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BLaBZ

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Everything posted by BLaBZ

  1. Developing a failure sucks. You spend hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours on a project only to find out that it's a complete flop and nobody wants to use or play it. As independent game developers we have a unique situation and challenge. Our resources are limited and our conditions are that of extreme uncertainty. Acquiring certainty of the success of a project by collecting feedback early on is great way to determine whether to continue, change course, or drop the project. You'll waste less time when you know you're heading in the right direction. Concepts from the book "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries discuss the rapid iteration process of developing, getting customer feed back, and making forward motion based on the feedback. It talks about producing a minimally viable product, something not necessarily complete that may have potential bugs and modifying it till you find something that your target audience actually wants. I love the concept and hope that developers keep this in mind when developing their projects.
  2. BLaBZ

    It's Friday

    is that beer? And is that the secret to fixing bugs?
  3. I think it's great that using LUA we'll be able to write the same code and have our games work crossplatform. What I don't like is the idea that anyone could see your source code. Your design and architecture is part of your intellectual property, will there be anyway this is protected? Would there be a way for leadwerks to take your source code and convert that to machine code? Thanks -BlaBZ
  4. Time invested into a game doesn't determine it's sales. This is an important fact to acknowledge if you decide to enter the wonderful world of independent development. If I had to do things over again I would create a simple game and focus on addicting game play and mechanics. The real question I've been asking myself these last couple of weeks is what do people buy when it comes to games? And how can I incorporate these into a game the would only take a few months to create. What's your approach in making an effective independently developed game?
  5. BLaBZ

    Docs

    You. Are. an. Animal.
  6. btw, I've heard great things about mono and cross platform development.
  7. Well not all gamers are intelligent enough to install their own operating system. Gamers usually just want to play their games - they seem to have a "this is my computer make your game work on it" mentality. Linux may be a better platform but how to the gamers see it?
  8. While I should be finishing my game and engine a notable epiphany has hit me like a ton of bricks, the kind of epiphany that's worth writing about so the next time you decide to dedicate 3 years of your life to a programming project you don't forget what you learned the time before. My project has consisted of 3 sub projects - The Engine, the Level Editor, and the IDE. I've been working on "RTS Creator" for awhile, and it's a full suite of tools to make your own Real Time Strategy game with little to no coding knowledge. The project is 90% complete but the last 10% seems to be taking the longest, which could have been preventable had I known what I know now. Having a solid foundation before you begin development can really make development move along much more easily, and the things I would suggest tackling before even beginning development of your game are the following - Graphics API\Engine - In this case Leadwerks is a developed and tested solution. GUI - Having well tested User Interface api will make life much easier. Saving\Loading Mechanism - Writing saving and loading functions can be a huge time consumer. Using Serialization(Or Reflection to create serialization) you don't have to worry about updating your saving and loading functions when you make changes to your game. Resource Management - It's not uncommon to change your mind about some of the assets in your game, don't let the removal or addition of a resource create a world of work for you. Modular Development\Isolation - Create an architecture that's easy to add\remove functionality. Make the core game framework raise the events you need to for your modules, and make those modules raise their own events. Develop the modules in complete isolation from your game. Inheritance\Polymorphism - Make good use of polymorphism but don't overuse. Finding a way to use inheritance for your game that supplements you can make a huge difference. Take Your Time - Taking the time to design a good architecture can save you time in the long run. Code smart not fast These are the things that I've learned over the last 3 years and if I had known to do these things before and well enough I'd probably be done by now. Happy new years! BlaBZ ouT!
  9. BLaBZ

