Blog for Edward F. Maurina III at GarageGames.com

Psssss... Hot!

Edward F. Maurina III — 2008-04-25T22:33:46+00:00

Sure it may be a bit self-serving to call my own work hot, but hey, what good is a blog if I can't beat my own chest every once in a while?

It isn't just a pride thing either. I'm happy about completing MGEC for all of the following reasons:

1. MGEC is the pinnacle of a long personal journey. (See below to learn more.)

2. MGEC provides a seamless follow-on (harder than it sounds) to my first book GPGT. i.e. If you liked my first book I think this one will also serve you well.

3. MGEC acts as a gateway-guide for experienced Torque users who want to jump from script-only mods to C++ engine changes. Users can learn to mold TGE(A) to their game's own unique requirements. In short, you no longer need to be afraid to modify the engine. With this guide you can do it!

4. Lastly, now that I have finished the books, I can start to re-focus my energies on other projects. It would be fair to say that I've been tempted on more than one occasion to work on side-projects, but I've had to reign myself in, in order to get the work done. No more. I can now set the whirlwind loose.

I realize that some folks may be sitting on the fence still, trying to decide if this guide will be useful to them. If you're one of these people, please check out these links to get more information on my second book:

Table of contents
The Introduction
Chapter 01 - Exercise #1 - Using The Kit
Chapter 10 - Exercise #1 - Compiling Torque In Windows
Chapter 10 - Exercise #2 - Compiling Torque In OS X
Another blog I wrote about it.

If you have decided you want a copy, it can be found at Amazon, as well as Barnes and Noble.

More about the journey
Finally, as noted above, this has been a very long journey for me. Some time after finishing my last book, and before finishing this one, I wrote up a post-mortem on the topic. If you're interested and never got the chance to read them, you can read them here (on the GG site):

GPGT Postmortem - Part 1 of 3 (History)
GPGT Postmortem - Part 2 of 3 (Project Analysis)
GPGT Postmortem - Part 3 of 3 (Lessons Learned)

, or you can download a PDf version here: .

Note: I did learn from the lessons listed in part 3 of the post-mortem and I think you'll agree that I applied those learnings well to my second book.

Thanks for reading!

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers (soon to be The Roaming Gamer)
EdM|GPGT || MGEC

"Multiplayer Gaming and Engine Coding for the Torque Game Engine" and other announcements ...

Edward F. Maurina III — 2008-03-24T14:01:19+00:00

I've got a number of large and small announcements to make.

1. Multiplayer Gaming and Engine Coding for the Torque Game Engine - Done!

Yes, at long last, I have completed my second book, "Multiplayer Gaming and Engine Coding for the Torque Game Engine". On Thursday March 20th, I sent the last of my edits back to the publisher.

As of today, the expected release is May. However, you can already pre-order it at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

I have given more details about the book on my (new) blog.

2. Wheeled Vehicle Editor and other tools
Now that I am no longer writing (for the moment) I have started dusting off prior ideas and projects. Several of these projects are tools. One tool in particular is for editing the wheeled vehicle class and its datablocks. At this time, I am ready to show off the "Wheeled Vehicle Editor" (image below).

1. Editor Zooming, Panning, and Test Tracks
2. Generating new datablocks
3. Adjusting Tire Settings
4. Adjusting Spring Settings
5. Adding New Springs and Attaching Them To The Back Axle
6. Adjusting Chassis Settings (including values you can't usually edit after loading a DB)
7. Playing With Steering and Wheel Drive
8. Various Vehicle Tests
9. Impulse Testing

As with my prior book annoucement, I have discussed this tool in more detail on my blog.

3. Torque Notes and EGTGE - Taken Down.
Some folks may have noticed, but just to be official I want to announce that I've finally closed down the "Torque Notes" resource which I maintained on my (old) site. GG has had its GoogleBox for a long time now and the "Torque Notes" resource was no longer really necessary.

Additionally, I just recently took down the EGTGE documents. I know this will be a disappointment to many, but this document is pretty out of date and no longer represents my best work. I strongly suggest picking up a copy of my first book (and pre-ordering my second book).

Quote:
You might be intested to know that this document has had an average monthly download of over 450 downloads per-month, every month since I uploaded it in May of 2004. That comes up to over 21,600 downloads!

4. Starting New Company - The Roaming Gamer, LLC.
Lastly, I have decided to open a new company and to start doing all of my future business under its 'umbrella'. The reasons for this are numerous, varied, and the subject of a future blog. Just let me say that this ties into a life-style change I plan to make this year. (Hall Of Worlds, LLC. will still exist but no new products will come out under that label.)

Thanks for reading! I'll be back soon.

Its all still good...

Edward F. Maurina III — 2007-02-28T06:27:42+00:00

Hello all.

This is going to be a bit of a different blog than those I normally write.

As some folks know, my life was recently turned upside down when my wife was in a head-on collision.

What happened?
On January 27th, at about 11 am I waved and smiled at my wife as she pulled out of our driveway. It was a beautiful sunny day. There wasn't a hint of rain, nor even any clouds to speak of. The weather was positively peculiar for for Portland Oregon at this time of year.

Teresa was in high-spirits and looking forward to playing a round (or perhaps even two rounds) of golf with some friends.

I was in high-spirits because I would have the house to myself for the day and I knew I could make some much needed progress on my book.

...

At exactly 1128 am, the home phone rang. I was sitting in my office sipping a cup of coffee and reviewing changes from the night before. I decided to let the answering machine pick up, which it did after the fourth ring.

Leaning towards the door of my office, I hoped to hear at least a little bit of the message. I heard what sounded like my wife, but then there seemed to be something strange about her voice.

