sorry if I fouled up that spanish anyhoo… #3

This one’s animation looks pretty good to me, although there’s still some work to be done, I might have a few more go’s at it. stay tuned

Keith

I’m actually quite pleased at the walk itself, it seems to bob correctly, and the eyes seem to follow through just a little bit later than the head. That being said, there are still problems with it. Firstly his legs are way too long. They whole body should be about 3 heads high (in this case 3 brains high). The brain itself needs to be less bulky, and be fairly uniform through out. I’m going to try again, and eventually will get to something I like.

Here’s the animation in a small 160×120 size, maybe closer to the way it will be in the game.

Keith

Well this is my first time, so please forgive me if I’ve missed anything.

Made in MSVC 2005 Express, in plain ol’ c/c++ using HGE game library.

Instructions are in the game. The game isn’t much but it’s my first actual entry into one of these things.

You can get it here - Minimalist Game

Keith aka Uhfgood

Here’s the final version, I will of course also add it to the comp blog directly.
http://www.gamesafoot.com/LD11_Final.zip

Well here it is, score, speed, even game over sign. It needs a few tweaks though, increase the speed so it starts out somewhat challenging. I also have to “minimalize” the menu because the menu was created from a tutorial from HGE website (Haaf’s game engine), it has a little scrolly background and some neat little animations for the menu items, gotta get that down. Anyways here it is, maybe i’ll finish it tomorrow.

Keith

Here we go —

ball centered and everything.

Whoo! I finally got something on the screen — check it. — Of course this may be all I enter in.

Keith

Supposedly my posts will show up on the ld blog, i’m not sure if that is so, but we will see. I’m not promising i’ll do anything, but we shall see.

Keith

Actually I’m just kidding. I’ve decided to transfer control over to SteelGolem.

First attempt at a circle, using sine and cosine, and connect each “angle” with a line segment.

Not exactly smooth around some edges.

Right-click and “view image” to see it in it’s full size

Well I managed to learn a little bit about lines and bresenham’s line. If I tried to explain to you what I learned, I would probably sound foolish, suffice it to say, I know a little bit, and yet a bit still eludes me. My attempt at drawing lines with this is working, but it’s manifesting itself in odd ways.

Here’s a screenshot:

As always to see full size right click and select “view image” or whatever in your equivalent browser.

Keith

quick update:
Here’s the new screenshot, apparently I didn’t have one thing swapped.

I decided to go back to school… no not a real school, you know the OLD school. I generally want to attempt to learn graphics programming, eventually leading up to building a 3d graphics engine. Yep you read that right, 3D. But that is a long time coming. Right now it’s back to basics.

With the help of Mr. Stephen Stair, I got a 32 bit buffer working in GDI. This is just to get to the screen, later on all of this should be portable to other api’s and platforms, as it’s going to be all software. Then now that I can write pixels into it, i created some functions to work with a video buffer for a 640×480 window/screen. By create a palette that has 3 seperate r,g,b elements, all I need to do is to reference the color index in the 8-bit buffer, which is then copied to the 32bit buffer. Now all I need to do is use the 8 bit buffer as I would have in dos. Bingo! instant 8 bit palletized graphics.

Here’s a screenshot of it in action. This represents each of the 256 colors in my default palette. I created the palette in code. The only thing that’s really off to me is the “brown” colors (at the bottom), they look more like some screwed up flesh tones. As straight brown is sort of tough to get correct, at least for me. In any case this will do as I progress.

While you may not really care, to see it at it’s full size right click and select view image. (I’m using firefox, so it may be different in other browsers).

Keith

I’m not talking about Wagons Ho this time.

I’m talking about my irc channel #GameDevelopers on starchat. I’m thinking of turning the channel over to someone else so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. See I have some rules, one of which is to keep the chat down to a G-rating. (For those not used to the U.S. moving rating system, it generally means General admittance or General audience. In other words all ages.) Granted most of us that are in there are adults. Granted sometimes people slip up because they talk how they talk. My ears (or eyes in this case) may not burn if someone says the F-word in channel but I’m trying to run a clean channel that anyone can come into without being offended (too much).

This post isn’t really about swearing though. In fact I try to be lenient when I can, and not to make a big deal. But it’s really frustrating when you’re trying to do what you think is right and people kind of throw it in your face. There was a small thing during chat today, where someone was responding to something in what seemed like an angry way, although I think he was being sarcastic. He said some things that were, shall we say, less than nice. I admonished said individual in an off hand way. Now it wasn’t a big deal at all. We’re all adults, he was either venting or was just jesting, and it doesn’t bother me that much when someone slips up every now and again.

