tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18939438912150334762024-02-17T00:32:48.987-08:00The "YAR" Project--- "Yet Another Rogue"Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-68278536782943073302010-11-02T15:50:00.000-07:002010-11-02T15:50:31.158-07:00Tinker TinkerSeems like I have found my groove right now. I kind of suspected that there would have been the mad rush at the beginning of the project to work on it and it would peter out a bit over time. At least now I am getting a better sense of how long this will take. At first I was stary-eyed and had great plans and thinking "how hard could this be." Though I knew it was not a Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-66872323504756075202010-10-22T13:49:00.000-07:002010-10-22T13:49:31.187-07:00On the Other SideThis week is Fallout New Vegas.
Way back when, I watched the closing credits of Fallout 2 after a very fun romp though the NorCal wasteland. I did my typical "Talkie/Sniper" build which is how I usually play any CRPG. At least for the first run though. Then a name popped up on the screen. It was a name of Warhammer GM in High School. And I went, is that him. AAndrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-74040462151457435682010-10-19T09:51:00.000-07:002010-10-19T09:51:41.230-07:00Meat and PotatosSo I have finished what would be the foundation part of the RTS programing book. That is mostly on textures and skinning and the heavy lifting of DirectX. Now it is time to put all the pieces together. First though, I need to take a step back. The code in the book is fairly simple. In that there isn't any real resource management, and much of the initialization Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-90242264127763295982010-10-04T10:27:00.000-07:002010-10-04T10:27:45.156-07:00Flying though the skySo I have finished all of Chapter 4 and I am on the final exercise of Chapter 5 of the RTS programming book. Right now I am have an issue with the vertex shaders and the terrain. Once again, this will require going though the example code and taking a look at mine to see what little step I have forgotten.
So far it is just a fancy terrain map with some functions for later use. Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-56274150316736189732010-09-20T11:15:00.000-07:002010-09-20T11:15:54.219-07:00It is the little thingsAfter beating my head against the wall, I called in a friend to help look at and debug the code. If I were in a collaborative environment to begin with, I would have asked for another set of eyes sooner. But after lunch at a nearby sub shop, I had him poke at my code.
Although the exact error was not found at that time, he did show me some more tricks working with Visual Studio and Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-48179022674538296662010-09-10T13:49:00.000-07:002010-09-10T13:49:07.151-07:00Hitting a New WallI am slowing working my way though Programming an RTS Game using Direct 3D. Only on Chapter 4 but I am taking my time to go over the code in the book and the full code on the CD to understand what I am doing. Not to mention going back to some DirectX resources to see why I am doing what I am doing.
However, I have hit my first real stumper. Some how I am getting corrupt memory Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-85522131462589759282010-09-03T13:45:00.000-07:002010-09-03T13:45:29.912-07:00FORTRAN is the Latin of EngineeringIf you went to Engineering school in the 80's you most likely had to take a programing in FORTRAN class. As I started in 1989, I too took FORTRAN. Two years later, entering freshmen learned C instead of FORTRAN. Granted I also took the C programing class as an elective, but FORTRAN was the required language. Also I think my year was one of the last years to have a Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-20504592445804391492010-08-12T13:38:00.000-07:002010-08-12T13:38:16.499-07:00In Scottland they speak EnglishThere is English and there is English. I am from the US and have what is as close to what is the "Neutral US Accent." This is the accent of the majority of news casters and for the most part the non-metropolitan east coast accent. Being a geek I grew up with Monty Python and other British TV as well as spent some time in Australia. And for the most part I never had an Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-11468722340603882312010-08-10T14:25:00.000-07:002010-08-10T14:25:42.239-07:00Looks like a DuckIt has been a few days playing with DirectX and the tutorials from MSDN. As tutorials go, the MSDN collection is fairly weak. Lots of steps missing that you need to go research or already know. Very little in the way of explanation. On the upside it was nice to know that I could fill in the holes myself, and that I have learned quite a bit so far.
Like the Win32 API, Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-83345528030849835692010-08-05T09:29:00.000-07:002010-08-05T09:29:34.277-07:00Character Is What You Are In the DarkThe past few days have been adventures in to the Win32 API. After all the elegance of playing with the STL and creating classes, I have gone back to fairly basic C style coding. Not only that, C-style coding with Microsoft style tags and means. I can see the various Visual Basic influences as well as some other old school language methods.
Now to be fair, this API has Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-78626808509574736912010-08-03T08:52:00.000-07:002010-08-03T08:52:02.050-07:00A New BeginingAfter putting a stop on Maze Mover, I have decided to take a few steps back and learn some basic Windows Programming. Well at least the Win32 API. Mostly this is because I am going to work with DirectX so I should get familiar with the Windows based calls.
The SDL API did some interesting changes on top of the standard Win32 API while using Visual C++. Then again SDL is Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-9985867209377431022010-07-29T10:24:00.000-07:002010-07-29T10:24:25.086-07:00Project ReviewAt this point, I have touched on most of the key traits I wanted to cover with Maze Mover. It isn't the complete Pac-Man game, but it has the elements I wanted to include and at this point I have gone as far as I would like with the current design.
So here is a bit of a sum up of what I wanted to do and was able.
Separate the graphics/game library from the programming. I did create a Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-69664123150533356512010-07-28T08:23:00.000-07:002010-07-28T08:23:25.901-07:00Back to the grindstoneThe hectic month that July seems to be is finally over. With work sending me off to different locations and Comic-Con, it kind of disrupts focus. Granted, I should have still worked though it, but a few other games got my attention. While at Comic-Con, I did get to run to one of my game designer friends, so that too has help rekindle my fire.
