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Well hello gentle reader and thank you for stopping by my lonely blog. It has been a little while since my last entry as I have taken the time to write out my thoughts in a while. A lot has changed since my last entry. I am now living in an apartment all on my lonesome for the first time. Mind you not being away from my folks, as I grew up more away from home for long periods of time it seems, but this is the first place I've lived where I haven't had a roommate, fun stuff. It's better to know that when I come home from work, the apartments not going to be trashed, my food will still be there ready for me to eat, and no one will keep me up jaming until six oclock in the morning when I have to be to work at seven.
Also, I quit my job last Wednesday so I am no longer cleaning buses at nights, which is a good thing. If anyone were extremely bored or for some other reason inclined to read through all my previous posts you would notice a trend of complaint about that job. So, now instead, I will be landscaping, which sounds like a blast to me. Being out doors is something that I've always loved, and I don't even to take a pay cut, and it's a tipical 8 to 5 job, so no more nights. After a year and a couple of months of working nights, with little to no time off and being isolated all the time, this is a much welcomed change.
Ahhh.... what the hell, is this guy ever going to quit yapping and get on with the game stuff?......
Keep your shirt on, .. I'm getting there.
OOHHH, Picture.....
S0 here's the first screen shot ever of T3D. Not all that impressive I know, but there's a lot more going on then meets the eye. Currently I'm still working on finishing the console for the engine. Eventually I'll be writing python interfaces for the console to interact, but I'm still working on getting the input to show up correctly. I currently have three buffers that take in a string. Commands can be up to three strings, thus the three buffers, anyways, I was trying to write my own input handlers that only processed input ever 25milliseconds, but it's been hard to get the character presses to be drawn to the screen the way I want with the current subsystems in place. So , I'm currently looking into an input alterantive. I was trying to find one that is cross platform. I've looked at a few different api's out there that handle a vastly different amount of game functionality, but I haven't seen any that deal specifcally with input. I'll probably end up just using some type of wrapper for one of the api's I've already looked at, but I still have yet to decide. If anyone has any suggestions, drop me a comment. Umm... not really a lot more going on. Well back to work on the engine. Until next time....
So, with time sober comes... a chemcial imbalance from the chemicals attempting to blance themselves out from being out of balance from the mass alchohol consumption on an almost daily basis. Otherwise known as depression. I really have no urges to drink anymore though, which is good. I do however feel like the passion is being sucked out of me. I think I mostly use my current job as a scapegoat. It does suck, I was there a year last month, and no body even said thank you, or good job to me. I didn't get a raise and infact it seems as more time goes by the more I've been neglected there, or taken for granted, or however you want to put it, so I've been focusing all my negative feeling towards that. THis of course doesn't solve anything, nor does it effect my performance at work, it just makes more depressed. THen there's the search for jobs that don't pan out, mostly because all the places that I can think I'd like to work for, aren't hiring currently. So, I just try to think positive and relish in the fact that atleast I have a job, I'm a live, and there are people that do actually care about me in my life. This subdues some of that depression, and I know with time it will pass. It just make me sluggish.
So, due to this depression, who will now be called Mr. Carmikle, in an effort to master this ever annoying pest, I haven't been focusing on my engine for the last couple of days. Instead I've been playing games to try and get my mind off of Mr. Carmikle's antics. He keeps tapping me on the shoulder, and I keep trying to ignore him, but the only time he seems to leave me alone is when I sleep a lot. So, I did that yesterday. He kind of got the hint, but he keeps poking his head in my room today and reminding me he's still here.
So, I still haven't fixed the display problem for the console window and I still haven't got it take input or display output yet. I'm trying to decide whether or not I should instead concentrate on a base class that will incorporate some timers so that anything inherited from the base class will already have to logic to handle animations. This approach would make sense and it's probably what I'll end up doing. I just have to get Mr. Carmikle under control so I can concentrate.
I've kind of been at a lack of inspiration lately to work on things as I've felt like I'm not doing any work that really means anything to the world. Not in the sense that I inspire some girl to be obsessed with an older boy in her trailer park and get pregnant because she listens to my crappy boy band song, but more a long the lines of helping people in need, or creating culture that inspires people to actually help themselves. I think that this theme is also seeded in my depression, especially in regards to my job. I mean the world is so fucked up, yet day in and day out people are apathetic as hell to one another and to the world in general. I mean if people just realized that we are the universe, the world incarnate, that yes there is the illusion of seperatness, but we are still what we always have been, which is one, then maybe we would be nicer to our fellows, instead, people concentrate on the differnces, whether they be social, economical, spritiual beliefs, or whatever bias people choose to concentrate on, and we let that divide us even more. Thermodynamics states that energy can not be created or destroyed. Energy, which in term relates to matter. This means that matter can be changed, altered, reformed, but the underlying energy is always the same energy that has always been there. Recycled.. throughout the ages. This concept is in every religion, but closed minded people choose not to look at it that way, people are too interested in feeling superior, having power, to realize that anything that has true power, doesn't look to be in control, it looks to serve.
