Reflection, Part 1
by Craig Fortune · 05/22/2010 (6:10 pm) · 8 comments
It has been a while since I last posted a blog here on GarageGames, or TorquePowered, or whatever we call it nowadays. Not because I haven’t been doing much, quite the opposite. Feels like over the last year I’ve been pretty much go go go, both in terms of the day job and my own game projects.
So, given the above, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on what I’ve been doing and where I’m going. I plan to do this over the course of several entries, as there is a little too much to digest in one go. Hopefully you’ll find them a good read as I’ll be discussing the following (in no particular order and each with its own teaser image :D)
- Development of one of my iPhone games, due for release this Summer (hasten to add, this screenshot is from a level still in development)
- The start of my company
- Projects at the day job (I work in academia)
- Various tools and bits of code I’ve written
I will be releasing some of the code for bits and bobs at some point or another too, I’m not quite sure when though. This isn’t a laziness thing, it is simply due to iTorque2D being in a state of flux while we wait for bugs to be stomped and a stable build to be properly tagged up as 1.4.
As an aside, I’m really liking the renewed approach to development “TorquePowered” (Still feels wrong saying that instead of GG, or is that just the website name now? I genuinely don’t know haha!) are taking in regards to iTorque2D 1.4. In case you aren’t aware, there is a full QA process in place and a community bug reporting system of sorts in use too. (For the life of me I don’t know why the decision was made to spam the main forum with it instead of a separate forum though, or even better an actual bug tracking system)
I think that’s enough for now, I’ll be posting again sometime pretty soon, probably within a few days.
So, given the above, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on what I’ve been doing and where I’m going. I plan to do this over the course of several entries, as there is a little too much to digest in one go. Hopefully you’ll find them a good read as I’ll be discussing the following (in no particular order and each with its own teaser image :D)
- Development of one of my iPhone games, due for release this Summer (hasten to add, this screenshot is from a level still in development)
- The start of my company
- Projects at the day job (I work in academia)
- Various tools and bits of code I’ve written
I will be releasing some of the code for bits and bobs at some point or another too, I’m not quite sure when though. This isn’t a laziness thing, it is simply due to iTorque2D being in a state of flux while we wait for bugs to be stomped and a stable build to be properly tagged up as 1.4.
As an aside, I’m really liking the renewed approach to development “TorquePowered” (Still feels wrong saying that instead of GG, or is that just the website name now? I genuinely don’t know haha!) are taking in regards to iTorque2D 1.4. In case you aren’t aware, there is a full QA process in place and a community bug reporting system of sorts in use too. (For the life of me I don’t know why the decision was made to spam the main forum with it instead of a separate forum though, or even better an actual bug tracking system)
I think that’s enough for now, I’ll be posting again sometime pretty soon, probably within a few days.
About the author
#2
Nothing to do with torture (honest)
Minority report
05/23/2010 (4:26 am)
Well, you'll have to wait for that blog entry won't you :P Two clues:Nothing to do with torture (honest)
Minority report
#3
05/23/2010 (9:25 am)
We've also been working on hand recognition software, but without a glove.. totally wireless. something along the lines of this, but completely different link - our design is still in the early stages, but we're also thinking of putting it to good use in driving games. If you can make the glove wireless, or use camera recognition then it'll be better... but you may say different based on what purposes your design is for.
#4
The picture above is actually just a rather brutal prototype to test ideas on. I intend to have it as a nice wireless unit using lilypad arduino boards and xbees (they both seriously rock, check them out if you don't know them already). I use a mixture of camera recognition (IR LEDs) and conductive fabric (on the left glove) for context sensitivity.
05/23/2010 (11:22 am)
It wouldn't really be a "true" statement to call what I've done hand recognition, it is a big different than that.The picture above is actually just a rather brutal prototype to test ideas on. I intend to have it as a nice wireless unit using lilypad arduino boards and xbees (they both seriously rock, check them out if you don't know them already). I use a mixture of camera recognition (IR LEDs) and conductive fabric (on the left glove) for context sensitivity.
#5
05/23/2010 (1:39 pm)
Sounds really cool Craig. Would love to see a video of it in action when you do have it finished. The only thing that is a problem for us is when using cameras, you calibrate the players hand size, and take a snapshot of it's outline. However the distance/scale factor comes into effect when you have to constantly establish whether they are moving forwards or backwards. The greater the distance, the less accurate it becomes. So for it to work accurately there needs to be a circle or a line on the floor for the person to stand or where a chair is to be placed. 
#6
05/24/2010 (7:57 am)
Great blog! Looks like some really cool development. Glad you like our improvements to the dev cycle. We have to keep the bug reports in the engine's forum, but I will talk to our web dev about improving the tag system to reduce spam to the main forum view.
#7
I do very much like the improvements - firmly a step in the right direction. I'm a bit snowed under at the moment but for the next beta version of iTorque2D I'll no doubt be much more involved in the bug submission/fix process.
05/24/2010 (12:20 pm)
Cheers Michael - hopefully I can follow up with some more good'uns :)I do very much like the improvements - firmly a step in the right direction. I'm a bit snowed under at the moment but for the next beta version of iTorque2D I'll no doubt be much more involved in the bug submission/fix process.
#8
We would like to drive more web dev toward community bug fixing and tracking.
As for the name of us...It is unclear...I admit. We are clarifying and fixing the branding in June -you won't need to guess anymore.
05/26/2010 (3:08 pm)
Craig, awesome update. Glad to see you are liking the new approach to bug fixing. You can always submit a bug via http://www.torquepowered.com/support/bugs but we've been hearing that people like seeing the action in the forums and know that their bug is being tracked.We would like to drive more web dev toward community bug fixing and tracking.
As for the name of us...It is unclear...I admit. We are clarifying and fixing the branding in June -you won't need to guess anymore.
Torque Owner CSMP
MP Studios
May I ask what in the heck you are doing with those gloves?