Okay, now back to the project. Maze Mover is at aAndrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-30364097005036340322010-07-13T09:15:00.000-07:002010-07-13T09:15:09.645-07:00It feels good when I stopWell after a week of testing and rebuilding libraries, I have come to the conclusion that python and SDL have issues. For now I will forego using Python with Maze Mover and now just focus on getting some simple path finding and AI functions hard coded into the game.
I was going to move off of SDL eventually, but it may be time to do so after I get enough of this game working as a test projectAndrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-41291890800830488792010-07-08T09:10:00.000-07:002010-07-08T09:10:01.927-07:00Immovible ObjectNot programing objects, but really annoying obstacles.
I have hit a bit of a major road block with the current Maze Mover project. Something between Visual C++, Boost, and Python isn't working with the project. It seems there are two problems, both of which need to be solved in the long run.
First is the boost-python libraries do not "out of the box" work with the python debug libraries.Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-10559979457393598092010-07-02T10:09:00.000-07:002010-07-02T10:09:59.299-07:00Things going BoomAside from being on travel this week for work, I had the unfortunate event of my laptop's hard drive dieing on me. The annoyance about losing "data" was minimal. I have multiple copies of all my critical data in various locations. All of the "YAR-Project" work is up on the Sourceforge Subversion server so nothing was lost there. A few documents that were in flux were lost, but I have hard Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-1987773546384891002010-06-27T14:14:00.000-07:002010-06-27T14:14:47.918-07:00Tower of Bable?As you may have noticed, not much on the "new" programing this week. That is because I had the joy of flying around to perform IT related upgrades. Although there is a lot of time wasted while traveling, not much of if is directly conducive to getting any quality programing. I do have time to read more so I have started Effective C++. In short this will be a book that I will read again in theAndrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-56612259864533130562010-06-21T22:25:00.000-07:002010-06-21T22:25:18.402-07:00A Coal Miner DebateOver the years I have classified many arguments on the web as Coal Miner Debates. Unfortunately my reference hasn't caught on yet. In the circle I surf, one of the most common topic of debate is "Is $GAME and Role-Playing Game?" There have been many variations on the theme depending on the boards in question. The most common variant I find myself in is "Is $GAME is MMORPG?"
Keeping this Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-79237398621118307272010-06-18T17:56:00.000-07:002010-06-18T17:56:29.853-07:00Snakes and LaddersThe last few days have been full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. Okay, not that bad, but I was hoping that I would have something more tangible to show. The last few days have been going though various amounts of documentation and web searches to understand the how and wherefore of embedded Python in C++. I expected it to be a bit easier then it turned out to be.Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-33200797452310605922010-06-17T16:55:00.000-07:002010-06-17T16:55:01.135-07:00The Changes of StyleI have always been a fan of seeing the development of ideas though common media over time. One of my favorite examples it Issac Asimov's Foundation Series. The first set of books were done in the late 1940's and then more books are added in the 1980's. What I found interesting is that both books represent more about the culture at that time then the future. How women are treated in the Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-73507761234179983582010-06-16T17:03:00.000-07:002010-06-16T17:03:10.521-07:00A Maze ingSo here it is...Sort of. The beginning of my Pac-Man like game. Still needs quite a bit, but this is fairly significant.
First off, I was able to use the tile board from before, but I the player token (Pac himself) is larger than the single tile size. So I had to do some adjustments to the collision detection for the board.
Also there was some rework to get all the Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-45568839200532055602010-06-15T16:00:00.000-07:002010-06-15T16:00:02.877-07:00It is all about ChoiceThis weekend I finished my first play though of Alpha Protocol. Suffice to say it was a short story. However, it is not really a short game. One of the big things touted about this game was that it is all about choice, and their are no bad decisions. Most RPGs that have any moral choices tend to favor "Good" over "Evil" choices. The Knights of the Old Republic series had a really big Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-82001822560913834282010-06-14T07:50:00.000-07:002010-06-14T07:50:57.219-07:00Row, Row, Row Your BoatThe past few days have been fun whit C++ streams and dealing with file I/O. Way back when, I remember dealing with char arrays and char pointers to handle text information. But most of what I recall was writing my own tools to crudely manipulate strings to at least do some basic tasks.
In my first career related job, I was introduced to the world of Perl. And lo did string manipulation just Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-72809170476363766222010-06-08T05:40:00.000-07:002010-06-08T09:43:44.076-07:00A Polar Bear......is just a Rectangular Bear after coordinate transformation.
The nice thing about traveling cross country is having lots of time to read. My current text is: Game Engine Architecture. 6+ hours flight time each way means quite a bit read even with the occasional cap nap to digest the information.
By the time I got back to San Diego, I had finished just over half of the text. One thing that Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1893943891215033476.post-48088689584152499832010-06-05T07:04:00.000-07:002010-06-05T07:05:22.440-07:00Warren Street NYCMy first real job as a Systems Administrator was at Salomon Brothers at 7 World Trade Center. A short walk north from the office is Warren Street, home of two of my usual haunts.
First was The Raccoon Lodge. To call it dive would be a complement.
But for us back office grunts of Wall Street, it was our little watering hole to forget about the days events. The interesting thing about the Andrew E Harastyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17001186769929793122noreply@blogger.com0