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Moving, Internet Woes, Projects, HL2

by Matt Fairfax · 05/20/2003 (12:42 pm) · 2 comments

First the personal stuff:
Following my yearly cycle, I have yet again moved. Unfortunately, the only broadband connection available where I am is satellite and that costs $900 to set up. Since I am living where I am to save money (free rent is hard to beat =) it seems counter-productive to drop that much cash when I have a broadband connection at work and a stack of CD-RW's. I do have access to a dialup connection but it is only 33 kb/s which is generally just not worth it. I have had a broadband connection since '97 so I going through a bit of withdrawal (I keep trying to check my email, GG, and movie times before I catch myself). However, I view this as an opportunity to get some serious coding done w/o any distractions =)

I do have one request: please stop posting so much overnight and over the weekends...it takes me forever to catch up =P

And now on to the Projects:
q32dif
I have been working on a Quake 3 (Radiant) .map to .dif convertor for the last month. I have a lot of it done but I am having trouble getting the collision with the bezier patches up to a decent speed. I'm not out of ideas yet but feel free to send some my way. Hopefully, I will have an alpha I can put into a few people's hands in the next week or so.

Digitalboneyard.com
As soon as I have the alpha of q32dif out the door I am planning on turning my attention to putting up www.digitalboneyard.com. This will be a repository for unfinished projects, be they art, code, engines, or games. I think most of us here have a lot of such stuff moldering on their hard drives and would be pleased if someone else found a use for it.

Zoinks!
I have worked on poor Zoinks! off and on for the last 3 years and I think it is time to finally finish it. It really shouldn't take me more than a month of serious work to get it to a very polished state and then I plan to release it for free.

Deep Space
I have decided to help Phil with his space game. So far I've only managed to slack off (I'll get the CVS up soon, I swear)!

A word on HL2:
WOW! I can't get enough of this game. I have watched the E3 movies a dozen times already and have been showing them to everyone I know =) I got my real start in game programming with a HL mod. HL deathmatch is still my favorite game of all time. The Source Engine looks incredible and I can't wait to get my hands on it and see what I can do. I already have a preliminary design for a mod (something fun but not very intense so I can get it out the door fast) and I hope to have another specced out soon. I read somewhere that Valve plans on releasing some of the development tools before the game comes out and I know I will be chomping at the bit to get started!

About the author

I am a Game Designer at PopCap who has worked on PvZ Adventures, PvZ2, Peggle Blast, and Bejeweled Skies. I am an ex-GarageGames employee who helped ship TGE, TGEA, Torque 3D, and Constructor.


#1
05/21/2003 (3:52 am)
I have to agree, HL2's engine is unbelievable... doesnt look as nice as Doom3's but DAMN, it's close :)
#2
05/22/2003 (12:44 pm)
It looks damn good and all the physics and gameplay (from what I have seen) is what is making me drool.