End of Summer.
09/04/2007 (11:42 pm) by Phil Carlisle
Yes, summers almost over, end of this month its back to work for me (bah). So I thought I'd do a quick update.
FBX Importer
Didnt get much time to look at this recently. But I did get the collada stuff from feeling software and had a look at integrating that into the pipeline. Either way, its basically a scene graph based format which has to be munched into TGEA internal format.
Whats weird about these things, is that neither FBX nor Collada seems actually very well documented. I mean, you see people complain about documentation all the time, but both Collada and FBX are supported by huge companies and yet they are still relatively creaky (i.e. undocumented features, formats or methods that work differently than expected). I'm actually kind of surprised how Discreet are saying that Max and Maya are both going to use this format for sharing assets.
Game
We are pretty much desperate to get our game shipped. So huge feature choppage has ensued :) but on the upside, we are stitching together the body parts left over from the great cull reasonbly quickly. Of course this isnt the epic tome we first envisioned. But if we can get a nice polished little game out there, we'll call it even.
Other stuff
Been reading about the amazon web services api. Got some useful stuff in there. Things like the flexible payment system, elastic compute cloud and the S3 file store are pretty damn neat. Of course, there is a downside (always is) and in this case its a pretty nasty one. For the FPS at least, the downside is that you need to have a US registered company!! Now I dont want to scare amazon, but I think someone should tell them that the world does NOT revolve around the USA. I just find it kind of painful that they only thought to innovate the internet for US companies only. Bah!
Why am I interested?
Because the FPS purports to actually support microtransactions. Think about it, microtransaction payments by a well known and trusted online vendor like amazon? Using an easy to program with API? Doesnt that sound like an opportunity? It sure does to me. I've got a product idea in mind for it, but of course its not possible until Amazon decide that the rest of the world isnt just some backwater made to do the cheap grunt work for all the high tech americans. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical there :)
Anyway, a quick update. Next time, pictures of the game!!
About the author
20+ years of programming (including games, databases, networking etc). Ive also had several published games, most notable are the Worms games, which were published by various large name publishers such as microprose, hasbro, sega etc. These were developed during my many great years at Team17. Currently to date, Worms has sold an estimated 11 million copies worldwide (thats my own rough guesstimate by the way). Now I work for the University of Bolton as the course leader for the computer games design BSc degree as well as teach advanced programming topics on the computer games software development BSc degree. I also run my own indie development company. In my spare time, I tend to make games :) for all sorts of platforms and in all sorts of styles. My last project for Team17 was [url=www.worms3d.com]Worms 3D[/url] [image]http://www.worms3.com/images/mult/scre_55.jpg[/image] view profile »
Besides like $200 and you can open a Corperation in LasVegas Nevada. You don't even have to actually have the company there. There are are almost no cost when incorperating in NV. I live in the US and I'm incorperated in NV. For not much per yeah you can get a service that will give you a mailing address and an answering serviece. They will forward you your mail and everything. Besides Taxas are pretty high in the UK why would you want to have your self incorperated in another country and keep your cash somewhere else.
Having your company in the USA is not a bad thing if you think it through.
But yeah the amazon thing is awesome.
Torque Owner Vashner
but it's that when they are based here all the US law codes apply.
Amazon's founder is well known tightwad. He said it himself on TV interview his office desk is from like second hand plywood.