I got up and walked to the head of the stairs to hear the message more clearly, but by the time I got there she had clicked off. For some reason, my heart had started to beat more rapidly and my palms were just the slighest bit clammy.

Something was not right.

I raced downstairs and fumbled for the play button.

Click... Old message from my Grandfather

Click... message for Teresa.

Click...

Quote:
"Hello? (long pause) I've been in an accident. (Strange noises in the background). I'm at TV highway (becoming faint now). Can you breathe? Can you hear me? (Someone else's voice). I have go now..." end of call.

Honestly, at this point I was wondering if I had heard my wife's last words. I was wracked with unbelievable guilt and remore for not picking up the call. I could hear the words, "No... no... no...", as if it someone else were speaking. It was me, and I was entirely frantic to get to her somehow.

The only problem was, we're a one car family.

Don't draw it out!
Not to draw out the story any longer and because my heart still races to remember this, I'll just cut to the chase.

My wife is alive and well.

I borrowed a car from a neighbor and actually beat the ambulance to the hospital (without speeding).

The details
My wife was driving our car, an old (1984) BMW 533i, which we have held onto for years because we felt it was a solid and safe car, being entirely constructed of steel and significantly outmassing most cars (excluding large trucks and SUVs).

She was hit by a 19 year-old driver who decided that it was a fine day to push his own car and it seems, his own skills, to the limits.

The details are sketchy, but based on my wife's recollection and the likely untrue testimony of the other driver. My wife was travelling at ~35 mph (the posted speed) and the other driver was travelling at ~50 mph (by his own statement), when the two cars came together head-on (see my comments on this later).

The important thing is that this means the sum velocity of the collision was ~80 to 85 mph.

Because words are truly unequal to describing the flight of the vehicles and the resultant devestation, I am including pictures for your viewing interest.

Now, some would not call this a head-on collision, since technically the other driver's car was sideways when it hit my wife's car on the front, but I still consider this a head-on due to the direction the cars were moving at the time of impact:

The first four pictures are of our car and demonstrate the damage it sustained. Looking only at these pictures, it really doesn't look that bad. In point of fact, our car was foreshortened by approximatly 1.5 to 2 feet, but it hard to see that in the images.

These next seven pictures are of the other driver's car (1993 Honda Civic) and demonstrate the high-velocity nature of this impact:

I believe my wife survived the accident ONLY because,

- Our car outmassed the civic, equalizing the stopping equation in her favor.
- The Civic, hitting side-on as it did allowed the entire passenger side to act as a 'crumple-zone', absorbing much of the energy from the impact.

Yes, but what is with the title of this blog?
At this point, you may wonder about the title of this blog. Well, the fact is,

although this was terrible, and

although the guy was uninsured, and

although the insurance agency is holding true to the nature of all insurance agencies (They're in the business of not paying claims.), and

although this has cost a fortune in time, money, and emotional input,

all of those things mean absolutely nothing when I can still say that my wife is alive.

So, it's all still good... very good actually.

Back in the saddle so to speak
In closing, I'd like to thank those of you have knew and wrote and those of you who gave me a little grace while I left posts and e-mails unanswered. I'm back at it and things are starting to straighten out.

Cheers,

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

GGE and Writing

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-12-01T04:49:11+00:00

Hello all!

I kind of felt 'in the mood to chat at large' and decided to write a short blog.

What have I been up to and where am I at on my never ending task list?

Well, I spent some time over the last week trying to activate my account over at the GreatGamesExperiment. I must admit, I had a heck of a time doing this. In the end it turns out I've been losing e-mails.

I have suspected for some time now, that some of my e-mail had been blocked by Verizon (my ISP). Now, I am beginning to think that some was actually a lot. It looks like Verizon activated an aggressive SPAM filtering effort in April.

You need to whitelist e-mail you're not getting. Hmmm...?

The only question I have is, how do I know I'm not getting it if I'm not getting it?!

Ack! I feel like I'm living in a Dilbert World some days.

So, if you e-mailed me and I didn't reply, it isn't because I hate you.

All ranting aside, I did get my GGE account enabled:

, and I have started the effort to whitelist. If that doesn't work I will go with gmail or some other solution.

So, what else?

My Day Job - I'm still working. It ain't great, but it is definitely a paycheck.

GPGT 1 Support - I caught up on this and I hope that you folks who have asked questions feel that I've been listening.

GPGT 1 Post Mortem - Done, done, and done.

GPGT 2 - I took a week of vacation and cleaned up the code kit that comes with this. Then, I started to fix chapters and turn them into the editor (I'm supposed to be doing that now, and I promise I will get back to it). I've dropped all other side tasks and am going to work on this until it is finished.

Contracting - I recently agreed to do some occasional contracting for a firm in Canada and I did some contracting a while back for the the ill clan on their Tra5h Ta1k machinima work. The message here: I'm available for some contracting gigs. Drop me an e-mail This sounds contrary to my Vol 2 statement, but I mean that I'm trying to drum up any kind of business that will help me leave my day job behind.

TGB Projects - I still love TGB and I have an almost finished content pack/tool/whatever. However, it has to sit until volume 2 is done.

Web Maintenance - I started working on this (although it is on hold). I'm considering renting a box and getting a professional e-commerce site set up. I have products (in the pipe) and product ideas behind them, and I need a place to sell them. (No, not all of them are games and books).

So, to re-iterate. I am not stopping until I am done with Volume 2. It is my only task (besides the day job that I must attend). The editor and I are in contact and working out the final steps to get this edited and through layout. Oh, and did I mention? We will be making this an e-book and because the DRM survey pretty much told me what I knew already, it won't be DRM'd. You will still have to buy it though.