This has turned into another long non game development related post that may just look like a bunch of jibberish. I guess what I'm saying is that I really hope future generations can become aware of how to help, love, and respect one another, themselves, enough to see where it is the previous generations have gone wrong. It's fear that propogates the negativity in this world.
As an example, look at global warming. We are destroying our world, and yet the vast majority of people don't give a shit enough to stop doing it, I fall into this categorey as well. I do care, but not enough to stand firm on that conviction. Oh well what could we do, some may ask. Answer = STOP DRIVING CARS,&STOP BURNING COAL, &STOP PRODUCING GREEN HOUSE GAS!
Well, we couldn't do that how would we get to work? Answer = Provide public transportation for the masses, walk, ride a bike, come up with alternative fuel sources.
Oh but we don't want to do that, then we'd have to associate with people we don't want too. Or we 'd have to wake up fifteen minutes earlier, or we'd have to change our lifestyles.
These things are all issues that come out of fear.
THink about it. Would the world stop if the American way of life, the way we know it, suddenly changed? If people decided to go back to basics, not commute as much, be more niche associated, would the world stop? People are afraid of change, especially if they've done things a certain way their entire life. This seems to be a taught behavior that is accepted throughout our culture and yet it is this thing that will cause this construct of organismal life form, that we call human beings, to be erraticated from the bussom of the planet. Scary.. and a long rant. I should organize these ideas better, but to be truthful I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. THis is stuff that if anyone is able to be truthful with ones self they already know. I'm just trying to get some passion back in my own life, maybe to have a fire burn to influence something for the better, someday.
Well, we have it four days sober, and the start of an in game console for T3D. It feels good to be hard at work, focused, and back on a path that I fell off of roughly four months ago. I'm currently familiarizing myself with the process of a timestep so that the animation for displaying the console window displays correctly. I really know squat about graphics programming. Up until this year, I've mainly focused on programming in general, seeing as the only things I've completed code wise were various example applications, a quarter of a completed text game(really only lacked content, all the subsystems and systems were complete), and my first game demo that I coded in Visual Basic three years ago. SO, needless to say I'm learning a lot this year, but it has gone slow up until this point due to neglect of effort, well consistantely anyways.
I have a feeling that I will have to end up doing a complete overhaul after a while on my entire code base, but I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, I need to concentrate on completing some lower systems and then move on to constructing my first scene graph, from there I should be ready to start concentrating on scripting, geometry, physics, and a host of other shit that I'm sure it's going to take me another year or two to complete to a functional version. It's a long road, but you can only take it one step at a time.
I managed to change my template around today. It wasn't really that hard to figure out what all the tags were for, although it has been a while since I last dived into any net code at all. So, I'm sitting here, doing this, mainly to keep my mind occupied. I've given myself a rough week as of last and well, frightfully enough, all I seem to be able to do is to through myself into something, in order to get back on my feet. I'm being a bit criptic here, but I'll leave it at that, I don't really feel a need to clarify as I know what I mean.
So, I'm still working on researching and designing a scene graph for my game engine. I haven't really done much of anything this last month, but I'm at a point in the engine work and in my life, where focusing strictly on the things in my life that need to be done is top priority. It's pretty obvious too me, just from reading my previous entries that this blog has had little to do with my actual pursuit of game development and more of a ranting on my struggle with alchohol abuse, which tells me a lot about my life these last few months. I'd really like to see this blog deal more with game design, as with my life having to deal with no more alchohol abuse.
My Quote of the day : By Me
Plans are often only as good as the convictions of those who attempt to carry them out.
Chemical Depression,.. as in depression caused from a chemical imbalance due to a use of mood altering agents, is a vicious cycle. It imbides one to continue down a spiral of self loathing and dispair, and the only way you can feel normal or good is when your not sober. It doesn't even work all the time, the chemicals to feel good. I now have twenty six hours completely sober. As mentioned previously in a prior post, the fly in my ointment has been alchohol, really for a while now. I've now officially been drunk for half of this year, and completely sober for the other half. What I've learned in the last eight months is what I've known for all too long, nothing good comes from losing ones self in an endless bout of drinking. It has, in all factual actuality, hurt me in every way possible. I've been lucky enough to not fall victim of my own antics, and have managed to be somewhat responsible and not neglect my obligations, completely. The sober part of this year has taught me that I can indeed do great things when I'm dedicated and put my heart into something. That and that if you can't spend time with so called friends without getting fucked up, what kind of relationship does that say that you have with your friends? Is it one worth pursuing simply to have companionship, at the cost of your health , wealth, and good fortune? Hypothetical reflection.................
