Captain Courgette Page
The Captain Courgette Readme
Captain Courgette bulliten(sp) board for game feedback + abuse
archives
1 oct 2006
I see im using ~50MB texture memory, now if u include framebuffer mem + VBOs youll need at least a 128mb card to run CC, im gonna have to get that figure down somehow2 oct 2006
freed up about 40MB mem, mainly due to me now doing the rock/planet normalmaps with DXT1, so theyll look a bit shittier but it should run a bit better on lowspec PCs2 oct 2006
1001 lights :), ive decided to optimize my terrain renderer (though terrain is just another mesh) but wanna find out correct size to split patches up into, based on density of lights + light size. Also since im using immediate mode, no scenegraph, no occlusion culling, accessing 6 different textures in the shader, once i stick it in my game the framerate should be sweet, if i can get it running well with ~20 bigish lights
3 oct 2006
added a credit scroller to the title page,4 oct 2006
ditched fixed func support vertices/normals/texcoords etc, its all vertexattribs now, simplfies everything somewhat. gl needs to do something similar for textures as well ( i have suggested this ages ago on the gl forums ) the notion of textures being RGBA is outdated. often u use the diffuse color + normalmap thus need 2 textures where its more logical to just have the one texture object. also rgb for color why not other colorspaces eg hue + luminance it should be an array eg instead of tex.rgba u would have tex[4] or tex[6] eg perhaps tex.a * tex.c or dot( tex.abc, tex.def )5 oct 2006
fixed func might be back in, btw the following is at 2048x1536@20fps (~50% more pixels than 1080p), not bad for a gffx esp since i havent started optimizing, 1080p@60fps will happen on reasonable hardware.
6 oct 2006
actually the above screenshot is 1002 lights ( i forgot to count the most important one, the sun)8 oct 2006
new windows CC version avaiable (only opengl2.0 nvidia cards at present), be sure to read the readme.html file in the DOC directory
use mouse to control with q/w keys to rotate, thanks to all those that have helped
10 oct 2006
Im seriously considering making CC a topdown shooter, it originally started out a behind spaceship camera then (for gameplay reasons) it was a topdown shooter, + again later i reverted back to the behind camera view (which is the current version ppl have downloaded) the major problem with this is its much much harder controlling the spaceship, judging where the aliens/bullets are in relation to the spaceship, shooting the aliens etc. Thus im gonna be a man + choose gameplay over graphics, topdown is visally not so terrible anyways, sortta a xevious like look in this screenshot
11 oct 2006
height compression idea, store terrain as patches eg 4x4blocks or 8x8 (like jpeg/dxt) each block contains a height + offset pattern value, thus 3/4bytes per block thus youre down like 16:1 compression ratio + i believe u will see no visual difference. i must try this out11 oct 2006
um mitternacht by mahler is amazing, unbelievably wagnerian11 oct 2006
Putin vows to hunt down reporter's killerssaw this headline on the news today, perhaps he should team up with oj simpson ( not that i think oj is guilty )12 oct 2006
like ive said for years, invading iraq was the wrong choice usa should of invaded north korea (looks like history is proving me right), also i often see ppl saying the only reason bush wanted to invade iraq was cause of oil, i dont know why they say this, jumping on the 'liberal' WTF bandwagon as a easy thing to say i suppose, well the truth is a bit more personal, bush's main reason was basically all to do with his father and the first gulf war back in 199115 oct 2006
stuck a check in to see if glintercept is running in the background + if so prints an onscreen message, i had a problem yesterday where i used it to check something, cause there was a rendering bug, eventually I found it+ then said shit whys the fps like 10 lower? (nothing ive done should affect fps that much) took me an hour to find out ild forgotten to remove glintercept (thats the second time its done it to me :) )15 oct 2006
widescreens are a bit of a pain in the ass ive been trying out my game at 1280x720 (ie 720p) and it doesnt suit it, perhaps if u turn the screen on its side itll be better (like old arcade games) most action happens in front of you thus u want to see as far possible ahead, though the nice thing of using a low resoultion like 720p is the framerate rocks, 1080p @ 60fps is very achievable15 oct 2006
stuck a few more timers in for optimizing purposes, the update logic part is taking ~1 msec, rendering is 20-40msec so thats the bottleneck (no surprise, buw thats good cause i can improve that by ~50%)18 oct 2006
changed the gameplan to what i had intended, at the moment u have a level (say defending the planet) + multiple stages within it, now ive gotten rid of the idea of stages, which makes it less boring ie each scene is diferent, and as a bonus its easier to do (ie i can remove everything at the end of the level instead of before i had to check wether it was a stage or not + if it was not remove the planet etc)18 oct 2006
added another level type, arena ala the level when u fight the big motha boss, obligatory to most shmups, also showcases that the bollux engine handles indoor stuff just as well as terrain or space18 oct 2006
one day ill sit down + cleanup my particle systems, u have square particles, rotating particles, particles like a flamethrower, that must remember where theyve come from, mesh particles, exhast beam stretched billboard particles, fixed axis particles, text etc. its a mess!19 oct 2006
cleaning up the collision advoiance today, pretty hard having some random flying aliens moving through an area, advoiding each other + other obsticals when theyre traveling at speed
21 oct 2006
nearly finished the alien movement routines, added another alien, this time the first of the mother aliens (what self respecting shmup would it be without those) Here im battling the string of grapes inside the arena, if u shoot the grapes in the middle they will split into two pieces + so on, etc, thus the secret is to try and remove the ends first, also CC gameplay is really starting to come together
27 oct 2006
Ive decided to implement my original plan + make the game not so linear, so the player can choose theit path through what levels they wanna take
30 oct 2006
coming today (hopefully) or at least tomorrow the first demo of a new game (yet to be titled), synopsis - after reading a thread in a board about someone struggling to get 50 bullets onscreen i wondered 'how far can i push it', wrote the main code in 3 hours but it took a further 5 hours to come up with a game, (something most coding beginners dont realise is, with most gaming stuff the actual c++ part is the easy part thus choosing an easier language eg java/c#/python doesnt buy u much since its not the bottleneck) anyways after following various gameplay possibilities (at least 10 different ones) eg kill alien and when its dead u can push around , matching colors / shapes. Ive come up with the following basic plan, energy circles are onscreen u can either collect them to make your spaceship bigger (which fires more bullets) or shoot them which takes energy away from them so they shrink but with each bounce the bullet is 4x as powerful. more stuff will be added (though i dont think powerups will be part of this game) example screenshot with placeholder graphics.
