June 2012
1 post
March 2012
5 posts
4 tags
2 tags
Snapshots
I found a highly effective way of taking automatic snapshots. I used Gadwin printscreen, and an AutoIT script I wrote. Gadwin was configured to dump screenshots in a snaps directory and not prompt.
AutoIT script. alt-esc toggles pause, and shift-esc turns off the script.
Global $UnPaused
HotKeySet("!{ESC}", "TogglePause")
HotKeySet("+{ESC}", "Terminate")
While 1
Sleep(100)
WEnd
Func...
4 tags
Legacy of a Warlord - Client →
I’ve posted the client part of the legacy of a warlord multiplayer game on bitbucket. https://bitbucket.org/willraman/legacy-of-a-warlord-client
It is still pretty rough around the edges but it is shaping up nicely.
Soon as the client can connect with the server in a more robust fashion (character creation finished). I’ll post the server application to...
4 tags
Quick and Easy budget 1.0 →
I posted my new PHP budgeting app. Has a long way to go but it is a good start. Already immensely useful for me.
February 2012
2 posts
5 tags
A name and todo for version 1
I figured I will call this Quick and Easy budget (PHP). The license I decided on will be AGPL .
I added some date controls and am now trusting my budget to it. I’m not going to give something away unless I dogfood it. :)
Todo list for version 1.0, maybe one more week. major: 1. Database manager tab
Add/remove tags (default seems to cover everything, but maybe it is too much or not...
4 tags
November 2011
4 posts
A new language to learn
Now this is interesting. If google continues to dominate the market, this might be the next language I decide to learn.
Dart - http://www.dartlang.org/
Language spec - http://www.dartlang.org/docs/spec/dartLangSpec.pdf
I think i’ll give it a shot. I’ve been playing with PHP lately and writing a simple web game text hack for the legacyofawarlord.com site. I’ll try this dart...
Popularity of Programming language
Found this in my wanders on the internet.
http://langpop.com/ http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
Looks like C and C++ will be around a long time.
2 tags
A game update
A couple nights ago I got the UDP server working. I took the code from another project I worked on (encrypted UDP client/server), broke apart all the modules that made up legacy of a warlord, finally took the code from the tile memory manager project and squished them all together into 2 parts server/client.
The server currently handles:
Client session management
Packet encryption between...
1 tag
I use Mercurial
I’ve used subversion and tortoise SVN (as the client) to control my source code. I find it absolutely necessary when I break something to be able to diff my code and figure out what was the wrong path.
When LIBTCOD maintainers changed to mercurial I decided to do the same. I am very well pleased with the change myself. It was easy enough to import my SVN into the mercurial server and...
October 2011
6 posts
3 tags
Favorite STL container types c++
In the past week of coding/testing/profiling. I touched a few of the different STL container types.
Here is what I think about them:
1. STD::Vector. My favorite. Much like a standard c array, yet with a lot of methods attached to it. It is very quick. The ability to reserve space makes it absolutely effective in reducing memory bloat also saves me from having to manage the malloc/calloc/free.
...
1 tag
4 tags
Finally, testing complete
I’m pretty satisfied with the results. I’m ready to move forward now that my sparse tile storage class is complete. I even took a few days to have some fun programming OpenGL on SDL. Attached is a picture of the pixel dump into a texture then displayed via a call to glTexSubImage2d.
As you can see there is no visual loss of data from the original picture. This is a visual...
1st data structure profile
Not as bad as I thought. Looking at the profiled data the biggest consumer of time is my UN-optimized use of SDL. The last entry on this list is the most promising that I am on the right track, 27,000,000 calls and tile retrievals from the data structure only took 0.12 of a second.
% cumulative self self total time seconds seconds calls ms/call ms/call name...
2 tags
The hash storage class
I figured I’d share the storage class I’m using now. Little bit more overhead (2mb more overall) for 6 million tiles. Yet look ups are quicker. Total tiles size in memory is 86 mb (including bloat).
