Christmas Vector Art
4th December, 2008
Spent a little time playing with christmas themed vector graphics in between more serious work:
Posted in Art and Photography, General Stuff by Simon
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Creating a Visualisation in Visual Studio 2008 (Part 1)
2nd December, 2008
I vaguely remember trying out something a long time ago with an old SDK and an old educational version of Visual Studio (obtained from university in the first year). There was a sample visualisation in C++ that could be immediately tested out in Windows Media Player.
But this was a long time ago and the files have been lost under several OS reinstalls and the voluminous expansion of accumulated stuff. Instead I would have to start anew with recent SDKs and the new Visual Studio 2008 for my Programming for Digital Media module. But because this wasn’t straightforward, and the number of circles I’ve had to run in will prove tedious to recount, I’ve decided to simply post what you DO need to do to get this to work.
Finished Critique and Presentation
29th November, 2008
Friday saw possibly the first final deadline for a piece of work this year, the Design for Entertainment Systems game critique. Entitled ‘A Critique of Dungeon Keeper: The Subterranean World’ it explores the techniques behind the immersive world created by Bullfrog’s original Dungeon Keeper.
Introduction
Dungeon Keeper was released in 1997 by Peter Molyneux’s Bullfrog Productions and was quickly succeeded by a Deeper Dungeons expansion and more importantly a Gold Edition that featured all of the combined previous efforts and a map editor that with a little bit of work could be installed and used to build your own levels. For me it was one of the most engaging of the early PC games owing to a number of reasons, teaching me quite a few things about how to structure a successfully enthralling Real Time Strategy game, as well as having a few quirky concepts that I have yet to see repeated since. But most of all it showed me what I look for in a game that I truly enjoy and hence influenced my own ideas for designs.
This essay intends to discuss how the game created a unique and immersive game world which translated into many, many hours of play from what was really a rather limited tile set with unassuming objectives.
Game Development
23rd November, 2008
Here is a little screenshot of what I’ve been developing for our Games Module game. Basically it’s been world generation and character control, and lots of difficulty getting a decent collision system going.
I started off with using a hitTest function on all the surrounding cells only (9 in total for the sake of using hardly any CPU), but this led to issues where the character would get permanently stuck a little-way into one of the walls. Not good…
Instead I’ve implemented my own system where I have a function that tests whether the target location, ie. where the player wants to go, is solid or not, and returns true or false as to whether they can move there or not.
The Project Model
22nd November, 2008
Here is a diagram to demonstrate my final year Project concept as an interactive process between the user and a virtual space:
Project Icons
19th November, 2008
When I work on vector icons I am usually viewing them very magnified so it is a shock when I zoom out to see the final product. As ever this was the case with my three Project icons, so I decided to save them at 400% before using smaller versions in the upcoming Project Model deadline.
The ear and headphone:
Sunset Photo
16th November, 2008
Here I have merged a few photos of a cloudy sunset one evening, quite pleased with the result even if I had to make a few compromises with the overall contrast:
Some Photos
15th November, 2008
Here are a few photos I’ve managed to take despite being very busy with my final year work.
Caterpillar
A strange caterpillar that my dad had no idea what it was, which probably means it’s not from around these parts.
Synergy Games
Rob and Tom at their computer screens and below is Tom playing about with the arcade-style game controller that we will eventually be using to play the game in a social environment.
Posted in Art and Photography, Games by Simon
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