http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/index.php ... en gm@stackunderflow.com Copyright 2008 Pivot Pivot - 1.40.4: 'Dreadwind' Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:03:28 +1030 60 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=123 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=123#comm
Progress bars during construction.


... and now if you do something wrong, you get a warning up here.

Now for "the list".

Short-term (before a beta):
More building types - at least hall, apartment, restaurant, fast food, hotel
Transport (elevators and stairs for now)
Better UI (menus, ability to click on tools)
AI humans to walk around
Fix up the dialog
Skylobby - add seats
Building in construction (should be 5 days until it's ready)
Add prices to tool labels
Add icons for load and save
Drag to build multiple items
Dim the buildings in the background at night
Fix endian issues (the code has a few endian-specific parts geared towards big endian - powerpc - systems. When I run it on x86, I'll find out where the issues are and fix them...)
Universal binary for Mac OS X
Build for x86 Linux
Fade transition upon load/launch
Shaded rent mode as well as evaluation
Fix week numbers
Add message box
Fix restaurant building
Progress bars for construction time left
Fix office 1's windows while in construction
Clean up some of the compitler warnings

Medium-term (before a wider beta):
Fix the runtime resolution changing
Get GLViewport behaving so you can scroll around, zoom in and out etc
Preliminary networked / online support
Checksum the file format
Gameplay goals (star ratings etc)
Disasters (terrorist, fire, meteor impact, flood etc, any suggestions?)
External view of the building
More building types - medical center, car parking, train station, double office, shopping mall, arcade, glass bridge, security, shop, skybridge, helicopter pad, movie theatre, gym, garden
Ability to build sound insulation (reduces annoyance of nearby people)
Have a main menu
Build for Windows
Multiple rent setting (so it doesn't get incredibly tedious when the tenants all move out)
Pause function
Weather (e.g. rain, lightning etc)
Uint32 limit might be hit with >7 wks uptime

Long-term (before release):
Serial number / Registration algorithm :)
Online support (upload towers / scores to internet)
Maemo port? (if Maemo supports OpenGL by then :) )
Support for alternate environments (aka alternate graphics, rules etc)
User scriptability (perhaps) ]]> 123@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:03:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=122 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=122#comm

(200mm focal length, take a guess at the timing that took :) )

So here they are:

Motorbikes
Porsches
F/A-18 Hornets
GT Cup
F3 Cars
V8 Supercars
More V8 Supercars
Supercar Sideshots ]]> 122@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:47:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=121 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=121#comm 121@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:09:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=120 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=120#comm

The skylobby now has seats, the office info dialog now has a title bar and a close box (as well as an office), the buildings now have construction state, the tool labels now have prices, there are icons for load and save... but still so much more to do.

An update on the list:

Short-term (before a beta):
More building types - at least hall, apartment, restaurant, fast food, hotel
Transport (elevators and stairs for now)
Better UI (menus, ability to click on tools)
AI humans to walk around
Fix up the dialog
Skylobby - add seats
Building in construction (should be 5 days until it's ready)
Add prices to tool labels
Add icons for load and save
Drag to build multiple items
Dim the buildings in the background at night
Fix endian issues (the code has a few endian-specific parts geared towards big endian - powerpc - systems. When I run it on x86, I'll find out where the issues are and fix them...)
Universal binary for Mac OS X (how did I forget?)
Build for x86 Linux
Fade transition upon load/launch
Shaded rent mode as well as evaluation
Fix week numbers
(and a bit more that I've forgotten :) )

Medium-term (before a wider beta):
Fix the runtime resolution changing
Get GLViewport behaving so you can scroll around, zoom in and out etc
Preliminary networked / online support
Checksum the file format
Gameplay goals (star ratings etc)
Disasters (terrorist, fire, meteor impact, flood etc, any suggestions?)
External view of the building
More building types - medical center, car parking, train station, double office, shopping mall, arcade, glass bridge, security, shop, skybridge, helicopter pad, movie theatre, gym, garden
Ability to build sound insulation (reduces annoyance of nearby people)
Have a main menu
Build for Windows
Multiple rent setting (so it doesn't get incredibly tedious when the tenants all move out)
Pause function
Weather (e.g. rain, lightning etc)

