Tom Marsh Programming

New Website.

2010-04-08T01:32:00.002+01:00

I have decided to make a new website on Tumblr, which I shall be using from now on, as oppose to Blogger. I have decided to do this as it makes my website allot easier to navigate around.

You can still access my website here:

http://www.tommarshprogramming.co.uk

On my Tumblr site you can view my blog, as well as completed projects and ongoing projects.

Thanks,

Tom.

Applied Games Development.

2010-04-07T15:25:00.005+01:00

Seems that I haven't wrote on this at all this semester!

If you don't know, for my Applied Games Development module, we are working in teams to create a racing game on Emergent's Gamebryo engine. Our team consists of 4 programmers and 5 artists.

Our idea is bee's flying around the house, such as the kitchen and bedroom. We have been working on this for 7 weeks now, and it is coming along quite well. We have handed in our alpha, and now are pushing to get our final product done on time.

Here's a couple of pictures of what we have so far, and will be sure to post a video once the final product is complete!

Terrain

2010-03-23T23:58:00.005Z

Hello! seems I have not updated here in a while. Woops! well i havn't (entireley) just been lazing about my household in my underwear, but I have however been doing my projects!

I'll talk about interactive for now, which I acheived much in. So much infact, I reckon i'll just post a video instead.

I have been focusing on terrain programming, loading terrain from both a heightmap, and proceduarlly generated, using both midpoint displacement and fault formation.

Note, I have not quite got midpoint displacement working, but it's almost there!

feast your eyes on this.

I'll post more about my others modules soon!

Direct Input and State Machines

2010-02-16T17:36:00.004Z

This week in Interactive 3D Graphics, we have been learning how to initialize and use Direct Input, as well as state machines. We were then set the task to implement this into our App framework that we were working on last week.

To have keyboard functionality in my framework, I first made an "Input Manager" class that would hide away all the initialization. This involved;

- Creating the DirectX device interface
- Obtaining the interface to the system Keyboard device
- Setting the data format (using a predefined keyboard format)
- setting the cooperation levels (based of flags that I had declared earlier)

Once the keyboard input was initialised, I then created a "IsKeyDown" function to use to check if a certain key was pressed:

bool InputManager::IsKeyDown(char key)
{
return(mKeyboardState[key] & 0x80) != 0;
}

this could now be used to move my camera on one of the DirectX tutorials I had ported into my framework:

if(gDInput->IsKeyDown(DIK_D))
eyePointX += 0.02f;

The state machine I found a bit more tricky. This meant taking out the tutorials that I had previously ported, and put them into a "State" class. My base state class was very simple:

#pragma once

class State
{
public:
State(void);
virtual ~State(void);

virtual bool OnBegin() { return true; } // Called when the state begins
virtual unsigned int Update() { return 0; } // Called every update
virtual bool OnEnd() { return true; } // Called when the state ends
};

OnBegin() - This was used for initialization, such as initializing the geometry and lights.

Update() - This was called every cycle, for setting up matrices and drawing the scene.

OnEnd() - This was called when the state was closing, and used to release any COM objects.

This was then used with my state machine, mapped to a unique I.D and used my Input manager to navigate through different states.

gStateMachine = new StateMachine();
State* p_LightState = new LightState();
State* p_MeshState = new MeshState();

gStateMachine->AddState(1,p_LightState);
gStateMachine->AddState(2,p_MeshState);
gStateMachine->SetState(1);

DirectX App framework

2010-02-11T23:04:00.006Z

I'm very much enjoying DirectX at the moment. This week I had to port the D3D tutorials that come with the SDK into a class-based application framework, which I will be building upon in future weeks.

To achieve this I had to understand what it meant to have a 'LostDevice' and how to reset it. Here is a picture of the mesh loader in my framework.

This particular tutorial was loaded in my project from the WinMain() function with this line of code.

Meshes app(hInstance, "Meshes - Thomas Marsh", D3DDEVTYPE_HAL, D3DCREATE_HARDWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING);

gd3dApp = &app;

return gd3dApp->run();

Java Game

2010-02-11T19:21:00.004Z

Just a quick update on my Java game. Admittedly, I am no artist, but just trying to get the mechanics in to the game at the moment. And if your curious, the "P" thing is a power up, that slows down the enemies when you shoot it.

Java

2010-01-26T23:33:00.003Z

I've now started semester 2, and in Mobile Devices, it requires me to learn Java, in my first lesson I made a simple little application in an hour or so.

Placements

2009-12-24T14:50:00.005Z

So, it's christmas time, and it means that i have to be looking for a placement for next year. If you are interested in seeing my CV then i shall be putting them up on my main site, and also put them here. If you wish to get in contact with me, email me at thomas.w.marsh@gmail.com.

