| New video - Sunday May 23 2010 16:08:52 | |
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| Here is a new video showing where I am at and some of the new locations. | |
| Meanwhile - Monday May 17 2010 21:48:17 | |
 It heralded their coming and lasted the entire war. | |
| Just a quick new pic - Sunday April 25 2010 23:01:43 | |
Playing around with more of the Pure3d vegetation assests:  Not quite sure where this is in my world but at a guess it would be near the Desert to the north. Also testing a new dirt texture with normal map. It fits in well. | |
| Trees - Saturday April 17 2010 11:12:29 | |
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I have licensed the pine tree set from Pure3D for use inside my games. This is a test to see if it is worth while purchasing the other vegetation packs from them. The pack included a bunch of pine tree's, all the source art work and also pre-setup for use inside leadwerks. So far the results have been quite impressive:    They have a Plants and ground cover pack which I am now quite interested in using with theses trees. |
| The Manor - Saturday April 10 2010 18:50:46 | |
| Way back in April 28th 2003 I had just started working on a module for Neverwinter Nights. At the time the file name for the module was Quan's Manor and it was a social base for those who used to play the game with me. Little did I know that way back then I was creating something that has keeped me thinking and tinkering away for the last 7 years. Earlier this year I purchased the a license for the Leadwerks engine. A powerful indy engine that is like working with the Crytek engine. At that time I was getting it to make a tactical space combat game a long the lines of Star control / PSI5 but as I started to work with the engine and play with the terrain tools it stuck me that I could remake the Manor inside my own game. I quickly killed this idea because it seemed like to much work, but as the days went on I found myself thinking more and more on how I could do it. And so, nearly 7 years since I first started creating the story and characters behind The Manor, I am pleased to announce the beginning of the Manor Book 1 / Book 2 remake. At the moment I am the only person working on the project, coding the game mechanics and creating the assets. Ever single assets has to be remade from scratch as I do wish to sell this project once it is complete. This means a lot of work but also complete freedom for me to strip the D&D Feel / monsters and ruleset which came with Neverwinter Nights. The game itself will no longer be a top down D&D RPG but instead a 3rd person action RPG. Sort of like Oblivion / Gothic / Divinity. It will be programed inside Blitzmax but I have a feeling I will be switching the project to C++ as time goes on. Leadwerks 2.3 is the render / 3D engine and I will be upgrading my game to use the latest version of this fantastic engine as I go. I'll be updating the main site a lot more with info so stay tuned. It is going to be a long road but one I am looking forward too. | |
| Skybox update - Wednesday April 07 2010 15:07:08 | |
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Since posting the video below I have moved my Skybox routine over to the main game engine and it is a nice programmable class. Here is a screenshot of it in action:  Still in the process of getting the whole thing changing dynamically depending on the time of day in game. Currently the sun moves, the clouds move and its possible to instantly go into night. Last night in the Yamama chat room I came up with a plan on getting the timing right. This will allow me to adjust the colours of the fog, sky etc to match the position of the sun also add in moons etc at night. Once this is complete I'll upload a new video showing the skybox in my game. |
| The Sunbox - Sunday April 04 2010 22:48:29 | |
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So I had a good Easter, had a really nice lunch and like all programmers after lunch instead of sleeping it off I spend a very long time bashing away at a idea. By default Leadwerks comes with a Half-life style skybox system. This is a cube painted as a background. This gives the illusion of being in a larger world. I myself have always enjoyed the Unreal version of the skybox. Which is a miniature world in which the sky is projected from. here you can put in buildings and hills etc and they appear in the sky. So today I set myself the task of building the same sort of Skybox with a visible sun which moves and is linked to the main light source. And here are the early results. I have been bashing away at this on and off the past week but it wasn't until today I finally made the break though needed. The concept of how it works is really simple, it was just getting the engine to do what I wanted. Now i am going to work on getting the sky to change to stars as well as a few other effects. Then package all this code up so I can plug it into any of my games with ease. |
| Change of plan - Thursday April 01 2010 16:07:32 | |
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I was making a space game. That is why I registered Blitzmax and Leadwerks. Just when I actually got my hands on leadwerks and started using it another idea popped into my head. I should make a RPG with this engine. So starting from scratch and many Sundays spent whacking bits of code together has gotten me this far: The video is more of a demo to show how the tree I built looks inside the game. There is a lot more that has been done but this is secret for now. Also I do realize what day it is today but check the posts time stamp, its after midday, just in case you thought it was one of my jokes  |
| Progress so far - Friday February 12 2010 21:24:20 | |
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Things have been going really well since buying LW and Bmax. I have been on a crash course of 3D programing, 3D Modeling and Textureing. Here are a few images of what I have got working so far:      All this is just prototyping stuff and playing around with ideas. Most of the above won't be used in the final game but its still miles ahead of what I had about a year ago. This what it used to look like:  This was done in Blitz3D demo. The game was going to be a 2.5D game that is 3D top down. I never planned to go full 3D until getting Leadwerks. Lastly this screenshot was from 2 years ago and what really started off this crazy idea. Again its made in the Blitz3D demo:  |
| Leadwerks wins engine race - Sunday January 31 2010 10:37:32 | |
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After a month of thinking hard and looking at all my options I have opted to buy a license for the LeadWerks engine. The trial for leadwerks didn't include any sort of way of being able to test your code so it was a bit of a gamble but I was so impressed with the tutoral videos and the SDK demo. Now that I have the engine on my pc to play with I am even more impressed. Its a fast OpenGL engine that's easy to talk too and has features that you would find in the Crytek engine. It costed twice as much as all the other engines I was evaluating but it comes with more goodies. First there is the world editor, a WYSIWYG real time landscape builder, model importing tools, material editor. As well as a bunch of models and assets to use in games. While my current project doesn't need the use of landscapes it does open up more possibilities down the line. At the moment I am working on porting my games prototype from xors3d into leadwerks. This is a complete rewrite but progress is going very smoothly. A download of the prototype will appear on my forums soon. |
| Announcing Advanced Tactical Space Battles - Thursday December 31 2009 12:53:08 | |
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As meantioned in the post below I am working on my very own game. The codename/working title is Advanced Tactical Space Battles. Details on what its about are still going to be light. But its a 2D game in a full 3D engine which will play partly like Star Control, Star Flight and PSI 5 Trading Company. Today I took the first real step forward licensing one of the engines I will write it in. BlitzMax. Blitzmax is a fantastic language to program in. Its fast and easy to pick up. In the past I had BlitzBasic on my Amiga which was also a dream to work with. Best of all Blitz is a NZ product. Xors3d being lined up for the render engine, this may change to MiniB3D or leadworks depending on where I go and xors3d heads. At the moment xors3d is still looking like the render I will be licensing as it just works and is what the prototype uses. The thumbnail for this post is a actual screen shot from the prototype now compiled as a stand alone program and up for download for any one classed as a Yamama Vet. If you have been around my site since the JK2 days and are still in good standing with me you have instant access to all prototypes, alphas, betas and final product. |
| New layout for a new year - Monday December 28 2009 12:56:28 | |
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A few months back I created a entire new back end for another site which I integrated into my own website today. Thing is on the front things still looked the same, so I decided to start redesigning the entire look for the site. First off to make things cleaner and also to prepare for the game I am writing. BTW, I am using Java script on the site to make things work, if your menu looks fugly then you need to make sure you allow yamama.co.nz in your java script white list. There is still more changes to come and I plan to use the main site a bit more to post info instead of just the forums. |
| World of Warcraft Client Patch 3.2.0 - Wednesday August 05 2009 07:11:08 | |
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The druid make over patch has been released today. As well as the new 5 - 10 - 25 man raid, the new battleground and all the other changes to the game. The servers are currently still down for maintenance but should be back up 3pm PST. Full updated patch notes in rest of the Article.  Click for full article |
| Some of my Favorite game intros - Sunday June 28 2009 22:16:06 | |
| I was playing the Witcher tonight and every time I do, I can't help but watch its intro. Game intro's should show you what the game is about, they should draw you in the best way they can. The Witchers intro is near perfect as it gives nothing away but introduces you to the world and the main character. This got me thinking of other intros I have enjoyed over the years and thanks to the power of you tube you to can see them. To start with, here is The Witcher intro which got me going on this post. Click on the full article to see more classic game introductions. Click for full article |
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