RyanGoGame

Hungry Monsters Prototype

2012-01-15T21:47:00.013-06:00

While on my recent business trip, I spent my time at the airport and on the plane programming a game concept I've been thinking about a lot lately: Hungry Monsters (the first prototype). Fair warning, there is no game play yet, but merely a rapid prototype of the game play elements, specifically the resource management of employees, work stations, ammunition and the actual playing field.

Hungry Monsters is very similar to Plants vs. Zombies, but with my own engineering spin on it. What's different, at least in my design, is that the player will have to decide how to spend their resources differently by running a bakery to provide the food (the ammunition), as well as place weapons to fend off (feed) the onslaught of hungry monsters. Players will have to decide if they place another muffin shooter, an oven, or another employee for instance.

The prototpye at this stage doesn't allow the player to do anything yet, but was built to allow me to investigate the idea. Through the Unity Editor I'm able to try different combination of things. Considering this took me about 6 hours (built from scratch in airports and on the flight for a recent business trip) I'm pretty happy with the outcome and excited to move on. Please excuse the Microsoft Paint artwork and simple geometry, it is a first pass prototype!

In the next version I hope to have the basic interactive elements working to allow placement of work stations, workers and weapons. (I need a better word for weapons too!)

Booth Bunny Me

2012-01-14T22:11:00.000-06:00

I was out of town this last week, employed as a booth bunny for a simulation demonstration we made to showcase a number of our systems. It's fun and frustrating and exciting and boring, all in one!

Photograph is Fun!

2011-11-27T20:47:00.000-06:00

I'm working on a freelance gig for a mobile app. I won't go into much detail, but its very entertaining. I'm building some interesting photography setups to take some pictures of things I never thought I'd be taking pictures of.

Minnetron 10,000 Arcade Viewer

2011-11-04T00:06:00.003-05:00

I've made a Unity Web Player version of my Arcade Viewer for the Minnetron 10,000 Arcade Cabinet I've been building. My intent was that this would both show how the cabinet goes together (since I built it digitally in Blender first, why not use it?) and to allow others to try out paint job concepts.

To see the "game" click on the image. You may need to install the Unity Web Player, but it will be worth it! Or just download the Windows executable.

http://ryanfoss.com/games/prototype/arcadecab/

FYI, the name "Minnetron 10,000" is a play on the Minnesota nickname "Land of 10,000 Lakes".

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T00:59:00.000-05:00

I went crazy with costumes this year and got the family to do a Plants vs. Zombies theme.

We even made it onto the Plants vs. Zombies Facebook page!

More pictures in my Google+ Plants vs. Zombies Halloween 2011 gallery.

Arcade Wood Construction Almost Done

2011-10-23T23:16:00.000-05:00

Construction continues as you can see in the image below. I'm almost done with all the major cutting and nailing. Just four more cuts on some plywood and I should be ready to sand and poly. I was about to finish the control panel but I decided to take a step back and think about how I can build it so I can get at the controls and wires without a lot of trouble.

I learned from my controller experiment is that my wiring connections needed to be checked and rechecked. Even though I was using the right connectors, I was fighting the contacts. I think I know what to do right this time, but my test controller was open on the bottom which facilitated working on the button and IPac2 connections. For this arcade, I want to make sure I can build and get at the buttons without too much trouble.

Blocks that Fall in Unity

2011-10-19T09:22:00.000-05:00

If you've been to the IGDA Twin Cities meetings, or have seen any of the videos (here and here) where I presented the idea of collaborative game developing, you know that the group is off and running. We're moving forward with a Mr. Driller inspired climbing game of block destruction.

We've done a lot of development over the two months we've been at it. However, at the last meeting a number of bugs showed up during the live demo. Due to certain circumstances (my laptop fell to ground and quit working) I ran the game demo on a netbook. Although the game still played well, a number of bugs appeared more often than in my play testing, probably related to framerate and physics calculations.

As a game developer, something I've always wanted to do was program a Tetris clone. Why? Well, because although its simple, its also a good exercise in programming for a novice game programmer. Alas, its also one of those things I've never done (but always think about). Given the troubles we're experiencing with the existing block falling code in the game, I decided it was time to take a crack at it.

Acrade construction continues

2011-10-05T00:18:00.000-05:00

I'm building my arcade cabinet in three parts: top, bottom and controls. These pictures show me putting the top and bottom together. It's the right height and seems pretty stable.

Three Riker Picard

2011-10-04T22:24:00.002-05:00

I made this last night for the IGDA Twin Cities Podcast Episode 9, titled Three Riker Picard. Listen to it if you want to hear how this idea came to be.

Lady Killer T-Shirt Design

Check out "Three Wolf Moon" on Amazon if you don't know what it is to see the inspiration for this work of art!

Arcade cabinet in action

2011-09-14T00:09:00.003-05:00

I'm getting ready for the IGDA meeting. I'm presenting again, this time with props.

IGDA Twin Cities Podcast #8

2011-09-08T23:52:00.000-05:00

We've published another IGDA Twin Cities podcast. We had some recording problems, but its still full of interesting conversation.

I presented at IGDA Twin Cities

2011-08-26T01:09:00.000-05:00

I presented at this month's IGDA Twin Cities meeting. I want to find others with similar interests in Arcade machines and video games and see if we can start something. I would love to see a Winnitron in MN, and I'd love to make a game for it.

Anyway, check out my presentation. I was awesome like usual.

Arcade Games and Independent Games on the Winnitron.

Arcade Design

2011-07-29T01:05:00.000-05:00

I've made some interesting progress with my Arcade cabinet design. I've experimented with the idea of it being more modern that typical arcade cabinets, and emphasizing the smaller depth that I can get using newer and smaller hardware, such as a flat screen monitor. I built it in Blender to help me visualize it, as well as think about how to put it together.

I took it a step further and built an approximate 1/3 scale model using foam board. I measured the thickness of the board and assumed it would be equivalent to 1/2 inch thick MDF and scaled from there. It stands 27 inches tall, where the real design is 6 feet tall. The "monitor" in this case is just black and blue construction paper the scale size of a 24 inch monitor.

Arcade Controller Progress

2011-07-19T19:43:00.000-05:00

2 Player Controller

I finished my test game controller some time ago. My intent was to build it both for function, as well as to see how the construction would go. The general construction was fine, using MDF and shelving boards, however the painting was a learning experience. I wanted it to be super smooth and glossy, so I spent a lot, I mean a lot of time sanding.

Stick and button configuration.

I started using a semi-glossy latex wall paint which went on well, but left a lot of texture. It was also sticky, even after drying for weeks, such that if you rest your hands on the paint you had to peel them off. I painted about 7 coats of the latex paint, each with a thorough sanding after drying. The tackiness wasn't right so I sanded again with a real rough grain and switched to an enamel gloss paint. It turned out great!

The controls are pretty simple using the I-PAC 2 from Ultimarc. It works great, acting like a keyboard plugged into the computer.

E3 2011

2011-07-01T23:37:00.001-05:00

I love E3, its so much fun to see happen. A combination of what they say and how they say it.

It was a great subject for the IGDA Twin cities podcast, though I only said half of what's on my mind. We talk E3 at great length, covering everything from Microsoft’s Kinect boner, to Sony’s apology and Nintendo’s new console. Check it out.

Podcasting, Episode 5

2011-05-29T22:33:00.003-05:00

Perhaps we were a little crude, but it was fun. We had a guest on too. Check IGDATC.org to listen to the podcast, or check it out the on iTunes.

Another podcast published

2011-05-02T23:27:00.001-05:00

Portal 2 consumes me... but I managed to find the time to record a IGDA Twin Cities Podcast and talk about Portal 2.

Check IGDATC.org or on iTunes to listen to the podcast.

Arcade Controller

2011-04-15T12:05:00.000-05:00

I've finally built and arcade controller. It was pretty easy, though I changed my mind about using a KE72 and decided to use I-PAC 2 from Ultimarc instead. It was brilliantly simple to assemble and has been a lot of fun. I've also toyed with Hyperspin as a front end, but without many games and content, Hyperspin is a chore to find games that work. However, it does come with a lot of documentation and helper programs to organize lists and everything, so I'm going to go forward with it.

