iDevGames

Tools

My development tool of choice is Metrowerks’ CodeWarrior 5.0. I noticed that Metrowerks was a sponsor of uDevGames so I crossed my fingers that I could win and get my hands on the latest version. For working on 3D models, Joe Strout’s Meshwork can’t be beat. It is great at creating optimized models and includes many features. Joe is also always improving Meshwork so if you are not familiar with it, take a look. Textures and other eye-candy were of course created in industry-standard Photoshop. Don Murta’s GLSee was also very helpful in converting the 3DMF files into OpenGL code. Long time Mac-first developer Pangea Software tools were also used: 3DMF Optimizer and 3DMF Mapper. The machine gun model was designed by David Drew and the sword texture was provided by Elizabeth Lim.

image2.jpg” alt=“GL Fighters”

What Went Right

Getting on the right track

The first version that I started was completely on the wrong track; I had been making every pose in Infini-D and then exporting it as a 3DMF, running it through 3DMF Optimizer and then loading it up in GLSee (which converted the 3DMF model into the C code) for drawing it, and had then copied that code into a function in my game. This was far too time consuming and pointless, and resulted in low-poly models that moved jerkily. Sometimes, developers need to look at the process and decide when the development needs to be turned on its head. It was a wise decision to change my workflow early on so that the game could be submitted on time.

Making my own animation program

I was used to making animations in Infini-D by defining key frames for various points in time, which the program moved smoothly between, so I designed my character animator on that principle. There is a separate model for every body part, and each of these body parts smoothly rotates to each pre-defined animation frame. Utilizing my own animation program instead of a third-party tool allowed me to easily add in the features I needed. After spending lots of time tweaking all the animations they ended looking like I wanted them to.

Beta testing. Lots of beta testing!

There is a computer lab at my school (all Macs of course) with a variety of modern computers, and a lot of interested classmates who were more than happy to have an excuse to play computer games between classes. This was very convenient for beta testing because the testers tried a lot of silly things that I would never have thought of, and found many bugs that I would never have found. The immediate feedback was also helpful in improving the game design.

Entering the uDevGames Contest

Around the time that the uDevGames Contest was announced, I had just started another project and was not actually going to do anything with GLFighters. The uDevGames Contest was exciting because I would have a vehicle to distribute my game and win some prizes, such as CodeWarrior, which I sorely need for my next project.

image3.jpg” alt=“GL Fighters”

The Eye-candy

I believe my game is an example of “programmer art” that is less terrible than the norm. All the models were created with Meshwork, textures created in Photoshop, converted to .TGA (Targa) with GraphicConverter, mapped onto the model with 3DMF Mapper, and then brought into the program by GLSee.

What Went Wrong

No planning

I had started with a very vague plan for a game that never actually became concrete. I just started with a guy running around on a platform, which became two guys, and then added various features such as changing backgrounds, multiple weapons, jetpacks, cloaking, multiple skins, first person view, AI, map editor, etc., which were all just random ideas from various sources jammed together. For example, I was once showing it to a friend and he just thought it would be nice if you could use two swords to fling people over your head with them, so I spent the next several hours making the animations and fixing the huge number of bugs that suddenly appear whenever I add anything new.

System requirements too high

I designed this game on a PowerMac G4 400MHz (it was powerful at the time!) which meant it was harder to know what needed optimization since it almost always ran at an acceptable speed. This will definitely be much harder now that I’ve got a PowerMac G4 733MHz with a GeForce3 and almost a gigabyte of RAM. Due to the high system requirements, many gamers could not run the game at acceptable speeds.

image4.jpg” alt=“GL Fighters”

Sloppy code

This was one of my first games in C++ so I was not yet aware of the wonders of #pragma mark - and descriptive function and variable names. Even now when I look at my code I can barely figure out what’s going on. I now group all functions by what they affect and put those great #pragma mark -’s between the groups. Also, I knew nothing about optimization so I used all sorts of unnecessarily slow commands like if sqrt(a&lt;sup&gt;2+b&lt;/sup&gt;2)&#38;<c instead of if a&lt;sup&gt;2+b&lt;/sup&gt;2&#38;<c^2, which does the exact same thing but runs much faster.

Working alone

It is much harder to be motivated when working alone; it is too easy just to take a break for a week or a month or two with no one to remind you that you have to keep going. Working alone also led to the game being released in an unfinished state. However, I’m now working with two artists and a programmer so adding new game assets or code has helped in my current development efforts.

uDevGames & the Future

Overall, it was a very rewarding experience and I was glad to see iDevGames pull it off. I’ll be interested to see the games that will be released in 2002. The number of prizes was also great and hopefully I can get a new version of CodeWarrior so I can work on Phantom Strike more effectively.

I am working on a new game called Phantom Strike. There are two artists and one other programmer helping me create this new first/third person shooter. So far, our progress has been very good. I don’t want to give away too much, but the game will (hopefully) be a bit like Halo but set in the near future of Earth.

• Developer: David Rosen
• Genre: Arcade
• Site: http://www.wolfire.com
• Team size: 1
• Released date: August 2001
• Project length: 2 months
• Development hardware: PowerMac G4 400MHz
• Critical applications: CodeWarrior, Meshwork, Photoshop, 3DMF tools by Pangea Software, GraphicConverter, GLSee

Further Resources

• Turtle Turmoil
• Vortex NG by Feline Entertainment
• GL Golf Postmortem
• Dead Days
• Water Tower 3D