Fiftith!

So, what could be more celebratory than explosions and shooting? Nothing! That's what

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HpaWcDX0f4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvvQRIxXGzA&feature=fvsr

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY6nm-6eCzM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9La3Yc2u3NM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOx_wHhitqk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOJppJSKG9Y

And last but not least. The loading and firing of the main guns of the Iowa class battleship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJdinQQk1O8&feature=related

Looking Forward to this One

Well it's been... far too long since the last time I've posted here so I'm going to try to get back into the habit again.

Short story: I'm married, and have been since August 2010, work varies between satisfyingly challenging to insane, I have a pet cat named Doom, and I've barely had any time to do real hobby development work.

I'm going to keep things short so that I'm less likely to get overly lazy and stop posing for months at a time. I'm also not going to restrict my posts to anything in particular... beyond avoiding certain particulars of my job due to NDAs.

During work, I'll spend a smallish amount of time browsing the web. This helps to prevent me from going into mental vapor-lock and keeps me working faster than I would otherwise. I have a few sites I tend to go to that don't take much time to read, and relate just enough to what I'm doing that I don't switch out of the appropriate mindset for coding. One of these sites is the TIGsource blog. This is where I discovered a game that I'm very very excited to see. Hawken.

The game is a mech-sim like game with a pace more on the level of a classic multiplayer deathmatch. Either way, it's been far too long since I got a real fun mech game (years since I got Mechwarrior 4) and Hawken has a very nice feel based on the released gameplay footage. I also quite like its futuristic high tech shantytown setting. Hope the game turns out as awesome as it looks.

AAAAAA 'Splosions!

AAAAAAZone is proceeding nicely. The first project milestone is due tomorrow and what's left to do is implementing enemy AI, which is fun, and force feedback on the gamepad.

I'm currently using JigLibX to provide physics and collision detection in the game. This is working quite well right now though the lack of documentation is rather irritating. The biggest issue currently is the amount of jittering that occurs with the tank's suspension. That's going to be a pain to work out but that's for later... What's more important is EXPLOSIONS!

Yes, EXPLOSIONS! the staple of Michael Bay. They're really simple too. What I do is apply a force to any object within a certain distance of the EXPLOSION!'s position. The force gets weaker as the distance from the EXPLOSION! increases. This is great for sending tanks flying around when shooting them.

The other trick is applying blast damage. If an EXPLOSION! force is applied to a tank then the tank will take damage. The more force the more damage. Once enough damage is done all of the tank's parts, wheels, axels, guns and such, are detached from eachother.

BOOM!

Nobody can resist explosions.