    iOS 6 Blues

    Way to go Josh, we really appreciate you bridging the gap and look forward to paying you handsomely for it.
  10. Wouldn't you want all of the objects to inherit the same type? Then essentially you're applying the AI to the same type but the child class *could* utilize the AI differently.
  11. Those are awesome 3d libraries if you wanted to make a game. But purely for conveying information you would want to use something different, something with a 3d based GUI system that would format text.
  12. Since the birth of the internet, web sites have been constructed from HTML(HyperText Markup Language). Displaying web sites was a simple process that consisted of taking data and rendering static information to the users screen. Things have become much more complicated, with animation, AJAX - a method of getting data from the server without reloading the page, and CSS (how web pages are 'styled'/themed'), yet the method in which these pages are displayed haven't changed but have been expanded. We still use HTML. As of March 2011 with initial participation from Apple, Google, Mozilla, Opera, and others the Khronos Group released WebGL, which enabled browsers with support for HTML 5 to access a computers GPU(Graphics Processing Unit). What does this mean exactly? It means that powerful graphics card in your computer that renders your video games can now be used in a web browser. This is a huge advancement in web presentation that has yet to be fully utilized. The Problem and the Opportunity: WebGL is based off of OpenGL and is an API to make low level graphics calls. There isn't a framework that exists yet to simplify these calls and support web like presentation abilities. Imagine if facebook or google had the ability to present information in a 3d world with any effect you can think of or imagine. If you've ever tried to "style" a web page you know how tedious it can be just to add rounded corners to a box or to get something to look a particular way. It's difficult and imprecise. A good exmple of what's possible can be seen here: http://www.ambiera.c...yard&mode=webgl If I wasn't working on my game engine I'd be all over this.
  13. Approximately 3 years ago I quite my job out of frustration and began a project I didn't realize would consume almost 3 years of my life. A lot has happened in the last 3 years including acquiring a new job and getting my hands on LE. 40,000 lines of code later I'm finally coming close to finishing this project. This has been an incredible learning experience in the world of OOP and OpenGL and even helped me to land my first programming job. From learning, to dedication and determination, I could not be more ecstatic about my first business venture and intellectual property. This has been a dream of mine and seeing everything come to fruition couldn't have me happier. I'm planning on releasing the full software December 1st, which I think is a doable date. It wasn't made with LE unfortunately, and I'm not sure I'd be able to release a software like this considering the legalities and the support for scripting included in the RTS Creator engine. Feel free to checkout the website! (Inspired by Leadwerks decision to go with IP Board) http://www.infotread.com/rtscreator/index.php?/page/rts_creator.html
  14. Great job Josh! I'm impressed, never would of thought there'd be much of a difference between procedural code and dynamically located objects....
  15. And when I say "cost of good 3d models" im talking about the ratio of your income to cost of things in general
  16. I totally agree to an extent. I'm not an expert by any means when it comes to 3d artwork, and good 3d artwork can take a lot of time, but where you invest your time can determine the cost of good 3d models. I've invested a lot of time into programming to progress career wise to be able to afford a good 3d modeler. Instead of being generally good at everything(a jack of all traits) I prefer to become an expert at one thing. Time and money wise this just makes sense to me.
  17. Good insight Rick! I'm feeling more positive about LE3D
  18. I'm skeptical of the idea of using Lua because it can't be compiled. How secure is a online multi-player game written in Lua? If I want to redistribute a framework written on top of LE3D how can I redistribute it with cross platform compatibility and security? Are we going to be able to code in C for iOS with LE3D and other console native languages?
  19. I had this thought today about Leadwerks and its origination, and the company that wrote the language the original Leadwerks was developed in (BlitzMax, Blitz Research Limited) and how Leadwerks and Blitz Research limited started in similar places, took unique approaches yet have similar goals in their products, being cross platform compatibility. Blitz Research Ltd developed Blitz3D, which was one of the first languages/libraries to have a well working standardized set of 3D commands. Later on Blitz developed BlitzMAX, in which Leadwerks 1 and 2 was developed. Leadwerks has a very similar command set to Blitz3D plus many more functions to take advantage(with simplicity) of newer technologies such as shading and physics. I believe the biggest feature and hurdle for Leadwerks 3 is targeting all platforms, which is similar to what Blitz Research's "Monkey" also focuses on. With Monkey you code once and can deploy your code in multiple languages, which makes me wonder... Does Leadwerks have multiple code bases for each platform? Would Leadwerks be able to produce Leadwerks 3 more quickly if developed with Monkey?
  20. As a game developer and programmer one of the most frustrating things can be choosing a game engine or graphics library. It seems this day and age there's a library of options but non of them seem to fit the bill. What am I looking for when I assess a graphics library/game engine? Compatibility - I want my product to be as usable as possible and reach as large of an audience as possible. I want to see my game on PC, PS3, XBOX, PSVita, Android and iOS. Flexibility - If you're lucky enough to find an engine that works on all platforms you're typically restricted to the language of that platform, it's great programming in c# for PC but now I have to convert that C for my iOS. Features - Shaders. I love shaders. Shaders and artwork seem to make the difference from a game that looks like it was made in 2000 or 2012. This is where I know it becomes a far fetched fairy tale.... Openness - If something doesn't work right, fast enough, or is missing I want to be able to go inside and change the source code to get it right. I haven't yet been able to find a library that meets the compatibility or flexibility I'm looking for let alone the features. I'm crossing my fingers that Leadwerks is it.
  21. BLaBZ

    ZombieTime

    Is this a form of A* path finding? Does the nav mesh act as a grid? Would this work on a sphere? Having objects navigate the outer side of the sphere? You're tickling my curiousity
  22. BLaBZ

    RTS/Tower Defense

    Looks awesome Rick! I've been working on an RTS Engine for the last 2 years, it's turned out to be a lot more work then I anticipated, I'm using A* and I would definitely suggest threading the pathing and make the main thread non-dependent on the the pathing thread to "finish." If you have hundreds of units it can be taxing, I've also implemented a grouping feature that finds units in adjacent gridsquares and only paths once for them. These little things make a huge difference and if you're having a fun time with the path finding as it is may be fun to optimize and add features.
  23. Disregard that last comment josh, me being dumb
  24. Ok I probably should of clarified, while using Leadwerks?
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