Eriq’s Blag

I got bored with my old wallpaper, so I rendered a new one.

My Companion Cube will never leave me…right? Yesterday I found this [can't find it] picture which inspired me. Anyway, I was up late into the night making my on Companion Cube model (cg not physical). Unfortunately, today when I was almost finished with it, I realized that a while back I had made a huge mistake. Thankfully, I save incrementally so if I fuck up (like I did) I can go back to and fix it. It actually turned out to be a good thing because the model worked better the second time. Here’s the final product:

I haven’t really had much to write about lately, well there is one thing, but I going to wait on that. The last few days (read nights) I’ve been working on a multi-player game-like thing. It’s not really a game as of yet. It’s hard to describe, but pretty much you control this hover block that you can move around in a 3D world and sortof interact with other people. I built in a really quick chat system that works through the console. The console, at the moment, is really the only way of doing stuff other than moving or changing the camera angle and view. I’ve built in a bunch of functions that do stuff like change the player’s name, color, or alpha. So, you can personalize your “Helio” (as I’m calling it, yeah I know the name rips off the phone, but it really fits, cause the model looks like a little helicopter) to a degree. Also, I put in a few secret things that I though would be fun to use when showing it off to people. Eventually, the plan is to make a capture the flag game. I wonder if it works over the interwebs, I’m unsure because I haven’t had a chance to try it, the only testing has been on my local network. One problem is that because of .swf security issues, the networking only works in an executable form, though there may be a workaround, which would be nice.

This is almost the same as the version from yesterday, but it’s got some new stuff which makes it look a little cooler…at least I think it does.

Colorful Rings

This is what I did today…

Colorful Rings

It does more if you click it…

My asteroids game was going really slow. I thought it was because of all of the particles and projectiles not being trashed by memory garbage collection. Turns out I was sorta right. What was really happening is that I had an event that was firing every frame for every object, even dead ones, and that was piling up in the background. So, I put in a line that killed the call when the object dies. Lo and behold, it worked…then I added a bunch more crap and slowed it down again. Here it is: Asteroids. I added tracking so there are targets over each asteroid. Unfortunately it doesn’t work correctly when the screen size changes from 800×600 to something else the HUD doesn’t draw correctly so the tracking and the site get fucked up. Another addition is that when you destroy one of the smallest asteroids, a big one is created in the distance. In this way it starts of easy and the gets ever so slightly harder as you go. Also, there’s now a score count at the top.

I’ve been working on my asteroids game. It’s pretty cool. Unfortunately, after a while it starts to slow down, because there are tons of objects that get destroyed and stop doing anything, but they don’t go away completely. I still haven’t figure out a way to completely delete an object. So, fuck. Asteroids

My dad went to Texas the other day for…something. Anyway, he brought me back two things. The first thing is a blue, glass turtle; nothing super amazing. However, the second caught me completely by surprise. Last night when he got home, he gave me the turtle and said there was something else for me one the table downstairs. I was watching TV and didn’t really feel like getting up and going downstairs. Today I got up, took a shower, and sat down in front of my computer (never had breakfast or lunch), so it wasn’t until I went down to do the chores my mom assigned me that I noticed a large box at my place. The tag sticking out had some stuff written on it, but what caught my attention was “21/2 Brim.” So, I thought, “why did he buy me a hat?” I opened the box and to my surprise I found this inside:

Also, I’ve been working on my Asteroids game and it’s coming along rather nicely. Here’s what it looks like at the moment. It’s still a work in progress. Here are the controls:

Movement:

forward – w

backward – s

strafe right – d

strafe left – a

brake – space

Steering:

up – down arrow (inverted axis)

down – up arrow

left – left arrow

right – right arrow

Other:

fire – shift

first person view (more over-the-shoulder) – 1

top down view – 2

zoom (in top down view) – scroll wheel

Well I think that’s everything. I hope to write some more of my story at some point. I have a bunch of ideas, though I’m lazy so…

So last night I thought of what I thought would be cool use of my 3D engine: make Asteroids in 3D. I thought of some cool things I could do, including giving it a plot. So, today at work, I started to write a plot for it…at least that what I meant it to be. However, now it seems more like a short story then the plot for a flash game, maybe a more complicated game, but I don’t know that it would be good for Asteroids 3D. Here is what I have written so far, tell me what you think:

A lone craft floats lifelessly among the asteroids. The field spans seven systems, the nearest system is a class three; a red giant with four planets in deep orbit. A space port is in near orbit and is currently on the far side of the sun relative to the vessel. It is a small craft; with room enough for maybe two people including the pilot. Who is currently face down on the dash with a trickle of blood running down from his forehead, where the two met, and onto the controls. There is a small pool at his foot. The wound is not serious, but he has been out for hours; long enough for him to drift from open space into the outer edge of the asteroid field. Some debris from a similar craft floats by. A red light begins to blink on the dash; the label says: “Aux. Power.” After a time the light turns green and the flashing stops. Suddenly, lights across the dash start to glow and flash. A crackle emanates from a speaker embedded in a panel on the right of the cockpit. A jagged heads up display springs into existence on the forward window; quickly smoothing out as thousands of bright red dots appear on the screen. Red letters begin to flash at the bottom of the screen: “Proximity Alert.” Suddenly, the sound of nails across a chalkboard tears through the cabin. The pilot jerks up, splattering blood on the HUD. He regrets this action.

“Aww, FUCK!”

Groping under the dash he pulls out a small fabric case. Tearing it open he digs through its contents. He pulls out a tube labeled morphine, a small white bandage, and a roll of bandage tape. Jamming the tip of the tube into his right leg, he starts to bandage the wound on his head when the contents of the display registers.

“Fuck.”

A long scratch stretches from the upper left corner of the cockpits front window to the lower right. He flips a switch on the left side of the dash and a set of blast shields close over the window locking at the center. The HUD adjusts accordingly and the red dots are replaced by red outlines of each asteroid in the view field. The pilot types something into the conveniently placed QWERTY keyboard located in the center of the dash. A console window appears in the lower left corner of the HUD. He types in: “sysdiog” and presses return. More quickly fill the window as the computer spews out values and status messages. His eyes dart back and forth as text speeds by. The final line reads: “System Status: All Systems Operational.” Unsatisfied he enters another line: “print log.” More text is spewed onto the display. One line catches his eye: “EMP sensor triggered > initiating emergency shutdown to preserve system.”

“EMP…what the fuck happened?”

“Our s-ship was hit-hit by a combination EMP conc-cussion rpg. Commander.”

Starting, the pilot spins around in his seat. Hunched on the floor of the cabin is a metallic figure. Where the left arm should be a cylinder slowly spins back and forth among a mass of torn wires. The arm hangs limp from handlebar protruding from the left wall of the cabin. As the android forces itself upright, the commander notes that left side of its face is misshapen and the eye is not as bright as the right.

“Shit Marvin, you scared the hell out of me!”

“I am su-sorry Com-mmander, some of my int-internal circuits were aff-fected by the EMP a-as was my hardd-drive. I am currently rebuilding the damaged sec-tors.”

“I didn’t mean the way you were talking, I just wasn’t expecting someone to answer me.”

“Y-you forgot that I wa-s here? Tha-that is unu-usual for you.”

“Well incase you missed the pool of my blood on the floor, I’m not all here either.”

“I wo-uld have to disa-disa-disagree Commander, from my scans it wou-ld ap-pear that you are in one piece.”

“I meant mentally. There’s a good chance I have a concussion.”

“My sc-ans show that t-o be truuuuuuu…”

The android’s eyes dim and go out. The left arm’s stub stops moving.

“Marvin?”

Eyes lighting up once again.

“I’m sorry, Commander, the repairs were completed and a restart was required. One of the many follies of having intelligence based on Windows.”

“Tell me again why we still use that piece of shit.”

“To put it simply, our government is not willing to spend money on a better OS.”

“In other words they’re cheapskates. You know, I don’t give a shit if you bad talk our “government.””

“Well then, in your words: Out government is made up of a bunch of fucking cheapskates.”

“Hey! Since when do you swear?”

“Since my reboot. I keep a log of words that are not in my database and when I rebuild it they are added.”

“I see.”

The commander turns back to the dash and looks at the various displays.

“So tell me again, what happened before I blacked out?”

“We were defending the carrier from a group of Confederacy battle cruisers. In fact, you see that chunk of debris in the upper right corner of the HUD?”

“Yes.”

“According to my scans, that is the front half of one of them. Looks like the carriers main cannon tore it right in two.”

“Wait, were we defending the carrier? I remember something about making sure we weren’t caught killed. Were we carrying something important?”

“You may be correct. It appears as though some of my memory files could not be recovered. That may be the reason they only hit us with an EMP instead of something more powerful.”

“But what were we doing?”

“I’m sorry Commander, I cannot find that data.”

Now I’m going to go watch 300…for the first time.

So yeah, I’m back from Hawai’i. It was fun, but I’m glad to be back. Here’s some more of my game. You now have a choice between a Mini gun, a chainsaw, and a plasma cannon. Choose your weapon via the keys 1,2, and 3. Found Here