Rolling Average Smoothing

2011-03-31T23:04:00.004-05:00

At the IGDA Twin Cities meeting in March, the lead developer for Just Jam, Matt Heinzen, mentioned using rolling averages to do animation. This caught my attention, since it was a perfect phrase for a trick I have used a number of times in my programming. I thought I'd take a shot at explaining it here since I did a horrible job on the IGDATC Podcast.

A rolling average is also known as a moving average along with a few other cute names. Wikipedia does a good job explaining it in that Wikipedia way. You know, the equation way with complicated, but accurate, descriptions. I say a rolling average is just a way to take the average of a select part of data set. For example, in the last 7 days, I've averaged 0.6 cans of Mt. Dew a day. If, tomorrow, I don't consume any Mt. Dew, my 7 day average will go down.

So how does this help in programming? For me, its usually a matter of convenience. You may have binary data and you want to smooth it out some for instance. To really smooth it out you may want to be aware of your time step, acceleration/deceleration, velocity, motion time, time into motion. Maybe even more. With a rolling average all you need is a target value.

Lets say you've got an arrow and you want to have it point somewhere. You don't want to have super control over the animation of the arrow like I mention above, you simply want to tell it to point up or point down. However, it would be nice if the arrow rotation had some motion.

Let's set up this example. There is an arrow pointing up, lets call that 0 degrees. Now at some moment you want to say point down, rotating 180 degrees. If all you do is say at one moment your 0 degrees, and the next moment your 180, there is no animation. Let's use rolling average to smooth it out. All we need to know is the target rotation angle, which in this example is either 0 or 180, and the current angle. We need to pick a period, which in the Mt. Dew example was 7 days. In a typical game, and in most cases I've designed, they end up depending on the frame rate, lets not concern ourselves with that at the moment and pick a period of 10.

rolling average rotation = ((current angle) * 9 + (target angle) * 1) / 10

With that example, the first frame after the target angle is changed from 0 to 180, the rolling average will calculate it to be as follows.

rolling average rotation = ((0 degrees) * 9 + (180 degrees) * 1) / 10

rolling average rotation = 18 degrees

That is to say instead of it immediately snapping to 180 degrees, the first frame after its told to go to 180 degrees it rotates to 18 degrees. The next frame would look like this:

rolling average rotation = ((18 degrees) * 9 + (180 degrees) * 1) / 10

rolling average rotation = 34.2

And continuing on.

To help illustrate this I've made a little XNA program. You can either download it and give it a try (no guarantees), or watch this video.

Zombie Game Prototype

2011-03-30T03:05:00.060-05:00

I'm working with Robert Green at Battery Powered Games on another game, this time its a action game. About 4 months ago, Rob and I got together for a meeting to discuss our next efforts and discussed ways to learn from our mistakes on Deadly Chambers. We each came with five game ideas and pitched them to each other, back and forth. At the end we picked one idea and went with it. The idea we picked was mine and goes something like this:

Combine Flight Control with Tower Defense, best described with with humans and zombies. You control the humans and try to get them to a safe house, they may or may not have weapons. The zombies try to eat your humans. I'm not going to go into the details beyond that because, along with a designer we've hired, we working on many of the details to make sure the game is fun, engaging and rewarding.

Since the pitch, I've been thinking about the game play and I've come to many conclusions. This is a problem, since we have yet to see the game in prototype form. Rob (and me to some extent) has been busy on some other projects, one of which is Battery Tech, and another is an android game that will be hitting the market within the month (fingers crossed). (My friend Bill and I did the art for this soon to be released game FYI so look for future blog posts about it). Rob hasn't had the time to make a prototype as he's also executing some other business ventures and contracts.

As I said we hired a designer but he has become confused about the game which is primarily my fault. With so much time thinking about the game play its hard to keep an open mind, to be flexible. It's hard to explain things well and succinctly, at the same time to not seem contradictory to previous statements. We've gotten buried in communication issues and semantics. It has been interesting to see the designer's interpretations and opinions, and his designs given our flawed descriptions and requirements. Its also been problematic because we each have our ideas we're pretty adamant about, but no way to see them in action, get a feel for what works and further the discussion. I was contemplating making some level drawings and animating them to show how I expect game play to work, but then I decided I should just program a prototype.

This is what I love about programming. I started at about 9pm and fired up some XNA sample and just had at it. 6 hours later the clock reads 3am and I reluctantly call it quits. But at the end is a partial prototype allowing for human path drawing, basic zombie AI seeking/attack, a safe house, turning (human becomes zombie), weapon pickup, and human AI targeting.

Ryan's Zombie Prototype Version 1

In the above picture, the grey blue lines are paths for the humans. The purple diamonds are zombies. You can also see some of the humans are armed with little guns. The lines from humans to zombies show that the humans are targeting and within range of a zombie. I'll be adding some code to do shooting next as well as see what Rob and the designer say.

Needless to say, I'm excited to program again and wonder why I never really get into it when its so much fun. I'm excited to build up some momentum on this project as well. I'm art lead with two artists on my team, so I'm anxious to get them working.

Deadly Chambers Controls

2011-03-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

Making a game can be fun and profitable (so I've heard), but its also a learning experience. One of the main criticisms of Deadly Chambers is the controls. It's a mobile phone game granted, and a shooter at that, but we fell we did a pretty good job dealing with some of the limitations and oddities of Android and the numerous devices to make a control system for the game. Yes, it has its issues, it isn't perfect granted, but it's pretty ok. In some ways I think it works really well, innovative even.

Regardless of how much I pat myself on the back, or how close to the design and biased I am as co-inventor, it still comes down to the user experience. That made me think not only about how people play, but what they may be trying to do. If they are anything like me, they skip the tutorial, skip the control scheme image description, etc. and just jump into the game to figure it out. This isn't a big deal I think, unless you make some misinterpretations about how it works, maybe even blame it for doing what you are telling it to do but not realizing it. Then I found a video on YouTube of someone else playing and it made sense. Of course people don't play it the same as I do, but why don't I show them.

IGDA Twin Cities Podcast #2, Velcro

2011-03-05T22:12:00.011-06:00

The second episode of the IGDATC poscast is published. We talked about video games, mobile gaming devices, IGDA’s impact on the Twin Cities, last month’s meeting recap (Dead Space 2, Technical Artist Sandra Voelker) and upcoming events.

Check IGDATC.ORG to listen to the podcast, or check it out the on iTunes.

More Logo Work

2011-02-20T22:07:00.000-06:00

We've finalized the logo's. Here's some of the work that was done.

IGDA Twin Cities Podast Live on iTunes

2011-02-20T22:02:00.001-06:00

I'm the host of the IGDA Twin Cities podcast and you can find it on iTunes now. That is all.

IGDA Twin Cities Podcast Link on iTunes

IGDA Twin Cities Dead Space 2 Presentation Video

2011-02-15T23:50:00.003-06:00

I'm recording the IGDA Twin Cities meetings. You can see the presentations in HD video! Well, the link is HD, but I'm cheating. Take a look and you'll see.

I'm spoiled with my YouTube account. I hadn't realized how lucky I was to have signed up when I did. The QuantumPetshop Youtube channel is granfathered in from back when they had Director accounts. I can upload videos longer than 15 minutes, which takes a act of YouTube gods to change otherwise.

I Host a Podcast

2011-02-10T22:38:00.000-06:00

I've started podasting for the IGDA Twin Cities. It's a blast! We should be publishing once a month.

You can check the IGDATC.ORG website for the podcast, or check it out the Podcast Link on iTunes

I Graduated!

2011-02-10T21:18:00.001-06:00

It happened, and I have the bills, and diploma, to prove it!

I now have a second Bachelor of Science degree in Game and Simulation Programming from DeVry University.

Logo Work

2011-02-09T21:22:00.001-06:00

I've been doing some logo work lately. I normally don't seek out logo work, because as a freelancer they don't usually pay well and they rarely are fun (this strongly depends on the customer) but these are close to me in some way. I'm not going to say much more about them, but I'll try and post some updates when I come to something final.

New Android Project Underway

2010-12-17T15:08:00.000-06:00

I've singed an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), which means I can't talk about it. However, the picture above pretty much sums it up. I'll be posting more about it once the project is complete, which I think will be after CES.

Position from Depth

2010-11-24T19:09:00.001-06:00

I've been doing some stuff at work using our visualization, shaders and some python scripting. I normally don't post stuff about work for many reasons, but this project has been a lot of fun and is worth blogging about (and I have permission). I also want to document what I did as well as address some of the issues I encountered.

