Snowman Studios
Ah, completion always feels good. I finally beat the boss fight in Star Ocean. The fight was significantly harder than the previous fights, so the final boss was worthy to be called such.
This was followed by about an hour of cut scene.
Best line:
"What did you tell them, father?"
"Whoever was able to survive my training program could marry you."
Towards the end where the fights got harder, I started to notice the short-comings of the AI for my teammates. They would be told to support my team, and proceed to cast silence on the same enemy repeatedly. They wouldn't heal the guys doing the fighting until they were on the edge of death. They wouldn't take any time to get away from the guy who can kill them in one swipe. I wish they had more specific AI Tactics, but they didn't. Also, while they took the time to credit each violinist who performed for the music, they didn't list any of the voice actors / actresses. I'm a little disappointed because I wanted to see who's voices I recognized, but I think they were trying to avoid showing that they had multiple actors doing multiple parts.
Now I can go out and buy Rome: Total War with a clean concious.
I managed to complete a preliminary version of the animation classes. I'm going to break up the types of classes in my next version, but that is going to be written when I add it to my new project.
All I know about my next project is that it's going to involve leg movement (walking, running, etc). This means it'll either be a FPS, a Mechwarrior clone, or an attempt at making a game based loosely off of a certain TV show... I don't know yet. Either way, the graphics will look bad as I don't have any half-decent modeling tools available nor will I have any good textures.
I have begun to write my own "library" of animation functions. I looked through at the directx animation functions, but they aren't very usable for me because they are intended to have information for every stage of the movement, not to take two end points and approximate along a line of motion.
So my functions and such are based on key frames. Key frames are specific frames in an animation where movement is defined. Between key frames, the computer (based on a variety of mathmatical functions) figures out where the objects and camera should be in between. It can be linear or smoothed or a hand full of other ways.
For example, if I have a box starting at the origin and want the box to take 10 seconds to move to (10, 0), the program only knows the start point and end point. The program will divide the time passed so far by the total time and get a scalar for how far to move the box. For the animation of each object, I keep track of rotation and movement in 3D. To animate a person, rotation and movement must be kept track of for each segment of the body (foot, lower leg, upper leg, etc). It sounds like a painful process, but it's what was used for animation before motion capture showed up on the scene. And really, it's not
that bad.
I'm so glad that in times of partisan bickering, threat of terrorist attack, and that mess (or wonderful land of democracy) known as Iraq that our congressmen make sure to focus on the
important issues.
Nothing significant heard back about Volition; only that they will grade my test.
I might be close to the end in Star Ocean. It surprises me the similarities to and combinations of different plots from a wide range of sources.
(slow news day)
It's felt like a crazy 3 days. Yesterday I had aikido in the morning, then rushed back to take a shower and get down to UTC (mall) to meet up with a NU alumn to talk about jobs and where he works. At one point we got to talking about the professors in the CS department since that was his major (class of '97). Not surprising, a lot of them hadn't changed. I wouldn't mind getting together and having discussions with him in the future.
He told me he'd pass along my resume at his company. He works for a company called Cubic that does computer-related defense contracting. He was commenting that I might not be interested, but told him that I put historical war gaming on my resume for a reason.
I was contacted by the guy who interviewed me yesterday, and he wanted me to take a timed e-mail test. I was to have 2 1/2 hours, not use reference material and not use a compiler.
The first question was the same first question my previous e-mail test, so it took me about a minute or two to write. The questions got progressively harder, but I came up with answers for each of them that I feel confident about. There is the possibility of one or two small errors, but there shouldn't be anything major. I finished in under 2 hours, then went back to check my work.
I won't know the results from the test until next Monday at the earliest.
I got a call from a potential employer this morning. He wanted to do a quick over-the-phone interview. It seemed to go well and he said he would get back to me shortly. This would seem only like big news, but the bigger part is that it's in Urbana, IL. That is 6 hours from Nashville, 4 hours from Murray, 10 hours from Norman, and 2 1/2 hours from Evanston. As far as location goes, I don't know if it would much better short of, say, Hawaii. But then I don't know anyone in Hawaii, so I might be as lonely there as I am here (if not more so).
When life gives you a lemon, make a
ping pong table out of it.
Ok, I have become officially adicted to Star Ocean. But then isn't that what any good RPG is supposed to do? They aren't usually designed well for people to let sit for a week or two because you'll come back and not know what you were in the middle of doing.
So far my review of the game is good. There are some signs that the game was rushed to be released (the Japanese version) as it is a little rough around the edges in a couple of spots. Not "Beyond Good and Evil" rough around the edges, just not the completely smooth and ironed out Final Fantasy (well, asside from the mini-games). But then the complexity of the battle system is much more ambitous. Also, I seem to recognize a bunch of the voices for characters. I haven't found a list of the cast online yet, but I recognize voices from other games like Disgaea and Xenosaga as well as the voices for Spike, Jet, and Faye from Cowboy Bebop.
