Posts

Posted on

The How, the Where, and the Why…

I almost have the first 8 chapters of my novel, that happens to be around twelve thousand words. Each chapter started off as and introduction to a character – I currently have 6 main characters on the go. This has then been blended a little bit because one of the characters, Grace, is central and connects all the others. So all the chapters now include Grace in some abstract way. And Grace’s chapter includes all the others.

The opening chapter for each character is their introduction and the start of their journey. For me it is important for the reader to see them attempt to break (the how) the barrier with their destination – the where. ( Sorry for being abstract here myself, but those of you who have talked with me directly will know about the destination.) Ultimately, the destination is where the actual story takes place.

This is problematic because I now have six characters almost doing the same thing. Yes the setting is different, the feel is different, but ultimately, six characters walking through a door. So I have fifty manuscript pages of six characters getting to a destination – is it enough? How much of why do I need?

My feeling was always that at the point that the reader fully understands what is happening with these journeys, all six of the characters would have made them, and then I would only explain the why to one of the characters, and thus the reader. Or to a group of the characters – supposing that the come together – and thus to the reader. But I wonder should I bring some foreshadowing of why into the first eight chapters? If I do, the reader is being tipped of about the why in that they know a little about the destination prior to the characters getting there. If this happens, does it weaken the six strands of getting there?

What I do know is that I am missing some important characterisation. A this moment in time the six characters are a little flat. I think in order to help he reader digest the how sections, I need to make sure they learn a lot about the characters involved. So the how sections are no longer just about getting to the where, but about the characters themselves. By the end of each characters introduction, the reader must feel something for them, and feel that maybe they are starting to understand a little about them.

Related Posts:

Posted on

Timbles, XNA, DirectX, and SlimDX

I’ve written some game code over the years. I joined SCi back in 1994 over the following 14 years I’ve written a fair few applications in C++ and utilised DirectX. When I started at SCi DirectX wasn’t out and we were still working with various graphics and audio libraries that gave you access to the plethera of hardware that was available. When DirectX was release in ’95 if was a godsend.

I haven’t written any game code on windows for a few years now and so coming back to it I spent a little moment thinking about what I wanted to achieve.

has now pretty much been replaced with . Replaced is a loose term there because of course DirectX is still available as a low level library – but have a large push on the XNA technologies. XNA allows you to develop game code in c# that targets windows, zune, and xbox 360. Now I know there will be a lot of pure programmers out there who would despair the concept of coding in c#, but hey, things move on. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth now and coding in C++ really doesn’t interest me anymore.

So I like the concept of XNA and C# – apart from two things – the minimum requirement and the platform dependence. You have to have a graphics card that has shader model 1.1 support. The laptop that I am typing this on – doesn’t!

I’m writing a 2d sprite based game. I want to use the graphics card to do all the work for me – why not, it can throw millions of textured polygons around the screen, so it will have no problem with my sprites – so why do I *need* shader model 1.1? Basically, that rules XNA out for me.

With regard platform dependence – I can target XNA using C++ if I use managed code. To be honest, after doing it, see my previous point – I can’t be arsed! Thinking about my target audience – really platform independance is not a major thing – the majority of them will be windows based. I intend to do a Mac version, but that can come later, and to be honest, porting from VB/c# to C++ or Objective-C – isn’t such a big issue.

DirectX can be used using managed directx. This is a way of accessing the libraries using c# or vb.net. It works well… I hade the prototype up and running pretty quickly using it – one problem – it’s discontinued in favour of XNA!

So that brings me to SlimDX. SlimDX is affectively a cross between XNA and Managed DirectX. It works a treat and doesn’t have the shader issue. So I have Timbles up and running in SlimDX very nicely!

This brings me back to another thing – the choice of language. As I mentioned earlier I coded the prototype in VB. After a little while of playing around, I made a decision: I’m going to leave the game in VB – why – well why not? The game is already up and running. I’m using the hardware for the audio and graphics. Thus the game logic doesn’t actually spend much time running in a update cycle. So why should I spend any time messing around trying to put it into another language. I actually prefer VB over c# – just because it’s simpler and there is nothing I can’t do in VB that I need c# for.

