Wednesday Rise

Early Rise

After going to bed alarmingly early (8PM) on Tuesday due to extreme reverse jet-lag, I was up with the larks today, something crazy like 6AM. Not able to return to slumber I rose to start the days fun and games.  A cup of tea and a slice of toast later I was back in code land.

Perceptual AM

Given the Ultimate Coder has less than one week to go, I have decided to dedicate a few hours each day to progressing the PerceptuCam app to give myself a chance of earning a respectable vote when judging time comes. It also needed some TLC in a few areas so it was worth doing. I finished around 10AM and within those four hours, apart from emails and desk tidying had implemented a system to register when users log into the app, allowing other users to detect and call them via their 'whatismyip' IP Address. This address changes every so often for most users so the server I am using keeps track of these addresses per user each time they log in to the app. I also record the name and picture of the user as well for that extra convenience.  I finished off the round by creating an installer which installs DirectX, the Perceptual Redist and the files for the app. I will be using this later in the week to test with my team mates to make sure calls can be made back and forth before subjecting it to public scrutiny.

Email AM-PM

I also dealt with little emails here and there, such as some AGK related stuff which is exciting but secret, and will be revealed in due course. I spilled some tea on my keyboard before I left for the states, and found out today that my CTRL+WINDOWS+ALT keys where stuck solid. After some liberal key pressing and much use of those keys, they work once more. I have decided not to upgrade my keyboard as I rather like this one (MX 5500) and a new one costs over £150 so I will plod on until it explodes or cannot resist another cup of tea. I also found time to update my SVN repository which now provides a much faster way to work with the AGK source code, which will save time in the long run (and save $19 per month on hosting the SVN through a public service). Finally I found an hour to solve two issues on the Sensor Panel app I wrote and submitted to AppUp, and about to submit a new version to the Intel tester to see if it solves the issues.

The reason I tackled these seemingly non-Reloaded items was that they where cluttering my email inbox and I wanted them gone.  With those out the way the only emails I had left where Reloaded related - hurray!

Reloaded PM

As promised, I can reveal the latest versions of the explosion and a very early sneak peek at the inventory system too.  We have a little work to do on the debris texture and of course tweaks once it's part of the game play but it's looking very meaty and very violent, the perfect kind of bang.  Here is a short video of the latest prototype. Apologies for the stutter, it was Fraps running full capture at a large resolution, the actual proto runs smooth as silk.

For the Stutter, blame Fraps - The proto is silky smooth!

The inventory system has just been started so don't expect fireworks at this stage, and for the sake of building anticipation I am not going to reveal any screen shots :)

I can reveal that the inventory will be a proper GUI with semi-transparency so you can see the game view in the background, the ability to pick up and drop items, scroll through them and organise what you have. Perhaps the coolest feature is that all characters in the game can also have their own inventory allowing you to do cool things like trade and even pick pocket!

Signing Off

It feels like another early night for me as that 6AM start is not what my body is used to.  The good news is that my inbox is much diminished so there will be more Reloaded on Thursday, and if you are lucky some inventory shots!