What really bothered me was the fact that some people in the channel felt like making fun of the fact that I’m trying to keep it clean. Also the fact that some people seem to think certain language is not a big deal and that they can just say it if they want, and like I shouldn’t be bothered because they don’t think it’s a big deal. Excuse me for pushing my morals on you. When in fact I started the channel to get away from other channels that had become obscene. I never force anyone to my rules, heck, sometimes I don’t even direct them to the rules. I just hope that they’re mature enough to keep the conversation mature. Lest you forget, this post, again, is not about foul language.

It’s about respect. It bothers me that people don’t respect me enough to either keep to the rules, or at the very least, make it out to not be a big deal instead of laughing at me or challenging me. I’m not going to go around and tell people they must respect me, as if I’m anything special or whatever. I’m talking about the respect of friends and colleagues. The kind that like you well enough to say “Hey, even though I don’t agree with your morals, I like you enough to be respectful when I’m talking to you or around you.”

I don’t force anyone to come into the channel. I don’t force anyone to stay on topic. I try to be nice to anyone who wants to chat. It’s a free planet, you don’t have to come in and you don’t have to talk to me. You can choose to disobey the rules or not. I also don’t have to stand to ridicule. It’s hard enough to try (note I said try) to be morally responsible person in an irresponsible world when people don’t take you seriously. I’m a sinner like everyone, but I do try to keep a semblance of morality.

Because of that I’m probably going to end up transferring the channel to someone else. Then you can talk how you please, and even make fun of me if you want because then it’s not my channel anymore it’s someone else’s. In that case if I don’t like it I can stop coming in.

I would like to apologize. I’m sorry if I seem like a jerk to everybody just because I prefer not to see the F-word plastered on my screen. I’m sorry I was trying to make a small little corner of cyberspace enjoyable for people to chat in. I’m sorry I was trying to help people in developing their own projects or to help them if they didn’t know what to do. (Even if I don’t really know what I’m doing myself, I at least try to be courteous. If someone asks a question I never curtly tell them to google it. If someone is a newbie, I don’t try to ridicule the mmorpg they want to make. Or if someone is stuck somewhere and they want some ideas to spark something I’m always there to try my best — but I’m now sorry for doing all of that, too).

If you think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, I probably am. I’m not usually emotional, at least I don’t think I am (if I am too emotional most of the time let me know and I’ll try to curb it). I didn’t want this blog to be a dumpsite for my opinions, or my political, or religious views. The blog is for my progress, it’s to help me document my progress on various projects. It’s not even for people to necessarily read. (That is, it’s freely readable, but I don’t go around trying to blow my own horn). But this is the way I feel.

In short if I can’t handle people acting adversely towards me, I probably shouldn’t be running an irc channel.

Keith

Actually technically it’s thursday on the west coast, however it’s only 10 minutes past midnight. Today was supposed to be drawing day, and i’m finding it more difficult to go all digital, especially when you have only 1 monitor and no money to pay for the good software.

Still trying to get used to my tablet, and still trying to figure out how to not press so hard as i’m drawing, like I do when i’m writing.

Tomorrow will be music day, and we’ll see if I can get any of that done.

Well actually all day today I was working out some bugs on a contract game I’m programming called Wagon’s Ho. It’s just about ready to go beta, and those were the last few kinks. My boss/client (I liked to refer to him as that because technically I’m an independent contractor, but he’s running the show, so he’s also my boss on this game), will probably test it out a bit more to make sure there are no glaring problems before going to actual beta testing.

I did manage however to clear a path to my keyboard and plug it in. The guitar is right beside it, so it won’t be any problem to get at it. Now i’m all setup, and tomorrow will be art again, only i’ll actually be doing some drawing.

I hope to get the interface started tomorrow on Enchanted Lands. I won’t say much but it will be using pie/radial menus. Will keep you updated when I have something working.

Anthony Salter’s god game Planitia is now at .73 (don’t let .70 fool you in the title). I just played it. That’s right! and I beat the pants off that red guy! It’s pretty fun the way it is, although now that I know one of the strategies it’s a bit easy, but that’s okay it’s still a work in progress. Looks like it’s off to a great start.

Columbus said the world was round, and I say eat this Columbus!

Anyhoo. I notice that once I won, the little guys no longer reproduce. And they don’t go forth across the earth. I guess this is what God felt like when all the guys were doing were just sitting around building a tower. I guess if these yahoos decide to build a tower I’m just going to have to give them all different languages! Haha… stay in one place will ya! Look I toiled for over 45 minutes making sure this land was flat for them so they could move their lazy butts across my planet without having to go up hill and down dale and look what they’re doing. They’re just standing there shining me on.