Note: I should probably shut up about the book until is is completely done, but my exuberance just got out of hand. I'm feeling good and the pages are a flowin'.

Note 2: If you haven't bought my book and you feel like helping me keep my ethusiasm up, here is a link. Check it out and pick up a copy today!

Ed out!

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

GPGT Support Page

Appendix E. Maze Runner Lessons (Steps Only) - Covers Mac and Windows

OSX Executable - Use for GPGT Lesson Kit and MazeRunner

GPGT Postmortem - Part 3 of 3 (Lessons Learned)

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-08-15T04:47:02+00:00

Synopsis
After much deliberation, I have decided to ignore the trend to write a postmortem using the standard 3-3-3 format (three things that went wrong, three things that went right, and three things learned). So, consider yourself warned, this postmortem is a little long.

I am writing this postmortem for the community and for myself. It is my hope that those who read it will be able to take away some useful bits of information.

This postmortem contains the following three sections:

1. History Of GPGT - In this first section of the postmortem I traverse the entire history of this project, highlighting the important events that occurred along the way. The purpose of this is to show how a whim and a hobby can turn into something more serious.

2. Project Analysis - In this second section of the postmortem I will do a detailed analysis of the project, providing a more formal look at the different parts of writing this book. I will discuss such details as schedule, budget, tools, etc.

3. Lessons Learned - In this third and final section I examine some specific things that I learned along the way.

Part III - Lessons Learned *** WARNING *** No Pictures, See part 1 for that :) *** WARNING ***
This final section will be a free-form list of things that I learned while writing the guide.

Limit Your Scope
If you are writing a book or other document. Limit your scope from the start and be sure to keep to that limit. I started GPGT as an open-ended project and got bitten by major feature creep.

You're Not Going To Get Rich
Boy. Jeff was so right. No single book is going to make you rich. The trick is to create a steady flow of products, each of which contributes to your bottom line incrementally. If you can only afford the time to work on one project, and if you need to make your living from that project, then I don't suggest writing a book. You'll probably starve long before you finish it. However, if you can afford the investment of writing a book, then by all means do so. Why? Because, books have the following nice properties:

==> Relatively long life. If you can refresh a book and publish new revisions, you can benefit from your initial investment of time over the long term.

==> Can Be Turned Into Franchise. No, I don't mean a literal franchise. What I mean is, often written material can be adopted to other purposes. Thus, you may be able to re-use your written material to create other products.

==> Name Recognition. Most people (not all) still tend to recognize that writing a book is no simple task. So, finishing and publishing one cannot hurt your reputation (as long as you do a good job of it), and a good reputation is one of the pillars of success.

Collaborate Using a Private Website
Early on in the project I created a private site where I could post the latest versions of chapters and supporting materials. This allowed any reviewers with access to download the materials when they wanted to. It also served as a pseudo-backup mechanism. I ended up having more than one site by the end of the project, each one dedicated to a different set of reviewers/consumers of the draft GPGT materials.

Create Your Own Base 'Kit'
If you are writing about a programming topic or another topic that requires a starting point, then provide that starting point. In my case, I ended up relying on the 'FPS' Starter Kit as a starting point and this got me into real trouble at the end of the project. This happened because the kit itself changed from version 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4, AND because there are slight variances in the OSX and Windows versions of the Starter Kit (as supplied in the demo).
Hindsight tells me that I should have created my own starter kit and used it exclusively.

GPGT Lesson Kit
Although I didn't create my own base kit, I did have the GPGT lesson kit. I created this application so that I might create samples in these categories: GUI, Interface, Scripting, and 3D lessons. The kit itself was designed with a tool kit of scripts and predefined lesson file formats. This allowed me to easily create a new lesson and simply drop it into the kit, knowing that it would be properly loaded and displayed to the user. This had the added benefit of allowing me to provide new lessons after printing.

Know What You're Going To Write Before You Write It. #1
By this, I simply mean know your topic matter BEFORE you write. I started this project on a whim and while I was still new to the engine. Thus, I ended up re-writing sections later when I learned of new or different engine features which required a different approach to documenting them. In some ways, this actually helped this particular document, but the overall effect was a significant slow-down.

Know What You're Going To Write Before You Write It. #2
No, I'm not really repeating myself.

This time, I mean you should decide what you want to write about BEFORE you write it. This may sound counter-intuitive at first, but what I am really saying is, to plan your book out before you commit any words to paper. This is not an easy process and you should expect to change your mind about organization later, but if you start without a plan, you will regret it.

Stick To Your Plan.
I just said that you should expect change and that is still true, but be sure that you only accept small changes. If you make broad changes to your plan, you will likely waste a significant amount of time and effort.

Know Your Tools.
Be sure to learn how your writing tools work before getting too far into your project. For example, if you are using Open Office, learn how to use Master Documents and Templates. Also learn how the formatting system works. Although I don't encourage to you to pursue final formatting decisions in the beginning of your effort, I do suggest that you set up a custom set of formatting rules in the form of a template and then use that template for all of your documents. Later, when you want to reformat your documents, you can do so by modifying the template instead of manually modifying every chapter.
Also, if you intend to use Open Office to generate your Table Of Contents and Index, learn how these features and the concordance import features work BEFORE you start writing. You can certainly do this later, but learning how to set up for an index in advance will save you a ton of time later.

About The Table Of Contents (TOC)
If you are using Open Office, I do suggest that you use the built in indexes and tables feature to generate your TOC. This feature works perfectly well. One thing though. Be sure to generate them with the 'Protect against manual changes' feature disabled.

About The Index
Regardless of what tool you are using to write your book I have these suggestions:

1. Do not use an external tool to generate your index or a concordance file. The effort required to do this is equal to or greater than doing it manually.

