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DLC And Stuff
February 7th, 2010
Oops, long time since the last update. A bunch of things have happened, but nothing really interesting.
Played through Dragon Age: Origins. The DLC thingy is somewhat worrisome in my opinion. The version I got included all the DLC and all the preorder goodies, so I got the "full experience" so to say.. the DLC that included the golem was pretty much mandatory for the game in my opinion, but the other stuff, especially the preorder goodies, were pretty much just fluff.
Anyway, before I got the game solved, another DLC came out, so I got to experience the "hook" they added. Very, very irritating. If I had played it from the beginning without any DLC, I don't think I would have enjoyed the game nearly as much. Not because of the lacking functionality, but because of the nagging.
What next? Popups in-game?
And don't get me started on the used game business or what kind of slippery slope the whole DLC thing is.Buy a game for 60e and be prepared to pay another 60e to get the "whole game"? Why not just give the first part for free, online, and have a possibility of buying the whole thing on a disc in retail stores. You know, like shareware worked.
The whole DLC thing started - as far as I can recall - with some need for speed game. You could download more cars for free. Then they even ran a poll on whether people liked this system, and lots of people said they did. Okay, so they thought they get more stuff for free, while I thought it would have been nice that the whole game came on the CD.
I installed said need for speed a few years later, and of course the downloads had disappeared by then.
I didn't mean to start ranting but there you go.
I just hope mass effect 2 doesn't have the same kind of system. It probably does. I can already imagine it.. Captain! We received a distress signal! Pay five euros to answer it! Immersion? What immersion?
So yes, I haven't played mass effect 2 yet. You see, I decided topreorder it, so it naturally hasn't arrived yet in the mail. The net is full of spoilers already. It's irritating. Anyway, I'd like to wait for my new PC to play it on.
My good old PC has started to act strangely - doesn't boot every time - so I decided to bite the bullet and ordered new PCs from a store. The machines should have arrived by now, but I hear they have trouble finding the video card I picked.
Sigh.
Anyway, I feel like kid waiting for Christmas, as the new PCs should be, at least on paper, about four times as powerful as the old ones. I can't remember when I had a similar jump in PC speeds.
Speaking of the new system, it'll be 64bit windows 7. I've received some bug reports lately regarding directshow stuff - ESCAPI and textmedia - and the common factor seems to be 64bit windows. We'll see if I can fix the issues. Or when I find the time.
Dune
December 6th, 2009
I recently re-read Frank Herbert's 'Dune', and was surprised to find just how great a book it is. I re-watched the 'Dune 2000' miniseries promptly afterwards, and was just assurprised at just how good adaptation of the story it is.
And if you don't know what 'Dune' is, shame on you. Go grab a copy and read it. It's a book that's spawned, among other things, the whole RTS computer game genre, and its influence can be seen in plenty of places, including the Wheel of Time book series. The rest of this post may include spoilers, so there.
Ahem. Anyway.
Naturally you have to make plenty of liberties with the source material whenever making a transition from one medium to another; changing who says what and when, picking what to show, what to skip, perhaps invent new scenes to cover the holes. And of course, eliminating some characters while expanding others.
As an example, there weren't all that many mentats in the miniseries, but then again, explaining what they do, and showing how they work would have required far too much screen-time, and wasn't all that necessary for the story. And all they do that is relevant to the story can be easily done by someone else.
There were some bits that did irritate me somewhat, though. First and foremost, everyone (including the fremen) walk in rythm on the sand. Hello? Isn't it, like, one of the main things you learn from the book that if you walk without rythm, it won't attract the worm?
There's also clear lack of water dicipline throughout the film - people sitting without stillsuits outside the sieches, and what the heck was that waterfall in the "I'm your duke" sequence? Personally, the first time I read the book, I started noticing dripping water pipes and feeling it's a terrible waste of water.
Expanding the part of the princess was a brilliant move in my opinion. She doesn't do much in the book, but lots of things are revealed through her discussions in the series.
