Blog

Project Development

Monday – This week we are connecting the movement and aiming scripts for the level designers to have working mechs for use while creating.

Wednesday – Work has started on the little A.I. support troops that will follow the mechs around. I have the soldiers always going to a position. Those positions are given to them by the solider spawner. It’s attached to the mech and only works in the beginning.

Game & Simulation Programming

This week we are tasked with making an A.I. that can make it’s way through a maze. We are not allowed to use Unity’s built-in A.I.

Game & Simulation Programming

The team got our work together. I was able to get a couple of weapons ready. One teammate was able to get the engines all affecting the mainframe of the ship to accumulate forces. Other teammate got our asteroids spawning successfully on screen. I think we’re on good pace and should get our project done on time.

Project Development

This week I was tasked with getting a camera together for a First Person Firing Mode. So the player will be able to move the mech in third person, but will have to be stationary and switch to first person to take control of vertical rotation and firing shells. I was able to lock the x and y axes movement, set the mouse speed, and the sensitivity for when we are really zoomed in.

I also had to implement a vignette effect. Unity has one built in and I’m going to tune the speed with the increasing accuracy feature the team is looking for. The editable mouse speed and sensitivity are really helpful here.

Game & Simulation Programming

This week we are shuffled around to form new teams. Our new project is to make a space shooter that moves around and fires at enemies. The goal is to have modularity of all aspects of the ship we drive. We can add as many engines, weapons, and hulls as the ship can attach. We are also adding a menu where the player will create and add his/her ship to the game.

Project Development

I am now tasked with destructibility of the environment. I start with a basic wall. The feature has been set aside because the modeling artists currently do not have the time to focus on this. Gotta get the mechs moving!

Game & Simulation Programming

The team was able to get a working game submitted. The least experienced of us was tasked with simply being able to detect input. A tap. Any tap. He accomplished this. The other team member was tasked with detecting collision with the pipes and a box off screen that would destroy pipes that were passed by the player. I was tasked with spawning and randomly placing the pipes in the level. This was all done in Week 1 by the end of lab. Really proud of my guys being able to get this done so quickly.

Project Development

So we’ve got the design document and everyone has their first task. I was tasked with implementing a cinematic camera similar to the one in the Sniper Elite series. It’s a prototype and not at all final quality.

Game & Simulation Programming

We’re off the ground and running the first day of class with a Flappy Bird. We were split off into four teams of three. I, of course, was the lead of one of them. Simply because I’m one of the more experienced students.

Project Development

The project was presented this week. We’re making a mech game that is single player. I’m going to play the role of regular programmer. I’ve got to focus on ALL classes and cannot take on being Lead. That said, I’ll be able to actually program instead of dealing with bureaucratic B.S. Yay!

More details to come in Week 2!

Mexico

It had been nearly fourteen years since I visited my family and it is surprising how much love is waiting for you to absorb. It trickled down from my grandmother to the tiniest of cousins.

Walking down streets I’ve been down before felt old and new. It’s the same road, with new neighbors, new vendors, new stories.

My brother, sister, and I felt at home walking down the streets to enjoy food and snacks we’d become accustomed to when we were younger. I didn’t feel threatened, in danger, or unwanted.

I had a wonderful time in my little town.

Seattle

My partner and I flew up to Seattle to visit her brother, Terrence. We spend our time visiting the Museum of Pop Culture with their awesome Star Trek and Fantasy sections, walking down Pike Place Market checking out all the delicious food, and even visited a marijuana dispensary. The dispensary was weird. How can this plant that has been illegal forever be sold openly? It was an experience. Had a really good time with Terrence, his fiance Arshiya, and his friends Shashank and Marcus.

Had a really wonderfully relaxing time over the winter break. I’m ready to take on the semester like a monster!

The Few in Space Unity

So I haven’t really been working on the game since Thursday of 12/14, which is the same date of my last post. I was so itching to create and continue the productive mindset going, until I wasn’t. The first reason I give for this lapse in work is the lack of a thoroughly developed production design. The second reason is that I was tired. I’ve been at school or at work every single day since August 22. I’ve literally not had a day off since then. I needed a break. Starting tomorrow, that changes. I’ve got a schedule for getting my production back up to speed and churning out content.

Programming

I think I’m going to go back and finish my physics engine. With the Game Physics Engine Development book by Ian Millington. I’ve gotten through the first few chapters and made the simple 2D engine, but it’s time to finish that baby’s 3D implementation. I was very green and couldn’t grasp pointers and polymorphism, but I’m a much more progressed mind now. I can see the code working and laying itself out when I think about designing it now.

Internship

There’s an internship for a company here in Dallas that is offering a Spring semester gig for game programming students. I’m going to begin a Unity VR project and submit my resume for consideration. This could be the beginning. Fingers crossed.

So after many years of it just sitting in my hard drive, I’ve decided to make a Windows build and release it for anyone to download. I may create an Android APK so that people can play it on mobile.

I’m working on a new version of this game with 3D graphics, special effects, and more enemies. That is my current Winter project and should be released by the end of December.

Itch.io: https://iviauricius.itch.io/tfis-gm

So I’ve purchased a subscription to A Small Orange hosting for about a tenth of the regular price. With that, the site is being relaunched. I didn’t have much up on the previous iteration of the site, so it all should be okay.

School Update: I’m currently in the end of Fall ’17 semester and it has been pretty heavy hitting. I’m in five classes and they all have had a ton of demand in terms of work. Some a lot more than others, but they’ve all had their quantity of work needed.

Projects Update: I’ve got two projects in the works. The first is The Few in Space remade in Unity. I’ve got a really good little model package that will make this go smoothly and perfect for development. The second project is my Driver’s App for iOS that I’m currently working on in the Objective-C course at school. Those are both passion projects for me and I can’t wait to add them to my resume and create more value for my skills.

YouTube: I haven’t uploaded anything in almost a year and there are still five or six videos that are uploaded, but need a thumbnail, metadata, and enabling. That’s for the ASUS GL502VS laptop I used to have. I’ve got an Alienware with an R9 M395X that I could start uploading videos about, but I will need the Graphics Amplifier to add an external GPU for much improved performance.

That’s all for now. See ya.