btw in this screenshoot the player is currently shooting 900 bullets a second! (bullets last for 2 secs I tried longer but it became a mess bullets bouncing everywhere which reduced the skill level somewhat)
30 oct 2006
just read in the paper some economist ( of the bleeding obvious ) take on the global warming issue 'it will be cheaper for developed nations to tackle the problem now with significant cuts in the greenhouse gas emissions, than to deal with the consequences' well duh!30 oct 2006
didnt quite make it today, very close afore the first demo, 12pm NZ time (in ~14 hours ill release the first demo, being the wanker i am i upped the bullet count to over 1000sec cause it sounds better )31 oct 2006
as promised the first version of my new game (total coding/design time ~10hours so dont expect much yet) THE BOUNCE1 nov 2006
i actually made the a c error today, X=val instead of X==val9 nov 2006
retorical question - why doesnt, sacha baron cohen get the shit from the usual various factions about the antisemetic stuff he saiz9 nov 2006
my new geforce 7600GS quick + semi accurate report - half vectors in shaders ~1-2% quicker than 32bit, with gffx the difference is ~18%. a gf7600GS is ~twice as quick as a gffx5900 in usual stuff + about 3x as quick with shading processing power. an average card of this generation thrashes a fast card of last generation10 nov 2006
finally got rid of the notion of storing polygon groups with meshes eg u can have a model made of trisngle + triangle_strips + quads. basically this is a legacy from my model loading code from last century when strips wre worthwhile (+ md2 files used fans etc) now each mesh just has the single polygon group usually triangles or quads10 nov 2006
Looking at my model class Im guilty of overengineering prolly due to it being done years ago when i was young + nieve20 nov 2006
- bit late in the updates better watch that zed, watching tuesuo ( a bit like erasurehead yes but much much better ) theres something about the japs that sets them apart (note when i say japs i mean a few exceptions not the vast majority idiots like here in nz or elsewhere, but the (ubermenschen) of japs ) if u look at the 10 best directors of all time 2 are japanese, a very high %. why? to hark back to erasurehead which had nice music this is equal very NIN20 nov 2006
btw there are some ppl that are offended by the term jap? also honky, also nigger ( a bit of talk about this word in nz at the moment cause of jacksons new film ) but I say hey words are impotent, actions speak louder, i remember meeting a jew for the first time( though i most likely had meet jewish ppl beforehand but he was the first that said it ) anyways he told me 'im jewish' + i go, WTF!!! , like who cares!!!26 nov 2006
ive been neglecting the programming a bit recently ( i sent a demo to sony but they were very airy-fairy with it, 79 hours work + they brush me off how dare they :), ive actually been shaken by the sucess of gears of war, ppl(including reviewers) are going "best graphics ever" + heres me going aye, huh, WTF can they actually see it!!!??? one reason i do programming is cause u can measure it (unlike music) u can measure program A is better than program B, yet here is a example where it hasnt rung true, the whole thing has raised doubts about a lot of things, (i weightlift also) now if i lift say 150kg, can i lose against someone who lifts 130kg, well yes i can if the PR is enuf, well fuck that what happened to the level playing field (not that it ever existed) anyways ive been writing + recording music, well u know im a prodigious writer with my 400+ songs written (including 3 rockoperas a bit of david brent-ism there) well ive been recording a bit recently, though ive been hampered due to the sound quality is worse than i want 'it seems dead + dull', one thing with recording is u want it good otherwise its worthless. in programming perhaps the machine u do it on is worthless but u can take that to a better machine + work on it. but with recording u cant cause everything is limited to the initial recording take. anyways theres about 15 songs i have choosen to record now for an album. the major fucker (well not so major cause i will improve them in the tussentijd) is i will have to rerecord them with proper equipment (+ ive recorded with worse eg 4track multitrack tapes) ive wasted so much time already for fucks sake cast out this rage28 nov 2006
another song, something is not quite right with the sound, all the hi-notes sound dull fallen scene29 nov 2006
the reason australia dont want two spinners is not cause its best for the test but cause warne doesnt want it, if u look at the figures where warne has bowled with macgill i believe the best bowling figures are something like 11-2 in favour of mac-gill. actually the ashes gets to much importance, the problem is theres no world championship with test-cricket, though u cant really have one unless it was spreak out over at least 2 months (plus u have the spectre of draws)30 nov 2006
simple online posting guidelinesA/ I have more respect for ppl who use there real name online than hiding behind a cowardly nickname, accept responibility for your actions
B/ also on a similar vein when posting about an algorithm or method, i often as i can will say if I do it or have done it, often I see ppl say method X is great (yet they havent implemented it)