What are you making?

[CCCToad]

Renz:

One thing that I found helpful when modeling planes was to go out and get pictures of the real thing. Some CAD programs will allow you to set a photo or diagram as the backdrop, which then makes getting the proportions right child's play.



Also, that car looks fantastic.

[Renzatic]

Renz:

One thing that I found helpful when modeling planes was to go out and get pictures of the real thing. Some CAD programs will allow you to set a photo or diagram as the backdrop, which then makes getting the proportions right child's play.

Yup. I've got a few schematics in there already, assigned to planes specific to each viewport. I never showed them off in any of the screenshots because they're too distracting.

The reason why I had so much trouble with the front, despite having a nice schematic, is because a bunch of line drawn 2D profile cutouts don't do a good job of showing how that one plate on the hood separates from the rest of the car, and how it's shaped behind. For that, I had to eyeball it off a bunch of pictures I googled up. Hence the reason why it isn't as exact as the rest of the vehicle.

Also, that car looks fantastic.

Why, thank you.

Right now, my current project is this door:



I actually own this book, and always thought that door looked pretty cool. I tried doing it back about a couple of years ago, but found it way too complicated to finish at the time. Too many tightly packed knicks, doodads, and whorls for my skills.

Well, I've learned a couple of things since then, and figured it was about time to try it again. This time, I've managed to get alot farther.

It's not finished, of course (and yeah, I know, neither is the car. Or my skeleton. Shut up ), but I've gotten to the point where I can start doing all those tons and tons of tiny details to flesh it out, which I'm going to start tonight. I want to get it and a surrounding archway done.

Then I'm either gonna go back to my car, or finish my skeleton. Or maybe start a trolley. Hell. Whatever. :P

[Neb]

Hey, look! My first game.



It's a crappy clone of Lights Out, and it only took me a few days. Not going to share it because there are nasty bugs hiding in there.

[zombe]

Ah, bugs. Or "fish" as is often said here ("fish"/"fishing" just works better than "bug"/"debugging" especially as "fish" tends to be a slippery thing that is quite time consuming to catch ... even when you have very good tools and tons of experience).

I for one have not yet overcome my latest brain-fart ... while implementing some base classes related to opengl i somewhy assumed (and never thought to check) that index buffer is not part of vertex array object state. Well. Of course it bloody is. Also, while trying to fix it i noticed that my implementation failed to keep VAOs immutable - letting the non-immutable nature of them creep out.

Have to redo all that ... very annoying.

[zombe]

So, due of some unlucky events i am reinstalling a bunch of stuff and though that to be a good time to upgrade to 2010 (have run into enough "will be fixed in 2010 version" things). Though it to be stable ... like it is 2011 or something. But keep getting into trouble:
* macro expansion in config is broken (as in: does not work as in 2008) in 2010 ... can not use $(IntDir) for OutDir ... took me long enough to find where it gets the wrong folders (out dir was used only once: in /PDB).
* erroneous warning messages regarding to directories, which is OK as they changed stuff, but there is no ShutTheFuckUp option - you have to edit that stuff out of the used-for-every-project build script manually. x_x
* (windows 7 sdk) bscmake.exe for x64 is missing ... uups ... official stance: won't fix. i guess i have to use an older platform toolset then ... ok ...
* ... "LNK1181: cannot open input file 'kernel32.lib'" ... ugh ... like ... what!?

welcome to two-thousand-fucking-eleven ffs.

Some trouble is to be expected when updating your compiler ... but is it worth it one wonders :/ Any 2010 users here who happen to also target x64? Some advice to give?

[Yakoob]

Makes me glad I never upgraded, happily chugging along on 2008 Express. Main reason for avoiding 2010 is I hear it performs like complete shit, unless you have a PC capable of running Crysis on max settings while it also makes you tea and toast.

[zombe]

Got it to compile and run (in debugger) with x86 target at least - works - so, there is light at the end of tunnel.

* macro expansion in config is completely broken indeed: all target related macros contain garbage with my settings - can not be worked around either. Have to enter the correct paths for debugger manually myself (at least ProjectDir is working ... so, i can make a relative path out of that).

However - i DO need x64 actually. Have not found what is wrong with the linker error. The file exists and is in the correct place (just in case tested v100 as platform toolset with x86 too in case some paths are fucked up - nope, no problems there). Completely stumped ... tempted to use process monitor to extort where it was looking out of it (as apparently all the error messages are specially engineered to be as least useful as possible) - kind of a "Nuclear Bomb to kill a Fly" solution.