Essentially, long story short, we're doing some human safety systems work where we need to detect where a human is in an environment. I'm not directly involved with that part of the effort, but the team that is is using some depth cameras (like Kinect in a way) to evaluate the safety systems. Our role, and mine specifically, is to provide visualization elements to meld reality and simulation and our first step is to generate some depth data for analysis.

We started by taking our Ogre3D visualization and a co-worker got a depth of field sample shader working. This first image shows a typical view in our Ogre visualization. The scene has some basic elements in world space (the floor, frame and man) and others in local space (the floating boxes) we can test against.

A sample scene, showing the typical camera view. The upper-right cut-in is a depth preview.

The next image shows the modifications I made to the depth shader. Instead of using a typical black and white depth image, I decided to use two channels, the red and green channels. The blue channel is reserved for any geometry beyond the sensor vision. Black is depth less, essentially no geometry exists there.

Two color channel depth output image.

I decided to use two color channels for depth, to improve the accuracy. That's why you see color banding, because I hop around both channels. If I only used one channel, at 8 bit, that would be 256 colors. A depth of 10 meters would mean that the accuracy would only be about 4 cm (10.0 m / 256). By using two color channels I'm effectively using 16 bit, for a total of 65536 colors (256 * 256), which increased our accuracy to 1.5 mm (10.0 m / 65536). In retrospect, perhaps I could have used a 16 bit image format instead.

To do this sort of math its surprisingly easy. Essentially you find the depth value right from the shader and make it a range of 0 to 1, with 1 being the max depth. Since we are using two channels, we want the range to be between 0 and 65536, so just take the depth and multiply by 65536. Determining the 256 values for each channel is pretty easy too using the modulus. (A quick explanation of a modulus is like 1pm = 13. It's when numbers wrap around. So the modulus of 13 by 12 is 1 for example, as is 25 = 1. You could also consider it the remainder after division.) So the red channel is determined by the modulus of depth by 256. The green channel is done similarly, but in this case is determined by the modulus of depth/256 by 256.

red channel = modulus(depth, 256)
green channel = modulus(depth/256, 256)

Here's an example. Lets say the depth is 0.9. That would result in a color value of 58982.4 (0.9 * 65536). The red channel color would be the modulus of 58982.4 by 256, which equals 102. The green channel would be the modulus of 58982.4/256 by 256, which is 230.

With that done, I save out the image representing the depth with two channels as I illustrate above.

Next I calculate the position from the image and depth information. This particular aspect caused me lots of headaches because I was over-complicating my calculations with unnecessary trigonometry. It also requires that you know a some basic information about the image. First off, it has to be symmetric view frustum. Next, you need to know your field of views, both horizontal and vertical, or at least one and the aspect. From there its pretty easy, so long as you realize the depth is flat (not curved like a real camera). Many of the samples out there that cover this sort of thing assume the far clip is the cut off, but in my case I designed the depth to be a function of a specified depth.

I know the depth by taking the color of a pixel in the image and reversing the process I outlined above. To find the x and y positions in the scene I take a pixel's image position as a percentage (like a UV coordinate for instance), then determine that position based off the center of the image. This is really quite easy, though it may sound confusing. For example, take pixel 700, 120 in a 1000 x 1000 pixel image. The position is 0.70, 0.12. The position based on center is 0.40, -0.76. That means that the pixel is 40% right of center, and down 76% of center. The easiest way to calculate it is to double the value then minus 1.

pixelx = pixelx * 2 - 1
pixely = pixely * 2 - 1

To find the x and y positions, in local coordinates to the view, its some easy math.

x = tan(horizontal FOV / 2) * pixelx * depth
y = tan(vertical FOV / 2) * pixely * depth
z = depth

This assumes that positive X values are on the right, and positive Y values are down (or up, depending on which corner 0,0 is in your image). Positive Z values are projected out from the view.

To confirm that all my math was correct I took a sample depth image (the one above) and calculated the xyz for each pixel then projected those positions back into the environment. The following images are the result.

Resulting depth data to position, from the capture angle.

The position data from depth from a different angle.

The results speak for themselves. It was a learning process, but I loved it. You may notice the frame rate drop in the later images. That's because I represent the pixel data with a lot of planes, over 900,000. It isn't an efficient way to display the data, but all I wanted was confirmation that the real scene and the calculated positions correspond.

Call of Duty Black Ops Takes 8 Lives in One Day

2010-11-20T11:32:00.001-06:00

Eight lifetimes were spent playing Call of Duty Black Ops on XBOX Live by then end of launch day on November 9th. Sensational, I know, but let me explain.

I've always found this math concept interesting, where you compare lifetimes to an event, especially if you equate it to big events like the Super Bowl. Basicaly any event where they brag about the number of viewers, or hours spent, or time committed to something means that lifetimes were used up. Major Nelsons recent tweet about Call of Duty Black Ops having 5.9 million hours played in the first day reminded me of this strange thought, so I had to find out. How many lifetimes were used playing Call of Duty on that first day?

Major Nelson's tweet from Nov. 19th, 2010

The math is easy, so let me walk through it.

First off, what is the life expectancy of the average person? I decided to use the US average, since its probably the majority of players and is also fairly high. According to the CIA, the average life expectancy of a US citizen in 2010 is approximately 78 years.

1 lifetime = 78 years

Second is determining how many years 5.9 million hours is. 5,900,000 hours is 245833 days (5900000 hrs / 24 hrs/day) which is 673 years (245833 days / 365 days/year).

5,900,000 hours = 673 years

The rest is simple. If a lifetime is 78 years, and 673 years were spent playing, that means that 8.6 lifetimes (673 years / 78 years/lifetime) were spent.

673 years = 8.6 lifetimes

What does this mean? Well, nothing really. It's just an interesting number related to life. It doesn't mean lives were wasted, because many many more are spent in more mundane things every day (such as traffic). It's just interesting to see how we spend our time.

Deadly Chambers Sales Per Month, Oct

2010-11-12T23:18:00.020-06:00

Here's an update plot showing how Deadly Chambers sales are doing. I wish I had more resolution to the trends of this plot, but the only data I get is the monthly run down. The spike in September is a result of our Feature status on the market, and maybe also our marketing efforts and reviews. We expected a decline in October, with the Feature ending, but we had hoped for a little better of course.

I'm still excited to see how we do in the following months.The trend is subtle but upward. My (hopeful) prediction is similar sales numbers.

First 1000 Gamerscore

2010-11-07T22:56:00.000-06:00

I achieved my first 1000 gamerscore tonight, some accomplishment. I've been keeping Borderlands on the back burner, intending to get that last achievement someday. I had to reach level 50, which given their level balancing and the level cap for enemies, is tough.

Android Me 2

2010-11-07T20:22:00.000-06:00

Remember Android Me?

I've upgraded. I've got the Google G2 Android phone now. With flash!

Classes are Over

2010-11-06T20:13:00.012-05:00

I'm done. My last class final taken and grades are in. I'm done with DeVry. I'm not sure when I "graduate", but I am now completed with my Game and Simulation Programming Bachelors Degree.

I'm pretty meh about the whole DeVry experience. I wish I could put it in words, but I think a lot of it was wasted on me. Well, not wasted. The system is pretty easy to game, but combine that with my 10 years of work experience in "simulation" and I think I've been pretty well trained already.

If you, dear reader, are someone considering the GSP degree, be sure to give it a long thought. I still contend that most would far much better with a Computer Science degree while trying the hobby indie game maker thing on the side. I have no insight into how degree's like this lead into the industry, but nor was I aiming for that. If you've got any questions, let me know.

Onward...

Contest Switch

2010-10-22T11:12:00.001-05:00

Anyone whose ever considered graphics art work has probably come across a contest or two. They are easy to set up, you get a number of submissions you get to pick what you like best. Easy. But this is at the expense of the artists of course, and is very annoying when you're looking for legit work.

Image from The Craziest Craigslist Ads Of All Time: Vol. II

Review of the AppJudgement Review of Deadly Chambers

2010-10-12T01:18:00.001-05:00

You guys, Anthony Carboni over at AppJudgement recently reviewed Battery Powered Games' Deadly Chambers for Android devices.

WAIT, don't click play yet!

