Game Dev School Video game design & development articles

I have been sitting here tinkering with the GameDevSchool.com site, and I got an email in my box: Caligari has made their newest version of their great 3D modeling/animation/simulation/content creation suite, trueSpace 7.6, available for download... for free! Wow! I've used trueSpace since way back around version 2, but I'm not doing as much 3D work as I used to -- well, almost none, tbh. At any rate, I've already downloaded this sucker! It's a really fun program to use, I always thought, so I'm stoked to play with it again! I've picked it up several times through upgrades, but since I don't work with it much, I stopped back around version 6 or so.

trueSpace is a very powerful set of tools. You can sign up and snag trueSpace 7.6 right now, along with some training videos, for no charge. Nice. Those training videos are an awesome resource for learning trueSpace, and were previously sold for something like $79 each.

This is a seriously great opportunity, I'd say. The program really is fantastic. For more information about the new version, as well as insight into reasons for releasing the application free of charge, you can read up on the announcement blog of the company's founder.

Cool stuff. :-)

Heya folks,
Sorry for the mess, but I got completely sick of some bugs in the old site system. I'm upgrading the whole thing, but it's going to be messy as a result. Please excuse said mess. :P

I finally hit the "last straw" when I added yet another article that got lost due to a glitch. Of course, I hadn't learned this from many previously-botched posts, so I didn't have it backed up. Thus, I had to re-write it... well, instead of doing that to work around the system, I'm upgrading everything.

This will be good overall, but it's setting me back a bit for updates that are loooonge overdue.

Please hang in there and come back soon for some updates. I'll need to customize the theme and add things like menus and advertising, etc. back in. For now, though, I'm going to go have a beer with some friends. :)

Thanks a TON for visiting!

--Hoza

So, I've been working with Ruby on Rails lately -- which is another discussion entirely -- and I've come to the point where I want to figure out how to embed SWF games into a page.  This research led me to a great little article called "Embedding SWF content with Ruby on Rails " at EleventyTen (which is just a cool name, btw.)

I'm posting here as usual to give myself a future-note on the topic, but also to share a bit.  SWFObject is really sweet and is a MUCH nicer way to handle the ridiculous mess that is the embed-vs-object "thing" for putting SWF movies in your files.

So, consider this an introduction to SWF embeding in Rails, as well as a heads-up on SWFObject since you'll probably want to use that sucker no matter what you're using on the site dev backend!

You're welcome. 

"A performance so scrumtrilescent, I can barely move."  -- Will Ferrell as James Lipton

This post has nothing to do with that quote, or that made-up word, for that matter.  However, it is my shallow attempt at humor so there you have it.  :P

Point is, I've been working on implementing Scrum and Agile software development goodies and I'm very much liking what I'm seeing. I have a lot to learn -- mostly through practice -- but I'm both inspired and motivated by this change in my processes.  It's a typical story heard amongst people getting into Scrum officially, where I'm sure I've done all this stuff before.  That's said to be due to the "common sense" nature of so much of this.

At any rate, I just had to post this note to get me thinking about posting more here about how my process is improving.  I'll work on documenting a lot of the core stuff I'm learning later, but I've gotta bail.  It's really late for me and sleep looms.

Cryptic (the folks behind City of Heroes and City of Villains) have released a pretty sweet tool for animation junkies.. the Cryptic AR (Cryptic Animation Rig) for 3D Studio Max 8 or higher. Their stated goal for doing this is to provide "the animation community with the ability to use professional quality animation tools free of charge. The rig's flexibility and ease of use allows users of all experience levels to create professional video game animations."

They've also put up a Cryptic AR community forum for new & experienced animators to discuss their craft, as well as getting tips about using the Cryptic AR.

I'm not much of an animator, but I'll have to give this puppy a run and see how it flies. Good Stuff, Cryptic! This is pretty cool.

Torque Constructor has been discussed here before, so maybe you remember it from my fingertips. The GG community is all buzzy about the release, since it marks the first official tool targeting the Torque art pipeline squarely in the chest. Previously (as mentioned in my earlier post) you had to use other tools to develop Torque interiors, so this is a pretty Big Deal to have a tool specifically designed for Torque development.

In a nutshell, in case you're not going to follow the link above, here's what you'll find in Torque Constructor:

Torque Constructor is a Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) WYSIWYG brush editor that supports export of buildings and structures to numerous industry-standard CSG model (.map) formats, or seamlessly exports directly into Torque Game Engine (TGE) or Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA).

Torque Constructor features the ability to modify and expand any of the basic scriptable functions with TorqueScript, from plugins, tools, and widgets to customization of the GUI.

Get a nice list of features by checking out the big announcement post at GG.com: Torque Constructor Now Available .

I'm sorry to be so late on this announcement, but I'm struggling to keep up these days.  However TOMORROW is a very interesting event if you happen to be in the area of this event.  Career Discovery: Games is being held tomorrow, 3/24/07 in Belleview, WA.  It's looking to be a fantastic event for students or other folks interested in getting into the game development industry.  I'll work with them to get more advance notice of future events like this.

I realize my current habit of cross-posting might be getting annoying for you folks, but hey... lots of work to do and all that blah.  Anyway, here's a copy of my post about the Indie MMO Game Dev Conference coming up in April:

I'm sorry I missed this before, since I could have helped you folks save some cash if you were wanting to go, but here it is anyway. With everything in much of the game development world focusing on San Francisco in March (I'm not linking to that "other" conference here, since it seems rude,) I'm stoked to keep finding out about other conferences catering to the small shops... of which there are a TON. In fact, I'm a "small game dev shop" so I have a bias for this type of thing, I don't mind admitting...

In Minneapolis, MN on April 14th-15th, the Indie MMO Game Dev Conference (IMGDC) will provide a forum for the vast reaches of independent MMOG developers out in the world to gather and learn/teach each other. There are a lot of these folks, mind you, in case you're not one of them, or if you're not paying attention to the number of games blogged about everywhere.

If you're interested in making (or are currently making) an Indie MassMOG, go check out this conference and consider attending. There are some great speakers planned and it looks to be a great start to what might end up being an excellent yearly event. Make sure to spread the word, since things like this need exposure, IMO. (Even late exposure... *ahem*)

Well, my interest in Virtools has just been ratcheted up, oh... 500%! Check this out...

Virtools will present in exclusivity its new Wii™ Solution for faster and easier developments on Nintendo’s console at the Game Developer Conference, March 5–9 2007, San Francisco, California, USA. Specific components of Virtools 4 solution, the Wii Remote™ building block and Wii Remote client, allow the use of the Wii controllers directly on PCs, and authorized Wii game developers are now able to see results in hours and precisely tune their game. Come and discover it on our booth 454 West Hall.

Hah! That's pretty sweet, methinks. (They're a French company, so don't fault them much for the wonky English in spots, eh?) Get the full press release here if you want.

I'll definitely be checking out their booth at GDC and I'll report back. I came very close to turning myself into a Virtools developer for a while, but the costs are pretty steep. Especially if you develop for a console, so I'll be VERY interested to learn about licensing costs for a Nintendo part versus what Xbox numbers were (nearly astronomical, IMO.) I'll definitely be talking about this more later.

[I'm going to be lazy and just post a copy of this article from my other site.  You're lucky you're getting a post at all!...]