Download links:

CV(.Doc)
CV(.Pdf)

Final Product : 3D Renderer

2009-12-17T14:42:00.004Z

So, after 12 weeks, my renderer is finally complete. I went into this module not knowing what to expect. I have mixed views on my thoughts on how well it went. There were some times when things just clicked, and I could sit there coding away and keep up with what we were being set. But then it got to a point where things slowed down, and certain aspects of the renderer were well overdue my proposed schedule. This moment was when it came to lighting. Getting my lighting to work and making it bug free took me the best part of 5 weeks to do, where as adding menu items and on screen information to make it more 'demo like' set me back so I couldn't implement all the features that were desired.

But this is where I got to. And it's not all plain sailing now, over the Christmas I will have to revise 3D graphics for the exam coming up in early January, here is a clip of my working 3D renderer.

Final Product: Unreal Total Conversion

2009-12-13T20:49:00.006Z

My Famous Five total conversion is finally complete. Since starting with UnrealEd and Unrealscript 3 months ago, I'm quite satisfied in the progress I have made, and the achievements I have accomplished. My main concern in the total conversion was that I would get too ahead of myself and propose to do things that I would not have the technical capability of doing. However, one thing I have learnt from this module, is that anything is possible if you just stick too it. Unfortunately I learnt this lesson half way through the module, so not all advanced features I wanted to put in there are actually implemented.

I've been spending the whole day trying to get a video uploaded, fraps can really be a pain, but after the 12th or so attempt, I have a video up. There are a few moments where there are random lag spikes, but fear not, they are not from my game but from the actual recording software. Also, I have created a youtube channel, where I will put all my projects on from now on. You can access this from my main site at:

Tom Marsh Programming

but I'll be nice to you, and put it here aswell. =D

The End Is Nigh...

2009-12-08T01:22:00.008Z

For this semester, and both my Introduction to 3D Graphics and Games Design Techniques module deadlines are dooming.

I've been spending a considerable amount of time on my Intro 3d making it more "demo like" to present to industry in a bid to get a placement. I have included such features as music, an FPS counter, and other on-screen information. I also made the menus easier to navigate around, and am now fully concentrating on optimizing my code, rather than adding more features to it.

Here are some pictures of it at the moment..

The majority of my time, however, has been put into Games Design Techniques, polishing the mechanics and fixing the array of bugs throughout my game. Thankfully, alot of these problems have been solved, however, one bug for concern is that when changing levels, sometimes unreal will crash when doing the garbage collection, I'll have to research this further, and see if there is any possible solutions for this problem. At the moment though, I'm struggling to find one!

here are a few images from the game at the moment:

So over the next (under) 2 weeks, I will be finishing off both my project, as well as explore development on the PSP in my Console Development module. once both are complete and handed in, I'll post videos of both the Unreal game and 3D renderer to feast your eyes on ;)

Big Update

2009-11-13T01:13:00.009Z

Since I last posted, there's many a thing I have achieved, and will try and sum it up into one blog post.

Intro to 3D

Last time I promised when I finally did my lighting on my 3D renderer, I would post pictures, and I will deliver. Here are a number of screen shots of the different types of light I have implemented into my renderer.

Ambient Light

Directional Light

Point Light (70 units away on the Z axis)

Point Light (300 units away on the Z axis)

Directional Light with Ambient Light

Point Light with Ambient

I found some of these quite challenging to implement (such as point light), and others that were quite easy (such as ambient :D)

Games Development Techniques

I have been implementing lots of features for my game these past few weeks. These include:

- Game Tools
- Mini Games
- Changing Players
- Talk Trees / Conversation Systems.

Here are some pictures of some of these. Bear in mind that this is not completely how it will look when finished. And there still maybe a bugs that I will need to iron out =D

Talk Tree

Game Tool (Compass)

Multiple Characters (and journal)

Intro To 3D Update..

2009-11-05T16:14:00.004Z

I've achieved quite a bit since last posting about my renderer. I found out that there was quite a few bugs with my previous version, (probably was getting ahead of myself as I was so excited about actually getting something on the screen). However, those bugs are now fixed, and Cartman looks allot more "3D", (there was some problems with my De- homogenizing code).

Also i have implemented some back face culling and depth sorting (click on 2nd picture to get a better look), and am currently working on lighting, I'll be sure to post when that's done!!

NOTE : I'm using a different Model to the last Cartman. Here is a model of "Homer Simpson" using my renderer.

It Lives!!!

2009-10-28T21:30:00.004Z

Great success, just a short post on how im getting on in Intro to 3D graphics, after many coffee-fueled nights, i finally have something to show for it.