The review isn't favorable even though Anthony is giving it the 5 finger solute there. In fact, considering all the positive reviews and comments we've gotten its surprising the level of which Anthony dislikes Deadly Chambers. If only he knew how much time I spent watching Bytejacker and playing Free Indie Rapid Fire games instead of working on level designs, improving textures and character animations... All the time I spent watching him with enjoyment and laughter, now replaced with a sour taste and sadness... He really didn't seem to like the game. Oh Anthony!!! NOOOOOO!

We are really honored to be reviewed by AppJudgement, don't get me wrong. I've been watching them for over a year now and I've come to enjoy their productions and trust their reviewers (was hoping for Jackie to review to be honest, no offense Anthony). I don't know if Anthony, or the AppJudgement team got my requests for review, or if he found it as he stated (which would be awesome), but being noticed is a plus in and of itself. Even after the review I still love you Anthony, and we are taking many of your thoughts to heart. (WTF, ByteJacker biweekly, you suck! I mean that in the most positive way! I miss you.)

With that said, I have a few major contentions with his review. First off, he sets the stage by saying "a little gaming action for my hardcore friends." Deadly Chambers was never intended as a "hardcore game". It was designed to be a casual shooter, to give you a few minutes of shoot-the-bad-guys fun, and was designed accordingly. It is made for a phone device after all. We did decide to support the more hardcore gamer types by adding a lot of unlockable guns, achievements and a tough "Deadly" difficulty of course, but the designed and intended average time to play a level is pretty quick once you get used to it. Anthony reviewed Deadly Chambers as if it were intended for hardcore gamers so its no wonder he wasn't satisfied. Additionally, he was comparing it to iPhone games. That isn't a problem mind you, because its at least a more fair comparison than comparing it to Xbox360 or PS3 shooters and is appropriate, but it doesn't really matter if you only have an Android Phone. What he also failed to mention was the total lack of any quality 3D shooters available in the Android Market because he was comparing it to iPhone games. If games like Deadly Chambers were easy to make, the market would be flooded with them. Deadly Chambers is one of a kind, for better or worse. It is not NOVA (ported to Android, and whose heard of it other than the hardcore), it is not Quake (this is an OLD PC game remember), and its not supposed to be!

Secondly, he never mentions the bosses. The majority of the game design came in the form of boss fights. From an angry Ogre who can repel your attacks with a giant smiley face shield, a giant spider knight, a mechanized robot with Gatling gun arms whose pilot is its only week point, and a giant dragon that flies around shooting fire at you in a huge castle. The game's boss fights add much to the game as a whole and he never mentioned them. In the game there are 5 enemy models and 6 boss models. Sure, the room to room design isn't the best and the AI of those monsters isn't top notch, but he didn't even mention the level bosses. You shouldn't say something like "enemy AI is simplistic and slow" and ignore the bosses, which he does. (See how mad the Ogre is there, waving his wooden hammer!)

Other little things...

The levels are "bland and boxy" and the characters are "simple". This is so very true, and Anthony goes on later in his video to express the potential fragmentation problem related to this which is also exactly true. To support the myriad of Android devices and OS versions, we were forced to aim lower than I, as the artist and partial designer, would like. However, given that the game has 5 levels, 11 character models, 18 guns and a shit-ton of other images (that is artist talk for amazing Photoshop skillz), all jammed into a 7MB file, its f'ing impressive and I'm super studly for making that possible! Add to that the fact that it runs on so many devices is a testament to the design. We could have made a killer shooter if we target a few phones, Anthony is dead to rights about that, but we would have been ignoring a large portion of the Android audience. Ultimately though, shouldn't this sort of approach be praised instead of condoned. Robert (Battery Powered Games owner, president, etc., etc.) was adamant about supporting older phones (older OSs, back to 1.6) and I eventually came around to his way of thinking (because he's right). Its too big a market to over look, especially at the date of our release. I'm still sporting my G1 for crying out loud! This also correlates tremendously to sales as well as recognition.

One of the major issues with the game is its controls. I for one, have tested on a number of devices, and perhaps I've grown accustomed to its quirks, but it works well for me. However, supporting so many devices causes a whole bunch of unfortunate problems too. Problems that I wish were not there and cause us headaches and stars in the ratings (X10 and Moment for instance). I wont really get into this because its a loosing battle and I'm half drunk, but part of the blame falls on the player, but most of the blame falls onto the Android hardware. Don't believe me? Go to the Application Market and download the some of the Multitouch test apps (Multitouch Visibility Test and Multitouch Paint are a both good ones) and use them in a way you think controls should/could work and see what happens. Here's a video on the Nexus 1 and Droid just for reference. The ultimate problem is that since the Nexus 1 and the Droid both support the same OS, but the touch interface behaves differently and you can't really target a phone directly, you're stuck deciding how to deal with the fallout (bad reviews because phone don't work vs. trying to make it right for one device.)

What saddens me most is that I seriously doubt Anthony played much of the game and this is evident in the video. There are hardly any achievement unlocks and no video past the third level. Some of the complaints about simple models and levels are true, but once you get to the Castle or the Tower levels (levels 4 and 5) I think the levels are outstanding in comparison. The models also get better. I admit, this shooter isn't the 3D Jesus we're all hoping for, but its a step in the right direction. With some actual, honest, unbiased and unrushed gameplay, I think its a solid game worth a look. One worthy of more than the 10 minutes it takes to get to level 3.

Anthony also mentions the characters sliding and twisting awkwardly around the screen, which admittedly is very noticeable. It's also one of those things that I notice and you know where else this is noticable? Fallout 3 and Fable 2, both of which have characters that when running around the environment don't seem to be quite right. I will admit I giggled a little at his reference to Dr. Chambers' running animation looking like something like a puppet from Team America. This was one of those things that I wanted to fix, but ultimately was good enough for what it was. Not too bad for 8 keyframes really. (Still bugs me deep in my core, but not enough to do something about apparently...)

In the end, we are being compared to NOVA and even Rage by AppJudgement, a reputable and respectable organization and I appreciate their time and effort in their review. I respect Anthony and we are taking his, and every other reviewer, blog, fan or mutant out there who took the time to give us a chance, comments to heart. In the end, you should watch Anthony's review because he is good at what he does and I'm all sorts of jealous. Sometimes I wish A-Train wasn't dead... (Insert inside joke here... wait, I already did.)

Oh, and BTW, we've started working on our next game and its going to be awesome!

Fallout 3, Over 77 Hours of Play!

2010-10-11T20:09:00.000-05:00

I just finished Fallout 3 tonight, racking up over 77 hours of game time. I'd say that was a well spend $60 on entertainment.

77.24.45 game time at the last save point.

I reached level 20 about 6 months ago and then stopped playing. (Fallout 3's level cap was 20, so no more character upgrading.) I lost interest I guess, but I remembered really enjoying the game. So after I finished Alan Wake (great game BTW), I told myself to go finish one of the many games I hadn't finished.

Deadly Chambers Sales Per Month

2010-10-05T22:17:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick plot showing Deadly Chambers sales per month. I wish I had more resolution to the trends of this plot, but the only data I get is the monthly run down. It's still enough to show the dramatic spike that we had during the month of September. This can be attributed some to our marketing efforts and getting reviewed on various websites. However, I think most of our success was from our Feature status. That, unfortunately, has ended. I hope we can do half as well next month without it.

I'm really excited to see how we do in the following months. If you have any ideas, or friends or acquaintances in the review field for an Android game, please have them contact me.

105 Reviews! 4+ Stars Average!

2010-10-01T14:44:00.000-05:00

Today, my Android G1 phone informs me that there are 105 reviews for Deadly Chambers, running a 4+ star rating. Our Featured Game status is over and we had a pretty good month. It's nice to get noticed. I'll try and post a graph or something one I get some numbers. Meanwhile, here are some of my favorite comments:

"Best game ever for phones"

- Greg

"Impressive. MOST impressive."

- Michael

"HOPEFULLY A SEQUEL LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!!"

- MRWESKER78

"Best! Android! Game! Yet!"

- nick

"A++ Fast Shipping! ...oh yeah, best Android game ever!"

- sra (I know this is you Steve)

"Good fun this game is."

- ~~Yoda~~ - kevin

"I dont understand how people can complain about such a great game. The controls work great and game play is solid on the nexus one!"

- scott

"It's about time that Android gets a game that rivals the iPhone. I'd give it 10 stars if I could."

- Breon

"Gorgeous game. Really fun to play. Attention to detail is great."