As a tv-movie, the 'dune 2000' does have lots of talking heads, but that's ok. Generally you should try to show, not tell, but as it is, they've managed to jam pretty much detail in the about 4-5 hours of the series. As an example, let's think of the jihad. Throughout the book, Paul sees a jihad in the future, with people killing in his name, and tries to find ways to stop this from happening. As far as I recall, he never mentions this to anyone.
Now, how do you do this in a film? Okay, you can do some visions where he sees fighting and dead bodies and his hands bloody, but that doesn't really say it; so you can either choose to be faithful to the book and not have him tell it to anyone, make him talk to himself, or make him confess his worries to someone. Which of these choises is the most economic, screen-time wise? Is it really so important he doesn't talk about his worries? Or would you rather give the audience a chance of having a clue on what's going on?
Seriously, people who are whining about the lord of the rings movie adaptation should try to think about the challenges of even trying to do such an adaptation.
And no, I don't think I'll dig up the sequels to the 'dune' book. I did so long ago, and it just went downhill. And weird. I think when the author starts ressurrecting old heroes (literally), he has trouble letting go. But the first book: pure genius.
The Problem with Bundles
November 13th, 2009
When I dabbled a bit with OSX programming few years ago, one of the things that I found amazingly simple, elegant and functional was the concept of bundles.
Apps in OSX are actually directory structures, with application metadata (like name, icon, etc), binaries, private dynamic libraries, and application data in their proper places. Need to install an app? Just copy the bundle. Need to move it around? No problem, just drag it. Backup? Sure.
The philosophy of bundles solves lots of problems - not only the above, but you can also have OS9 and OSX binaries in the bundle, for instance. It would be trivial to create a bundle launcher for windows, and just drop the needed binaries in a well named directory. After that, all you'd need is one release which would work on any of the supported platforms, and you could just copy it from one machine to another.
Now, to the subject of this post - what's the problem then? Apple doesn't seem to understand bundles, even though they authored it. I don't get it, but that seems to be the fact. When they moved from PPC to Intel, and wanted to support both architectures with single application, they had to do Something New - fat binaries. Why? Why not just add a new folder in the bundle and be over it? Users in desperate need for disk space could simply clean out the binaries they don't need as well.
Further evidence is the placement of binaries in iphone/ipod bundles - at the bundle root.
Now, this doesn't have anything to do with me - I haven't done any new mac software for ages, mostly because I'd need an intel mac to do anything these days - but it's still aggravating.
MicroVGA
October 28th, 2009
Tonic sent me a link to a nifty little device I immediately fell in love with:
So what is it? It's basically a text mode module, outputs to vga monitor or a TV, and connects to a microcontroller.
I just had to order one immediately. It's also surprisingly cheap. The text mode is controlled via good old "ansi codes" which were rather commonly used back in the BBS era. You talk to the device via serial or spi interface, and it talks back whatever is typed on the keyboard plugged to the PS/2 connector. We'll see if it's possible to update the screen fast enough for any demo use, but if so.. plug in an AVR chip and it's a portable text mode demo machine! =)
Oh, available here. Almost forgot.
One Down, Two Billion to Go
October 21st, 2009
Now that Death Rally's done with, I wonder what's the legal status of the following:
Ignition by Unique Development Studios (UDS)
Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri by LookingGlass Studios (LGS)
Little Big Adventure 1 and 2 by Adeline Software International
Outcast by Appeal
Dune by Cryo Interactive
All of the above (and I'll probably think of more later on) are in legal gray area, as the developers and/or publishers have gone bankrupt. I haven't been able to dig up who owns them, or if the source code still exists.
Additionally, companies like EA and Infogrames are sitting on piles of rapidly decaying cultural heritage, including the whole portfolios of Bullfrog and Origin.
In any case, I'd love to see them open sourced. Toss me a mail if you have any idea.
Death Rally
October 20th, 2009
The cat, along with parts of the NDA, is out of the bag.
My Secret Project was porting Death Rally to Windows. It's now released, and free - go grab it.
And if you just arrived here because you saw the URL in the game, welcome. Feel free to browse the site. You'll find tons of stuff here, including programming tutorials, demos I've made, games I've made, source code, and so on..