This class has a derived logic class as a higher layer in the program to act as an intermediary between data and SDL pixel drawing functions.
// HashNodeClass.hpp
class HashNodes { ...
4 tags
September 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Ideas on the games future
I have branched some of the code to test an idea… It has something to do with my recent exploits into UDP programming. Maybe implemented by 0.60.
Still have some core item/display work to iron out (bug hunting).
Also really, really want to move into sparse data structure storage for legacy of a warlord instead of storing every single cell. I have an idea for storing regions then only...
1 tag
Site is coming back
Bought 2 years hosting plan and should have the site back online by tonight. No more having to download from rapidshare.
Will not be hosting a forum this time. I don’t have much time to do the community stuff but I will post some code/ideas here. Development of the game has slowed to a crawl (with about 2 - 3 hours dedicated to it a week).
April 2011
2 posts
3 tags
UDP client / server
Learned very quickly that UDP is fire and forget… and it might not even make it there.
I just dove into coding as I wanted to get a crash course in UDP programming. I set up an overall hierarchy to communication between these modules. Jumbled mess of code right now although I’m learning and having fun programming.
Here is my early design implementation (half baked idea).
Threadable...
Octree's, Networking, and 3D...
I’m working on a side project. Still trying to learn everything I can about the different coding techniques that goes into creating a game and C++. Right now, I am making a multi-threaded UDP server that stores 3d tiles/blocks in an octree driven memory space.
The idea is to then make a client software in Ogre3D and SFML (for networking/audio/event handling). The client will query the...
March 2011
14 posts
1 tag
I posted a new template for the home page. I pretty much butchered the last website so I thought I’d hit the reset button on the website.
I will post a link to some screen shots of the game or maybe an embedded you-tube movie tomorrow on a media sublink.
3 tags
Version 0.57 released
New version posted.
Change highlights:
Screen sizing!
Settings file
Enhanced modding support (more info on forum, see settings.xml)
Auto detects tilemaps in mod directory (see settings.xml)
Re-Factored AI.
Faster overall.
A little more content. Army members are better equipped.
Area map control (arrow keys)
Area map faction overlay (E key while map is open)
Direct download:...
4 tags
1 tag
LOAW mantis bug tracker (link) →
The mantis bug tracking software is quite nice. I should have put this in months ago.
I’ve been putting bugs in it to help me stay focused and track changes. What I like about it is that it makes a change log and road map for me. Pretty cool. I wonder if I can have it spit out the road map onto the front page of the site, actually, I know I could do that (the question is, how valuable would...
4 tags
1 tag
AI just pwned me
I just added long range scouting to the AI. This allows the AI to have a NPC scout the whole zone.
There is a little glowing green bug creature in version 0.56. Using the new AI the bug ran past my character and added my character to its Hatelist. And it wandered off. I thought, “uh oh, this isn’t going to be good.”
A green bug is a vermin faction, and has a mysterious link to...
2 tags
AI matrix
The XML mod files set the probability of 3 thought states. Every second a random is rolled against that probability and the AI will change its mind on what it wants to do.
The 3 thought states: Agressive, curiousity and territorial. You can ignore the laziness. That just determines how often it gets sleepy.
A rat specification is: aggressive=”0.90” curiousity=”0.10”...
3 tags
AI doesn't want to play
I forgot one key piece of code down below in the previous post.
If (pCHR->isPlayer == false)pCHR->Think();
This one small oversight on my part made the player token run with the default AI, instead of the player driven AI. I realized this when I was sending move commands.
So I sat… and watched. And the AI just stood there. It didn’t want to play. I don’t blame it, who...
5 tags
The Core AI
Done with the AI refactor!
whew… This looks so much better then the 1,000 lines of if,then,else statements that was the brains of the AI before and so much easier to debug.
I’m coding the Think() function now. It sets the default thought of an NPC AI based on its needs.
Here is Version 1 of the Revamp. I really have no idea what type of AI this is called in the industry. If you...