- Darryl

"This game is the bomb grafix r the best I turn them right up on my sony x10"

- J-BAGGS

"Finished the game 4 times, BEST shooter on android! Mytouch Slide"

- Dalton

"By far 1 of best shooters on android market, please make more.. Wolfenstein, or a unique game of your own. We need better games 4 Verizon-android"

- jason

And here are some of the more comic 1-3 Star reviews.

"it never showed me the fire button"

- khalid

"Its ok"

- Maco

And just so this post has a graphic attached, here's something I used to convince the developer to add an extra weapon.

Here's a picture of the Bubble Gun.

This is the last, and most powerful, weapon in Deadly Chambers.

Deadly Chambers is App of the Week

2010-09-16T17:07:00.000-05:00

Deadly Chambers is one of this weeks Android Games of the Week at Appolicious.com: http://appo.me/djit1

Deadly Chambers is Featured, #1

2010-09-16T17:02:00.000-05:00

Deadly Chambers has been featured by Google in the App Market! This is great news since it helps us spread the word about the game in the best way possible.

Another Video, WIP

2010-09-15T19:52:00.000-05:00

Latest Video: The Incident Security Cameras

2010-09-10T13:33:00.003-05:00

Not too bad for 6 hours of filming and 4 hours of editing and effects.

This one shows a hallway at the Facility. Things are going along normally when something happens.

After The Incident, the scientist become mind controlled by multi-dimensional aliens (or some other sci-fi type story) and are seen here using some advanced technology.

I'm actually very happy with how it turned out. It was filmed with my old, and apparently trusty, Cannon GL1. Editing and special effects were done in Adobe Premier.

Wiimote + Droid + HDTV = Fun

2010-07-29T01:49:00.001-05:00

I make my own Android Wiimote video., but take it up a notch.

Wii Controller Controls Nexus 1

2010-07-28T13:18:00.002-05:00

Although there are a lot of videos about Wii Controllers (after all, they are just Bluetooth) being used with phones, I found this one interesting. Lots of potential here for common users.

Presenting Android's exclusive Over-The-Shoulder 3D shooter - Deadly Chambers!

2010-07-18T21:31:00.010-05:00

It's out in the wild!

Deadly Chambers exclusive to Android powered devices of all makes and models.

Battle your way through 5 levels of baddies and bosses in this epic 3D journey. Deadly Chambers offers stunning graphics, tight gameplay, unique controls and loads of unlockable weapons and achievements.

The following are actual screenshots from a stock Nexus One phone running Android 2.2:

Main Menu

World Map

Weapon Equip

Taunting Letters

Dungeon Fight

Adjustable Perspective

First-Person Shooting

Garden Fight

Castle

Deadly Chambers uses OpenGL ES 1.0 and is compatible with most Android phones running 1.5 or higher.

Tips for play:

Try all of the buttons on your phone - by default pressing in on the trackball or dpad center button will fire and surrounding buttons will change weapons and perspective.
Check the game settings - Key bindings, graphics and sound settings are all configurable.
You don't need to equip all 3 weapons - sometimes it works better to just equip one or two very powerful ones.
Enemies are resistant to different weapons - Experiment and find out what works best.
Bosses have weak points - Try shooting at different areas and with different weapons to beat the tougher bosses.

How to get this game? It's available now in the Android market.

The New Pat

2010-06-28T00:29:00.004-05:00

I've created a new lead model for Deadly Chambers. This is the WIP. My triangle budget is 400. This model weighs in at 406. Ha!

Senior Design, GSP-490

2010-06-22T23:21:00.009-05:00

Last week I finished my senior design class in my Game and Simulation Programming (GSP) degree, class GSP-490. I was worried because I was very busy with Deadly Chambers I had made the bad decision of doing a senior project alone instead of in a group/team as advised. This meant everything was on me. Documentation, design, programming. At the decision point I was too consumed otherwise to commit to anything but what I thought I could handle myself.

The good news is it went well. Grades are in and I got a 90.04%, just eeking out the A. This was a wonderful surprise since I had accepted the fact I was probably going to get a B. Luckily everything with my game fell into place at the last minute and I completed the game (for the most part).

PING! is an action game where you control a ball. You decide which direction the ball should turn when it hits something. Concept was by Bill Nagel and me. It was programmed in XNA Game studio 3.1 (C# FYI). I did all the art assets, programming, source control (using SVN), etc. myself.

Here are some screen shots of my game.

Start Menu

Dynamic Camera Fly at Level Start

Countdown to Start

Game Play Example

Win Condition, PING!

Menu Integration

Laser Shotgun

2010-06-07T18:06:00.003-05:00

This is my newest creation. If all goes well, it will be added to Deadly Chambers. It is a shotgun that shoots lasers!

It was made using Blender and Photoshop. I rendered an AO layer and saved it, then a light layer, the blue glow, by rendering only the light on a dark material to the same UV map. I combined them in photoshop with some metal textures, photos, hand painting and some layer effects. I really like how it turned out.

Portfolio

2010-05-31T00:10:00.008-05:00

Technically, this post is because I have a deliverable for my Senior Project GSP-490 class, and the website they ask us to use can't upload images. I'm not really satisfied with my design, but I've got lots more other stuff to do (bad grammar intended).

It's Live: Deadly Chambers

2010-05-18T08:41:00.004-05:00

We finally released the game!!! It's called Deadly Chambers Beta. It's available on Android GL ES 2.0 compatible phones, like the Droid, N1, Incredible, Devour, and a few others.

It's "beta" because Rob is going to Google I/O this week and he wanted it in the market before he goes. Makes total marketing sense.

I have to say its really fun.

Tower In Action

2010-04-28T00:31:00.008-05:00

I'm finishing the tower level tonight. It's mostly the little things that take the time. I had to make a quad for every torch, some for portal detection, etc. Here is a shot of the tower level being played. This is the stairs.

Here you are in first person mode standing on the roof.

That is a Verizon Droid phone if you're wondering.

Tower Power, Shared Texture Space

2010-04-26T20:55:00.013-05:00

This is the lightmap layer of the tower level for the game I'm working on with Rob of Battery Powered Games. This is the final level, the Tower, where the big show down with a magical wizard takes place. The game should be out in a month (estimated release second week of May, 2010). It's called [NAME TBD].

I've been using blender solidly for about half a year now and I have developed a number of tricks. My favorite trick thus far is baking textures with shared texture space. Essentially I design a symmetric scene, set up the lights and UV only part the model. I then use this part of the model to create the rest of the scene, but I push their UV's out of the main UV space. This is a trick, since Blender won't bake the textures for these faces (when they would normally cause problems), and they are technically in the same place if texture mode set to repeat.

Here you can see the UV texture space. The faces pushed to the top are part of the stairs design, while the parts pushed to the right are levels.

In this image you'll see that the stairs have essentially the same texture mapping from one level to the next. What is really nice is that since they are the same, they share the same UV texture space, I reap the benefits of the resolution only doing it once. It might seem really weird but its backfaces only. This means you see through geometry from one side, but not the other. So you can see the stairs through the walls so to speak. It's so natural to me, but I expect some won't know what they are looking at.

Here you can see I've highlighted the portions of the texture in the main UV space. Pretty good use of the space I think.

Fun in 3D, Tron Style

2010-04-20T22:18:00.002-05:00

Rock Giant

Rock Giant Tron Style

This is my latest model for NAME TBD. Obviously not going to use the Tron style version, but it gave the developer a laugh.

Low Polygon Characters

2010-04-12T22:36:00.008-05:00

Here are a few shots of the characters I've been working on lately. They are a combo level boss. The knight is the first half. Once you beat him, he takes on his spider form.

He should be appearing as the level two boss in the upcoming Android game.

Android Art

2010-01-29T23:48:00.005-06:00

I've been really busy lately with work, school, family and side projects. Here's one of those side projects I'm working on.

I've started working with Battery Powered Games, a local android developer I met through IGDA. We're making a FPS sort of game. The images above is a WIP of level two, a castle level.

I'm limited to around 1000 triangles and two textures. One texture, a 1024x1024 image is the diffuse and the other is a light map, only 512x512 at maximum quality.

I'm having a lot of fun working on this stuff.

Halloween Wolverine

2009-11-01T20:22:00.001-06:00

I dressed up like Wolverine. The kids loved it. Most parents however didn't know who I was. WTF?