2. Do not use a concordance file import mechanism. In all but the simplest cases, this will generate a over-sized index that is next to impossible to trim down.

3. Plan for your index as your write. By this, I mean mark keywords and sections for inclusion in your index as your write, or during your final copy-edit session. Either will work, but the prior is best. It is best because when you are writing about a topic you are often in the proper mindset for generating the tag to go with your topic. If you do it later, you will have to ask yourself, "When someone is looking for this information, how will they be thinking about it? What is the best way to label this so they can find it?"

I tried all of the above methods for creating my index and found the latter to be the most sensible. However, because I did create my index last, it suffered for my lack of imagination at the time, and for the extreme time crunch I was under.

Believe it or not, it took me over a week to create the current GPGT index.

Use Test Readers From The Start
I was fortunate enough to have an entire class of test readers (Michael Rogers CS481 class at Millikin University) reviewing my material while trying to use it. This was extremely useful. The bottom line is, there is no way, after reading and re-reading your own materials for the 15th time that you will catch the same errors as a new reader.

About Art and Assets
I got some good advice from Joe Maruschak and from others while writing my book and while working on the game prototypes that go with it. A summary of this advise would be:

==> Use placeholder art until the very end. - In other words, do not bother creating superb art assets (or illustrations) until the underlying book/game is done. Why? Because, changes in the book/game may very well require changes to the art, thus wasting effort.

==> Use grayscale for all assets until the asset is finalized. - This is similar to the placeholder art idea, but the differences is that by using grayscale textures/illustrations for all non-finalized assets you can clearly see what parts of your book/game are not done yet, or at least have not made it through final approval. Also, and Joe pointed this out, when you show a demo or prototype and the art is grayscale, folks will be more accepting of changes that come later. i.e. They don't form attachments to specific assets and they expect change.

Lastly, I have discovered that while draft writing, it is best to skip art entirely, and in those cases where a placeholder is absolutely needed, just sketch something by hand, scan it, and import it. Unless you're a whiz artist (which I'm not). Don't even touch your art program(s).

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

GPGT Postmortem - Part 2 of 3 (Project Analysis)

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-08-11T17:50:08+00:00

Quote:
"This will be a multi-month project, culminating in a guide containing documentation on many significant Torque topics with full references and many accompanying examples. The guide will be fully illustrated and come with an accompanying resource disk. Currently, I have not decided if this will be printed or an e-book."

- Original EGTGE Description From Torque Notes Page

Intended Customer: New Game Developers, Veteran Torque Users, Teachers and Students.

Product's Purpose: Teach folks how to use Torque to make games and other products.

Project Start / Finish Dates (Estimated): I officially started writing in November of 2002. I estimated I would be done between June and August of 2003.

Project Start / Finish Dates (Actual): I did in fact start November 2002, but the book did not actually go to press until March of 2006.

Budget (Estimated): None.

Budget (Actual) : By the end of the project I ended up making several purchases related to the book, coming to a grand total of about $2000 dollars.

Release Date: The official (bookstore) release was May 2006.

Release Format: Soft cover (600 pp) with accompanying CD containing 580 (pp) reference, samples, and a lesson kit. The kit was designed to run on all Windows platforms, OSX, and in a degraded mode on Linux systems.

Lines of Code: I ended up writing/generating about 42,000 lines of new script.

Art Assets: > 1000 unique pieces.

Development Software:
- Windows 2000

- Torque Game Engine

- Torque Show Tool

- Open Office versions 1.1 through 2.0 Beta.

- Visual Studio 7

- Paint Shop Pro 7, 8, 9

- Various Flaming Pear Filters

- Milkshape

- GameSpace

- Unwrap 3D

- Audacity

- Fraps

- Hammer

Development Hardware:
- 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB memory and a late model nVidia video card.

- Laser Printer

Other Development Materials:
- Book: "Books, Typography, and Microsoft Word: How to Get High-Quality Type for Desktop Book Publishing, Self Publishing, and Print on Demand, or Tips on Type"

- Book: "Print-On-Demand Book Publishing: A New Approach to Printing and Marketing Books for Publishers and Authors"

- Book: "The Self-Publishing Manual"

Known Bugs: About 50 errata have been discovered to date. More details can be found here:

http://gamers.hallofworlds.com/support/gpgt/

, and here:

http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.forum.php?qf=178

Known Compatibility Issues: There were recently some issues on OSX systems. These have been resolved.

Team Members and Responsibilities:

Edward F. Maurina III - Writer

Teresa Tse - Business Manager

Project Ratings 1 (poor) to 10 (outstanding)

==> How well did the project achieve its goals? 8
I wanted to cover more in volume 1 than was possible due to page constraints.

==> Was the project developed in a reasonable amount of time? 3
No. I was way over estimate.

==> Was this a cost-effective project? 7
I'm still in the negative, but will recover my expenses eventually when my royalty check comes in.

To be completely realistic, if this project were only about making money, then the rating would be a 1. Why? Well, if I considered my time worth only $50/hr (which is low), then 2500 hours x $50 comes to $125,000. It is highly unlikely that I will earn that kind of money from this book. Fortunately, money wasn't my primary motivation.

==> Did development proceed smoothly? 6
The project had many jumps and starts, as well as a few complete stops. It was an enlightening but rough ride.

==> How well did the project meet its estimated budget? 5
Not at all, but then the original budget was non-existent which was unreasonable and unrealistic.

==> How well was change managed during this project? 6
I ended up doing major re-writes of sections of the guide for the following reasons:
- Torque 1.2 to Torque 1.3 transition

- Torque 1.3 to Torque 1.4 transition

- False start on sample game: 'Torque Man'

- Writing while learning

Project Questions

What went right?

