A game of catch up

It is becoming apparent that this term is going to be one of the toughest experiences of my life, and as such I need to put a lot more effort in.

Recently I have been focusing a lot of my attention on two modules, one of which being Console Development in which we are developing demo's for the PSP in under 4kb. This is a fun task as not only do we get a lot of creativity but it is also an opportunity to challenge yourself. My personal project is going quite well, however there is much to be done before the deadline in just over a week.

My main concern currently is our interactive 3d graphics module, which I have been letting take a back seat. The aim of this module is to use Direct x  to create a game engine, and I assume eventually a game using it. I am behind in the work, however I am making a concerted effort this week to get back on track and so far it is going well. I am currently up to implementing a scene graph to the project, having implemented a state manager and an input manager.

Another task I have is to get a placement for next year, which has also somehow taken a back seat despite being an incredibly exciting prospect. I am currently tuning my CV and tidying up my demo work to send off to a million poor games companies :P

Thats all for now folks =]

B

Let the term commence.

Wow, so we have been back for almost two full weeks already and it is going crazy!

Right now I am focusing mainly on one of our new modules, Applied Games Development, henceforth known as AGD. I am part of a team of four programmers and five artists and our task is to create a racing game using the Gamebryo engine. Which is pretty awesome. To give you a brief idea about what the game is aiming to be, think racing around in Borderlands buggies and death race (we are original, honest :P).

My personal task for the time being is to try and figure out tyre physics, which to be honest scares the bejesus out of me as I have never really attempted anything that sounds as intimidating as this does. After spending a day or two reading around the subject, I feel like I am ready to try and implement a basic physics module to our game and see how that works out, failing that it is back to the drawing board!

B.

The website is alive!!!

Hey guys,

So since my last post I have finished all of my exams and if you were wondering, they all went alright.

The focus of this post however is going to be on my new website! It is going to be a great place for me to show my work to others, rather than people having to search through this blog. But that doesn't mean I will not keep updating on here.

Check it out: www.stephenbrowngames.co.uk

B.

Christmas Is Over

Hey !

So I hope everyone had a good Christmas, I know I did.

Despite earlier claims that I would go die hard and work through the festive season, my mind quickly changed when i realised what free time was. Having 4-5 days off has been amazing, sleep being the main thing that I have enjoyed.. as well as food from people who actually have some proficiency with an oven.

But now the work must recommence, with exams beginning in a week it is definitely time to buckle down and get revision in as they are both worth 30% of the module grades. However, I have decided that that can begin tomorrow and today is the day that I start applying for placements. I have a small list of places I want to apply at by the end of the night, however that plan may get frazzled if I am not done by 1am, thanks to the Chicago Bears being all entertaining and whatnot.

Wish me luck ;)

B.

Game Design Update.

So, last year we had a module called Game Design in which we had to design and implement a cooperative game in XNA. I have posted about this before, but have just recently been able to get the game back after losing it due to a corrupt hard drive (thanks John :D)!

So here is a video of it =]

Enjoy, B.

3d Renderer - Introduction to 3D Graphics Programming

For this project, we were tasked with building a 3d renderer using C++.

I was able to build the renderer, but did not implement all the features that I wanted to, such as texturing and animation, but I still plan to implement these at some point in the future out of personal interest.

A quick list of features I did get in includes a custom rasterizer using scan lines which was a step up from using the Gdiplus functions to fill polygons and draw lines. I was also able to implement Gouraud shading, which was a great step in the right direction towards where I wanted to be, however I simply ran out of time due to the mass of work. Lighting was a major factor of the project and I manage to implement ambient lighting, directional lighting and moving point lights. 

These features are all viewable in the video, and hopefully soon I will be able to update this and the video with texturing and some other cool features..

Enjoy, B.

UT2004 Total Conversion - Game Development Techniques.

So the first of the module sign offs begins with GDT.

The task was to create a game using the unreal engine that didn't have any violence in it. Which is no small task.

Two weeks ago, I evaluated where I was at with my assignments and realised that I was behind where I wanted to be. This provoked me into two weeks of basically no sleep.

I am quite happy with the final project as it stands and feel it should get me a decent grade. The game is set on Finniston Farm from the book Famous Five on Finniston Farm and entails the search for some hidden ruins beneath the land, on which a castle once stood. The game starts with a simple tutorial section to help the player get the basics of the control system and quickly progresses into the main plot.

There are some aspects that I had to take out, such as the second level which I wanted to include but from the beginning knew that if I really wanted to create a well made game I would probably not get it to the point where I was happy enough with it to hand in.

On a brighter note I was quite happy with the AI given to Timmy the dog, who is used in the final quest to find the hidden ruins. I also enjoyed coding the conversation system, as I decided that I could not do what I wanted with the recommended CSDTalk plug-in and created a system that was easy for me to control and provided a lot more flexibility to what I needed it to do.

Looking back on the project, I feel like what I have achieved is quite impressive as simply learning the Unreal code base is quite a feat! But to also create a game which I am happy with and can play through seamlessly gives me a good feeling about the project.

Here is a complete walk through of the demo.