Posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
I whipped together a quick little application which counts down until Christmas tonight – but it is quite unlike most that you see around the place. I’ve dispensed with the needless and imprecise method of showing the number of days, hours, minutes and seconds, and just display the important stuff – the exact number of seconds until 12:00 AM on Christmas morning.
Download ChristmasCountdown
Requires .Net Framework 2.0 or Mono
Posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
I’ve been working on Eclipse a lot lately. I’ve changed the build system, and also vastly improved the menu system. So, I was thinking that since I’m spending so much time and effort making the game, I might as well make as cool as I can. So, I thought that instead of just making it 2D, I could do a top down 3D view instead. I’m already using OpenGL, so it shouldn’t take that much work to change the current code to 3D. It would make it easier to use particle effects too, so I could have cool looking explosions, and a better looking flame from the ship’s engine.
First, I would have to see if there are any file formats for storing 3D models that would be easy enough to implement. Then, I’d probably set the projection mode to a perspective view (instead of the orthographic view I use now), and get the coordinate system set up the same way as it is now. Then, all I’d have to do is to make a 3D version of the sprite class, and I could program it the same way I am now.
I have to try that out before I start writing game code. It’s a good thing that I have started storing the code in a GIT repository, because I can just roll back the changes if anything goes wrong. I’ve also ported Eclipse to the Autotools build system, and added internationalisation support. I don’t have any completed translations yet, but anyway…
What ever I decide, one thing that definitely needs to be done is resolution independence. Then I’ll need to make two new widgets. A spin-button kind of thing (or drop-down box) to select the resolution, and a checkbox to select full screen mode.
Posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008
A few days ago I set up a Subversion repository to put some projects I have been working on (like Eclipse) in. I decided to go with SVN because I have worked with it before, and am pretty familiar with its commands and workflow.
But, recently on Planet Gnome, I have been hearing a lot about GIT (the version control system originally written for managing the Linux kernel) and I decided to try it out. I backed up my Eclipse directory and turned it into a GIT repository (which, unlike SVN can exist without a server). When I committed the sources, I couldn’t believe how blazingly fast GIT is – where SVN used to take three or four seconds, GIT is done before you can release the enter key! It seems a lot more powerful than Subversion, but takes a while longer to get comfortable with it.
I also plan to convert the Eclipse build system to Autotools, which is pretty horrible to set up, but can vastly simplify things like installation and cross-compiling if set up correctly.