1. I learned a lot about the engine and making games. Remember, there is always more you can know.

2. I learned a lot about writing and publishing a book. This is big understatement, but this will become clear a bit later when I discuss some writing/publishing specific topics.

3. I hit the target (audience) sweet spot. I feel that I hit the right level of usability to enable both new and experienced users to benefit from this book.

4. Well received. The book has been well received and looks as if it may be adopted by some universities and colleges as part of their game development programs.

5. Built reputation. The book and associated efforts have helped build my reputation, however humble it may be, in the gaming community.

Note: I joke, but this isn't about humility or vanity, but rather reputation and name recognition. Both of these are valuable commodities if you intend to do business in a distributed environment like the Internet.

6. Is improving Torque awareness. The book has helped and is helping to build further awareness of Torque and the GarageGames community. This is a good thing. For members of the community to have the highest likelihood of success in their endeavors, it is important that they be part of a vibrant community with a constant infusion of new members. The community doesn't necessarily need to grow, but it must not stagnate. The GarageGames community has definitely avoided stagnation.

7. Is helping new users. The book has helped and is helping new users get into using the Torque Game Engine more quickly than would otherwise be possible. Struggling for struggling's sake is no fun.

What went wrong?

1. The project failed to meet its estimated time line. This was due to my lack of experience as a writer and because I didn't (initially) treat the project as a job. I didn't create a schedule or a plan until I was well into the project.

2. The project was way over budget. Again, I had no idea when I got into this, just what would be involved in writing a book, and I didn't plan for any expenses.

3. Art in wrong format for printing. All the art had to be massaged into grayscale. Also, by the time I had to do this, several original pieces were lost and and to be re-produced.

4. The first 'sample' game had to be canceled due to poor legal planning (on my part). Originally, I created a Pac-Man like game in 3D. We later decided that although this was probably safe, it would be better to not take chances. So, we changed the game to 'Maze Runner', which is a pseudo-generic 3D platformer.

5. I assumed that AK Peters would 'magically' produce the index for me. Instead I ended up having to write it at the last moment. Therefore, it was written as an, "I thought you were going to do it? Oh crap!", kind of effort. I think this shows in the final version.

6. Failure to back up data. I didn't back up my data properly in the early part of the project and suffered a complete hard-drive failure in early 2004. I ended up having to use a data recovery service to get the book back. It cost me about $300 to retrieve less that 50MB of data.

7. Insidious and silent content corruption. Early on, Open Office was a little buggy. I discovered this during a review when I found data and images both missing and corrupted. Although I stayed with Open Office, I took steps to reduce the likelihood of a repeat of this issue in the future. Among these steps were: upgraded to latest Open Office version, backed up before, after, and hourly while I wrote, checked my documents at the end of the day for any corruption.

Note: After version 1.1 I never experienced this issue again.

8. Did not use a spell checker until after the technical review. Because there are so many non-English words (i.e. Datablock names, etc.) in the guide, I turned off the spell checker at an early date and never turned it back on. So, although I spell quite well, we did end up having to find a few misspelled words during copy-edit sessions. This was a big waste of valuable time.

9. Technical Reviews were hard work and somewhat unexpected. I learned that you should not count on the publisher to do the work for you. When it comes to writing Technical books, you have to do all the technical editing yourself. In other words, don't expect copy-editors at a publishing house to be capable of catching technical issues with your book. This is your job. This sounds obvious, but when we started the process of reviewing I was still quite naive about which party would be responsible for what part of the review.

11. Too many chapters to review in too short a time for the final technical review. Although we did get through it and there have been relatively few errata, I could have done better. The primary problem is the fact that I ended up doing a final technical review of an entire chapter along with all fixes and re-submissions of art (sometimes) in a single evening.

12. Last minute changes to directory structure of kit caused some mismatches between book and disk. At the very last moment I discovered that in some cases, a zipped file will not extract properly if the path is too long. So, I quickly renamed a few files and directories, completely failing to recognize that this caused a mismatch with some of the 'Maze Runner' lessons.

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

GPGT Postmortem - Part 1 of 3 (History)

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-08-10T21:56:40+00:00

Quote:
"You can write a game engine, or you can make a game, but you can't do both (with a small team)."

Decidedly dejected and plain tired of the entire effort, we both returned to our careers and lives, letting Nascent die a quiet death.

We did however continue to play games and quietly aspire to write our own.

GarageGames Breaks The Mold
In 2001, still working at Intel and still playing games (after work of course), my current favorite game was "Tribes 2".

After passing the 100 hour mark playing this addictive game, I learned that the engine used to make this this very cool game had been released under an extremely relaxed and inexpensive license. So, in August of 2001, I signed up and bought a license to the V12 engine.

At this time, the V12 engine (AKA Torque) was quite unique. Certainly, there were other engines available but none of them had V12's combination of history, features, and price. Also, none of them had the stellar and dedicated GarageGames crew behind them.

After getting my copy of the engine, I quickly jumped into the demo and examined the current docs.
I was both excited and somewhat daunted. This thing was huge!
Now, I had worked on projects of this size before, but still, wrapping my head around the engine and grokking it was no mean feat.

I think perhaps that this summarized excerpt from the original 'Known Issues' disclaimer says it best:

- .... This is not for the timid.

- GarageGames did not receive any documentation ... you will have to hone your code perusing skills.

