My last two posts focused on general game development topics, but no longer. It's the end of the year, time to look back and review before looking forward to the new year!

Digital Art

First off, some fun diversions. In my pursuit of an art minor at Ohio State, I took a digital art class autumn quarter. The instructor let me use software I was already familiar with, so I didn't learn much. But the class gave me the motivation to plonck my butt down and make some art, which is all I really wanted.

Physics and lighting fun

Sorry to post two videos in quick succession, but this was too fun not to record!

Back on track

I finished refactoring with components, added a reflection-enabled editor and XML serialization, finally got real PCF shadow filtering, and started experimenting with a somewhat cel-shaded visual style. I've been busy.

The refactoring had a lot of positive side effects. Serialization is now relatively easy, as the state of each component is determined by its properties, which are usually simple, easily serializable value types. One interesting side effect of serialization is that object creation is now split into two parts: initialization, and binding. When creating a new object at runtime, a factory performs the initialization. When loading objects from XML, the XmlSerializer performs initialization. In both cases, the factory creates the necessary bindings between properties afterward.

Tricksy closures

Do not be fooled by the elegant simplicity of the mighty closure! Behind its shiny dynamic veneer lies a powerful machine capable of destroying your immortal soul. Behold:

function GetOutputFunctions()
    {
        var outputFunctions = new Array();
        for(var i = 0; i < 4; i++)
        {
            var x = i * 2;
            outputFunctions.push(function() { alert(x); });
        }
        return outputFunctions;
    }
    var functions = GetOutputFunctions();
    for (var i = 0; i < functions.length; i++)
        functions[i]();

This will not output the first three multiples of two, as presumably expected. Instead it will output "6" three times, because the variable "x" is only allocated once.

Reloading, shadow mapping

Thanks to the Panda3D 1.7.0 shader generator supporting shadow mapping, and the awesome new BuildBot service set up on the Panda3D website, A3P now supports basic shadow mapping! Actually, the sun is just implemented as a giant spotlight with a 2048x2048 shadow buffer. Definitely not the most efficient or high-quality method, but certainly the easiest, and the results are acceptable.

Also new in SVN is a reloading mechanic. The shotgun, chaingun, and sniper rifle all have to be reloaded, with varying clip sizes and reload times. Of course, reloading units are highlighted as vulnerable, and they also beep furiously to make it perfectly clear they need to be shot at.