Here is a picture of a wireframe of Cartman on my 3D software renderer. We shall be looking into lighting next week, which shall be interesting!

Woah!

2009-10-26T00:52:00.007Z

Things are definitely starting to get interesting now.. It's been an especially difficult week, starting with Introduction to 3D Graphics, were we were given a lecture about virtual cameras, and how to define one. We had a look at orientation (such as roll pitch and yaw, and referencing back to our rotation matrix we had made previously to achieve the desired rotation. We looked at Location, where my translation class shall come in handy and projection, which was especially tricky to grasp, and am still working on.

I've also been working through some Console Development work, paying special attention to branching and looping in MIPS. Below is a program i made that adds 1 + 2 + 3 + .... 100.

##Program that computes the sum 1 + 2 + 3 + ... 99 + 100
##
.text
.globl main

main:
ori $8,$0,1 ## sum
ori $9,$0,2 ## counter
ori $10,$0,101 ## number of iterations

loop:

beq $9,$10,exit ## goes to exit if counter is the same as number of iterations
sll $0,$0,0 ## sponge for excess machine cycles

add $8,$8,$9 ## adding the counter to the sum
addi $9,$9,1 ## add 1 to the counter

j loop ## back to loop
sll $0,$0,0 ## sponge for excess machine cycles

exit:
sll $0,$0,0

you can see here that the final answer is put in register 8

(13BA In decimal format is equal to 5050).

In Games Development Techniques we have been assigned to make a mini game for our map, which could come in useful for our final project. I'll be looking into the pickup class and interaction class in particular this week to make my mini-game. Ill post once i have completed it =D.

More Mips

2009-10-21T16:43:00.006+01:00

So this week I have been getting stuck into Mips alot. For the past week i have been working through some exercises that get you used to the bassic functions, such as 'addu' (add) subu(subtrat) and multu(multiply). We have also been learning about all the registers that you can (and can't) play about with, and have also been looking at lw (load word) and sw(store word) to take values from memory into a register, and also store from a register into memory.

Below is an example exercise that i achieved, i checked to see if this was correct, substituting x and y with different values, and it seem to work well =D.

This week i have been learning about loops, and the Mips substitute for the "while" loop, and if statements based on greater/less than and boolean conditions. Im currrentley going through these exercies now, and will post one once i have done them and tested them appropriatley =D.

## Evaluate the expression 17xy - 12x - 6y + 12

.text
.globl main

main:

#x = $10
lui $11,0x1001 ##gives register 11 memory address 0x1001
lw $10,($11) ##loading value from memory address 0x1001
#y = $12
lw $12,4($11) ##loading value from memory address 0x1001(offset 4)

ori $13,$0,17 ##giving $13 the value 17
multu $10,$12 ##multiplying x and y
mflo $14 ##putting x and y multiplied into $14
multu $14,$13 ##multiplying x and y multiplied by 17
mflo $14 ##17xy

ori $13,$0,12 ##giving $13 the value 12
multu $13,$10 ##multiplying 12 and x(10)
mflo $15 ##12x

ori $13,$0,6 ##giving $13 the value 6
multu $13,$12 ##multiplying 6 and y(1)
mflo $13 ##6y

ori $12,$0,12 ##giving $12 the value 12
subu $10,$14,$15 ##17xy - 12x
subu $10,$10,$13 ##17xy - 12x - 6y
addu $10,$10,$12 ##17xy - 12x - 6y + 12

sw $10,poly ##giving poly the value of equation

.data

x: .word 10
y: .word 1
poly: .word 0

Total Conversion - Week 1 & Group Project Comeplete!

2009-10-17T23:17:00.010+01:00

TOTAL CONVERSION

This week i finally started getting under way with my total conversion. Previously over summer i had made a basic level to get used to the unreal engine, but now i have started with the fun part - the scripting. I have been making my main menu, which includes buttons to my level, settings page, credits and exiting the game. The above picture is an early implementation, which involves background sound. I shall hopefully be adding more to it, and look into having an animated background.

Also, I'm going to have to spend a huge chunk of my time reading through and learning all the codebase. It looks a very daunting project at first, but using UnCodeX, it becomes easy to understand where everything all falls into place.

GROUP PROJECT

As mentioned before, our whole group where given the task of making 'The Hive' from Resident Evil. We handed this in on Friday, and being a team leader, there, there was exceptional pressure on me. However, all maps were in on time, and our finished project was to a good standard.

When running through the level i was very impressed at the amount of work that had been achieved in so little time, and learnt the vital importance of communication in the games industry. (mainly due to a few students who lacked communication with there team leaders and gave a map that was lets say.. below par).