- In the process of removing the Tribes2 intellectual property ... functionality was impaired

In addition to the exceptions noted in the original disclaimer, V12 did not come with all of the tools/exporters that we all take for granted now. For me, the real clincher was the lack of a Milkshape Exporter. Being a 'doit-it-on-the-cheap' guy, I didn't have 3DS Max and could not see myself spending that kind of money on what was still, only a hobby.

I quickly realized that I didn't have the time to work with V12 in its current state. So, I put it down for about a year.

Torque Notes Is Born
In early 2002, I came back to the GarageGames site to discover some great things.

Wow! These guys had really made some progress:
- Torque was up to release 1_1_2,

- The site had forums, resources, member home pages, a cool newsletter, and

- There was DOCUMENTATION.

"This is more like it", I thought to myself.

Jumping in head first, I read through the docs, downloaded release 1_1_2, and set to work on a game.
I started work on an MMO* and learned another valuable lesson.

Start small.

My game idea was way too big for one guy. However, it did force me to learn a lot about Torque.

While I worked on my game idea, I quickly exhausted the easily located documentation and started to read thread after thread, digging deeper and deeper to find information.

Eventually, I had compiled a pretty big collection of notes and Torque related links. So, I decided to share this information with the rest of the community in the form of a monolithic web page.
Thus, 'Torque Notes' was born.

What About A Book?
Torque Notes was an instant success, getting 1000s of unique hits every month and quickly delivering folks to topics they were seeking.

However, the page began to sprawl and to become very dated. In fact, it soon became completely unmanageable. So, I made a hard choice and stopped maintaining it.

Interestingly, by this time, a new thought was starting to tickle my brain,

Quote:
"Hmmm, there might be a book in this somewhere."

After thinking about this for some time, I decided that some kind of short reference would be a great idea. I figured,

Quote:
"A 100 page quick reference ought to be real popular."

"Essential Guide to the Torque Game Engine" Announced
In September 2002 I officially announced that I was writing a reference guide for the engine and gave it the working title: "Essential Guide to the Torque Game Engine" (EGTGE).

Nobody took any notice, but I was inspired and that was enough.

EGTGE Hits 350 Pages

March 2003 came and went. EGTGE hit and passed the 350 page mark.

At this time, I was still thinking that I would be done soon.

The work continued. In fact, the rest of 2002 and a good part of 2003 came and went, and the work still continued.

Quote:
"Hmmm. This is harder than I thought it would be."

Ken (Finney) Releases His Book
In May of 2004, Ken Finney's book "3D Game Programming All In One" was released. In my mind, this effectively quashed my plans for EGTGE.

Severely disappointed, I released the lite-edition of EGTGE as a community resource and called it quits.

I took a long delayed vacation, thinking that it was time to move onto a new project. But, I couldn't have been more wrong.

It seems, I had not accounted for the fact that Torque Notes, and the promise of EGTGE had started to draw a following.

The community response was rapid and overwhelming. People took turns, either lambasting me or encouraging me, but the gist of the message was the same from everyone:

Quote:
"Keep working on your book!".

A few days later, GarageGames contacted me and offered to publish my book if I would just finish it.

"You're Not Going To Get Rich"

September 2004 came rolling along. The book was at the 824 page mark. Somewhere along the way, Josh and I had decided that the book would need to be printed in two volumes.

Great! Now, I had two books to finish. This was getting out of hand.

It felt like it should be done, but I didn't feel like everything was in place yet.

Soon, IGC'04 arrived and it was time to head to Eugene. During the conference, Jeff Tunnell and I huddled up for a talk about EGTGE. I no longer remember everything that was said, but one thing did stick. Jeff told me (paraphrased):

Quote:
"Ed, you're not going to get rich making this book. So, just finish it up and get it out".

This was excellent advise. I just didn't I know how to follow it. At the time, I was seriously wondering how I would ever finish the book, that is, the books.

Draft Version Completed
In May 2005, I finished the draft version of the GPGT volume 1. I also had much of GPGT volume 2 ready to go. In total, I had accumulated:
- Approximately 1400 pages of written material.

- A finished single-player game prototype.

- A kit containing 24 GUI samples, 8 functionally complete interface samples, 3 example HUDs, 23 3D lessons, ...

I turned this in to GarageGames and they sent it to AK Peters.

GPGT Jam Session #1
By mid-September 2005, AK Peters had reviewed the draft and was asking for some changes. So, I hopped in my car and drove to Eugene to participate in a copy-editing and writing marathon (otherwise known as GPGT jam session #1).

Over Saturday September 10th and part of the 11th, Josh Williams, Ben Garney, Matt Fairfax, and I read and reviewed the entire guide. We also discussed the various changes that AK Peters had requested.

Basically the way this worked was that everyone got a chapter and read it. Then, they sat down with me (and sometimes with Josh) to review any issues and to have me answer any questions about questionable sections.

When we got done with the session I had the following list of things to do:
- Incorporate fixes for all 14 chapters.

- Replace the original 'Torque Man' (a 3D Pac-Man clone) with 'Maze Runner', thereby avoiding any possibility of legal issues with Namco Limited.

- Remove the game prototype creation chapter and instead append 'lessons' to the end of chapters, thereby building the game as the reader progresses through the guide.

- Put together a description to go on the back cover.

- Incorporate professional art for a finished version of the game (AKA Maze Runner Advanced).

All of this work needed to be done in about a week. So, I drove home and got to work immediately.
Josh did me a huge favor and wrote the back-cover text. Then, he hooked me up with Christophe Canon of FroGames to put the pro-art into Maze Runner Advanced.

Note: Christophe was a real pleasure to work with.

GPGT Jam Session #2
Exactly three months later, in mid-December 2005, AK Peters had re-examined the book. As a result of their re-review, they supplied a new list of things that needed fixing, and they sent a hard-copy with hand written notations back to GarageGames for the GarageGames staff and I to update. It was time for another jam session.