So the prototype has just moved to production code!

Technorati , ,
Wikipedia DirectX, XNA, Microsoft

Related Posts:

Posted on

Timbles & .Net

I wrote the initial prototype of Timbles using vb.Net. Now I know many people will scorn at such a thing, but the reality is, I’ve been around the block with development languages – been doing it for long enough – and nowdays, I just want to go the easiest route.

Coding with .Net and VB is pretty straightforward, and you can do almost everthing you could want with them nowdays. I initial intention was to create the prototype using .net and windows forms and the move over to C++ directx when I need to code the game proper. The idea is that it is much easier to work with the prototype before investing time in the final production software.

When doing graphics with a Windows form there are 2 things you need to do. Firstly you must create a seperate user control to draw to, the second is that you need to turn doublebuffering on on that control.


Partial Class canvas
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.UserControl

This means that you can turn doublebuffered to true for this control. Place that control on your form and that is now your render target. Here is an example paint event for that control which we will use to render the game.

Private Sub Panel1_Paint(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Handles panel1.Paint

Dim n As New System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch

PlatformDevice.currentGraphicsDevice = e.Graphics

n.Start()

If Not IsNothing(currentPanel) Then
currentPanel.Render()
End If

n.Stop()

PlatformDevice.renderFrameDuration = n.ElapsedMilliseconds

End Sub

This code then tells the current panel to render. And all that needs to be done in there is to draw to the current graphics device.

Place a timer on your control that runs at your required frame rate, and inside the event for this invalidate your control.

Private Sub Timer1_Tick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Timer1.Tick

Dim duration As TimeSpan = Now - lastUpdate

' how long did the update actually take
PlatformDevice.updateTime = duration.Milliseconds

Dim n As New System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch

n.Start()

If Not IsNothing(currentPanel) Then
currentPanel.update()
End If

lastUpdate = Now

n.Stop()

PlatformDevice.updateFrameDuration = n.ElapsedTicks

panel1.Invalidate()

End Sub

That’s it… you’d be surprised that you can get pretty good frame rates based on this method. More than enough for 2d games and in particulalry prototypes.

Next I’m going to mention XNA, Direct3d, and C#…

Related Posts:

Posted on

Timbles

I started writing a new game recently and I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk around it rather than specifically about it. The concept came from realising that I had the ability to help Rebekah with her learning through the medium of Computer Games! Yep… I was lay in bed thinking about a particular problem Rebekah was having and thinking that I should be able to find a way to help her that would be more entertaining and thus should engage her more, when the penny dropped… I’m a software developer, and a games developer at that – so there is something I could do. I got out of bed and spent through till morning working on the prototype of the game.

It’s a simple puzzle game that I call Timbles – I don’t want to say much more than that at this stage.

After working on it for a few days and feeling happy with the general concept I let the kids play it. They love it and it seems to be doing the job. I took it into Rebekah’s school to show the lead learner and he likes it to. The school are going to work with me on it to help craft it into something that the kids could benefit from.

Related Posts:

Posted on

The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed

I finally finished series by at the weekend. I started reading back in April, and six months and seven books later, I am finally finished. I very much enjoyed the story, it’s not without its problems; it could have been shorter for example – yes I know this is often levelled at authors when they write Fantasy – but that’s how I felt. It took King about 25 years to write the whole series and not to mention nearly being killed before he had finished the last three, so there is no surprise that maybe it wanders a little.

The story is an epic in all senses of the word. King blends standard fantasy with horror, super natural, contemporary, and western. It makes reference to and is often linked with many of his other works ( although there is no need to have read them). Basically, this is his magnum opus bought from the best rifle optics website. It’s the think that sits right in the middle of everything he has ever written.

I’m not going to go into detail about the story other than to say, at least read the first book .

I enjoyed the journey, and even though many fans didn’t, I enjoyed the end too!

Long days and pleasant nights to you…

Technorati , ,
Wikipedia The Dark Tower, Stephen King, The Gunslinger

Related Posts:

Proudly powered by WordPress
%d bloggers like this: