Monday Mobile Hell

Work Side

A good day today, though spectacularly un-visual in nature. Spent most of the time preparing a new module for the main engine under the title of Physics, which will be used to plug into the main engine but also allow me to prototype just the physics elements of the system.

I used the terrain prototype as a starting point, and stripped it back but retained the terrain basics. This way my physics tests can be based on the actual terrain surface, and as elements are introduced they can interact with the universe 'from the ground up' so to speak.

Right now I am just about to finish the character controller so that it does the most basic function, which is to move a physics capsule around based on the move direction. I need to strip out all the view point related stuff from the example I am using to cut and paste from as this has already been taken care of from the 'It Came From The Desert' decent prototype from a few weeks ago. Hopefully in the next 24 hours I can combine the fluid control system of that demo with the physics underpinnings of the current one, then I can have fun with dynamic entities, dynamic enemy characters and 'maybe' buoyancy (not to mention all that boring static geometry stuff) :)

Play Side

A few precious hours of my day have also been gobbled up by the seemingly callous treatment of Vodafone that seemed to have started at the weekend. The bottom line is that I have no mobile phone coverage, and the information from Vodafone is sketchy at best, with many forum goers complaining that the 'telesales' customer support service are fobbing them off along the lines that 'there is no problem and it must be the phone', even though there own website for coverage states "There is a temporary fault which may be affecting the coverage in parts of this area.".  I rarely phone those guys anyway as it's not fair asking them questions that aren't printed in their script ;)

As a 'little person', all I can do is wait for this massive corporation to (a) acknowledge officially that there is a specific issue, and (b) to fix it. In the meantime, anyone thinking of renewing their contract with Vodafone, you might want to check your coverage before deciding ;)  These days, the 'little guy' can be powerless, but in this case having a moan about it to a few thousand of my closest friends might be enough to tap them on the shoulder, and maybe, some Vodafone representative might read this and make something happen. I highly doubt it of course, but that's no reason not to try!

For myself, I hardly use the mobile and have alternative methods of connectivity, but there are a few businesses around here and they're all suffering from this clear policy of plausible deniability, and at the hands of a company who should be on the forefront of 'connected' customer services, and a simple post on the Network Update forum to describe the problem and the expected repair time would be a thousand times better than what we have now.  And now, I will step from my soapbox.

Signing Off

I am sure my rant will come back to bite me if TGC should make the same transgression and not listen to the concerns of it's community. If it does, I would be very happy for someone to send me a link to today's post, to remind me of just how personal the situation can become when something impedes your day, and how simple the solution can be to resolve it.

I am not sure what visuals I can present this week as physics is all about maths and the movement of values, but perhaps when I have a barrel rolling down the terrain and the player chasing it, it might be video worthy!  That said, I don't have a Reloaded barrel yet ;)