The purpose of this blog is more for me to reflect on my current progress and direction that I'm heading in to accomplish my goals. Ideally, a development journal and a place for me to share opinions with other individuals. Unfortunately, it's hard to journal about development when you aren't doing any.
It seems that I have always been a fan of extremes in life. I believe this to be in my nature and interestingly enough I can even see this trait displayed in the actions of my three year old son. This is kind of scary, because throughout my life it has constantly gotten me into either great success, or great trouble. As I've gotten older, I have learned to better balance my decision making, but this has more so been true for about the last couple of years. At any rate, it's hard to accomplish much when your going back and forth from one side of the spectrum to the other. I feel like I've been struggling to keep my balance lately, and because of this certain aspects(mainly my projects) have been suffering.
So in the words of one of my child hood friends nintey year old bed ridden grandmother, I need to shit or get off the pot. (I'm sure many other people have said those words but she's the first person I ever remember using that phrase.)
I haven't worked on the engine since before I left for Colorado, which is sad. I've vowed to make good use of this year, and damnit, I'm going too.
In other news I've got a web server I'm working on , which is better then wasting all my time I suppose. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it exactly though, and should probably do some brain storming in the coming weeks. Sometimes I just feel spread to thin, others too thick. Where is that magical formula for the perfect peanut butter?
I returned from a five day trip to Colorado on Monday night. It was a much needed vacation after getting burned out in regards to my job for the last eleven months. It was very rejuvenating and inspiring. We spent most of the trip hiking through Roosevelt National Park and seeing the local sites of Boulder Colorado. It was great to mingle with some interesting people, as party members of our trip consisted of a long time friend and two acquittance's that I feel I connected with on various levels. Hopefully some good things will come into fruitation from the journey as far as future projects go.
Now that I am back home, it is time to begin concentrating on where I really left off in April of this year. I am now rearing and ready to go and will be concentrating to make this year the most productive yet.
Currently I'm studying Scene Graphs for what I am now referring to as T3D, which is the game engine that I've been working on. This is a subject that I have had little experience with up to this point. But of course as any engine programmer knows is definitely a core element in any engines design. I would like to be past this bench mark by the time I plan to move out of my mom's house at the end of August.
In other news, I saw Clerks II today and me being a Kevin Smith fan boy aside, I really enjoyed the movie. There was definitely a lot of good jokes and as stated by Smith in various writings and interviews before the movies release, it definitely did have some more heart felt moments and a did a good job of balancing the humor and deeper life messages. Definitely worth five bucks or eight, depending on the show time, so if you're thinking about checking it out, I'd definitely recommend it.
It's going to be a slow work week for me this week, which isn't a bad thing. It'll enable me to get a lot done in regards to my 3d engine and allow me to get to do something that I don't really do often enough, play some games. Next week, I'll be going on vacation to Colorado for five days. It'll be a blast, and the first vacation that I'll have taken in about seven years. I can't wait to be up in the mountains, and I'll make sure to take lots of pictures.
Of course with these two events unfolding in the order that they are, this is going to make for a small pay check come next pay day. I suppose you have to give up some things in order to receive others, money being the sacrifice here, and free time being the gain. I don't think I'm actually going to complete the graphical test bed for C.F.L. before I leave, but I did decide not to go with the idea I was going to test out, so it seems that it kind of worked itself out. Instead, I'm going to be focusing on getting my 3d engines scenegraph up and working and adding other various functionality that I had in the older version that I created earlier this year, that needs some adjustments made to it.
I do want to post some screen shots and other things before I go, and I also plan to write a series of articles (that I've been planning to write for way too long) to help younger or less experienced up and comming developers down the road to grandma's house..er.. I mean game development.
The truth of the matter is, the one thing that holds me back in life at this point in time, is a constant struggle with chemical addiction. It is an unfortunate struggle that I've been having to deal with since I was all but the age of eleven. The affliction doesn't get better, although at times it seems that it does, but the fact is, if it goes untreated, it gets progressively worse. Many people can say, "So, why don't you just stop using chemicals?" and that would seem the easy solution. And for the most part, I have quit using chemicals, at least in respect to the seemingly more damaging, as when I was in my mid teens I was something of a methamphetamine addict. It took me being locked up in a treatment and corrections facility for the better part of a year to get me off of that junk. I learned a lot in that program and it has helped me to get to where I am today. However, in a culture where chemical use is as prevalent as breathing air, it is hard to get away from.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not drinking alchohol all hours of the day or anything. In fact, recently I may not even drink more then three times a week and maybe only five beers or so at a time, but the thing about this affliction, is it's progressive, and I have the foresight to know that it has the potential to blow up in my face. It's like playing with black cats, the fire crackers, and taking apart the rows of them and lighting the singles off with the short wicks. You can usually throw them before they'll go off, but every once in a while, you'll get one where the wick burns really fast, and the damned thing will blow up in your hand. So, like that, it's only a matter of time before the drinking will blow up in my face. I guess that's why I'm writing about it today, in hopes of preventing that from happening.