Ads Reverted, Work Stuff
October 17th, 2009
So, I let the project wonderful ads running for 6 months. The results have been abysmal (less in 6 months than google ads generate in one), so I reverted to just plain google ads.
I've had some legal anguish at work related to my hobby projects, especially the Secret Project, which will be (unless something really unexpected occurs) revealed next week.
Since information of said Secret Project has already leaked, some of you visitors might already know what it is. Hello there!
The legal anguish caused me to ponder if I had any options - if I should just give up and change jobs. Thanks to everyone who reacted to my Facebook post about this; it gave me strength and hope that if I should need to change jobs, there just might be something out there for me.
Situation being what it is, the current job offers several things I would probably have to give up (including extremely flexible work environment arrangements; I telecommute most of the week), and interesting challenges I won't see elsewhere.. basically the only thing I have problems with are some IP policies.
Ping..
September 26th, 2009
Fairly little of importance happening.. spent my evenings for the past month or so by watching the whole futurama series, all four seasons. Currently suffering from a flu, which doesn't help the work-related frustration I'm going through.
I guess the whole licensing theme with Atanua is wrong, so I should revamp it. When I find the time. Which doesn't seem to be soon.
Re: "Steal This Game Design" (a post I did a couple years ago), some people noted that I should check out zelda: majora's mask. I bought it for the wii virtual console, and tried playing it. The first save point occurs at about 40 minutes of play, assuming you know what you're doing. Should I point out that this is completely impossible with a 6-month old child? I got about 80% of the stuff done, and quit in frustration. Instead, I've watched someone else play it, on youtube.
Based on what I've seen, it's much simpler than my idea - basically consisting of things like "this door is open from 9 to 5 on Thursdays". Much simpler than the 'social billiards' I was aiming for.
As it stands, the Hitman series is closest to what I ment, except that it doesn't loop the same day over and over.. =) Of course you PLAY the same day over and over to get the job done, but it's not exactly the same. The mechanics are similar though: poison the muffin person A will bring to person B to whack person B, for example.
But it doesn't need to stop there; like I said, it might be possible to do things like (and I'm quoting myself) "You talk, in the evening, with someone, who's had a bad day, because they didn't get any food in the restaurant, because the waiter did not show up to work, because they did not get a ride to work, because you stole the car keys.". But that's a rather extreme example.
Happenings
August 24th, 2009
Fairly little of import has happened lately. Played through Trine, it's a fun platformer with a twist or two. Recommended. Just a pity the last level has to be a pain.
Just to make things a bit weirder for my search engine stats, I'd like to mention that I recently read Cecelia Ahern's "A Place Called Here", and liked it a lot. I had previously read "PS, I Love You", and kinda liked that, so when I noticed the book in a used book store, I picked it up. Easy reading, refreshing Irish references and so on. Also manages to surprise on what it's about. Yes, there's romance in it as well, but it's.. different.
I've been thinking about CFL4 lately again. It's been an on-and-off thing for ages. I don't really need another virtual filesystem/packfile thing, but there's several features I've been thinking about that might be really useful, especially for games. When I've started writing it before - and trust me, I have - I've started from a wrong place, in some of the more interesting plugin thingies, but since there was nothing to plug into, the project has stalled. I remember last time when I started, I wrote a bunch of code and as I was saving it, I found an almost identical file in the place where I was planning to save it. That was kind of embarassing. And shall I use those bits if I start again? Unlikely.
While talking about things I'd like to do, there's a project I've been thinking about, but which will probably never happen. It would be a book/cd kind of thing (or heck, a website) with Finnish music, translations and analysis of the lyrics, under the name of 'musical journey to the Finnish mentality'. Stuff like Kaija Koo's city stories from Mikään ei riitä, Marraskuu by Miljoonasade, Jos tahdot tietää by Maarit, and so on. The reason why the project will probably never happen is because of rights. Basically I'd need a publisher to handle all the publishing contracts on the songs and lyrics etc. I can't even do it for free, because the lyrics themselves are under copyright.
