December 3, 2010

BEHIND THE SCENES

Filed under: Technology — iG @ 3:51 pm

Got a special treat for everyone today, a behind the scenes look at the GPE (Game Programming Engine), powering my game Abaddon.

I have significantly re factored the code, initially I had set up the code to just be whatever worked basically, so I had lost my encapsulation. Now, that I have rewritten everything, the game runs much faster. Every object is much more logically organised and the classes have high cohesion and loose coupling.

Obviously, there is still a lot of work to do. I want to create an interface for my manager objects to inherit from first of all, although that would involve multiple inheritance, and develop the gameState from an integer to a class that would call the pertinent subroutines as I am using a switch statement and case block to do that at the moment.

Anyway, I have also updated the installer so that it automatically runs the DirectX Web Installer Client to update your DirectX to the most recent version. This should rectify the missing DLL error that Basod was having. Also, by using LZMA compression, and by removing a few unused testing assets I accidentally included in 0.17, I was able to shave almost 10 megs off the installer!.

You can get the new version of Abaddon, version 0.19 right here setup0.19.exe (16.57 MB).

I have generated Doxygen documentation explaining the system structure as it currently stands. One can view the GPE Documentation at: GPE.pdf


October 19, 2010

V0.17

Filed under: Entertainment — Tags: , , , , , — iG @ 3:12 pm

The engine is coming along well, and you can see the in game video below. Screen shots are available on the gallery page. This video was recorded on a GeForce 8600 GTS in 1680×1050 resolution using OpenGL, and makes use of Alpha Splatting, for the terrain, and Normal, Specular, and Ambient Occlusion maps for the models using CG shaders.

You can download the game for Windows here setup0.17.exe (26.7 MB). Versions for Linux and Mac OS X are in the pipeline.

September 25, 2010

WEBSITE

Filed under: Life — Tags: , , , , , , — iG @ 6:26 pm

Hello all! Long time no see! :( Although I have a perfectly good excuse! I took a road trip around North America and Europe and I have been traveling for almost a year!

I want to get up some pics from the trip, and will be doing as soon as possible. First things first, however, I have unearthed some low-poly 3D models I made a while ago, and have posted them on the 3D Art section of my portfolio.

Also, I have managed to get the igcmp.com domain name back from the squatters who stole it back in 2006, something I am quite excited about! :)
hut 1hut 2hut 3hut 4pump 1shed 1shed 2shed 3well 1wall 1

January 14, 2009

TWO SCREEN SHOTS

Filed under: Entertainment — Tags: , , , , — iG @ 8:32 pm

Hello all! I have two screen shots from the latest version of Abaddon. The first one shows the title screen, the second shows the inventory screen.

December 30, 2008

THREE SITES

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , , — iG @ 12:29 pm

Hello all, just been busy at work here, had to basically recreate the entire iG website, the Abaddon website, and the lwolf.net websites, all from scratch!

YAHOO!!

Basically there were a number of problems with the software I was using to manage and run the sites, therefore I decided to go ahead and bring it all offline, delete all the data, and start fresh with a new install of the latest versions of the software. The main problem was that the software versions I was using were quite antiquated, therefore I was always running into problems with the forums, the main website, et al.

So hopefully the forums should be running fine and all the different sections of the sites should be fully accessible, please let me know if you cannot access anything or if any parts of the sites behave oddly.

Also, I am indeed working on my game, I have just finished rigging up the 3D model of the main character, let me tell you that was not fun!

To the right is an animated gif showing what the walk animation looks like.

April 29, 2008

TRIP TO ENGLAND

Filed under: Life — Tags: , , , , , , — iG @ 9:30 pm

I used to be super excited about flying across the pond (The Atlantic Ocean) but now I just think oh my I am going to have to sit in one place for ages!

I am excited about going back to England, haven’t been there for six months, and I missing it quite a bit. I have been working on some 3D/2D Art for Abaddon, and some Art tutorials to put up on my web page. I also have redesigned the website, with a new interface that I think looks well nice (the present one is a bit too bright for my taste.)

I will be working on the art, the game, and my website while I am in England, so don’t worry there will be updates!

April 24, 2008

EVERYONE

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — iG @ 8:29 pm

I just wanted to tell everyone that I have passed the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 Examination.

It was most indubitably arduous, I had to spend a number of weeks in the library memorizing all the intricacies of Generics, Threads, Auto-boxing, Serialization, Synchronization, Static Nested Inner Classes, and more!

Thankfully though, I have now completed it and I will soon be getting a nifty logo that I can put on my web page to show that I am an official Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform, Standard Edition 5.0!

The gift that I got for myself as a reward for studying super hard and getting the bloody certification is the ZBrush digital sculpting program.

I have been playing around with the free 30-Day trial version, and I have completely fallen in love with the program. It works rather well with my new Wacom Intuos3 6×8 Tablet :)

Also, I have updated my website, added some new links, fixed the XHTML formatting for a few pages, and I will be releasing some cool new images of the 3D model for the main character of Abaddon that I have created with ZBrush.

March 15, 2008

THINGS

Filed under: Life — Tags: , , , , , — iG @ 8:28 pm

I have not had much time for my game. However, I am making some time for the game as I feel like I really want to.

I have all the 3D models I need to create a really good prototype, I am just holding off until I get everything I want together to make something that will really show off all the capabilities of the Torque Game Engine Advanced!

Oh, by the way I have also purchased an upgrade to the Torque Game Engine Advanced, and I am really impressed by the capabilities exhibited by the engine. It is a bit difficult to deal with, but I spend all day programming complex systems from scratch at my job, so I think I should be able to figure it out.

I am hoping to make use of the gorgeous Atlas terrain qualities. I was very impressed with the realistic feel of the RPG Oblivion, and that was in part because of the large terrains found in the game. Therefore, I would like to incorporate such functionality within Abaddon.

Stay tuned, I will be commenting on my progress in bringing the demo together. Hopefully I will be able to create some beneficial resources for the Garage Games community.

You can find out more about the Torque Game Engine Advanced at http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque/tgea/

November 28, 2007

SORRY FOR THE LONG DELAY

Filed under: Life — Tags: , , , , , , — iG @ 8:14 pm

Sorry for the long delay in between updating the site, lots of things have been going on in my personal life. I just moved back to the states, and I am working in a programming job that takes up the majority of my free time! Things are going well with my fiancee, and she will be coming from London in December (I cannot wait!). Basically I promise to make more time in the future to work on Abaddon, things have just been rather hectic lately (what with moving half around the world and starting a new job!)

Anyway, enough about me! I have updated the website with some new screen shots on the Abaddon page showing the new interface work I have done on Abaddon. I also reprogrammed the HTML and CSS so the pages will display properly in all versions of all browsers. Some people were using Internet Explorer and the PNG transparency was not rendered correctly.

August 21, 2007

iG

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , , — iG @ 7:26 pm

Welcome to the new iG website. I have just recently redesigned the website, making sure the whole site operates using the new W3C specifications for XHTML 1.1 Strict and CSS 2.0. By utilizing the advanced layout mechanisms available in XHTML/CSS I have managed to create a more streamlined and attractive website design.

I have also put up some new 3D models that I created in the art section, and I believe they are of a higher quality than my previous Ĺ’uvre. A new update concerning my 3D computer game, Abaddon, will be uploaded to the site shortly as well.

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