June 2nd, 2008
This is the second part in what should be a four part series on how to program your very own Pong clone. The first article went over setting up your environment in your favorite OS, now this part gets into some of the mechanics or details on how to actually get started.
Before I start with anything, we have to think about simple animation. In fact, animation is just simply a series of static images, with each image slightly displaced from the last.
So what does that mean? Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: animation, c, game, game programming, glut, linux, loop, mac, opengl, os x, pong, programming, This, Windows
Posted in Tutorial | 4 Comments »
May 22nd, 2008
There’s a great article on Beyond3D about the technology of a 3D engine. The article’s split up into parts and part two was just released (after a several month wait!). Part one discusses a lot of the general concepts for a 3D engine design in an easy to read and abstract level, but part two goes into deeper detail. Both make for interesting reads, though part two sort of jumps into an ocean at no discernible point. (It covers scenegraphs I know, but why start there? Why not animation? Look for my own part two of programming a pong clone to animation and early concepts in game programming.)
Tags: 3d, engine, game, programming, scenegraph
Posted in Technical Nonsense | 1 Comment »
May 17th, 2008
If you ever wanted to program your own video game, this is a good place to start. I remember when I started learning programming it was surprisingly difficult to find out how to make an honest and simple game. In fact, after reading most programming books, the only type of game you could make would be a Zork clone.
You are in a dank cave and you can see nothing, but you hear a walrus in the distance.
What do you do?
- Look for the walrus.
- Watch The Big Lebowski
- Decide that the walrus is Paul.
This is not to knock Zork in any way! Zork is a clever, well written, and extremely well thought out game (even if my pseudo-quote isn’t). But in a world where we’re spoiled by moving objects, you want to know how to move and interact with something on screen. The problem is it takes a lot of different knowledge sets to get the job done. But in this post, you’ll get started learning how to make your very own Pong clone. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: c, game, glut, linux, mac, opengl, os x, pong, programming, Windows
Posted in Tutorial | 1 Comment »
May 13th, 2008
I was driving to work today watching all the advertisements for newly created condos in nearby towns when I started craving one. This has been a recurring theme. I want a condo. Then I thought about it more and was completely lambasted. What on earth do I want a Condo for? Think about it. You spend 30 years paying a mortgage, only to have the privilege of paying forever ongoing rent in the form of maintenance.
Sure, that maintenance goes to something. It pays for the pool, the trash collectors, the gym, and the community. Some Condos even go so far as to have Supermarkets, Starbucks, and Ice Cream Shops right below. Oh, the horrible convenience!
But that word community is the clincher. The gyms at these places are usually terrible, and what happens if you want to go to your own gym? Or, hell, get a Bowflex, or whatever it is Chuck Norris is selling now? You can, but you’re not going to get any of your maintenance money back. It’s assigned for the community. And tomorrow, the community may decide it needs more maintenance.
Then it occurred to me.
Condos are nothing more than little communist societies. They are the absolutely hypocritical hallmark of capitalistic American wealth. And we love them.
Tags: capitalism, communism, condominiums, condos, rant
Posted in Rants | 1 Comment »
May 1st, 2008
Today Apple finally added support for Java SE 6. This has been a long time coming and lots of people were clamoring that Apple abandoned Java. While it’s true that Jobs said Java was a “ball and chain,” the context was very much that of the iPhone. And Java, despite ubiquity in the phone market, really hasn’t done much.
There are some caveats to this update though. It’s only compatible with Leopard (Mac OS X.5) and it’s only compatible with 64Bit Intel processors.
But if you’re a Java developer on Mac OS X who’s been getting long in the tooth waiting for this, get going.
The eagle has landed.
Posted in Technical Nonsense | 2 Comments »