Apocalypse Update

2009-10-10T22:07:00.003-05:00

The team has been working along quite well. He have the starts of a basic menu system in place and a leveling system that shows the concept. The art is in the middle of states unfortunately, I'm trying to get some normal mapping to work, which isn't as easy as I was hoping. Good stuff to learn.

I was hoping to get into shaders a bit to do the shields but I went with a sprite approach. I simply draw 50+ sprites in a circle around the planet. It works, and I can control their vertical size to reflect the shield capacity. Worked like a charm.

Asteroids and Relfection

2009-09-18T02:11:00.002-05:00

I added an asteroids class to the game and got them working. You can shoot them now too and they disappear and your bullets bounce away. I'm having some problems with the reflection vector, where the reflection appears to be mirrored. It's late though, and I just want to post a picture.

Asteroid Apocalypse Template

2009-09-15T20:22:00.003-05:00

I spent the better part of the evening yesterday getting this project running. It's an empty shell really, but it has some art assets from Blender (via a slightly modified FBX python exporter), rotating earth and asteroids too. It allowed me to get the scene setup with a configuration I like. I'm using a tight FOV (XNA uses the horizontal to define their FOV setting which is new to me) so the 3D models are subtle and feel smaller.

Combine Dodge, aka Henry Rain

2009-09-14T20:18:00.000-05:00

I took the modified RockRain XNA game project I've been working on and deployed it on my Xbox 360. Pretty neat. Henry made me change it from Aidan's face to his face. Plenty fun though none the less.

XN-Yay!

2009-09-10T23:50:00.003-05:00

Well, it isn't the best but the basics are there to demonstrate the concept.
Essentially you are looking at XNAMentor's Space Invaders project modified with our game concept in mind. I also got the Blender to XNA FBX pipeline working so I'm feeling pretty confident we can pull this off.

Additionally, I've been reading Beginning XNA 3.0 Game Programming and I've got one of the "games" working. It's originally a meteor dodger game where meteors fall and you have to avoid them. I modified the art so instead of a spaceship, you are combine harvester that dodges my son Aidan's face. This was a big hit with my son Nate.

GSP, XNA, and SVN Oh My

2009-09-07T21:37:00.006-05:00

I bet I'm not going to get any readers based on that title, but I don't know a better way to sum this up.

My first week of GSP-360, Applied Development Project, ended Sunday and it was a roller coaster ride. First off, the class is more focused on documentation than development and strongly suggested we do a "mod" instead of a "from scratch" project. I was very disappointment but with the professors approval, I recruited a team to make a game from scratch using the XNA Game Studio framework.

The week started off rough, being that our communication needed to be ironed out. That, and I was somewhat stressed because I'm new to C# (the programming language) and XNA (Microsoft's branding for game related software and development stuff). I didn't really know what I was getting into. However, after we got together and chatted using Google Talk, we settled on a concept.

I suggested a game and the team was willing and eager. The concept is a simple arcade style shooter, similar to asteroids in design but instead of trying to blow up asteroids, you shoot them to change their course and steer them away. I put the concept art above together to help communicate the idea and I think that helped.

Additionally, I set up a SVN repository for us to work in. This is especially important for programmers. For those who don't know, SVN (aka, Subversion) is a Version Control System and that means that we can work on projects together, but a master repository holds all our stuff. If we make changes to something, we check it in and others will get the changes. It should help us work together easier because it mandates document control. An easy way to imagine it is if your team had to work on a letter together. Most teams divide out the sections and then put it together, which can work fine. But having one document that we all work in and change, almost like a shared file system, makes it so we all can contribute to every section.

I plan on writing up an SVN tutorial in the next couple days to explain what I did and how.

Onward to Education

2009-09-04T20:54:00.002-05:00

I got my grade for GSP-410 (Software Engineering for Game Programming) today. Was excited to see I got an A.

I'm a week into my other classes now and things are going well. I'm taking a career development class, CARD 405. That is a real snooze so far. All about interviewing and the job market. Which would be good, if I didn't have a job.

The other class is GSP-360, Applied Development Project. The intent of the class to my dismay isn't to develop in the sense of software, its to develop a mod with focus on the documentation. The concept, game design, technical design, project design, etc. documentation. They suggested using Torque, which I was not a fan of modding to. We had to form teams, so I recruited 3 others to work an XNA project. I'm the lead. We'll see where we go.

Our first assignment, the Concept Document, is due on Sunday and we haven't decided what we are going to make yet.

XNA C# Gotcha #1

2009-09-01T23:21:00.005-05:00

Thought I would post a problem I encountered and the solution I figured out.

Given:

A class, mySpriteClass, with method:

public Vector2 position { get; set; } // Sprite position on screen

And trying to update position in the game update loop with the following line:

mySprite1.position.X += 1;

Gives the error:

Cannot modify the return value of 'mySpriteClass.position' because it is not a variable

Change

mySprite1.position.X += 1;

Vector2 Position = new Vector2(mySprite1.position.X + 1, mySprite1.position.Y);
mySprite1.position = Position;

I thought I knew what is going on here, but when I tried to explain it, it got out of hand. Its something to do with value types vs. reference types.

XNA, GSP and Me

2009-08-31T23:28:00.002-05:00

My new classes have started for Session B this semester. My GSP-360, Applied Development Project is shaping up to be interesting. It's designed more to be a modding class, but I don't want to use Torque (suggested) or mod a different game. So I proposed a XNA project. I managed to find 3 other people willing to give it a shot, with me as leader.

Hopefully we can pull it off. I tried to recruit capable programmers, but thus far they have been pretty unresponsive beyond expressing interest. Though, it is only day 2 of class. I'm just uber excited. Given that, I've already jumped into some XNA projects. Hopefully I'll have something worth sharing in a day or so.

Quickcam Pro Webcam Installed without Crappy Logitech Software

2009-08-19T13:03:00.002-05:00

My computer at work went bust (thanks to an IT push) and I needed to have an admin reinstall the Logitech Quickcam Pro drivers. Unfortunately, the little driver for the camera comes with a 85 Mb download including some intrusive software that is always running. Why do these little peripherals have this crap?

Anyway, I was determined not to install this crap again so I scoured for other drivers without much luck. So I tried opening the 85 Mb EXE (downloaded from Logitech) with WinZip and what do you know, its an archive. So I extracted it, plugged in my camera and navigated the hardware wizard to the extracted drivers directory and now my Quickcam Pro 4000 works without their "software".

Face Detection ala OpenCV

2009-08-17T20:26:00.004-05:00

I found this cool tool called OpenCV, which stands for Open source Computer Vision. Its a library for programming computer aided vision stuff, such as with a web cam. I got the face detection algorithms working and as you can see, we're having a little fun with it.

The little red circle on my forehead is the brightest spot in the image. The software will detect any number of faces, circling each. I'm going to make a "temperature" plot based off a target color to help diagnose finding a green laser dot.

I know that although this may sound simple, I'm going to have a lot of problems with color and balance considering the lighting situations I have.

A Nearest Color Algorithm

2009-08-15T23:52:00.000-05:00

I've been developing this software at work to take an image from a video stream (a webcam in this case) and detect if a green laser dot is present. After spending most of my day getting a project to compile and a program to recognize my webcam as a stream, and being distracted by numerous other projects and co-workers, I just wasn't at the top of my algorithm development game to detect the green dot. Combine that with office lighting and you know my dilemma (fluorescent lighting is often green tinted and throws off a white balance.)

I start by stepping through each pixel in the source and check its color. If you take the pixel's colors from each channel and find the average you've essentially got a gray scale value. This doesn't work so well since some shiny metal might throw off the detection (like a ring). If I wanted to find the brightest spot, this is a good approach, but I needed to emphasize the green. At first I added a weight to the green channel by simply doubling it. So now the average is calculated as (R+G+G+B)/4, counting the green channel twice. This was better, but also prone to problems.

At the end of the day I had a basic project setup and working with some hit or miss detection. I had invested over an hour into multiple approaches and although my algorithms for color matching were working somewhat, and I knew there had to be a better approach.

What dawned on me later was something I should have noted much earlier. I know that the RGB color concept is essentially a three dimensional array, but since it is color I'm used to thinking of it two dimensionally like you see in an image editing program. Once I visualized it as a 3D space, a big cube made of blocks so to speak, I knew my answer.