Lastly, there will be a
new drink to join the ranks of the B-52 and the Sake Bomber. I don't know what it'll be mixed with, maybe if you mix it like a Silver Bullet (Sotch) you could call it a Cold War...
I'm so sick and tired of pro-Bush groups trying to investigate Kerry's medals. A group called Judicial Watch pushed for the Navy to do a review. When the Navy confirmed that the paper work for the medals confirms that proper steps were taken, Judicial Watch says they will appeal it. They are also wanting the Navy to look into Kerry's anti-war protests (not like the Navy would really have any jurisdiction over that).
This sickens me because we've spent so much time on a topic with little to no relevance to the election. Besides, atleast there is documentation and eye witness about Kerry's service (and video footage of SBFT members who spoke very differently about Kerry in past years).
Yesterday I went out and bought
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. I had read reviews that it was interesting, long, and had a good combat system. So far, I am agreeing.
First off, one of the complaints is that there are too many cut scenes that are lengthy. I can definately see this as a downer for most people, but considering that much of my leasure time is spent either playing games or watching tv / anime, I don't see it as a big downer. Just, I don't know what to expect but I better not be planning on going anywhere soon (they do have options for skipping though).
Second off, the fighting system is real time. You move around in the arena and attack the enemy you target with a few different moves. Your allies are running on AI (and you give them strategy and such). There are ways to increase how much you tell your allies to do, but I'm not certain of the details on that yet as a large portion of my play time has been spent without allies. To keep the player from just slashing away, they have a system that is kind of like endurance. You need to take a short break after a lot of powerful attacks. So it's got action of Dark Cloud 2, but with the brevity (of combat) and tactics of a Final Fantasy game.
Third, I'm in it. The character Cliff is tall, blond, fights with his fists, and is not so good with the girls. Oh, and he relies on hunches and luck a lot.
I have never heard of anything as embarassing as this many
cops being robbed by such a small group. Now that's incompetance.
Oh, and I forgot to meantion that blue dots on the radar mean below and red dots mean above (in the readme file).
Version 0.1 is released!
It's not much, but it's something. There will be much more to come as I add new features. Honestly, much of the really hard work is done. There will be challenging things for me to add on later (like more specific collision detection), but for now I am pleased.
Also, there is one bug that I know of that is floating around, but I don't know what exactly is causing it yet. Don't worry, it's not a memory leak. It'll just cause some of the objects not to render.
Well, the interview with the second company is a no-go. The third interview did it for me. Asking me if I was willing to do testing or whatever with HIV (much less be anywhere close to it) just doesn't exactly fall into my comfort zone. That plus some other things.
So it looks like it's the first company or more programming of directx at night.
I just got back from the first of my two interviews today. It was at a company called
Incisix. The interview on a whole went well. The job description I was sent was way over my head, but my interviewer seemed more interested in what my potential is than what my current abilities are. The fact that I am intrigued by the idea that they are working to implement does help too.
More amusingly, he seemed extremely interested in my historical war gaming hobby (which is listed on my resume, at the end right after the 1st degree black belt). I showed him Carl's webpage and one of the
battle reports and we discussed it in relation to their project (there is relevance). He also fould a couple of misspellings and I was pleased that I had not directed him to a site done by myself because then I wouldn't have to explain why I don't know how to spell such-and-such.
For now, I shall get lunch and then prepare for my afternoon appointment.
First off, I have come to the conclusion that having white targets on a background consisting of black with random white dots does not make for good design. It's something that'll be worked on. For the mean time, I am going to be using a different model.
I pretty much spent today working on the collision detection. Before, if the bullet passed completely through the target between clock ticks, it would not register as a hit. So, after spending 11 hours on it today (plus spending more time previously to do research), I have managed to get this feature working properly. I also found a wealth of functions built into directX, and will be converting my stuff to use the directX data types and functions.
Anyway, because I have the collision detection done I plan to release a version late on Monday night, so look for it Tuesday. I have two interviews (two different companies) on Monday, so Monday day-time is going to be busy and Sunday is mostly booked. The remaining time on Sunday will be spent preparing for Monday.
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.
This could be cool, but an itch tells me it won't live up to the premiss's potential.
More programming was accomplished. Right now, what I need to do is write some code to handle the case for the "bullet" to pass entirely through the hit radius in the time of a clock tick. Right now, this happens about 80% of the time.
Shortly after I create my fix for this (there will be a couple of small additions including grand concepts like "levels" and "points"), I will be putting a version of it on my website. I'll go into more detail when I post a version.
The main thing I'll say now is you'll need DirectX 9.0, and most likely 9.0c (released mid August). I don't think I use anything new to 9.0c, but I'm not 100% certain. If you don't have it, you can find it
here. If you don't have direct access to the internet from the computer on which you'll play, you'll need to go
here.
Anyway, there will be a version posted Monday.
I spent a good portion of today programming and made a lot of progress (if only I could make progress like this the other 6 days of the week...).