Triangle Rasterization Tutorial, Seminar Slides
August 10th, 2009
The seminar slides are here. If you missed the seminar (and my rather rushed performance), the slides cover the subject pretty well.
Second, wrote a short tutorial on triangle rasterization. No reason.
RST 'How To' Extravaganza
August 3rd, 2009
First off, I'll be speaking at Assembly again. I hope I won't be stuttering too much this time.. my seminar slot is on Thursday at 16:00, and I'll be talking about how to get more out of your education in a scene way.
I haven't been updating this page for a while due to summer vacations and some interesting things going on, which I can't talk about, but which have been taking my free time lately.
Since it's been a while, here's some recent search terms. Not too recent though..
Figured I'd do something different and searched for 'how to' in the past few years' search term logs
and picked up a few that caught my eye.
"how to build a level tutorials"
- Depends.. on the game.
"how to build a mmorpg fansite"
- Just like any other web site. Mind the copyrights.
"how to code fractals in opengl"
- Depends on the fractal. Some fractals, like L-systems, you might want to create as geometry; other kinds, such as the common mandelbrot, you would probably want to write as a pixel shader.
"how to copy opengl framebuffer video memory"
- glReadPixels
"how to count words in a text file.cpp"
- Count all non-whitespace surrounded by whitespace and/or file start and end.
"how to darken a sdl surface"
- Make the pixel values smaller.
"how to determine horizontal and vertical distance in graphic c programming"
- Substract the coordinates from each other.
"how to disable 1 bit logical operator"
- To toggle, use xor. To enable, use or. To disable, use and.
"how to do 32 bit shift left operations on 64 bit machine"
- Use a 32-bit data type, or if that fails, mask out all unused bits.
"how to do graphic for my game"
- With hard work.
"how to do old school graphics programming?"
- SDL is pretty good, in my opinion. Others prefer allegro.
"how to draw sonic the hedgehog how many spikes do you have?"
- Maybe google for some images of said critter and count yourself?
"how to draw vampires tutorial"
- Draw people. Add fangs. Captivating eyes optional.
"how to enable backspace in html textfield"
- I didn't even know you can disable it. Live and learn.
"how to find max value for same two lookup values"
- Lookup tables are generally a 1:1 relationship between key and value, so maybe you're talking about some more complicated data type?
"how to fix a webcam problem generating a hazy pic"
- It's likely to be unfocused. Try to focus it - in many cases that's done by rotating the lens.
"how to get a lumex lcd character display to work with a microcontroller"
- With hard work.
"how to get calculate position using srand"
- Calculate. Using random. Um.
"how to get ride of debugger detected - please close down and restart !"
- Petition to make all forms of DRM illegal?
"how to get the most out of mmorpg"
- Don't play it. Instead, buy a good book, and read it. In a café. That'll give you all the fantasy you need, along with real social interaction. Yeah, like I'm the one to preach..
"how to implement blining cursor using sdl"
- Don't draw it every frame.
"how to include bresenham line algorithm into opengl to draw alphabet on grid"
- You don't need bressenham in OpenGL; just use the line primitive.
"how to install terra nova strike force centauri on vista"
- Dosbox.
"how to make a high graphic game"
- Start from a low graphic game, and then lift the graphics higher.
"how to make and sell your own role playing game"
- Travel back in time and try to talk to TSR and folks in the early 80's.
"how to make good pixel graphics"
- With hard work.
"how to make skeleton using metal threads as homework"
- Wow, cool! What school do you go to?
"how to make slippery tiles rough"
- Depends on the material, but chisel and hammer might work.
"how to make your sister do stuff for you"
- Following the golden rule, do stuff for your sister?
"how to map lpdword to wparam"
- "lpdword" being long pointer to doubleword and "wparam" a word parameter, I'm not sure if that works. But win32 api being weird as it is, maybe it does.
"how to sell your mmorpg idea"
- Step one: Find someone incredibly stupid enough to pay for ideas. Step two: introduce him/her to me..
"how to use boolean logic with effects alcohol has on syndrome babies"
- Right..
Older news have been archived here.
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