You know the shortest route from A to B is a straight line right. This is easy to calculate in 2D using the Pythagorean Theorem as you probably recognize:

a² + b² = c²

This also applies in 3D space, which is exactly what RGB color is. An RGB value is a point in a 3D space. The Theorem applies like this:

a² + b² + c² = d²

The obvious solution was in front of me but I didn't see it. Euclidean distance would give me exactly what I needed. I needed to treat the color difference as a distance.

r² + g² + b² = d²

For instance, say I wanted to find the closest pixel in the supplied source to a target color RGB 128, 255, 128. I check pixels against my target color by finding their channel distance. So imagine I have a black pixel of 0, 0, 0. My distance is calculated as:

r = pixel_color - target_color = 0 - 128 = -128
g = pixel_color - target_color = 0 - 255 = -255
b = pixel_color - target_color = 0 - 128 = -128

d = sqrt(r² + g² + b²) = 312.7

What if I have a pixel with color 0, 0 255, or a pixel with color 0, 255, 0. Which one is closer to my target? If I calculate the average, they are the same. But by distance, the green pixel is closer to my desired.

Your Controls a-Splode

2009-08-10T20:08:00.004-05:00

Splosion Man, a XBox Live Arcade game that is pretty fun (especially according to my 6 year old) has a lot of humor. For instance, this menu allows you to remap the button controls. However, your choices are limited to the following: SPLODE. As you can see, I've remapped each of the buttons to the available options.

This is just the trail version, so perhaps they actually do do more, but this made me laugh non the less.

Guerrilla Self-Esteem Promotion

2009-08-10T19:57:00.003-05:00

Recently, in my neighborhood, the roads re-surfaced with tar, then with small loose gravel. This sign used to say "Loose Gravel" but some awesome, yet unknown, neighbor decided to change them into something much better. This is the "Be Happy" version, the other 3 signs were changed similarly, with 2 others saying "Laugh Often!"

It was a good day.

PdaNet for Android Doesn't Work For Me

2009-08-04T20:44:00.005-05:00

I follow a number of tech blogs, game blogs, fun blogs and serious code blogs, and then some, and the best time for me to do it is at work. Granted, much of it is personal interest, but it turns out my work is often very related. This was working fine and although they block everything cool or interesting on the main network, they didn't on the guest network so I was free to roam via my laptop. Until Monday that is. They have now installed the worlds most ridiculous, draconian, big brother web blocking scheme imaginable to guests. Game is a four letter word. Storage sites like imageShack are blocked, no questions asked. Absolutely no streaming anything, including YouTube, Viemo, and a sad consequence is the Ted presentations. This from a company that is shouting (though its up-to-the-era internal message systems, such as that paper newsletter we can pick up near the door or get in our mail box) how innovative and cutting edge we are.

Damn it pisses me off. The internets is video and they block it. The internets is streaming and they block it. If I try to search for something graphics or programming related, it often ends up blocked, flagged as game or hacking or forums. Forums and IRC and newsgroups are off limits, good thing this isn't where the answers to common questions are easily found. The company is digging themselves a grave IMO; a shallow grave of cold old technology to cuddle up with and wither away as the world passes them by and their employees dream of greener pastures.

Anyway. For mostly personal reasons I was trying to find a way to bypass their guest internets connection all together so I looked to my G1 phone and found an app called PdaNet. It basically tethers a Smart Phone to a PC via USB and the phone acts as a modem, using the 3G (or Edge I guess) network to access the internets. The install is one of the best I've seen and was painless. The software is easy to use and has user controls where they should be (it only runs if you ask it to). But the problem is that although I'm able to see the internets unfiltered, much of it just doesn't load or times out. Gmail and Reader fail to load, as did a few others I tried. Other sites opened fine, but it was of little consequence since my main hope was to bypass the filtering so I can read the blogs I like as they are intended, with images and video.

One of my objectives at work is to stay up to date on relevant technology. I can't do that at work now. A project I'll soon be working on will incorporate interactive technology, which is impossible to research at work because of the blocking. To me, this is basically guilty until proven innocent shit that is going to hurt them more than help.

BTW, if you want to e-mail me at work, don't put swears in the e-mail because I won't get it. That's right, they filter my e-mail and if it has a naughty word in it, they swat it down.

C++ Wisdom

2009-07-26T22:39:00.002-05:00

An object encapsulates state and behavior. Abstraction is the means by which the state and behavior of a class are derived from the many specific instances of things that the class is said to represent.

Object oriented (OO) programming is a tricky devil, especially someone like me who was self taught BASIC when I was 9. Reading the above gave me one of those light bulb moments that helped me break through some of the OO jargon and C++ I'm working with.

iPhone Card Game Art

2009-07-25T22:51:00.002-05:00

I'm working with another iPhone developer for a card game. Here's what I have so far for the cards.

I was trying to go for a more modern theme, hence the shiny look. It looks good on the phone. Oh, the characters are part of the theme too.

How Far We've Come

2009-07-23T16:10:00.003-05:00

It's been 40 years!
via Bad Astronomy

I updated my iPod Touch for Free

2009-07-22T11:39:00.003-05:00

F! Apple. Why would they charge iPod Touch owners $10 to upgrade to the new 3.0 firmware but its free for iPhones. It's another example of their smarmyness. You can buy a brand new iPod Touch, get home and find out there's another $10 fee to get it to be current.

Regardless, I've been adamant about waiting until the price dropped to free before upgrading but circumstances required I upgrade. I started working with a developer who's targeting the new 3.0 and his app wouldn't install. I went to the internets for options.

I found many sites listing how to upgrade for free which sounds great but the comments are sprinkled with many fails. After a few fails of my own, and a restore or two later, I managed to get the 3.0 Firmware onto my iPod Touch 2G without shelling out $ to the man. Here's how:

1. Be sure you have iTune 8.2 or newer. This is one of the big problems I suspect since the 3.0 Firmware will not work in older iTunes and the error it gives is confusing.
2. Go here http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/ and download 3.0 firmware. If you have a 2G Touch, get the 2G ispw file.
3. Start up iTunes and plug in your iTouch.
4. Select it in the iTunes devices list.
5. Click on “check for update”. It will go to the sales pitch but just click cancel on the borrom left. It will return to the devices page and “check for update” should change to just "update".
6. Hold shift and click “update”
7. Select the ispw file you downloaded.
8. let it run its course like normal.

This should update the firmware and you wont lose any files.

I've only done this with my iPod Touch 2G. If you're wondering, the 2G Touch has physical volume control on the side and speakers, whereas the 1G has no physical volume control and requires headphones.

Week 2, GSP 410

2009-07-18T22:47:00.003-05:00

Week 2 has been a slow start. That is not entirely true, as I had an incredibly busy week with XNA, working late and other obligations, but I've finally sat down to do the reading and homework.

As much as I appreciate DeVry's online classes, I have a real hard time dedicating any time to the forums. Essentially, each week we (the students) are required to post at least three posts on three different days, with at least one before Wed. This usually isn't a big deal, as I manage to shake something out quick. But the content of this class is so serious, it's becoming arduous.

Regardless, I've found some of the reading lately very interesting. I may have to blog about that some. FYI, the book is Software Engineering for Game Development by John P. Flynt.

Interestingly, my curmudgeony attitude about installing Smart Draw and its use in this class struck me in realization that the demo comes with the book. Doh, no wonder we are using it in the class.

I Need a Cool Business Card

2009-07-14T21:32:00.003-05:00

Right now I'm thinking paper robot.

These are cool too.

Week 1, GSP 410

2009-07-09T22:16:00.004-05:00

Wow. I mean, wow. I'm having a really hard time not being cynical about my first assignment for this semesters class.

First off, I had to install another program and I really dislike doing that. Especially demo trial-ware of a program I've never heard of and I'm unlikely to use. The program is called SmartDraw, and though it has some decent looking features, it isn't the sort of thing I do every day. The extent of what we did could be done in Word, or Powerpoint, two much more logical choices in the long term. Plus, it bothers me a little that the class assignment is to download and use and turn in work done with a trial demo software. I wonder what the SmartDraw people would think of DeVry using their software this way?

Here's the instructions as I saw them, the the bad grammar, spelling and missing instructions as is.

And this is what I had to do to it.

That's it. Well, that's one third of the assignment, though it was just as simple. Basically select the shape and then fill in the wording as it appears in the book. I hope I can actually learn something from this class. Something outside the "discussion" area, where in my experience to date, little has be learned.