I guess I’ll just have to wait for a new version of Planitia to come out!

Keith

Okay, so I’m going to start posting more often, if anyone cares.

Considering an adventure game is going to take lots of content, ie backgrounds, animation, sound, and music, i’m going to at least attempt to be a bit versed in a few things. If I get to a point where you can see how the finished game will be, and I end up making a bit of money later I might hire out. Until then, I need to do everything myself. So I sort of instituted a plan.

Firstly is art. When I was a kid I used to have some aspirations of becoming a Disney animator. Of course back then all I could do is copy Disney cartoon characters out of books and things. Come 16 years later and that’s still really all I can do. I need to learn drawing. I mean really learn to draw. I probably need to get some schooling, but money is scarce for me and I’m pretty much nervous around anyone I don’t know. However we have these two wonderful things called the library and the internet. So I’m going to soak up what I can off of online drawing courses/tutorials and maybe even a few library books.

Furthermore, I do have a graphics tablet and since paper is sort of a hassle (you have to draw, then scan then animate, and find a place to keep all that paper), I’ve decided to go digital and forgo the paper. Maybe sometime in the future when I wax nostalgic, I can go buy myself some paper and do it old school, but until I get more room, more money, and more time, the graphics tablet is the way to go.

Next up, we have — cartoon characters. Well I used to could copy cartoon characters, but in order to draw like the classics, one must study the classics. To that end i’m going to be pulling out my dvd’s, freezing frames and copying pictures (on the tablet I might add).

Finally we have animation itself. I’m sort of a fan of animation. Not really a die-hard fan that has every single cartoon known to man, but I enjoy classic cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s. (some before, some after). It’s a natural fit.

See when I build Enchanted Lands it’s going to be a 2d cel-style animated point’n'click adventure game. It’s going to take a lot of animation, and I don’t have any money to hire anyone to animate for me. So for the time being it’s me.

I decided every Monday and Wednesday I would learn each of these 3 things, 1 hour each. The rest of the day could be spent working on my game.

This comes to the other side, audio, that is music and sound. Well for the time being music. I’ve got an acoustic guitar which I can’t really play, and an electronic keyboard (and old yamaha portatone which like over 10 years old), which I’ve never really played. So I decided I spend an hour on guitar, an hour on keyboard, and an hour learning music theory. Firstly though I’m just going to learn to read sheet music, and see where I want to go from there.

So the music thing is Tuesdays and Thursdays. This leaves me with Friday, for which I’ll allow myself to play 3 hours of games :-)

So today I was spending time installing programs mostly. Since I have no money I’m using some free art programs like Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/ — Pixia - http://park18.wakwak.com/%7Epixia/ — and Artweaver - http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

Pixia is a graphics editing program, and art weaver is a natural media paint program. (like Painter).

For animation I’ve been looking at Pencil — http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php

Also a good friend online who goes by the name of DrPetter ( http://www.cyd.liu.se/~tompe573/hp/index.html ) created a program called celsynth, which allows me to use a tablet to draw frames and animate them. Pretty simple program, but does what I need it to. (You can’t find celsynth unless you go into the forums and look under general feedback)

Well let’s hope tomorrow I can get setup to learn music as well. Should be fun.

Keith Weatherby II

Umm… sorry I haven’t been posting. I haven’t done much lately, and thus don’t have much to write. As if anyone is reading anyhow. I signed up for facebook. Since I have some time to myself since my last build, I’m still trying to do something about Enchanted Lands. I went back to WME for a while, and then decided to take another crack at learning Torque Game Builder (Torque 2D). If I can do something in that, I might use it instead, because I can have my game running on mac osx. Even possibility of getting it on the xbox 360 (using torque x builder and xna creators club).

Keith

Well since I entered nanowrimo and I don’t normally enter anything, I thought I might as well enter LD48 number 10. To warm-up however (since I’ve never bothered to enter) I decided to catch up by doing 3 previous compos with a day break between them.

Only I was supposed to start number 7’s (growth theme) yesterday, I didn’t actually get started till today. I only have a few more hours to produce something, before I declare it a bust. I did however happen to get something displayed on the screen.

This is going to be the new version of starcatcher. No screen wrapping, and the ship will follow your mouse. The object is to catch enough stars to open up a wormhole to the next level. You do this by left clicking opening a targeting reticle and letting go. Everything in Star catcher range will be absorbed and you will get points. You can maximize your points by hitting stars that are about to go supernova. But it’s risky. When one star collides into another it will grow, until it’s a certain size, once it does that it starts increasing in energy. The higher the energy the more points you get, the higher the risk it’s going to blow up. When it does this you might be destroyed or you might be far enough away that you will still live. If you do still live, however, a black hole will be in the stars place for a period of time, sucking everything in. You can continue to gain points if you open a wormhole. But beware, if it’s open for too long, alien ships could come through to possibly destroy you. Alien ships are good for point bonus’s as well.