Over Saturday December 10th and most of the 11th, Josh Williams, Justin DuJardin, Ben Garney, Matt Langley, Jay Moore, Julie Moore, and I did another complete review.

It is worth noting that this sessions was a little different than our prior one. We had no schedule leeway for completing the fixes. They all needed to be in by the following Monday to stay on schedule.
It was painful, but we were successful!

Please Make It Stop!
After the second Jam session, I thought AK Peters would be taking over and I would get some time to breath.

Wrong!

In the period between December 27th 2005 and February 3rd 2006, AK Peters did the final review and layout work. Josh and I ended up being heavily involved with this process.

The way this worked was as follows:

1. Josh would receive the 'current chapter' from AK Peters and forward it to me. This chapter came in layout form. That is, it now closely approximated the final look. In addition to the chapter, we also received a list of 20 to 40 questions and comments from the copy-editors and layout staff.

2. Josh and I then (independently) re-read the entire chapter, looking for any errors or technical issues.

3. Next, I would handle all of the questions/requests that came with the chapter. These were usually such things as:
- Spelling Questions

- Missing Table/Image Captions

- Path Questions

- Illustration Revision Request

4. Once I was done writing all of my own corrections down, providing responses to the questions and comments, and re-doing any artwork, I shipped all this to Josh.

5. Lastly, Josh would packages everything up, adding his own inputs, and ship it off to AK Peters.

This went on for the next 39 days. During this time, I re-read every chapter at least once, I updated or re-createe 373 images, I wrote between 18,000 and 20,000 words of feedback in the form of 898 unique fixes and responses to questions, and I created an Index through a combination of concordance files and a whole lot of hand-editing.

In short, this experience was enlightening, but exhausting.

First Printing
In March 2006, AK Peters ran the first printing and took 90 copies with them to GDC '06.

They sold out.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, GarageGames, and AK Peters all started taking and filling orders.

Over the next three some odd months, the Amazon Ranking would look like this:

Summary Of Effort
Over the past four years, I have spent about 2500 hours working on this book. In retrospect, I am somewhat surprised to find that writing was only about half of the work. Besides writing, I did all of the following tasks:
- Learned the engine thoroughly,

- Found and fixed engine bugs,

- Wrote tens-of-thousands of lines of script and C++ code

- Created well over 1000 unique art assets (mostly illustrations, but also textures for the GPGT lesson kit and the game prototype),

- Designed and wrote two complete single-player games, and

- Participated in review and proofing sessions till I was ready to cry.

At the end of the day, I believe that the effort was worthwhile. In addition to working with lots of wonderful people in the community, I also got to know the staff of GarageGames much better. GarageGames, the community, and all three of the Torque engines rock!

Mission Accomplished?
The bold among you may ask,

Quote:
"So, was Jeff right, or did you get rich?"

Yes, Jeff was right, and No, I did not get rich. However, I didn't start this project with that in mind.
My original motivations for writing this book were:

1. Help grow the Torque community,

2. Help others so they won't have to go through the growing pains I had to go through,

3. Get my own company started. i.e. Build some recognition for myself and hopefully for the Hall Of Worlds Logo.

4. Hopefully make some money,

I accomplished #4, but did I accomplish the other goals?

You tell me.

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

Seeking your assitance

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-08-05T18:52:54+00:00

Latest goings on
Hello again folks. I have been staying busy as usual, splitting my time between 'the day job', GPGT volume 2, some TGB stuff, and pretty much all the things I listed in my July 24th plan/blog.

I still haven't had time to do more than put a temporary replacement page up on my HOW - For Gamers site, but I have made progress on some other items.

- I finished my outstanding tasks on a contract for the folks at ILL Clan (be sure to check out their Tra5hTa1k series.

- I finished the draft of the GPGT 1 Post-Mortem. I will publish it soon, but because it is kind of long, I am having a couple people review it for me first. It is split into three sections, which I'll probably post separately as blogs:

1. History Of GPGT - In this first section of the postmortem I traverse the entire
history of this project, highlighting the important events that occurred along the way.
The purpose of this is to show how a whim and a hobby can turn into something more
serious.
2. Project Analysis - In this second section of the postmortem I will do a detailed
analysis of the project, providing a more formal look at the different parts of writing
this book. I will discuss such details as schedule, budget, tools, etc.
3. Lessons Learned - In this third and final section I examine some specific things
that I learned along the way.

- I quit my day job. Oh no, I just dreamed about quitting my day job. Are there any rich benefactors out there who would like to just shower me with money? :)

- All of the other stuff is still in the 'work-in-progress' state.

What about that 'assistance' you are seeking?
So, what about the title of this blog? Well, I am hoping to get some assitance from folks on two things.

Item #1 - DRM
I am still running my survey on DRM. I have found that I enjoy this writing thing (actually I have always enjoyed writing), and now that I am thinking of writing more books and other documents, I have found myself in a peculiar spot.

I know how I feel about e-publications and DRM, but I don't have a good feel for public opinion on this topic. The peculiarity of this stems from my being on the 'other side' of the equation. I am no longer the customer.

So, if you can spare me some time, I'd love to hear more from folks on DRM and if you haven't already answered the questions on my survey, here it is!

(Disclaimer: This survey does not apply to any specific product I have or am working on. I am seeking your GENERAL opinion on e-publications and the use of DRM)

Item #2 - iWeb
The second item relates to my web-site. I will eventually be hiring a professional (when I have more than 2-cents to rub together) to maintain my site for me, but until then I have had to use site-generation software.

Yes, I originally hand-coded my site, but I just don't have time for that anymore, so I have given in to the evils of a generated site.