DeVry again

2009-07-09T21:40:00.003-05:00

After a much enjoyed and much needed 2 week break from classes, I'm back at it. I'm now enrolled in GSP 410, Software Engineering for Game Programming. So far, the reading has been so dry I can't get through it. Although I think it has some good points, I just seem to have a problem with non-fiction.

Anyway, I'm downloading SmartDraw for my first assignment. We'll see how it goes.

On an aside, I decided to try and link with my professor on LinkedIn, he wouldn't be the first. Unfortunately however, he was unwilling to do so. I don't know why this bothers me, as it doesn't really matter. I guess I just don't like the rejection. Obviously its his profile and he can link with who he wants. Maybe its for the best though, since his profile picture makes him look like a weird stalker.

Don't You Be My Neighbor

2009-06-30T18:34:00.002-05:00

The DEA was out in force today in my back yard. Turns out for the last few years we've had our own weed house in the neighborhood.

This really creeps me out. So close.

On Sunday Gail and I noticed some strange behavior over at this house. We were on our deck and we noticed the neighbor was pulling dead plants out their backyard basement window. We commented on it jokingly, as they must be cleaning out the weed. We don't really know these neighbors, having never taken the time to try and get to know them. I couldn't identify them if I needed. Last night we watched the Season 5 premier (onDemand FYI) of Weeds on Showtime too. Then today DEA raids the house.

Dean's List

2009-06-28T18:31:00.004-05:00

Grades are in, I'm on the Dean's list again!

I was worried going into the final for GSP-380, but once I started it was a breeze. Some of the questions were wonky to try and trick you. Or maybe just poorly phrased to try and be different, but a strong A pulled through.

My next class is GSP-410, Software Engineering for Game Programming. Hope this class rocks. I'm taking it alone so I can give it some focus (and take some pressure off during the summer).

context is king

2009-06-28T17:11:00.001-05:00

context is king

ARhrrrr

2009-06-26T21:49:00.006-05:00

ARhrrrr is an Augmented Reality thingy for mobile devices. I can't wait for this sort of stuff to become more common place.

i'm good at golf

2009-06-26T08:28:00.001-05:00

I'm good at golf

i'm golfing

2009-06-25T15:26:00.002-05:00

I'm golfing

O-Force

2009-06-24T15:22:00.002-05:00

via Lysol-Jones Deviant Art

Yes, that is Obama with a gun wielding statue of liberty robot.

Nailed to the wall

2009-06-19T00:49:00.001-05:00

Railway spike gun used against ghoul. Decapitates it and nails its head to the wall. Fallout 3 is amazing.

Week 7 GSP 380 Ends, Final Begins

2009-06-14T22:16:00.007-05:00

I finished my week 7 GSP 380 homework with flying colors I think. This week was about animation and inverse kinematics. The lab had us calculating the bones of a two jointed arm to find the appropriate angles and then animate them. It was very interesting, although pretty easy since it was really all spelled out. I went above and beyond the assignment and added some controls to adjust the length of the arms and the rate of animation. I also added error checking in the event of unreachable positions so the arms would still do something appropriate.

FYI, the lab's in this class generally comes pre-packaged with a basic skeleton of a program and then we, the students, have to add the guts. In this case, the window with camera controls and a white sphere were starters and we had to add the arms and do the math.

This is the first class I've had some struggles with. I've stayed in the A range most of it, though I really messed up one quiz with a 40%. I learned that I should prepare a little better and not make overarching assumptions regarding similarities between OpenGL and DirectX. This puts me at a B if I don't get above 80% on the final. I get 3 hrs to do the 300 point final, which consists of 21 multiple choice questions and 5 essay questions.

Where has my head been?

2009-06-12T21:10:00.004-05:00

I rented Fallout 3... And after 6 late nights with the game, I had to returned it. I'm going through withdrawals wishing I hadn't taken it back. Oh well... I was at Target today and I would have dropped the $60 on it had I not already ordered it online a few days ago. It won't be here for a couple days unfortunately. It's probably for the best since I've got assignments due and a final next week.

E3 Day 2

2009-06-02T21:09:00.002-05:00

I don't know if I'm biased or what, but I still think Microsoft did a bang up job with their press conference this year. It seemed that in response to Project Natal, Sony announced their own form of motion control, though it uses the Eye Toy and some wand controllers.

I do think some games could be great with this concept, but Natal shows so much more promise IMO.

Nintendo also announced something like a dozen new Mario games, so not big deal there. Their new Metroid game though shows promise, regardless of its awful name.

E3 Day 1, Microsoft

2009-06-01T23:58:00.003-05:00

I just watched G4's coverage of the Microsoft Press event and the most pressing question I have is what can Nintendo and Sony do to top it, if even match it? It reminded me of last years event but with less stuff I could care little about (You're in The Movies, Lips) or feel remotely embarrassment for the presenters.

Of course the games are a big deal. The Left 4 Dead sequel, Modern Warfare 2, Splinter Cell and Final Fantasy XIII interested me the most, but it was Project Natal that had me really thinking. I've been predicting to friends, family, co-workers and even in my classes, that the next big thing will be no controller. I even mentioned today the idea of being able to drive without a controller by just by holding your hands in the air.

I also realize that the internets are going to be very skeptical about this too. They will undoubtedly say Microsoft is copying the Wii, but I honestly think its the next step. One that Nintendo could hardly make (with their lackluster system IMO and lack of real Online capabilities, etc.)

As I was watching Peter Molyneux present Milo I got excited thinking of the game possibilities. Seriously, here's the perfect interface for an honest to goodness story based game, a mystery exploration game, the next evolution of text based adventure into a fully imagined, 3D world. Granted, its about the programming and the AI, but with the loss of a controller it becomes something so much more.

Texas Storage

2009-05-30T18:15:00.001-05:00

It's a box... you put stuff in it.

Sister gets married

Who's taking whose picture?

Nap

2009-05-24T22:46:00.001-05:00

Posted via Pixelpipe.

Taco Taco Juan

2009-05-22T23:53:00.003-05:00

Here's a character I'm working on for an upcoming iPhone application.

Star Trek, Logical Smogical

2009-05-18T00:12:00.003-05:00

Why such a big red ball when a little one would do?
Why are Romulan mining ships so bad ass?
Why be so vengeful when you could go save your planet?
Why bother with ships if you can teleport across the galaxy?
Why a giant red crab monster on an ice planet? And why not very coordinated on ice, its only lived there its whole life.
Why drill a hole to the core when you don't need to?
What would happen if the whole ball went up? Oh... just that?
Who's going to save the whales now?
How did, a group of miners on a mining ship mind you, they know when Spock would arrive through his time travel trip through a black hole? Is there some standard function for determining when he would arrive?
Where do you hide a ship for 25 years so the federation can't find it?

BTW, I really enjoyed the movie. It was great, even with these nagging questions.

Two Weeks of Class

2009-05-17T11:57:00.004-05:00

The week before last, Week 2, in my GSP-380 class we had to get OpenGL to render a rotating diamond shape with a light source. The image shows the result with a function being called to draw the triangle normals.

This last week was about DirextX. I don't know if I like DirectX. I think I approached it wrong, since I have some experience with OpenGL it seems really foreign. Regardless, for the assignment I had to get three spheres rotating around each other, like the sun, earth moon.

4 wheels

2009-05-14T18:35:00.002-05:00

Grandpa and Grandma got the boys a four wheeler. Its a little too fast or underpowered though, depending on the speed controll, but Aidan still liked it.

Sales Slump

2009-05-07T17:50:00.003-05:00

The idea that you can just drop your game in the iTunes App Store and make millions is probably a fallacy. Perhaps with the right marketing, and a good circle of friends and family, and a little luck, it is possible. I think we may have lost our chance for momentum. To my credit, I haven't done this before.

Here's a little detail on how the game, Board@Work, is doing. Its not as hot as I had hoped it would be. I found this cool website called MobClix that does some tracking. Below is a picture of it, along with our sales figures.

Apple takes a day to let you know about sales, so I'm hoping this gives a little insight into the future. Essentially, after a big slump on the 5th, we've started to climb. According to the ranking, its higher than previous so hopefully that trend will continue.

I think its a fun game, but I can understand why people might not give it a chance. I think

I've sent some free codes to some of the podcasts I listen to and enjoy the most, hopefully that will pan out. I've sent codes to Chad and the gang at the Video Game Show and Lono at his new gig, Respawn Radio. If we get mentioned, we may be able to get some traction.