San Fran Man
by Matt Fairfax · 04/02/2004 (12:22 pm) · 5 comments
Spent last week in San Francisco for a Microsoft Developer Brainwashing...erm...Conference. I had a lot of fun hanging out with one of the local GG community members (John Quigley) and talking games until I was blue in the face. Makes me *that* much more eager for IGC!
I wrapped up my Collision Tutorial Object. I hope that it will be useful for those looking for a low level entry point into the engine. It picks up where Melv's outstanding fxRenderObject leaves off and shows you how to integrate your object with TGE's collision scheme.
I found what I believe to be the last bug in my Shape3ds code and it is just a matter of cleaning it up and maybe addressing a few performance issues. This is an interesting project but I haven't seen a high demand for it so it may have to wait until I knock a few more higher priority things out first.
Refactoring (such a buzzword but it applies sometimes) and cleaning up my Quake 3 bsp code to make it easier to work with, to help squash the last few bugs, and to prep for some cool stuff I have planned in the future. Let's just say that I am not done with interior code by a long shot ;)
I made it down to GDC on Thursday evening and got to hang out with a lot of the GG developers and associated crowd. It was cool to put some names to faces like Cory Osborn and Britton LaRoche. ben managed to get some hands on time with the Quake 3 stuff and had fun even though the code was in a slightly broken state at that moment. I also got to do some serious talking/planning done for BoomBall. We were able to cover more in a couple of hours of talking than days, even weeks, of emailing and irc'ing would have accomplished. The team is going to attempt to start meeting over teamspeak (external voice comm for games). I now have a *much* clearer picture of the road ahead for BoomBall (release features and post release roll out of new features) and it feels very good. I am really going to start focussing on getting this game into shippable state. We still have a lot of ground to cover but it won't be too bad.
On the job front, I spoke breifly with SpeedTree at GDC and they said they would be interested in hiring me for some contract work. Hopefully, that will roll into something more permanent. We shall see =) I am also thinking about putting in my resume to Epic (who is doing a major hiring spree) since I am only 4 hours away and have much admired their work. I *seriously* doubt I would get a job with them but it never hurts to try, right?
And becasue what would one of my .plan's be without some kinda screenshot, here is a little teaser of an early build of BoomBall (with bots running around):
- and -
Some videos (divx):
www.rustycode.com/matt/bots1.avi 5.2 MB
www.rustycode.com/matt/bots2.avi 9 MB
I wrapped up my Collision Tutorial Object. I hope that it will be useful for those looking for a low level entry point into the engine. It picks up where Melv's outstanding fxRenderObject leaves off and shows you how to integrate your object with TGE's collision scheme.
I found what I believe to be the last bug in my Shape3ds code and it is just a matter of cleaning it up and maybe addressing a few performance issues. This is an interesting project but I haven't seen a high demand for it so it may have to wait until I knock a few more higher priority things out first.
Refactoring (such a buzzword but it applies sometimes) and cleaning up my Quake 3 bsp code to make it easier to work with, to help squash the last few bugs, and to prep for some cool stuff I have planned in the future. Let's just say that I am not done with interior code by a long shot ;)
I made it down to GDC on Thursday evening and got to hang out with a lot of the GG developers and associated crowd. It was cool to put some names to faces like Cory Osborn and Britton LaRoche. ben managed to get some hands on time with the Quake 3 stuff and had fun even though the code was in a slightly broken state at that moment. I also got to do some serious talking/planning done for BoomBall. We were able to cover more in a couple of hours of talking than days, even weeks, of emailing and irc'ing would have accomplished. The team is going to attempt to start meeting over teamspeak (external voice comm for games). I now have a *much* clearer picture of the road ahead for BoomBall (release features and post release roll out of new features) and it feels very good. I am really going to start focussing on getting this game into shippable state. We still have a lot of ground to cover but it won't be too bad.
On the job front, I spoke breifly with SpeedTree at GDC and they said they would be interested in hiring me for some contract work. Hopefully, that will roll into something more permanent. We shall see =) I am also thinking about putting in my resume to Epic (who is doing a major hiring spree) since I am only 4 hours away and have much admired their work. I *seriously* doubt I would get a job with them but it never hurts to try, right?
And becasue what would one of my .plan's be without some kinda screenshot, here is a little teaser of an early build of BoomBall (with bots running around):
- and -
Some videos (divx):
www.rustycode.com/matt/bots1.avi 5.2 MB
www.rustycode.com/matt/bots2.avi 9 MB
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.
#3
04/02/2004 (2:04 pm)
I for one am very interested in your Shape3ds code, though I dunno how much demand I can make considering your not exactly on my payrole. :) I am very curious as to whether it supports any kind of animations, and if it has any collision limitations over dts objects, and if it can be used as the shape resource for existing torque classes. I am always looking for the most painless way to get a model into Torque.
#4
It does support collision. No 8 collision mesh limits like with dts so if you keep them simple you could potentially use a decent number (maybe simple interior-like shape). This is the main area I'd like to optimize.
I kinda see it as something that can stand along-side the static shapes but is a little easier to get in-engine (no hierachy, collision is done simply by naming an object Col-whatever). It is also a good starting place for anyone looking to add their own model formats to TGE.
If you are really desparate for the code email me and I will send you it in its current state (unsupported).
04/02/2004 (7:36 pm)
No animations currently (though it is the 3ds format which is decently documented so any enterprising programmer could add them). The 3ds format doesn't lend itself very well to animation but it might do good for envirnmental animations like gears, or a rotating satellite dish, or a windmill, etc. I might add animation support eventually (I have code somewhere along those lines) but that would be far down the list.It does support collision. No 8 collision mesh limits like with dts so if you keep them simple you could potentially use a decent number (maybe simple interior-like shape). This is the main area I'd like to optimize.
I kinda see it as something that can stand along-side the static shapes but is a little easier to get in-engine (no hierachy, collision is done simply by naming an object Col-whatever). It is also a good starting place for anyone looking to add their own model formats to TGE.
If you are really desparate for the code email me and I will send you it in its current state (unsupported).
#5
04/03/2004 (7:28 pm)
Well I'm not really deperate, it's just back when you first mentioned this in a .plan a small light went on in my head that it would work well for statics, if nothing else. If I knew how to programm with polys and such, I would certainly offer to help, but I lack any such skills. Alas I am just a leach, so if you have the time and feel charitable at some point, I for one would really appritiate the resource. :) 
Associate Kyle Carter