Interestingly, since acquiring a MAC to resolve the recent GPGT OSX Issues, I have found myself with an alternative means of generating a site.

That alternative is iWeb.

Now, I am fully capably of investigating the features of this tool on my own, but I want to ask you, "Do any of you use this tool and if so, have you used it to create a complex site?"

I am only curious about this tool, because like so many things Mac, the've done a fine job of making it 'sexy'. I hope you know what I mean, because if you don't I am going to have a heck of a time explaining why I call some computers and some software 'sexy'.

That's all!
And that, folks is about it, I do apologize for the lack of images (just one) and I'll try to do better next time.

Meanwhile, I hope you're all having as much fun Torqueing around as I am.

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

New GPGT Appendix / OSX Fixes Done / e-Book Survey

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-07-29T02:06:40+00:00

Hello folks. This is a short blog just to keep you up-to-date.

New GPGT Appendix
I have finished the draft version of a new appendix (Appendix E) for GPGT Volume 1. This appendix is a 'steps only' version of "Appendix C - Combined Maze Runner Lessons".

This new appendix has the following features:

- Compresses all 'Maze Runner' lesson steps into just those steps neccesary to build the prototype.

- Fixes all errors in the lesson steps. So, follow these steps instead of using Appendix C or the printed book.

- Adds support for OSX users, in the form of special steps.

- All steps have been updated to remove ambiguity about what file you are copying, editing, etc.

While my web-site is 'broken' you may download the new appendix here.

OSX Support Complete
I have also finished my OSX testing and fixing. To that end, I am making the following downloads available:
OSX Starter - This goes with new appendix.
OSX Executable - This can be used to use/play both the 'GPGT Lesson Kit' and 'Maze Runner Advanced'.

To use this with the 'GPGT Lesson Kit',
1. Copy the 'GPGT LessonKit' folder off the CD onto your hard drive.
2. Unzip OSX Executable into this new folder.
3. Double Click 'Torque Demo OSX'

To use this with 'Maze Runner Advanced',
1. Copy the 'MazeRunnerAdvanced' folder off the CD onto your hard drive.
2. Unzip OSX Executable into this new folder.
3. Double Click 'Torque Demo OSX'

e-Book DRM Survey
I'm currently investigating the possibility of using DRM on my future works. However, I would like to hear what you think. Thus, I have assembled a short web survey.

If you are considering buying my book(s) in e-version, please help me out and answer this short survey.

Click Here To Answer Survey!

Alternately, or if the survey gets maxed out, feel free to post your thoughts here.

Thanks a ton folks! Now, back to work for me.

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Edward F. Maurina III — 2006-07-24T18:07:23+00:00

This is just a quick update to keep people who are interested informed as to what I'm doing and how I'm helping them.

The Good
I am wrapping upmy second Torque book, doing copy editing (image to right), sample writing, and validation in general.

I am also (quickly) learning how to work with TGE under OSX, including compiling, debugging, etc. I recently received some feedback from the OSX crowd, saying that they were/are having problems using the GPGT lesson kit and the Maze Runner Lessons under OSX. So I checked it out....

For a short time I tried to make progress on this problem using my wife's old iMac. This however was too much work and too slow. Since the machine is in another room in the house and is being used a lot of the time I decided to advance my upgrade schedule and buy a Macintosh to go with my PC dev machines.

So, Thursday last week I bought a new Mac-Mini Core Duo. Since then, I've been trying to squeeze in time to upgrade the OS and tools to latest versions, install XCode and other tools I'll need, and the of course to start editing and fixing problems w/ the GPGT content. Let's just say, I'm making progress but I'll be needing more time.

I also spent some time closing out some contracting work I owe the folks at ILL Clan. Yes, Frank if you're reading I'll get that stuff out to you tonight. :)

So, this all sounds good, what about the bad?

The Bad
There isn't really that much that is bad. The primary bad thing is that I'm too danged busy right now and things are not letting up. Of course, I should not complain. I'd rather have a surfeit than a shortage.
Just to put things in perspective for folks who are waiting on me for something, here is what I've got going on:

My Day Job - I'm still working a 40-hr per week job to pay the bills. I'm not getting rich on my other ventures (yet).

GPGT 1 Support - Yeah, I slacked off for about a couple weeks, but I'm back with a vengance.

GPGT 1 Post Mortem - I'm almost done with this. I'm going to share it w/ GG first to see if they have any adds, then I'll start posting it as a short series of blogs here.

Torque Book 2 Finishing Up - Just what it sounds like. I'm doing all that stuff that needs to be done to get a copy of this to GG for their initial review.

Contracting - I've been working on one side contract (as mentioned above). This is almost done, but there are some loose ends to tie up.

TGB Projects - My (unnamed) cohort and I have several TGB projects going, including two documents, two starter-kits, and a game. I love TGB by the way. Talk about a short turn-around cycle from concept to prototype. I love it!

Web Maintenance - Gotta do this occasionally.

Home Maintentance - Gotta do this too.

More? - Yeah, but I think you get the idea.

The Ugly
Finally, this leads us to the ugly. I just (yesterday) wiped out my web-site source and corrupted the HOW home page. Forunately, the product and support pages are in place, but my front door is effectively closed. The image at right is what you will currently see when you come to my homepage. Sigh... Yes, I'm working on it and will get 'something' up tonight to start addressing the problem.

And that, my friends, is that. I'm going to close for now and get some lunch. Then, I'll get back to it. Meanwhile, I wish you all success and ask for a little patience if you're waiting on me for something.

Thanks!

Hall Of Worlds - For Gamers
EdM|GPGT

edited typos