Managed World

I forgot to mention this when I came across it on Benjamin's blog. Rocket Commander now has the binary _and_ the source code released for it. You can find it here. Enjoy, my fellow hobbyist pseudo game developers :).

As I've mentioned in a previous article, I was annoyed with Visual Studio .NET 2002/2003 and the fact that you can't change the obj directory. I'm a stickler for keeping my src directory clean. My annoyance was due to the fact that you could _not_ change the directory the intermediate files for C# were saved to. Well, I'm pleased to announce that it appears it has now changed.

You can change the "BaseIntermediateOutputPath" value in your MSBuild file and that will change where the intermediate files are created. Thanks Microsoft :). I can now have the exact directory structure I want without it being dictated to me by Microsoft. It's about time :).

Thanks go to Day Dreamer who pointed this out to me as a comment to the earlier post linked to above.

As ZMan and Tom Miller have already said, Tray Games have announced that they are currently having a beta of their software. As you may or may not be aware of, their games leverage Managed DirectX so we definitely want to help them out (right?). If you create an account, feel free to add "jolson88" to your friends list :). Thanks!

I spoiled myself today. I received my annual bonus at work and I outright spoiled myself. Actually, for me, that would be an understatement. I splurged so much it isn't even funny. What did I do? I went out and bought a 4GB iPod Nano _and_ a PSP (and all sorts of accessories for both of them).

When I came home and unpacked my babies from their packaging, I came upon a realization: both of these devices are incredibly sexy. I don't mean they are sexy as in "cool". I mean they are "feel a tingling in your virtual geek loins" sexy. They give me the warm fuzzies, they truly do.

The iPod. Wow! I'm just going to come out and admit it. This was my first experience in an Apple store buying an Apple product. I'm speechless. Apple sure knows how to build products (and a store for that matter). It feels like every little detail about the iPod was meticulously designed, right down to the packaging itself. That's right, the packaging was some of the best designed packaging I've seen as well (no lie). I can certainly see why Apple fans are Apple fans. A quick game of word-association when looking at this sucker would instantly yield the word Elegance.

The PSP is pretty impressive also. It may not be quite as sexy and elegant as the iPod, but it still has its own vibe. When I powered the sucker on, my heart skipped a beat. The screen is so crisp and clear. The graphics in the games are incredible. I think the gamer within me is in love. I feel the coming wave of joy from many future gaming moments I will have with this device.

I just had to mention these things because of how utterly impressed I was with the design of these devices. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must ask your leave as I really wish to be spending time with my new babies (not that spending time with all of you is all that bad).

Go play with my new toys I must :).

What is up? Not much by the looks of it. I'm finally starting to go out and dig up the various game engines written in .NET that I can leverage in the project I'm revisiting (as I'm not really in the mood to reinvent a wheel that has already been re-invented like a hundred million billion times by various college students out there (here's a theory: I think there are more game engine projects out there than hamburgers McDonald's has sold in the entire history of their company)).

So, what did I find? Sadly, not really anything to write home about. I found several projects, they were just in several stages of disarray. Several of them even have had a good amount of effort spent on them in the past. Some of them even show some progress and potential if only they were still active. Let us review ladies and gent's.

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Axiom: practically dead from what I can tell (the source forge project's home page isn't even functional and there are no binary or source files available for download).

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Realm Forge: somewhat active. There hasn't been _any_ news on the main page in quite a while when I visited the site. On top of that, there is very little documentation of any redeemable quality. Sure, there is some auto-generated documentation on the API but actually usage documentation is several lacking. From what I saw on the wiki, there is but one "real" tutorial posted. The extent of the tutorial is a single C# source file where the "tutorial" is embedded in C# comments. Not exactly what I would call a "quality" tutorial. 

Sure, I could go and figure it all out myself. I may even still do that. Just call me spoiled. After working with the numerous .NET libraries and products I have at work, I like to be using a product that is supported and can at least point me in the right direction when things go astray.

To be fair, I'm not entirely disappointed. Realm Forge is looking to put itself forward as "the entire package" and not just a pretty renderer. I think it has some potential in that regard too. It wraps up a bunch of different components in order to package itself as a complete game engine. I just think it has quite a bit of "maturing" to go through until it reaches that point.

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Haddd 3D: it looks pretty and looks like it has potential. The drawback for me? All tutorials and help docs that I could find were written in Spanish. I know that the code should be enough, but I'm on a sojourn to find the "complete package" (or as darn near as I can find to it) and would like to be helped along in the process. Once again, I know I'm a lazy bones so telling me so won't provoke me in the least bit.

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Maybe I've just been out of the loop for that long now (how depressing). The next ones on my list to investigate are Irrlicht and Purple#. I'm hoping they will be a little more promising than the ones investigated so far. Have any of you come across some good .NET-based game engines or 3d engines that you like using?

In the meantime, I think I'm just going to go dink around with Ogre3d in C++ for a while and see what kind of fun I can have. Ciao!

I'm in the process of cleaning up my office so I made a pass through my technical books to determine which ones to get rid of and which ones to keep. Boy am I just a little depressed now.

Not only is there a HUGE stack of books ready to be led off into Technical Book Heaven but I made the unfortunate mistake of adding up just how much money I spent on the whole collection of books. Well, I'm sad to report that I'm taking back just over $1300 worth of technical books. I suppose the good news is that I've realized that I don't spend nearly that much money on technical books anymore. Not only that, but the technical books I have been buying have actually been pretty darn good.

I think a lot of this has to do with the technical book addiction I went through when first getting up to speed with programming. I haven't been programming for that long. Four years ago or so, I started buying up technical books in mass doses to "play catch up". Well, I think I relatively catched up (as much as you can in technology that is) but at a severe cost to my pocket book. Geez, sometimes it feels like I would spend less money if I were a drug addict rather than a programmer.

I raise my glass (okay, can of Coke) in hopes that next time I do a purging it won't be nearly as depressing.

But you know what? Even if it is, that's the way it is. Why? Because that's how I roll. Yup, you heard me: that's how I roll. Got a problem with 'dat? I din't thank sooo!