Matricies Class

2009-10-13T21:02:00.005+01:00

For my second part of my 3D renderer, i had to create a matrices class, as with vectors, i was spending a great amount of time reading my books to get up to scratch on how to do certain arithmetic with matrices. It was slightly harder to implement this class than the vector class, especially when multiplying 2 matrices together, as my class can use 4x4 matrices. However i found it extremely interesting to do and allot of fun too. I then had a lecture on transformations, such as rotating and scaling, which I'm starting to feel allot more comfortable on, as a couple of weeks ago i would of been staring blankly at the text book.

I shall be learning about cameras next week. Very exciting!

Console Development

2009-10-13T20:41:00.005+01:00

Soon i shall be looking into to optimization of code, and too do this, i shall be programming in assembley code. As i have never done so before, i looked at some assembley code from a game. In the end i got this

LFA7D: STA WSYNC
STY PF1
STY PF2
DEX
BNE LFA7D
STX COLUBK
JMP $DFF2
LFA8B: .byte $00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$01,$03,$07,$0F,$1F,$3F,$7F,$FF,$FF,$FF,$FF
.byte $FF,$FF,$FF,$FF,$FF
LFAA0: .byte $FF,$00,$7E,$7E,$60,$60,$60,$60,$60,$60,$60
LFAAB: .byte $00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$00,$80,$C0,$E0
.byte $F0,$F8,$FC,$FE,$FF
LFAC0: .byte $FF,$00,$18,$18,$18,$18,$18,$18,$18,$FF,$FF

Looking at this at first was terrifying, so i went on the internet to find out more about it.

The website i have been looking through was this:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MIPS_Assembly/Arithmetic_Instructions

I decided to look at MIPS as this is what i shall be using to devlop on the PSP. Getting up to scratch on my number systems such as Hexadecimal is essential, so i have been reading CODE (look inside HERE) to get up to sctrach. I am very much looking forward to getting to grips with MIPS and developing on the PSP.

That's better.

2009-10-10T18:38:00.003+01:00

My website now has a new front page, linking to my twitter, youtube ( which i havnt created yet) and here, you can have a look

HERE

Vectors and Group projects

2009-10-09T19:47:00.003+01:00

I've had a very busy week indeed. After spending many days cramming in vectors to every possible bit of spare time that i had, i finally made my vector class, to kick start my 3d Renderer. Due to the amount of revision i had done, i have become very familiar with vectors, and implemented this with reasonale ease. Next week i shall be making my matrix class, so no rest for me, it's back to the math books!

Another intersting project that was bestowed on me this week was a collabrative group project with my class. The 25(or so) of us have to create 1 huge unreal level by next week, of our choice, that will count towards 10% of my mark. We decided to do 'the hive' in the film 'Resident Evil' and have decided to split this into 5 teams, each doing seperate areas. I have been assigned as team leader, for the lab area of the hive. We have a wiki page in which we communicate on which each other and discuss features and conventions to have in both our teams and as a whole class. It will definatley be an intersting team building experience.

New Domain

2009-10-05T18:49:00.004+01:00

Just to let everyone know, i have a new domain for this website that forwards to here:

http://www.tommarshprogramming.co.uk

Eventually i will have a main page with a portal leading to download links for my work, and another link coming to this blog :)

Eating Maths for Breakfast.

2009-10-05T18:19:00.003+01:00

With my new "Introduction to 3D Graphics module, I've had to step up my game in Mathematics. Last year, we did "Computational Mathematics", and "Basic Maths Techniques", which we're very helpful, but now as i embark on making my 3D Software Renderer, it's time to hit the books once more, to get up to par again. This week, i have been looking specifically as vectors, the dot product, and the cross product.

I have been looking mainly at 2 books, one is "Introduction to 3D Graphics Game Programming with DirectX 9" which i have talked about in previous posts, which has a good chapter based purely on mathematical prerequisites, that are essential to learn for games programmers.

Another book what i have purchased recently is "Mathematics for Computer Graphics" by John Vince, which seems like an excellent read, (I can't go to far into derail as i only purchased it recently.)

Here's a link to look at the first chapter, if you're interested:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/1846280346/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-page

A New Year

2009-10-03T17:06:00.005+01:00

Another year has started at Derby University and I'm very excited. It's pretty weird to think it has already been a year, and the amount of programming knowledge i have grasped in this short space of time. No time to reflect however, it's straight in with the work.

I've had a few introduction lessons this week on what is in store;

Introduction to 3D Graphics Programming - I'm very excited about this module. By the end of the year, we shall have a 3D Software Renderer, but first we have to become with the Windows API and WIN32 programming with GDI+. This week i decided to start making a paint application, just to become familiar with it all. Here are a few screenshots

Maybe i will be able to upload the program for you to have a look at once i have completed it.

