Some Random Stuff

I figured I should post some of the stuff that has been kicking around my hard drive for the past couple of months. Just a few things I have worked on...


This is an image that I created in Maya 8.5, it was going to be a robot character for a game I was designing in XNA but I dropped this project. He is kinda cool looking though. Maybe Ill use the concept in the future.








The Dragon here is an experiment in shading and cell painting in Photoshop. The dragon outline is from a book called Fantasy Clip Art from Andrews McMeel Publishing. The image was drawn by the books author Kevin Crossley. I did the coloring and shading following some of the techniques described in the book. Its not bad for a first attempt. This was done probably 8 months ago. I have gotten a bit better with Photoshop since and I think I would do better if i gave it another crack. I do however like how I did the shading on this image. It gives it more of a hand shaded effect.

Thats all I have found sitting around worth posting at the moment. I know there is more stuff sitting around here that I would want to post up here. Perhaps there will be a "Some Random Stuff 2" post in the near future.

Timers and Direct X

Does anyone know how to get timers to work with Direct X? I have been having one heck of a time getting it to work. Strangest thing:

This is what I got so far... I have a Non-Modal MFC dialog, this is my main dialog. It is using Direct X to draw to the CWnd object of the dialog to control my Editor View. It also launches another Non-Modal MFC dialog that is my properties window. This has nested dialogs associated with tabs on an MFC Tab Control.

Now, I want some CEdit controls attached to these custom dialogs to update every x number of milliseconds. To do this I was going to use a timer. However, it seems that I am doing something wrong. I set up the ON_WM_TIMER handler and create the void OnTimer(UINT_PTR nIDValue) function to handle my timer event. I called SetTimer(1, 100, NULL) to set the timer in the OnInit() function and call it again in my OnTimer function. However, it doesn't seem to ever call the OnTimer function. I can get this to work in a new project on a single dialog. I have also tried to get this to work on all the other dialog classes in the project to no avail.

Is there a conflict with timers and the Direct X loop? Please feel free to comment on this if you think you might know what the problem is... I will love you forever if you can help :)

Moving Time Again

I will be moving this weekend (woo hoo...). I hate moving, it reminds me how much stuff I have. About how much stuff I don't need, and about all the stuff I don't have that would make moving my stuff I don't need easier. It's not like I am moving that far though, I am moving from Houghton, MI. to Hancock, MI. and for anyone who doesn't know where they are, they are across a small body of water from each other. My work actually is right between the two next to the bridge.

The best part about moving is that I will not have internet right away (note the sarcasm). My roommate and I have not yet decided what type of internet to get, DSL or Cable. Neither of us want television since we watch most of our stuff online (I watch a lot of anime and he watches comedy sitcoms which most of air on the net for free). Also, the great thing about moving this weekend is that my car is overheating again. It is going to be a joy trying to get to my new house without my car dieing on me.

Needless to say, my development is going to come to a crawl with my internet down. No looking up good reference material or sdk documentation. Oh well, I'll just have to borrow the interweb from friends on my laptop in the meantime. My girlfriends new place has internet so I suppose I'll have to work there.

Coolest find ever... at least as far as fonts go

Cruiz'n around the net today, looking for a nice font for my scoring system and I ran across the best free font site I have ever seen.

Its here : 1001 Free Fonts

Check it out... most are free for personal and commercial use. Expect to see one I selected in my IceJeweled game very soon.

IceJeweled - Screenshots

Hi all, I figured I would post some screenshots of the IceJeweled game in its current state. It's still rough and no where near completion. Much of the game mechanics are there, but polish and scoring are coming. When it is done, you better believe there will be a download link.

Here is a shot of the game in its normal mode: cursor unselected, just moving around.

Here is a shot after a row has been made, notice the refraction shader at work...

Finally, the result of an exploding bomb... if only my artwork was better.

Hopefully you like it so far, I am always open to suggestions.

Vocabulary Trainer - Download

Its download time!!!

I have made a little app for vocabulary training. I have been trying to teach myself Japanese the last month or so and I made this to help quiz myself on my Japanese Vocabulary.

Download location is here: Vocabulary Trainer

Go ahead and play with it. You can make your own vocab lists (either for different languages, or for other vocabulary, either course topics, programming vocabulary, whatever). It is a very simple format, just a text file with the word to display at the top, ie: Japanese word. Then on the next line, its answer equivalent. Continue adding entries like this to make a list.

Here is a screen shot of the applet.

Should you build your own engine??

Surfing around this morning and ran across this article from Gamasutra:

Build, Don't Buy Engines

It is interesting to see a large scale developer talk about building your own engines vs. using the pre-packaged engines that everyone in the industry talks about. I think that there is a real truth about what he is saying though. Look at it this way, either you could be learning someone else's technology, which will allow you to be more diverse in the industry, as you can move around in the industry and not have to worry as much about retraining. Also, as a company owner, you can hire those with backgrounds in the common engine tools and save money this way. However, it is true that if you use someone else's technology, you are going to pay for it. Yet, if you spend the time to develop your own engine, this comes with two major benefits: one, its totally customizable however you see fit, allowing you to create the type of game that you want to create. You are not limited to the same FPS shooters that everyone else is building. And two, it's your technology, you can license it yourself and make the same kind of money that companies like Epic and Valve are making for their technology, assuming it is useful for others in the industry.

I am curious what others think about this so feel free to comment and give your two cents.