date_range 06/12/2013 13:52

                      I wanted to go into some detail how the fog component in the RTS project worked, which was one of the more specialised features you don’t find in other genres. I decided to use a three-stage implementation. Undiscovered Discovered Revealed The fog would begin as being completely undiscovered. As units explore, areas become revealed. Then, if a unit leaves a discovered area, instead of covering the area back up completely, the area would become only partially shrouded – only the landscape is visible and no potential hostile entities are....

date_range 30/11/2013 03:31

Well, it’s been a week and I’m still working on a website, 1 to 2 hours a day with another few spent on researching the DirectX 11 API in depth as most of my rendering experience is behind with DirectX 9. Having read through large text resources, it’s given me some great insight on future systems I intend to write, which means I can start posting more work samples rather than theory and more importantly, content that is of more interest to the public. In regards to the RTS project I have currently put it on hold due to the...

date_range 21/11/2013 00:19

It’s been a little while since the last update, mainly for two separate reasons. The first being I have had second degree burns on my shoulder for a week which wasn’t helping motivation to code let alone use a computer or do anything else, and while I didn’t do nothing I chose to take a bit of time off from any side hobbies until I could get to a point they’d be fun to code again. The second part goes for a website I’ve been creating for someone that’s essentially going to be used for a small community group, and...

date_range 06/11/2013 01:24

The next topic is path finding. It’s a tricky subject with an RTS as I’ve found, as ultimately it’s the most complex system each individual unit must perform, therefore it is directly affecting how many RTS units the game can have at a time. The faster the algorithm, the higher the theoretical unit count on the same system. I’m pretty lenient here with my unit count since I’m not asking for a huge Planetary Annihilation /  Supreme Commander style RTS, neither am I asking for the precision systems of the Men of War series. I’m going to go with a...

date_range 30/10/2013 01:58

Time for another update! In this post I’ll be talking a little bit about the back-end of the game itself, so any pictures that are in the post won’t actually be showing the game this time. I’ve still included some to keep things interesting. While planning for the project was minimal, I did think over the essentials around the time I started, and one of these decisions was to make the game somewhat data driven. This has multiple benefits, both for me and potential end users. Game data is easy to add and remove as items are handled modularly If...

date_range 25/10/2013 20:30

I figured a progress update every 3 days would be a fair update interval, giving me an excuse to slack off for a day (which thanks to some determination hasn’t been necessary yet) as well as give some headway in case I get stuck on a module that I plan to discuss, which shouldn’t happen for a bit as I should have enough content for two weeks already, assuming I don’t go off and make a huge post for some reason. Either way, I figured the next topic I’d mention is the command interface – the bar somewhere on the...

date_range 22/10/2013 02:52

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I’ve started on an RTS project. I’ve always enjoyed RTS games, since I’m particularly fond of systems that allow you to upgrade things or purchase stuff with your virtual earnings. On the other side I’ve always been terrible at RTS games so I never play them online either! Moving on to the actual development there isn’t much to go on right now. Every night for the past week  or so (Apparently the project folder was made on the 14th) I’ve been working on the game for a few hours, in quietness and...

date_range 18/10/2013 20:58

Some years ago, I set out to develop a recreation of an old classic game, ‘Operation Blockade’. It was something I embarked on before any real programming knowledge and it was both a lot of fun and very educational. I attempted to mimic the game as much as possible, as it was a game I really enjoyed. Suffice to say despite my coding experience, I actually did a pretty good job if you can ignore the many duplicate classes as seen in the screenshot above (Whoops!). Unfortunately about half way through the project I had somewhat of a hard drive...

date_range 18/10/2013 15:40

  As the three year plan from my old web host came to an end I’ve decided to transfer my hosting services elsewhere after having experienced less-than-spectacular website speeds among other issues. If you’ve visited the site before then that shouldn’t be hard to notice. Hosting is now done in Australia instead of the US and has allowed me to have more seamless experiences through FTP and other direct connections such as disk access. Having not posted anything for quite some time, I imagine this was an appropriate revival topic after a hosting services switch. As I’m writing this some...

date_range 23/11/2012 18:30

I’ve added a showcase page to demonstrate some of my more interesting work over the years. Go check it out via the menu bar up top or simply click here.