Console Development - In console development we shall be using Assembly language, however for the first few weeks we shall be doing advanced computer architecture. This week we took apart an Atari Jaguar (carefully), to study it's components, we then had to do a technical presentation to the class with our team.

Games Development Techniques - This is the lesson in which i will be making my total conversion on (as i have mentioned in previous blogs). I have made a basic level, I will upload some screenshots soon.

I'm soon going to be investing in a.co.uk domain name, where i shall display a portfolio website and a link to this blog, so watch this space =D

UnrealScript.

2009-07-22T22:06:00.006+01:00

So, recently I have found out one of my modules for University next year. I will be looking at Game Development Techniques, and shall be focusing on the unreal engine, and unreal script.

I will be looking briefly into the level design, and have been watching the brilliant videos on 3DBuzz on the unreal engine which have greatly improved my knowledge on level design and touching on unreal script.

I have also purchased a book, Mastering Unreal Technology: v. 1: Introduction To Level Design, which was also written by the guys at 3DBuzz. Over the summer I will be reading through this, and also looking for UnrealScript resources, to get more familiar with the huge code base, and hopefully have something to show you =D.

Hollywood and the Games Industry

2009-07-14T21:15:00.003+01:00

Since I have not posted in quite a while I thought id share this with you.

This was a short 1500 word article I had made about how Hollywood will affect the Game Designers role. Enjoy =D

LINK:

http://www.zshare.net/download/626663078a1fb859/

Results Day

2009-06-19T19:11:00.002+01:00

So today I got given some of my results.

Software Development 2 - B+
Computational Mathematics - B-
Games Design - C.

In general, I am quite pleased with the results. I know I could of done better on Games Design if I came up with a more original concept for a game, however, the Game Documentation I thought was to a good standard.

I'm still am awaiting my Algorithms and Data Structures, and if I'm allowed, will upload some of my work to show.

Blogging Drought

2009-06-18T17:43:00.005+01:00

So recently i have not been contributing to my blog. You might think that seeing as now it is the summer holidays, i would be sitting on my rear end playing on my Xbox in my underwear. And to some extent.. that may be correct.

However, once i had a week of relaxing, it was straight back to programming, and i thought i would by some books to read through whilst i await for my results to come trough for this year.

I have currently brought 3 books; "Absolute C++", "Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach" and "Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Design" . I will be telling you about each one of these.

Absolute C++ by Walter Savitch

We we're recommended by our Algorithms and Data structures teacher to buy this book, but being a poor student, i could not afford the book. I am currently reading through the book in my holidays and i think it is absolutely brilliant.

If your either a complete beginner or intermediate programmer, this book has information for everything. It covers from the complete basics (variables, expressions and assignment statements) all the way to linked lists. All of which is very easy to understand, and gives plenty of examples to further your understanding of the chapter. At the end of each chapter gives you projects and exercises to do.

"Absolute C++ 4th Edition" is available at Waterstones for £39.99

Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach

Seeing as next year at University we shall be delving into DirectX, i thought i would get a head start. I brought "Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0c: A Shader Approach" not really knowing what to expect. The book is very well layed out, first teaching you the foundations of the mathematics that our required to use DirectX (in this book), again giving plenty of examples to make sure that you understand was it is talking about. The book seems very daunting to look at at first, but is actually broken down to make it as simple as it can be. I have only read the first few chapters of this book so i can't really say on how it is to read when it gets down to the gritty stuff.

This is available from Aprohead.com for £23.41

"Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Design"

I was often criticised when handing in projects about my style. I was recommended to get this book which shows you a "professional" approach on how to style your c++ code. Theres some things in this book that i would never would have done, and once implementing this into my code, realised how much cleaner my code was. This book is simply a bible for all c++ programmers, and just generally stops you from looking amateur.

This is available from Amazon.co.uk for £19.19

Results

I will be getting my results for my first year on the 23rd. Wish me luck! I'll be sure to blog about it =D

3D Buzz / Prototype

2009-05-15T15:38:00.009+01:00

Since i have 4 months now to do learn by myself back at home, i thought id start looking into some tutorials to further my skills in c++. The majority that i found online, in my opinion were very informative, and quite frankly no use at all.

I'd known about the 3D Buzz videos for quite some time, but never came around to watching them. I decided to do so, and i can say so far, it seems an excellent for beginners in c++.

I did skip the first few tutorials as i was already familiar with these concepts (Data Types, Operators, Functions etc. up to inheritance), but from what i have seen i have been pleased. They are very formative and go in to great detail about each step they are taking. They do now and then make mistakes on the videos, but if anything it makes it better, as these will be the sort of problems you will defiantly experience whilst programming, and explain what they have done wrong. In the end they teach you step by step how to make a very simple game with ASCII graphics, and how you can export this to the Gameboy Advance (yeah, its pretty ancient, but still pretty cool!). I would recommend this to ANYONE starting c++ programming.

