The development of Orbyk is underway. The visuals are fairly raw but I have gotten collision detection to work. Calculating point of contact for the rebound was another story.
It took several attempts to get it right and I am still tweaking it. I spent too much time figuring out complicated math that when it did work, it still didn't help me (but I still needed to do it to know that it would not work). I had one solution that worked well at very slow speeds. It turns out that the closer to the objects edge the detected collision was, the more accurate the calculation was. Once I realized that, after detecting a collision, I would slowly back the object up until it almost didn't register the collision and then did the calculation.
Some collisions that are exactly on the edge or corner could be calculated wrong. I have been too lazy to correct it at the moment ( When I make the main shape a sphere instead of a cube, it will have to change), So I added rebound validation. If I detect a rebound off of a side, I verify that another block is not resting up against that side. If a block does exist to that side, then the calculation was an edge case and was wrong.
I had it working beautifully until I added user input and decided that I was representing speed and direction in a poor way. In the process of correcting movement, I had to revisit my collision and rebound logic.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Orbyk
Orbyk was a PocketPC game that I wrote in college. It is like the game breakout, except upside down and in 3D. The view of the game is directly over the top of the game area so you see the ball bounce up towards you and then fall back down to the floor. The bricks are layed flat on the floor and are not stacked. The paddle was removed. To move the ball, you would use the stylus to give the ball spin in the direction that you wanted the ball to go. When it would move in the new direction when it hit the floor. So you had to think one bounce in advance.
The 3D part was simulated. The walls and bricks were designed to look like they have depth. The ball was rendered on the fly. It was like a 4 colored beach ball. The colors made the spin easy to see. We also shaded it to give it more depth.
The rendering was all done manually. We worked directly with the raw display memory. All of our images, tiles, and fonts were hand crafted in NxN arrays, one RRGGBB hex pixel at a time.
Redrawing the whole screen would tear. You could see the rip on the display if we cycled all the colors. To account for this, the only time we would redraw the whole display was at state changes ( menus, pause, or lost and gained focus). The ball was in constant motion. We rendered the ball directly over the existing seen and rubbed out only what was left of the ball from the seen before. We tried clearing the ball before drawing it again, but we could see it rip each frame. The ball rendering was optimized as much as possible.
It was a very addictive game and it quickly ran the battery out on my PocetPC every chance it got.
The 3D part was simulated. The walls and bricks were designed to look like they have depth. The ball was rendered on the fly. It was like a 4 colored beach ball. The colors made the spin easy to see. We also shaded it to give it more depth.
The rendering was all done manually. We worked directly with the raw display memory. All of our images, tiles, and fonts were hand crafted in NxN arrays, one RRGGBB hex pixel at a time.
Redrawing the whole screen would tear. You could see the rip on the display if we cycled all the colors. To account for this, the only time we would redraw the whole display was at state changes ( menus, pause, or lost and gained focus). The ball was in constant motion. We rendered the ball directly over the existing seen and rubbed out only what was left of the ball from the seen before. We tried clearing the ball before drawing it again, but we could see it rip each frame. The ball rendering was optimized as much as possible.
It was a very addictive game and it quickly ran the battery out on my PocetPC every chance it got.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Invisible Walls
I hate running into invisible walls. In my apartment we have a hallway that runs from the livingroom to the bedroom. I have lived here for several months and use that hall regularly. Then for no apparent reason, I can not walk down that hall any more. I can see then floor and the door to the bedroom. And google is no help. Searching for "cannot walk down hallway" returns 273,000 results that don't help me.
finally after spending the day trying to get down that hall, I discovered it was a invisible wall. I know it was not there before because I walked down it yesterday. Now that I know it is a wall I can remove it. Problem solved.
When I find these invisible walls I almost scream. My blood boils.
finally after spending the day trying to get down that hall, I discovered it was a invisible wall. I know it was not there before because I walked down it yesterday. Now that I know it is a wall I can remove it. Problem solved.
When I find these invisible walls I almost scream. My blood boils.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Opening comments
My reasons for starting this blog is two fold. I want to record some of the programming projects I have worked on in the past. I also want to share my projects and thoughts with potential recruiters. So in a way, this is a type of resume.
Before I start talking about my programming projects, I should share a little bit about myself. I grew up in a small town in Nebraska. One of those small towns that has only one school. A place where everyone knows your name if you play sports.
I had an interest in computers and quickly became the computer guy. They had me running the lab, helping teachers post grades, teaching others programming, and the superintendent pulled me out of class to fix his home computer. I also ran a computer help ad in the local paper.
Then I was off to college. Computer science at the University of Nebraska. I wasn't ready for college when I went, but it was a valuable experience for me. The computer science classes were my favorite, go figure. I was able to work on several personal projects that got me where I am today.
College is also where I met my wife. I now work for a department at the university and live here in Lincoln. We are about to move into a larger apartment because we are expecting our first child in may. That is my next big adventure.
Now you have seen a glimpse of my history. It is just a small snapshots of my life. As I talk about the things I have worked on you will see yet another glimpse of who I am and how I think.
Before I start talking about my programming projects, I should share a little bit about myself. I grew up in a small town in Nebraska. One of those small towns that has only one school. A place where everyone knows your name if you play sports.
I had an interest in computers and quickly became the computer guy. They had me running the lab, helping teachers post grades, teaching others programming, and the superintendent pulled me out of class to fix his home computer. I also ran a computer help ad in the local paper.
Then I was off to college. Computer science at the University of Nebraska. I wasn't ready for college when I went, but it was a valuable experience for me. The computer science classes were my favorite, go figure. I was able to work on several personal projects that got me where I am today.
College is also where I met my wife. I now work for a department at the university and live here in Lincoln. We are about to move into a larger apartment because we are expecting our first child in may. That is my next big adventure.
Now you have seen a glimpse of my history. It is just a small snapshots of my life. As I talk about the things I have worked on you will see yet another glimpse of who I am and how I think.
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