Anyway, I run into some of these weird errors where neither the problem nor the solution make any sense.
Something I want to add to my previous post.
There have been lawsuits about the bookkeeping of the movie studios. Since actors are often paid by the performance of the movie, if the movie is recorded in the books as a flop then the actors don't get paid as much.
Since the statistics of 1 in 10 and 4 in 10 are probably based on the same cooked books, then it could easily be concluded that far more are successful and once again the MPAA is trying to say "look at the little guys, you want them to have a job, don't you?"
After all that the RIAA did to try to stop priacy, the MPAA is already taking actions to try to prevent piracy. In the span of 2 hours I came across two ads in completely unrelated places (one was in print in a magazine, one was an online ad) talking about how bad piracy is.
From the website, they talk about leaving your computer open to viruses, they talk about the movie cutting out before the end, and they talk about how 1 in 10 movies makes it's money back in the theaters and 4 in 10 make it back ever. It makes me think that maybe there should be some better quality control if there are 6 in 10 movies that don't make their money back. Some of them might be close, where maybe they would have and maybe they wouldn't have. But maybe some of them should never have been made... that there was no justification and that possibly the reason for the movie being made was more for the people involved (either pocket book, spending time with
or doing the production work for a love scene with ). Hey, it's why there are suddenly a flood of M-rated games with nudity and little else of substance.
While I understand that there are creativity bits where someone wants to make a powerful story that the producers don't think will go well. Lets see... Memento cost $5 million and made $25 million in theaters. Farenheit 9/11, whether you like the movie or not, set records for documentary income. Schindler's List was something that took much conviencing before it would be made, but then was a huge success.
So in the end, where would they have to cut the fat? Hmmm... well, Gili (sp?) is probably the most notorious flop of recent memory. So maybe if they cut out movies that are intended to rest on the laurels of their cast (laurels used loosely in this case), then someone should say "Hey, this movie is too risky. What happens of so-and-so's popularity doesn't make up for the fact that the rest of this is crap?" In 1982, Atari said that they could put crap in a cartridge and sell millions. The following two years, the game industry crashed.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that piracy in general is the way things should be. I'm just saying that piracy is something that creaters of content will have to contend with from now on. Some things can be handled with guilt tripping, but the RIAA proved that doesn't work. Some things can be handled by being jerks to your demograph, but the RIAA proved that doesn't work either. But if the movie studios are loosing money on that kind of scale, then I think they should look internally at their spending habits ("they spent how much for her in that movie?").
Also, there are areas who embrace a "form" of piracy. In recent years, anime in the United States has managed to become more main stream and dvd sales are growing every year. But for a product that comes to DVD before it is shown in any other fashion state-side, why is it that so many people pre-order disks? Fansubs. Fansubs (pronounced fan-subs) are where people take a digital version of a tv show or movie that is in another language, translate it, encode subtitles on it, and distribute it. It's like free advertising. Yes, there are some people who get the fansubs and don't buy the dvds. But there are many other people who try out a series, then buy the dvds as soon as they come out. Take, for example, me. I have no clue exactly how much I have spent on anime dvds (I could find out easily enough, but I'm not sure I want to). Anyway, I wouldn't even know 99% of what I know about anime if it wasn't for downloading fansubs. When there is a show that fits with me, I buy the DVDs as they are a superior product to the .avi files and by doing so I support the creation of new material. Fansubs have been supported by different licensing companies and under normal, idealistic conditions they are no longer produced or distributed after the show is licensed and to be distributed state-side. Generally, there will be groups who will continue to fansub licensed material. The exact effects are not known and there may not be any.
Ah...
Zell Miller... you wacked out nut.
If you do a search for the first instance of:
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
you'll be at the beginning of the interesting stuff. The really interesting stuff is after the start of the second instance of the above text. "I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel." This guy seriously is going to have a heart attack in the next 5 years regardless of what else happens.
I'm finding that doing exercise in the morning is a good way to wake up and have energy for the rest of the day. Granted, it means you have to wake up earlier on some days but it is still fun. Besides, it's not like I'm doing much else that is important...
Next on the news...
This just sounds wierd...
Yesterday I was looking through the SDSU student newspaper. My dad had brought it home because it had a few political cartoons in it. As I was going through to find them, I came across an ad for a place that specializes in sake bombing, and there was even a 10% discount coupon. State schools....
Now for today's news...
First off,
how dumb can you get? Isn't one supposed to be dead before they are on real currency (asside from the fact that it only resembles real currency...)
Day time martial arts classes are fun.
Yay, September! Wait, this means that I've been home and unemployed for this long...
Anyway, I've got an interview for next week. I don't know what will come of it. On one hand, the position is a bit over my head. On the other hand, they wouldn't bother to interview me if there wasn't some chance of me getting a position with them.
Also, I'm finding just how bothersome upgrading can be by upgrading my programming software. I haven't decided whether I should have stayed at the lower program or not (I would have had to buy it either way, although I do have access to educational editions at lower prices).