Here is the video of the introduction lesson.

More information at:

http://www.3dbuzz.com

A game i have been very excited about recently is Prototype, by Activision. Watching the trailer for this makes me want to freeze myself until June the 12th comes.

The HD trailer is avaliable at:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/47738.html

(sorry couldn't embed it as it was too big =D)

What Now?

2009-05-11T19:27:00.005+01:00

Well, after finishing all my work it is safe to say that i feel great. I can now open my curtains and allow the sun rays to enter my room, which has been deprived of such a thing for many weeks.

But what to do now? over the summer i shall be attemping to make a game with my friend (who is on a Computer Games Design course in Staffordshire). Were not fully sure what were quite going to do yet, but i definatley think ill be doing it in XNA, seeing as im extremley familiar with it now =D.

I have to put alot of work to broaden my c++ knowledge. Which should be very interesting, after finding how different it was to use after being in the safety net of c# for the first few months. I reckon i may be able to squeeze a few trips to the pub in the 4 months we have free also ;)

I look forward to getting stuck in to these and will keep you updated on how im doing!

For now though, enjoy this brilliantly remixed song using Windows Error Messages =D

BLOCKED!

2009-05-05T20:43:00.004+01:00

As promised. Here is a short video of my Game Design game. Again, i apologize for the appaling art work =D

BLOCKED! from Tom Marsh on Vimeo.

The game consists of 3 levels. And took me a couple of weeks to do(including doing all my other work and fixing bugs). I have enjoyed using XNA, but now must move of to the world of C++ game development =D

Windows Forms / Left4Dead

2009-05-03T20:34:00.008+01:00

Well, after deciding to spend my valuable sleeping time programming, I finished my 'Software Development' assignment.

I had to make a plug-in to a previous program, which would store Credit Card information and another of my choice. I was using Windows Forms with C# to do this. Visual Studio makes it very easy to create these forms, and the only real issue i had come accross was text-box validation which took me many Red Bull guzzling hours. Although after searching around for possible solutions, i found out a way that worked like a charm. The following code enables the user to only type in Letters and the space bar:

private void nameEdit_KeyDown(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs e)
{
nonNumberEntered = false;
if (e.KeyCode < Keys.A || e.KeyCode > Keys.Z)
{
if (e.KeyCode != Keys.Back)
{
nonNumberEntered = true;
}
}
if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Space)
{
nonNumberEntered = false;
}
if (Control.ModifierKeys == Keys.Shift)
{
nonNumberEntered = true;
}
}
private void nameEdit_KeyPress(object sender,System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs e)
{
if (nonNumberEntered == true)
{
e.Handled = true;
}
}

In all, i enjoyed Software development and gave me good insight into the fundamentals of C# programming, which has defiantley helped alongside Games Design, which i am also doing in C# with the XNA framework.

Once i finished this, i thought that i earnt myself some play time, and couldnt resist the current £16 price tag on Left4Dead at Steam. Yes, i know im months behind, but from what ive played so far i think its a great game. The particualr points i enjoy about Left 4 Dead is the "28 Days Later" type zombies that come swarming at you to chew at your face, and after being comfronted by a witch after hearing its eerie cries in the distance, well, i think ill be sleeping with the lights on for a few days. It seems that Valve never seem to dissapoint.

Its Over...

2009-04-30T19:04:00.003+01:00

Well, as we are quickly approaching the end of our semester at the University of Derby, we today concluded one of our modules "The Computing Enviroment"

This module was "designed to help students recognise that there are subtle differences between everyday approaches to discussion and argument and how academic communities approach problems."

I think this is definatley a debatable remark. All the modules that i have so far taken on this course have been extremley useful for me to progress as a programmer, however after this module i feel my appetite for knowledge has been left to starve.

My main reason for this is because i question its use to me in the Games Industry, we had lecture after lecture on how to harvard refrence, in which i do belive was useful to know, but too much emphasis was put on to it, like they didnt know how else to waste time until it was time to go.

The only part of interest to me was the coursework we was given to research procedural generation, in which i gained valuable knowledge, we also made a procedurally generated program, and hope to make a more advanced one in my free time.

