Namespacery

Three core namespaces:

• VydeEngine: also known as the Jeff Engine, or the Object01 Engine. This is the part of the project where I try my hand at writing a game engine that could conceivably handle any game I throw at it. It'll handle all interaction with video, audio, and input, and contain any of the abstraction layers I decide to use for whatever APIs I employ.
• VydeNet: this part is the most up-in-the-air. It'll contain classes that act as the underpinnings of the networking that will (?) connect Vyde clients to either Vyde servers or other clients. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a web-enabled distribution system of my own design.
• VydeCore: this one has the Vyde game in it. All the game classes, all the logic, and rules of the universe. VydeCore would, ideally, be applicable to any other game engine, should id or Valve decide that Vyde is worth buying, of course.

I've been hunting for a good book on game engine development. And I mean real game engine development: textbook kinda stuff; architecture, OOA, patterns, etc. Hopefully somebody out there has some recommendations, 'cause the ones on Amazon et al. are kinda all over the place.

3 Motivators in One Day!

Somebody's trying to tell me something.

First off, everybody who's able must download and experience the Lost Coast map for Half-Life 2. Guess what? It's the first game level I've ever seen that has developer commentary audio built in. And I found it inspiring. Stuff like this makes me proud to be a gamer.

Gabe Newell and the rest of Valve Software have released the Lost Coast "tour" as an experiment to gauge the interest of the community in learning about Valve's production process. I encourage everyone reading this, whether you've played the map or not, to email gaben@valvesoftware.com and recommend that his team do indeed keep producing this kind of material. It's good for us, and it's good for a somewhat stagnant video game industry.

Why didn't anyone have this idea before? I'm sure as hell going to include commentary in Vyde where I can. And I predict now that Valve just slapped a "DUH!" moment on every video game maker out there, we'll start to see commentary tracks on more and more games. I can't wait.

Second, the Visual Studio 2005 RTM was released yesterday! Happy day! I'm absolutely in love with this IDE. I've been using it at work and have gauged a 400% productivity increase.

Third, ZMan posted a link to a whole page of Managed DirectX Tutorials at C-Unit.

I'm gonna go work on some OOA for Vyde now. Again, if anyone has any recommendations for blog hosts, please endure the CAPTCHA and post a comment about it.

Off Topic: Blogger out?

So does anyone have any recommendations for another blogging host? I'm finally cluing in to the sentiment that blogger.com is... disliked.

Progress & Nibbled to Death by Ducks

I know, it's hard to take the Vyde guy seriously when he updates so infrequently. I'm sorry about that. And Peter Molyneux is probably sorry too, he's responsible for most of my absence. Made a little bit of progress recently; finished the first four MDX tutorials in the August SDK, and was very pleased at how straightforward they were. Though there were a few differences between the example code and ended up actually compiling, nothing was unintuitive. So far I really like what Managed DirectX provides. What I'd like to try next is that rudimentary tunnel generator I was talking about earlier. I'd like to do a few things to improve my understanding of what I've worked with so far, like the path of execution of OnCreateDevice to OnCreateVertexBuffer, a conceptual understanding of vertex buffers in general, and a better understanding of PositionNormal vs. PositionColored vertex types. I have so little time for this right now. Groan.

SAND. All I want is sand.

Here's something that I promise to do with Vyde if and when I ever finish it:

I promise, here, with God as my witness, that I will make a sandbox mode available from the time you install the game to the time you decide to stop playing it. I will not, under any circumstances, make sandbox mode an unlockable.

Peter Molyneux, I have a bone to pick with you. After offering a sandbox mode in Black & White, you for some reason chose to make sandbox mode in Black & White 2 a condition of beating the game. This is a bad thing, considering the emphasis Black & White 2 places on real-time strategy, which happens to be my least-favorite genre of all time.

I am a man who likes his sandboxes. I treat a sandbox game like I treat a good drink: it is something you enjoy on your own terms. I do not want to have to enter a combination to get into my fridge. I do not want to have to jump over a hurdle or burn a certain number of calories in order to be granted access to what I want, when I want it.

I am a man who likes his sandboxes. I can play in a sandbox game and appreciate it for what it is. I can eye it with the same candor and objectivism that I would eye a piece of art.

I am a man who likes his sandboxes. Though I don't own one, I can appreciate people who own an aquarium. And though I don't own one, the video game whose development I'm chronicling here is inspired by, and is a tribute to those who own, ant farms.

I am a man who likes his sandboxes. I am the type of person that buys a game sight unseen, reviews be damned, simply because its precessor offered an interesting sandbox.

And for that last reason alone, you should make sandbox mode available from the start.

I really don't like RTS games, though admittedly the first 3 lands of B&W2 have been easy to win with a building strategy.

Off Topic: OMG MY HEAD EXPLODED!

You guys! Seriously! Must look!

Autodesk ACQUIRES ALIAS!

They all called me crazy. They said, "3D Studio will never make inroads into Alias territory! And you're a fool for thinking so!"

But I showed them all! Enjoy your influx, Alias, then prepare to fade away! WOOOHOOOOOO! So long! Farewell! Bye bye! Good riddance! Soon you will know the true power of a unified modifier-based object model and usable interface!

The Real Fix for Stuttering Apps

Hopefully this is the last I'll have to say on the subject: I downloaded the latest CPU drivers from AMD's web site and so far the system is performing as I would expect. None of the stuttering I'd seen previously.

Vyde Should Have Lighting Like This

http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/rthdribl/

And that's all I'm gonna say about that.