About VC being slow: i can confirm that it takes bloody ages to start up in comparison to 2008 x_x. Property pages are also amazingly slow. All that is only an extremely infrequent inconvenience tho - so, not really worth mentioning.

edit: procmon ftw ... it is looking in the wrong place for SDK files. It is looking in "C:\Program Files (x86)\...\lib\x64\kernel32.lib" instead of where it was installed "D:\...\Lib\x64\kernel32.lib". Now, how the fuck do i remind it where it installed itself :/

edit2: Yay! Found the invalid path in: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A

All working now (as far as i can tell/test)

[Eldron]

Scaffolding for building blocks in the world, as well as a tile-based "ambient occlusion":

[icemann]

If that doesn't sell well when its finished I'll be shocked.

[demagogue]

I finally got my custom "Cold War in Asia" Axis & Allies map to open in the TripleA engine today. That's not a small accomplishment for me. Now I can actually focus on balancing it and playtesting it. I thought some people might be interested to see a milestone met.

Here's a screenshot of it in-game:

[Ulukai]

Very nice, Eldron. Reminds me of a top-scrolling Terraria.

[icemann]

To build up my portfolio / CV I volunteered to do some level design duties on a friends university game project and came up with some of the following:





The goal of the game is to guide your "Planet Digger" craft to the center of each planet and cool the planets core before you are destroyed by lava spewed forth by volcano's on the surface. Developed 10 levels for the game. Was good fun + the levels only took me 3 days to make in total.

On a side note I've been doing a monthly blog of my on going games development experiences here:
http://beersandbourbons.darkbb.com/t...es-studio-blog

It began as a requirement for University when I was working on Bipolar Game, but then later evolved into a place for me to talk about my experiences both in games development in general as my skills increased over time and of my attempts to find work in the games industry since Uni. I tend to do extensive blog posts so if you decide to have a read, be warned that there is ALOT to read in there.

[Judith]

God, I hate unwrapping, I really do. I took me 2 hours to flatten, stitch and position all the elements for the low rez mesh, that's more than I needed to model HP and LP meshes combined...

[The Alchemist]

Eldron better make that game Mac compatible.

[june gloom]

just get a real computer you hipster bastard

[Renzatic]

Or buy an $80 copy of Windows and put it on your hipster machine.

If you feel dirty, you can just throw an Apple wallpaper on your desktop. That way people know you're using an Apple computer regardless of if they're looking at the back OR the front.

[The Alchemist]

I have WinXP on a VM. >_>

[Sulphur]

Bootcamp ftw

Sometimes, a Mac is a Mac and the girl in the skimpy négligé with the corset-curved hourglass figure and the most luscious cherry-gloss-kissed lips you've ever felt is still really a guy beneath the white lace of the latest Victoria's Secret catalogue riding up his nethers, so get a decently recent copy of Windows and a dual-boot already

[Vernon]

Mac compatible

[Yakoob]

God, I hate unwrapping, I really do. I took me 2 hours to flatten, stitch and position all the elements for the low rez mesh, that's more than I needed to model HP and LP meshes combined...

Oh god I feel you. I am not a modeller by any means but dabbled a bit in it; I can deal with making simple "programmer-art" meshes for my project, but the texturing is what kills me...

[Volitions Advocate]

I just thought I'd bring this up.

Anybody here who is a student of any kind should go to www.dreamspark.com

Microsoft gives away a lot of software on that site to students, you just have to register your email that you've got through your institution. VS 2008 & 2010 professional are both on there for free. So if you ever thought of upgrading from the express editions to the "Pay-For" editions, this is a great way to do it legally without paying a cent.

They've got a bunch of other stuff too. Like XNA & the Kinect SDK, Windows Server 2003 & 2008.

Not a plug, but its nice having the good tools if you're at all sick of using the free ones.

[Judith]

Oh god I feel you. I am not a modeller by any means but dabbled a bit in it; I can deal with making simple "programmer-art" meshes for my project, but the texturing is what kills me...

Actually I love texturing, even when it takes time, but I hate this UVW puzzle more than anything.

Still needs some fixes (you can see tiling and mipmapping issues) but at least it starts to look consistent in terms of color scheme.

[Renzatic]

Oh god I feel you. I am not a modeller by any means but dabbled a bit in it; I can deal with making simple "programmer-art" meshes for my project, but the texturing is what kills me...

UV unwrapping is the worst freaking thing about modelling, bar none. Even when you're finally pretty good at it, it never stops being the most tedious, drawn out boring freaking thing ever. Like Judith said above, it's practically like the punishment you have to go through to get to the fun parts.

I'm hoping that Ptex takes off for game engines someday soon. I'd have to practice painting in a 3D editor a little more, but it'd be so worth the effort in the long run.

[Vernon]

icemann, your work is looking great btw

[icemann]

Thank you . Which work were you referring to specifically? That I showed in my posts here? or the ones in my blog?