So now i can concentrate on 'real' modules, creating my casual game for Games Design, working more on my Binary Search Tree for Algorithms and Data Structres, and my credit card from for Software Development. I will post finished work as soon as i can =D

Some things to check out

2009-04-28T18:08:00.006+01:00

For all of you that are aspiring to be in the games industry, there are definatley some links you should check out.

http://www.ajongamesdev.blogspot.com
http://kennardgames.blogspot.com

These 2 blogs are some guys that are also on my course at the Univeristy of Derby. There blogs are pretty much the same, talking about there experiences of Computer Games Programming =D.

http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/2008careerguide/

Yea, its a little outdated but its a fantastic read for checking out excatly what its like to work in the games industry. It covers lots of subjects, ranging from what to say at an interview to showcasing student games. Definatley worth a read.

http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/

If your if your familiar with programming already you would of heard of this website, it gives you code for a "99 bottles of beer on a wall" program. There are some very interesting languages out there, one of my favourite being lolcode =D

99 bottles lolcode :

BTW LOLCODE version of 99 Bottles of beer
BTW By Mike Gogulski (http://www.gogulski.com/) 13 July 2007
BTW LOLCODE is a programming language by and for lolcats
BTW http://www.lolcode.com/
BTW
BTW Tested with:
BTW sjlol version 1.1 for lolcode 1.0
BTW Win32 binary: http://www.rit.edu/~sjl7678/sjlol.zip
BTW Home: http://lolcode.com/implementations/sjlol
BTW Online interpreter: http://wealhtheow.rh.rit.edu:8080/index
BTW (Doesn't work with comments, so delete all "BTW" lines)
BTW
BTW Save as 99BOTTLZ.LOL, start with "sjlol 99bottlz.lol"
BTW
BTW LOLCATZ CNT SPEL 2 GUD
BTW
HAI
VISIBLE "O HAI! IM IN UR BEERZ!"
I HAS A VAR
LOL VAR R 99
IM IN YR LOOP
VISIBLE VAR!
VISIBLE " BOTTLZ OF BEER N TEH WALL, "!
VISIBLE VAR!
VISIBLE " BOTTLZ OF BEER!"
VISIBLE "TAKE 1 DWN, PAS IT AROUN, "!
NERFZ VAR!!
IZ VAR LIEK 0?
YARLY
VISIBLE "NO MOAR"!
NOWAI
VISIBLE VAR!
KTHX
VISIBLE " BOTTLZ OF BEER N TEH WALL!"
IZ VAR LIEK 0?
GTFO
KTHX
KTHX
VISIBLE "GIEV MOAR PLZ! KTHXBAI!"
KTHXBYE

My first year of programming

2009-04-19T22:12:00.004+01:00

Well, i started my course in September last year, and were about to break up in a couple of weeks for the summer, which will mark the end of my first year doing Computer Games Programming.

It seems to have gone extremely fast. It only seems like yesterday i was struggling with the basic fundamentals of c#, and now am going on to the world of 3D programming. It has been extremely frustrating and just damn annoying at times, but its defiantly been fun. Being able to take part in such competitions as X48 and really getting to understand what its like in the games industry has been a big eye opener, and its going to take a hell of a lot of effort and crates of Red Bull until I'm fit for my placement year in industry!

If your thinking about going to start a Games Programming course, from my experience there are some factors that are essential in order to sauced in it.

1) You MUST be prepared to spend hours a day practising your programming. Just doing what the teacher tells you to do will not make you a successful programmer, explore a bit more and try to impress them.

2) I never did maths or physics before i came to do this course, and i can quite honestly say that was a HUGE mistake. I'm having to get extra tutorials over the Summer holidays from a private tutor so that I'm up to scratch with some of the other students, and if your taking these courses for an A-Level, it will most defiantly benefit you in the future.

3) Keeping up to date in the goings on in the industry is a must. Threes some great websites out there such as Gamasutra (www.gamasutra.com) and Euro Gamer (www.eurogamer.net) that always has updates on the industry.

4) Don't give up! theres been many times where Ive been given an assignment and thought it was pretty much impossible, but if you have the determination to try and succeed, you'll do it!

Ill keep you posted on how i done in my exams / assignments, as well as post a video on my Games Design game!

Tom.

P.S. If you happen to have Xbox Live, check out this weeks Inside Xbox, in which it features X48, where they show a few seconds footage of our game (and me! =p)

The Future of Videogames?

2009-04-13T19:48:00.013+01:00

It was announced at this years GDC, that the "future of videogames was here". Onlive, aims to shift video games "cloud" based, delivering the latest titles via broadband internet.

I had my doubts about this new way to play games, and many issues that would arise. Especially in the United Kingdom;

1) The average broadband speed in the UK is only around 3mps, (according to the Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/feb/20/averageukbroadbandspeedis) which sureley, for the majority would effect the reliability of the game and result in fustrated customers.

