Just like my mom's

Quite a long time since the last post (again), but you'll see, it's worth it (kind of). Many things ahve been accomplished since then. Mainly, the terrain part is fully done. After working on the skybox and more responsive controls, I decided to go a little more "graphics" and start on shaders. The first shader I did (and that I'm actuallay proud of) wasn't easy to build. It's a nice water effect, just like those you see in recent games (well, not that good). It has reflection using a cubemap and some ripple perturbation added to it. Wave height and speed are customizable, as well as water color and transparency. I had great help from the Gamedev community (http://www.gamedev.net). The final result is a combination of many of their ideas and of my own conlcusions. Take a look !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgheU4_hcgQ

Now, back to work !

Slowly but... slowly

I solved (sort of) the performance problems I had. Collision was still unperfect and even if I managed to make it more efficient, it's still acting weird in some cases. Anyway, I was tired of it(I mean, really f-ing tired), so I'm not touching it anymore, not for now. I decided to perfect the terrain system with multitexturing. What I first thought would be somewhat easy to do seems a little more complicated now. However, it's nothing I can't go over with, it's just going on slowly. There's also the fact that I'm not working on AGE as much as during the past few weeks, which doesn't make it go faster. Anyways, results are on their way, and even if they're not in a hurry, they'll come for diner. Just watch TV, eat pizza and be patient.

Uh-oh

Okay, I thought everything was going well. In fact, it seemed everything was going well. Physics are now working and I was happy. However, I then decided to implement heightmapping (which is a way to generate terrain). When it was finished, and that I tested it, bad suprise : my engine has big performance problems. I still don't know if the problems come from the encapsulation or from the great number of buffers, I just began to dig it. I must admit, however, that it makes me lose some of my enthuiasm. Motivation is harder to find where you're doing optimization. Anyway, it has to be done, so wish me good luck. See ya !

It's aliiiiive !

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orin. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanauser Gate. And I've seen my collision work !!! That's for real. That "destroy-and-rebuild everything" stuff sure paid. Okay, maybe that doesn't mean alot for you, but for me... The hours of headaches, of crying in pain alone in the darkness of my failure, are now finished. A new day is beginning my friends, and it's all for me ! No seriously, I'm happy I can finally walk over that obstacle and work on some new stuff. I plan on releasing a simple video showing the physics in action (impulse and collision) soon. Be ready to be astonished ! Time for the victory song !

Collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la !!!

Still Alive

Well, I should say rising from the ashes, because after another year of inactivity, I'm back to work on my beautiful baby. Now, the major thing is I'm starting over from zero. You heard me. The old AGE is now buried deeply underneath to make place for the new-born, still named AGE. After so much frustrations and despair in face of total chaos, I had no choice. Moreover, some of the classes I had in software engineering gave me some help to give my engine a better structure. Except for the structure, AGE hasn't lost its primary goals. It will be an engine with classic graphics, sound, and physic functions, plus some more advanced game concepts, like AI for example. Currently, only the basic object structure has been done, and basic visuals are on their way. Prepare to be very soon astonished by the uncanny results of my hard work. Talking about work, I've got some waiting for me. I guess I'll se you soon. One word : Courage !

Something like progress...

The project has been pretty much inactive lately, but hey, that's not my fault. You know the deal : job, school, friends; there's no time left for my sweet AGE. But I've done something that might help the project progression. It's a schematic outline of the "basics" of the engine. There's a nice color system so it's easy to find where I'm at. Well, to make things short, I hope this will give me the kick in the butt I need to continue my work.

There and back again

That's it, I took my decision. I'm starting the collision detection programmation from 0. I just got too bored trying to make the current one working, I want to advance a bit at least. So this time I'll take my time to read the more I can about collision detection, and hopefully, I'll get something working. However, I'm still a coward so I kept the old one, just in case. Anyway, wish me good luck.