because the demo is automated it runs in 800x600x32 OpenGL for maximum compatibility. If this causes you any problems, let me know and I'll arrange for different window sizes to be made available. At this time the demo is not available on Mac. However, thanks to a very generous donation from a great company run by some very good people(They know who they are and why they are not named at this time) I'll soon be able to support the Mac platform as well.
Get The Demo Here!
Some of you may remember from various threads floating about that I was in the process of designing a live, online, school for teaching TorqueScript, and Torque Systems to users...
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=27132
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=25666
Well, I finally got the TorqueSchool Demo ready. Due to contract work and feature additions, I'm about a month and a half late, but it will be worth the wait. The school interface has evolved much further than I had intended, but the results are very pleasing. Although it's not completely done yet it's getting very close and classes should be starting shortly after the interface is completed and tested. So to keep things simple, my "plan" is to keep working while those who care review the demo and speak their 2 cents about it.
Thanks to everyone for being paitient.
Gonzo
NOTES!!! This Demo is automated and 30 minutes long. You do not need to do anything but pay attention and follow along. I suggest you follow the Tutor first and then come back to see the SSP hints afterwards if you just have to know, lol. If you try to read both at the same time you will likely miss much of both. Be aware your ScreenSaver may try to kick in during this demo if it's set to do so in less than 30 minutes of inactivity.
It would take at least 3 of these demos to demonstrate everything the interface already does and and there is still more to come for it. Dont be fooled by the length of the demo, it's not everything in one shot and there was plenty that wasn't even touched on or mentioned. Also note that nothing you see is a parlor trick or wishful boast. Everything in the demo works exactly as claimed.
Also note that the timing on certain events is not perfect due to various calculations that are currently being corrected and perfected. This issue only affects a few key events and you may not even notice it. As for reading time, it was tested on users that know nothing about what they were reading and they were able to read it all while having to deal with not understanding it. This should allow anyone currently working with torque plenty of time to read the dialog. I'm also aware that there are certain buttons missing(the demo refers to them), the artwork was not completed at the time I packed this up. All known glitches are on the repair list already and will be repaired in time for the second demo that demonstrates the additional capabilities not covered in this demo. For the most part however, everything you will see demonstrated is either completed, or noted in the demo as soon to be completed, not finished, or some other indication of status will be given. If no status is mentioned specifically for a feature it can be considered finished and ready for mass testing.
Because the demo is automated it runs in 800x600x32 OpenGL for maximum compatibility. If this causes you any problems, let me know and I'll arrange for different window sizes to be made available. At this time the demo is not available on Mac. However, thanks to a very generous donation from a great company run by some very good people(They know who they are and why they are not named at this time) I'll soon be able to support the Mac platform as well.
Get The Demo Here!
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 01/17/06 - Been a great year! 06/09/05 - Plan for Gonzo T. Clown 05/24/05 - Plan for Gonzo T. Clown 11/18/04 - Plan for Gonzo T. Clown 10/24/04 - Plan for Gonzo T. Exterminator 10/19/04 - Plan for Gonzo T. Clown |
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Submit your own resources!| Todd D. Degani (May 24, 2005 at 06:18 GMT) |
Edited on May 24, 2005 06:18 GMT
| Zach Gipson (May 24, 2005 at 06:48 GMT) |
| Matt Van Gorkom (May 24, 2005 at 12:16 GMT) |
EDIT:
Doh! Sorry. Somehow i skipped over the part about it being ported to Mac ;P
Edited on May 24, 2005 20:38 GMT
| Stefan Lundmark (May 24, 2005 at 13:08 GMT) |
From Gonzo's plan.
Quote:
I'll soon be able to support the Mac platform as well.
---------------------------------------------
Nice work Kenneth. Really impressive, the demo is a bit too slow for my taste.. but I watched it for a good 10 minutes.
It looks pretty clean and shows what it should fine already. Looking forward to see where this goes.
Edited on May 24, 2005 13:17 GMT
| Anthony Rosenbaum (May 24, 2005 at 14:34 GMT) |
| Martin Schultz (May 24, 2005 at 15:18 GMT) |
Martin
| Matthew Langley (May 24, 2005 at 15:24 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Prices are the next set of questions, great work though.
| Mark Storer (May 24, 2005 at 16:00 GMT) Resource Rating: 4 |
One minor ding though: I noticed that one of the script dialogs was using a kinda-proportional font. Specifically, the '1' was narrower than the rest of the characters. It was near the end of the demo. Something like:
blah0 = "asdfasdf0";
blah1 = "asdfasdf1";
blah2 = "asdfasdf2";
blah3 = "asdfasdf3";
blah4 = "asdfasdf4";
The other lines were all aligned properly, but the "blah1" line was a touch narrower. Blah and asdfasdf were something meaningful. I believe it was near the keymapping description. Perhaps at the end of the scratch-pad stuff?
| Matthew Langley (May 24, 2005 at 17:00 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Gonzo T. Clown (May 24, 2005 at 19:09 GMT) |
Hmmmm. If the response is this good from people that only watched 10 minutes, I'm just dying to know what someone who watched it all thinks. Seriously, if you don't intend to make it past 10 minutes, don't bother, you're not even into the good stuff by then. It starts slow and gets better and better through the entire demo. I guess I should have put a secret code word at the end with a prize to the first one who made to the end, LOL.
As for being slow, there appears to be a performance issue based on machine specs maybe? When I first tested the demo speed, I used test subjects that were not programmers. They complained it was moving to fast at times so I figured the timing would be good. But appearantly slower machines may make the demo run longer than intended?
| Matthew Langley (May 24, 2005 at 19:10 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Mark Storer (May 24, 2005 at 22:50 GMT) Resource Rating: 4 |
<sad, silly posturing removed>
| Ed Johnson (May 24, 2005 at 23:09 GMT) |
| Gonzo T. Clown (May 25, 2005 at 04:06 GMT) |
Quote:
see an actual class, and how interaction with the students will work before I make any judgements.
That's what the demo is for. As I stated earlier, if you aren't going to watch it all, don't bother watching any of it. I will not be wasting time answering questions I've already answered in the demo.
| Firas (May 25, 2005 at 05:23 GMT) |
if you make a next bottom so when we finish reading we click next this will be better.
| Firas (May 25, 2005 at 05:34 GMT) |
| Gonzo T. Clown (May 27, 2005 at 02:41 GMT) |
Nothing is set in stone at this time. There are certain considerations in time, effort, equipment, etc... that have associative costs that must be covered. The more students that enroll, the faster those costs are covered. My intent here is to find a breaking point that will allow ANYONE who wants to take these classes to be able to afford them.
EDIT:
There is some explanation of what classes will be available when the school launches at this link...
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=27132
Edited on May 27, 2005 02:47 GMT
| Ned Beaumont (Jul 09, 2005 at 16:50 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Thanks
| Mark Barner (Aug 03, 2005 at 01:46 GMT) |
Great work! I liked to see how you did all of that so I could learn from it.
| Ned Beaumont (Aug 27, 2005 at 20:57 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
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