It is the one thing that has stood in my way from being truely dedicated to my causes and has distracted me from fully fulfilling the rolls in my life in which I need to play. It's sad because the few friends that I do consort with these days in the physical realm, are each inflicted with this same burden, and yet non have seen fit to face it head on. I went through a total of probably ten treatments, A.A. meetings were mandatory as a teenager getting in trouble with the law and having a concerned parent. It's sad that no one else sees trouble with my drinking though, except for me, hell my step dad even works for a major domestic beer distributor, is an alcoholic in his own right, and is pretty high up in the rungs of the company. Yet it's socially tolerated to drink yourself stupid every night if you have the means, just don't smoke pot.. not that smoking marijuana is any better mind you, but atleast no one over doses on smoking a J or gets marijuana smoke poisoning, in an essence it's crazy how far propoganda and sociological dogma sales itself into the homes and minds of people who don't want to think for themselves. I'm starting to rant, so back on target here.
So, the truth is unless I can overcome (meaning quitting altogether) drinking, my modern chemical brother, I'll never realize my potential and I'll continue to dwell in this realm of existance for the rest of my life. There never will be a realization of my dreams and I'll be left struggling pay check to pay check like so many in the world do their entire lives. Not that strugglings a bad thing, but for the wrong reasons it is, needlessly. The truth is.. I may need some help.
So with little time before I head off to work cleaning buses as I do at night, I thought I would take a brief moment to get a blog entry in for the day. So, at this point in time, I'm diving back into the wonderful world of research as I often do, because well, lets face it, no matter how much you know, or think you know, there is always more to learn.
Currently I'm going through the Morgan Kaufmann series of game programming books and I have to say that when I purchased these books I was impressed by the depth of explanation that the books provide. I've read many other books on the subject of game programming and design and by far this series of books does an excellent job of laying out everything for the reader in detail and even though they are pure tech reads, they some how don't seem that dry. That could just be because I'm used to reading such material now, but who knows. Currently I'm reading 3d Game Engine Architecture, and it has already helped me understand a lot of what I've been doing wrong in the current iteration of my 3d engine. I should finish the book by the middle of next week, at which time I'll be rereading the Essential Mathematics book of the same series.
I also have an idea for a graphics test bed for the game C.F.L. ,which is a long time in the making, for which I hope to have completed before I go on vacation to Colorado July 12th. The premise for this demo is simply going to be testing out a look for the GUI and to find a unique blend of photographic scenery(actual photographs not pre rendered) and cartoonesque game objects. I would just throw a demo together right now, but I have started going off in so many directions the past few months I haven't really made any progress in one area, so I figure I'll get back to the demo as soon as I finish the current read. Time to make the donuts.. I mean clean the buses.
It's been a many year(going on four) since I first began my journey into the realm of game creation, and it has been in this last year that my direction for which I seriously will be headed has really took root. "So, what is this path there Will," you may be asking yourself. Well, let me tell you, it is the path of a truely independent game production house. I have had this idea for a while, but for fear of failure, or success, or some unknown deep dark reason, I never fully was dedicated to pursuing this end, until now. Maybe it's some on going inspiration from the independent productionist out there already in the mediums of music, movies, and games that continues to inspire me, or maybe it's some idea that was ingraved into my brain like some bad acid trip from the nineties. What ever the reason it's full steam a head, no looking back, for better or worse, death to us part, this path is my baby. Now if only I figure out how to program my computer to cook me dinner and keep me company durring those long, lonely nights, or atleast to swipe enough rounded off cents from bank accounts across the country to afford the occassional hooker ;P
But before the hookers and kegs of beer are distributed to me and my readers, there is a lot of work a head. As I work on a timeline for the continuation of my current projects, please, take a moment to familiarize yourself with my rather empty but aestheticly pleasing website DecipherOne Productions There you can find some general information about my current projects, although some of the finer points and directions that those projects were going have diverged and the 3D engine has evolved into something different altogether.
In the remaining days of this week, I will work to publish some general information about the top secret game engine I'm working on, maybe post some screen shots, as well as publish small exerts from the book that I haven't been writing for the last five years. This blog is an attempt to better motivate myself, and educate those that may be interested in reading some cryptic dribble every once in a while.
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