Here’s a screeny : Impressive, eh?

Click for fullsize:

Keith

Well, I suppose I could have actually posted something about it while I was doing it. I entered for the first time ever. I did win managing nearly 78k.

Here’s the link to my NaNoWriMo Profile

I was thinking about blogging the chapters but some people informed me that if I ever seek publishing that first publishing rights are a big deal I guess. If I blog my story it’s considered the first publishing. Which means I would get less money, that is assuming it’s ever in a publishable form and someone actually wish to publish it. I figured I would get some opinions as to whether or not it would be worth while to edit, rewrite, and polish so I’m still debating. I mean most people wait years to see their stuff published, and some never do. Then there’s the rejection slips. Not that I would be that bothered but it would mean that people won’t get to read it for years or not at all. So I risk losing first publishing money if I blog it. But then I risk not letting people read it if I don’t.

Right now I settled on emailing to friends or anyone who feels they would like to read it. I doubt many do, and it’s probably complete trash, but if you ever have an urge to read what’s in my head sometimes — uhfgood -+=AT=+- verizon -+=DOT=+- net

Don’t feel just because I typed this out you have to read it. It’s just some online friends have heard about me doing this and the fact I wrote 78k words in 30 days impresses them ;-)

Keith

I need to keep doing these until I get it right.

This time the timing was a bit off… so it looks like it slows at some point. It doesn’t look as bad in the animation itself. But somehow when i made the video and tweaked the speed settings, it doesn’t quite loop properly. It’s not terrible, but the last one was alot better.

I decided to put it on youtube because then you can hit play and it doesn’t have to load up thereby taking less time.

Well here’s to next time.

Keith

Edit. I just did a gif animation version, and the animation was smoother when looped than the video is… So in order for you to judge correctly, i’ll put down the animated gif here too. When I figure out what I did wrong, i’ll continue using you tube videos for even short animations in the future.

I was going through a book that had a flipbook as one of it’s exercises. I decided since I was going digital i’d do it with a tablet and a piece of software, DrPetter’s program to be exact. So to keep in the mode of a real flipbook I decided no onion skinning (if you’re doing the edge of a phone book or whatever, you’re not necessarily going to see the images below) and straight ahead animation. What results is something that looks like a grade-schooler did it. But I think it’s fun. Note the video may be a bit hard to see as it was just on white background and I sized the video to be a quarter size to upload to youtube.

Keith

Okay so basically I was deciding whether I wanted to get a new setup for animation. I was looking at animation desks, and graphics tablets to decide whether or not I would go paperless. It seems like it’s kind of becoming the rage now, 2d animation, but done completely digitally. In any case, I borrowed my brothers tablet which is 6×8. At first when I tried it in some programs I couldn’t get used to it, especially having to press down hard to see anything. Then I was on the afternet irc network in the #ludumdare channel and I got to talking to a guy who goes by the nick DrPetter. He was pretty much convincing me to maybe go paperless ;-) In any case I was talking about how I couldn’t really seem to do decent sketching with some of these free programs i had (gimp, an open source animator called pencil, and a few others)… I finally tried a demo of digicel’s flipbook and it seems like the software made the difference because it was easier to sketch in it. So anyways I was talking to DrPetter and he claimed he wrote a sort of sketching/animation program a while back, which I guess he never got to finishing or whatever. He sent it to me, and instantly I was able to sketch on the tablet appropriately.

Keep in mind however this is only my second day using a tablet, so my control isn’t all that great, but I think I was able to sketch up a walk cycle (the arms are still a little wonky)… And now i’m uploading it as a gif animation so you guys can see.

Keith

I decided to redo it, to make him a little taller… it looks okay but there’s a part that looks like it’s jerking and i’m not sure why.

Edit:
I could possibly fix that first one, but I decided after reading some of the Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams that I’d have a try at a walk cycle his way. Only this one looks almost like a double bounce walk. Not really what I intended, but amusing none-the-less. I guess I’ll have to go back to the drawing board yet again.

Edit Tuesday October 23, 2007 –
I tried again… that’s the third guy (the one on the right)… I think i’ve nailed the legs, well maybe, now that I look at it, it looks a bit funny. The arms were a bit rushed because i wanted to get it done within the time i was awake. So do you think I should go on to the next direction or redo this?

Keith