Torqued, Part 1

01.09.2009

For the past 5 weeks, I've been trying to get a handle on the Torque Game Engine. This is one of those projects I've been putting off for years that I'm finally going to make time for, being the eventual making of the wrestling game I've always wanted. I've talked about it before, and realistically I'm years away from making said wrestling game, but to get to the knowledge level needed to make that wrestling game I've got to start somewhere. Enter baby step #1.

I'm [arguably] a coder. Really I'm more of a hacker/cut-n-paste coder. All I've coded for the past 10 years are web applications, so real object-oriented code takes a little while for me to wrap my brain around. Torque uses a C++ style scripting language to do all kinds of cool stuff. I've got 4 books and access to tutorials, websites, and forums galore to help understand that code. If I can find where in the code to start messing around, I'll be good. After 5 weeks, I can tweak the player settings and place objects on a mission map directly in a file, but so far I don't know the right place to change things dynamically in the game. That's not to say I can't find out with relative ease, it's just that these baby steps I'm taking are extremely small.

Being [arguably] a coder, my biggest unknown in playing around with a game engine is the actual models themselves. People, vehicles, buildings, terrain, weapons. Luckily, one of the reasons I picked Torque was there is an ample supply of models that work with the engine - some free, some for a reasonable price. With those models, I can limit my bug tracking to me messing with the code, not wondering if some 3D model I've cobbled together is constructed correctly.

So after 5 weeks I can take my purchased dude model and run him around my purchased city block models. He can't shoot anything. Nothing can shoot him. He can't die. He can't even change the speed at which he runs. The bad part is that the tutorials and books are geared toward an earlier version of the engine which has changed greatly since they've updated the graphics and shaders (whatever they really are). I think I can figure it all out, it's just some more baby steps.

But this is the basis from which I can start to learn even more. Like shooting. Shooting is good.

Permalink game dev

62

01.05.2009

Today would have been Mom's 62nd birthday.

I had heard something second hand at the Spiritus Xmas Party about how to celebrate Mom's birthday. At first it sounded a little sappy, but the more I thought about it the more it made me smile.

I left work and went by Party City and picked up a big honkin' helium birthday balloon. I brought it home and attached a little note I wrote to Mom. I took the balloon outside where it was just beginning to rain after threatening to do so all day. I kissed the note and let the balloon go, watching as it rose into the gray sky as the rain started to come down a little harder. I watched as it rose higher and higher, until I couldn't see it any longer.

I stood out there in the rain for a couple of extra minutes, talking to Mom, telling her that I love her, and I miss her. Then I smiled as it hit me that the balloon was heading toward Florence. Maybe it'll stop by my grandparents and pick up a couple more messages to take to Mom.

Permalink mom

The last hours of Xmas vacation

01.04.2009

Tomorrow morning it'll be time to go back to work. I was last at work for the majority of the work day on Dec 18, 2008. Yes, I am well aware of the intricacies of the workings of "the system" and how to use them to my advantage, so don't hate the playa.

I've enjoyed my vacation time. In years past, I was ready to go back to work after a week or so off. Now that I'm 39¾ I find that I could pretty much stay on vacation 24/7 if I were fiscally able. In fact, there's loads of things I wanted to get done over the past 2 weeks that I just didn't have enough time to get done. With the holidays, there was plenty of traveling to visit relatives, quality times with miscellaneous loved ones, and digesting (yeah, time to get serious on that diet again - *brrrp*).

The weather has worked against me more than I thought it would. One of my little projects was to clean out the garage and use the storage building that I've got in the back yard. The ground has been abnormally soft in the back yard, probably due to having dirt hauled in to fill my little sink hole along with the planting of extra grass in October. When I walk across portions of the yard I sink a little (I'm a good dirt compactor). There's been a lot of rain and I don't know how well a damp yard would hold up to me scurrying back and forth with loads of garage crap. Over the past 2 weeks, the yard hasn't dried out enough for me to not sink a little when I take a step, so the garage has not gotten cleaned out.

I had hoped to make more progress on my Torque learning, but a combination of my brain not wanting to cooperate along with finding other excuses has gotten me behind. At least I have 2 clean bathrooms to make up for it!

I really felt like Xmas vacation was over Friday at 4:00 - that's when I normally would take off from work and begin the weekend. To tell the truth, I was a little down when I realized that. I felt like I was a kid again and it was time to go back to school when I'd much rather stay home and play with my toys. Maybe that's what I should do for the rest of the day?

Hmmm, where's that wrestling ring Evil Matt & Rynn got me for Xmas?

Permalink rambling random

New Years Resolve

12.30.2008

The majority of people make their New Years resolutions to lose weight or get fit it seems. Last year I made a couple of realistic resolutions - get the leaky roof fixed and to clean out the room of junk that had been getting populated over the last 2 (or maybe 3) years. I was realistic in my timeline of how long these things would take, since neither is something I would just get up and do. There's scheduling, finding better things to do, being in the right mood, etc.

The leaky roof was fixed by a contractor. Since I'm a firm believer in getting something fun when something else is needed, I also got him to tear down the old deck, pour a patio, and haul in a storage building. After 6 months of contracting, he's finally wrapped everything up (and is bringing me the last bill sometime today). The best part is it feels like it's been raining for about the past month, and I don't have a leaky roof!

Cleaning out my room of junk could have taken 3 hours. I did it in a month. I took my time, but I also timed it to where the above mentioned contractor would haul off the crap I didn't need/want. That worked out pretty well, as after he hauled it away from where I stacked everything in the garage, there was now room to pull in the garage and park once again!

So now I'm looking at what I want to get done in 2009. Sure, there's always losing weight, but that's an easy one to put on the list that doesn't have a real timeframe to tackle outside of setting weight loss goals and times. Not to belittle that approach, but I've got other things I want to make sure I accomplish, too. So in hopes of getting crap done next year, here's my first pass at my list (Jerry would be so proud):

• Paint the room formerly full of junk (this entails cleaning the craptastic paint job in which I tried to learn how to paint first).
• Clean out the garage/Use the storage building
• Continue learning to use the Torque Game Engine (now in week 3!) and get the first version of my game together.
• Make a flight simulator cockpit (may have more details on this one later)
• Go to Jamaica. Hopefully come back, too.

There's more stuff to do if you get down to the day-to-day level, but those are my overall large goals for the year. For the normal person, everything there seems easily doable over the coarse of a couple of weekends. I, however, see that as a person who likes to take it easy and believes in the value of a good break, will readily admit that this short list easily fills up whatever free time I may have in a year.

Now I'm going to go lay down and take a nap.

Permalink renovation/remodelling

Not A Mancrush, I Think

12.27.2008

I just got off the Facebook after chatting with my good close personal friend Jason for the past hour and a half, god bless the interweb and Al Gore for creating it.

I haven't actually seen Jason since the last Raw show came to the VBC in 2004. I still call him annually and have gotten to where I'll text snide comments about wrestlers while Raw is on, but I always feel like I'm bugging him at work.

Jason reminds me of my cool cousin from when I was growing up. I wanted to hang out and talk and be cool, but I was always a little afraid of being to nerdy and abrasive. With Jason, I know what he does at work and what all's going on with the WWE so I can actually have a conversation about his job and keep up, but I don't want to force him to talk about work all the time! I've had people that knew I made websites so all they wanted to talk about was websites - not the most interesting of conversations!

But he puts up with me, along with my nerdy abrasiveness that I try to subdue. Along with my observations on JBLs man-titties

Permalink random wrestling