Hi guys,
it's been a long time since my last update. Sorry about that, it's been an extremly up and down time. Troubles there, issue shere, university everywhere, anytime, bah. However this term is finally done and I'm here and posting an update
I haven't read all new posts yet,I gonna do that later.
During the last months I just got two mails, one from Flies and one from Tin nevertheless I guess some of you are still interested what happened, where is the *DBL 2.0, and is *DAMN dead or not.
1. *DAMN still exists, I'm alive, I still want to finish the *DBL 2.0 and make it an success together with you.
2. The *DBL 2.0: since October I'm working on it. Until early january I have already spent hundreds of hours to create a framework that should be able to do all my ideas I had and still have for the *DBL 2.0. The framework itself is finsihed more or less since january. However most of the modules that allow interaction with the *DBL aren't. In my last email to BFG earlier this year I thought the *DBL will be done finsihed within a few weeks, because the framework was done and to finish the different modules shouldn't be that difficult.
Well I was wrong and last but not least university totally owned me, so since late january I spent only 10 - 20 hours on the projects, because I had exams and later I had to finsih the biggest unviversity project yet: creating a complete 3D engine and making a game, but later more about that.
Beside all these things the biggest problem the kept me away from finishing the *DBL was MYSELF. Yes I was biggest enemy. I wanted, and still want it, perfectly done. I have so many great ideas and I want them all executed perfectly. So while I was working on the *DBL it happened that I spent hours with small things like a javascript help, javascript error messages, or just some design questions.
STOP IT. In february or march I realized that I have to stop this way. This way the *DBL will never be finished, because I have too many ideas and the new *DBL would never go online. Further I should do the modules first, and then spent hours with design decisions. The framework is already created in such a way that code and design is splitted apart pretty well, nevertheless I tried to do finish everything at once.
My new plan and time shedule: I try to finish the most important modules first. There is no way that all my ideas make it into the first release. I will try to get everything done so the *DBL will be usable, and have some, but not all, great features. Once the *DBL is online and an admin team takes control and we are all happily playing together I gonna add other modules, I had in my mind, one by one later. I think this is the most feasible way for all of us.
As some of you know once I have finished the *DBL 2.0 I finally get my Bachelor of Science(BSc) in Computer Science. I have already spent 2.5 time for my bachelor thesis as required and I really want to finish it now, so I can continue with my master. So it is really my own interest to get the *DBL done. No vaporware
3. The *DBL 2.0 will go online on 19.9.2007. Or at least within a week of this date. This is the date when I have to submit my bachelor thesis, so shortly the *DBL 2.0 will go online for you as well. This is the date, PERIOD. No delays allowed.
4. The last 3 months: in april I entered, the probably most time consuming lecture, during my studies. It is called "computer graphics 2" and the goal is to develop a 3D OpenGL game with your own 3D engine within 12 weeks. The team size are 2 - 3 people.
I paired up with a friend of mine and from the beginning it was clear, that beside working on Mosquito Ops, the name of our game, I won't be able to do anything else.
In Mosquito Ops you replay the daily life of a mosquito and your main goal is sucking blood, TONS OF BLOOD. Other objectives are reaching key locations, finding mosquito eggs and sucking blood of certain persons.
Beside being the only cross platfrom team out of 40, developing for Mac(universal) and PC, I was completely new to C++ and OpenGL. My team mate also has done only one minor project with c++ and was new to OpenGL. Well afterwards I can't complain and feel pretty comfortable in C++. Just that you know: during my studies all lectures and exercises needed to be done in Java, Matlab code, or just simple javascript apps. As may some of you can imagine, it was a big difference to suddenly work in C++ than with Java. There are some nasty differences, but after the first weeks everything went well and we could concentrate our focus on OpenGL.
Before posting here endless details, we came out 7th out of 40 with 93 of 100 points.
The game itself isn't the most beautiful, and doesn't use any modern shader techniques due the PC limitations of my team mate(support in general is built in), and also has some bugs, on the other side it is pretty much complete and playable and has some nice features I gonna present at a later time. The game will be downloadable for free within the next weeks. We are just fixing some bugs before you can play it yourself and make your own judgement.
Here are some screenshots.
Alright that's it so far. The next days I need to get some private things done, the work on the *DBL 2.0 will be continued. Last but not least I gonna try to get myself a picture of the current Mac gaming situation and read through all new posts here.
So stay tuned, have fun, and more news as they come.
Yours,
Mauti