1 tag
Version 0.57 poll on forum →
What would you like to see next?
Also a few hints on upcoming content. Or feel free to stop by and say what you don’t like, before I build it. :)
2 tags
Latest alpha release v.0.56
Lights! Effects! and Training dummies!
Latest release is on the site (version 0.56.00). I hope you enjoy it.
Direct Link
Change list on forum
3 tags
4 tags
3 tags
February 2011
4 posts
3 tags
4 tags
Bitwise math, speed increase on item features
I have learned a few things while programming for an iPod/iPhone. I’ll be applying some of what I learned to legacy of a warlord. The following tweak will definitely help when I allow NPCs to equip and use items.
While profiling code for Legacy of a Warlord. I noticed that I was querying what features exist on an item, a lot! Not that this is a bad thing yet the way I was doing it could use...
3 tags
3 tags
Alpha v.0.55.00 release
Army saving has been implemented and the save system is fully compatible with the old version. Also for those that like kung fu fighting, the first update to the natural skills combat system is updated. As the skill progresses, more damage is done. Finally, I fixed some bugs and increased stamina regen (thanks for feedback on that).
Unless some critical bugs come up I’m now starting...
January 2011
24 posts
Project on hold
I am placing the Legacy of a Warlord project on hold after I finish army saving and post that update.
I am shifting my development focus to iPod to make a quick little app as I have an excellent idea that might take a few weeks. Hopefully garner a few hundred bucks or go viral.
This is a pretty cool SDK that should allow me to continue developing in the environment I am used to....
3 tags
Army saving update
I can now save the army to the file, pick up and drop pages into and out of the save file. The wonderful thing is, the game still loads the player and all his items. That said, I have crossed over the top of the learning curve on the saving task. Now to load the army from the file into the game (right now the army data isn’t processed yet).
Loading should be a lot easier than getting the...
2 tags
Coding yourself into a corner
Well, my original plan for saving wasn’t quite right. But that is OK. When I fail I get back up and try another approach. Then I get distracted with taxes, blarg.
The problem I was having is when a character is saved to a file there was no logic in determining how to retrieve the data from the save file for an NPC based on who the NPC is associated with.
Now ownership information is being...
2 tags
fortification, traps and magic
One thing that makes a well fortified position, is something that works against the tactic of an enemy. For example creating a bottleneck for a horde of goblins to pass through a single point, exposes their flanks by single filing the enemy out a hole. The goblins are unable to swarm and surround your troops easily in this case. The plan is to allow a player to mine out some stone in a wall, build...
3 tags
Release postponed
There will be no release this Saturday (01/22/11).
I have had some things come up and just didn’t have the time to do a proper release and full testing. The patch on Monday threw off my schedule. I also have forked the code and am experimenting on a potential future of the project. Oh and saving the army has been an interesting puzzle.
One thing I have been considering is a launcher with...
1 tag
Combat planning: Hit locations
Just a random thought about future combat. Thought I would get it in writing.
Part of the reason why there is a insane amount of + to the armor is that it will come in very handy when determine what armor to wear on your character. That + amount will be fed through a parser and spit out a prefix. For example…
Iron armor + 0 , may look like, rusty iron armor
Iron armor + 24, Exquisite iron...
4 tags
Emergency patch 0.54.50
Had some problems with the new movement code. There were a few AI branches that didn’t use the movement cache when blocked by something. It seems the AI was very frustrated a few times and crashed the game when someone else came up and ate the item it was watching while it as blocked.
Also while I was tweaking that stuff, I implemented the player’s swap code to all creatures so they...
5 tags
1 tag
Alpha v0.54.00 released
Some bug fixes, some streamlining and new movement/battle code. Added some new content too. If you find a troll, be sure to bring some buddies and you might just score a regen ring.
Be careful, if you wander very far from town you might just find the rat dungeon of doom with 4000 rats waiting to strike.
You can read more about the changes here.
...