2) People like having the physical game. Nothing is more exciting than getting up early and going to your nearest GAME store, buying the game and reading the back of the game in anticipation as your on the bus back home, where you will hibernate in your room for 3 days straight. I fear that just selecting a game in which you wish to play straight away will make the fun of gettting the game literally vanish? although there are some suggestions (i.e. steam) that this is not the case.

However, i did watch an interview at GDC 09, where they answered some of my concerns. The box will determine what broadband connection you have got, and change the definition based on this. For instance, a 5mps conection would give you the full definition game, where as if you have a 1mps connection you would be playing in standard definition.

The interview also showed the dashboard and how the system worked, and i must admit it looked extremley cool. The dashboard was modern, and fashionable, and looked easy to navigate, it reminded me alot of youtube, having each game, information on the game and star rating.

It seems that publishers are welcoming this idea, with 9 major publishers supporting OnLive, such as Atari, Codemasters, Epic, EA, Take Two, THQ, Warner Brothers, Eidos and Ubisoft.

What intrigued me the most in this interview was what they were doing to enhance the community on in gaming. This was really the selling point for me. It is possible to view other people play other games. The great thing is, is that you dont even have to own the game to watch people, and the amount of people that can watch you is unlimited. There will also be a "brag" button. This will be if you have pulled of some insane trick, got an "ultramegasuper kill" or anything cool like this, you can hit the brag button, which will record the last 10 - 15 seconds of the game, which other can view.

This will bring a whole new wave of competitive gaming. You will want to be the best at a certain game and play for hours on end trying to collect "groupies" that will gasp in awe at your awesomeness.

This all sounds amazing, but its a another argument whether they will pull it off. Im going to apply for the beta and if im lucky enough ill see if it does. =D

the link for the interview is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxReVwEYTAs

Current Game Programming Projects

2009-04-08T16:25:00.006+01:00

Im currentley making my first ever full game in XNA, after beggining to learn XNA from Janurary this year. The game has to be a simple, game for the demographic of 30 +, in which they would play in there spare time. Here are a few screen shots of the game so far, i apologize for the terrible programmer art, the game is extremley basic at the moment, and i shall release a video once the project is complete =D.

The Maw

2009-04-08T14:42:00.008+01:00

I was innocentley browsing the games on steam a couple of days ago and came across an intriguing game. Ive seen it quite a few times posted around steam, so i thought id download the demo.

I was pleasentley suprised with the gameat first. The cute charecters and bright colours reminded me of the joy i experienced when i was playing Spyro the Dragon when i was young, and i really enjoyed the aspect of having this blob as a "pet" other than actually controlling it yourself. However, after 20 minutes or so eating insignificant creatures and running to collect my maw from the river after eating a ball of fire, the feeling of repetitiveness kicked in, and after about 30 minutes of playing, it felt more of a chore than a game. The strange noises that your purple creature makes is humurous and cute at first, but later on prompltly set my volume down to "0".

Beside those negative aspects it is alot of fun to play casually, and will definatley satisfy the needs of children aged 12 - 17. The game is available to purchase on steam.

And Yet It Moves

2009-04-04T23:04:00.007+01:00

Since i started my course, its been literally drilled in to me to play indie games. Since then ive always been a fan of platformers which querky elements to it, such as Braid(which im sure all of you have played by now, if not DO IT). I came across one today called "And Yet It Moves" which seems extremley interesting. Check out the video, the game is avaliable via steam.

X48 Game Camp

2009-04-03T20:29:00.002+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, i was lucky enough to enter Microsoft's X48 competition. 80 students came to the University of Derby to show off there XNA skills, and create a game within 48 hours(well.. more like 36). The genre of the game was to be given to us on the day, which was to do with "evolution". I was one of the wild cards, and me and a fellow student from the University of Derby was put with 2 students from London Met.

It was definatley a good experience working with totally new people, and within a (extremley) tight deadline. After many cans of Red Bull and 36 hours of pure coding we had a pretty tight game. However, a couple of hours before the deadline, there was some slight confusion amongst everyone which resulted in alot of the code being overwritten. This was really unfortunate, as at the end we ended up with a half finished game. However, we were extremley happy to be awarded "best unfinished game" and even more happy to be given a case of relentless =D. It was definatley a great experience for all of us, and will take alot from this.

To check out the games go to here:

www.x48gamecamp.com

To check out my teams (half) game, go to here:

www.x48gamecamp.com/evo

Introduction

2009-04-03T15:11:00.002+01:00

Hi!

Im currentley doing a Computer Games Programming course at the University of Derby, ive been here for 6 / 7 months now, and im enjoying it a hell of a lot! (although i spend alot of my time pulling my hair out).

I made this blog to show you how i progress through my course, and how im finding it as a begginer programmer. Ill also be gving my views on certain games that have attracted my attention!

feel free to message me if you have any questions!

Tom