Long-term (before release):
Serial number / Registration algorithm :)
Online support (upload towers / scores to internet)
Maemo port? (if Maemo supports OpenGL by then :) )
Support for alternate environments
User scriptability (perhaps) ]]> 120@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:24:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=119 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=119#comm

Firstly, note the red-tinted office in the upper right. As you are placing things around, it will tell you where you can place the object, and it shows a semitransparent (yay OpenGL) copy of the item where it goes. The object is tinted red if it cannot be placed at the current location.
Secondly, there is a colour-mapped evaluation mode, where it displays the satisfaction of the offices.
Thirdly, it can run in any resolution now, but switching at runtime doesn't quite work yet.

It's not really ready for a beta yet - it's still missing too much. Here's what's planned:
Short-term (before a beta):
More building types - at least hall, apartment, restaurant, fast food, hotel
Transport (elevators and stairs for now)
Better UI (menus, ability to click on tools)
AI humans to walk around
Fix up the dialog
Skylobby - add seats
Building in construction (should be 5 days until it's ready)
Add prices to tool labels
Add icons for load and save
Drag to build multiple items
Dim the buildings in the background at night
Build for x86 Linux
Fade transition upon load/launch
Shaded rent mode as well as evaluation

Medium-term (before a wider beta):
Fix the runtime resolution changing
Get GLViewport behaving so you can scroll around, zoom in and out etc
Preliminary networked / online support
Checksum the file format
Gameplay goals (star ratings etc)
Disasters (terrorist, fire, meteor impact, flood etc, any suggestions?)
External view of the building
More building types - medical center, car parking, train station, double office, shopping mall, arcade, glass bridge, security, shop, skybridge, helicopter pad, movie theatre, gym, garden
Ability to build sound insulation (reduces annoyance of nearby people)
Have a main menu
Build for Windows
Multiple rent setting (so it doesn't get incredibly tedious when the tenants all move out)
Pause function
Weather (e.g. rain, lightning etc)

Long-term (before release):
Serial number / Registration algorithm :)
Online support (upload towers / scores to internet)
Maemo port? (if Maemo supports OpenGL by then :) )
Support for alternate environments
User scriptability (perhaps)

Any suggestions? ]]> 119@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:13:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=118 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=118#comm

Finally got the office drawing code behaving (it's so heavily based around the old drawing model I just rewrote it). ]]> 118@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:02:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=117 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=117#comm

This is the current state of zTower. The menu at the top is half working. Limited building functions are implemented as the old drawing functions were heavily embedded into the code and I haven't quite got round to removing all the extra bits yet.

Note the semitransparent-ness of the menu layer.

Oh, and it's a vast amount faster in OpenGL than it ever was in software. ]]> 117@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:32:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=116 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=116#comm
I initially thought the modem had gone down, given that I couldn't see line sync from Node's end. Thought that the modem had crashed. Turned out... well... Telstra had patched our phoneline into someone else's.

After ringing them up and trying to convince them that the inability to make or receive calls as well as the lack of ADSL line sync is a problem and is otherwise abnormal, they said that a technician would be around to fix it tomorrow. My next call was to 3 to ask how quickly they could update my mobile broadband plan to the eries silver (~5 days left in month = about $4 for 100MB quota). It took about an hour, and then I was up on the net, though the server wasn't.

Following that, he checked what number was assigned to the line. It was the wrong one. So he headed off to the exchange, and rang back to say that our line had been plugged into the wrong pair. ADSL came back up, and we were able to make calls. Much better.

Let's hope it doesn't happen again.

More posts to follow with photos and other stuff, and possibly some Stack Underflow :) ]]> 116@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:32:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=115 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=115#comm
Now for some photos:


This is the view from a window of the first hotel in Narita looking out over the hills.


Downtown Narita - building rooftops.


Looking up the tower you see on the left of the previous photo.


Looking down the road (near where previous two were taken)


Entrance to the Narita-san temple.


This is the temple itself. Well, the roof of. It's simply massive.


Boeing 747 in the foreground, industry in the background.


View from the hotel's glass elevator. ]]> 115@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:36:00 +1030 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=113 http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=113#comm




]]> 113@http://gm.stackunderflow.com/blog/pivot/ default Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:50:00 +1030