) at the National
Centre Computer Animation at Bournemouth
University.
Quick Summary of my experiences of games programming below, for more details click here.
This is my page to show off my games programming experiences. In September
1999 I started studying an MSc in Digital Entertainment Systems (loosely translated,
as Computer Games! ) at the National
Centre Computer Animation at Bournemouth
University.
September 2000 I finished my course (I passed), and March 2001 I started working as a games programmer for Interactive Entertainment. September 2001 I left there, for errr, various reasons, is probably the diplomatic thing to say!
I had hoped to show a movie file of an assignment I did in
SoftImage|Eddie.
It shows a worm coming out of an apple, unfortunately it's too big for me to
put here!
I also hoped to put here an animation I did in SoftImage|3D of a flying floppy disc. Again it was too big :(
However, what is not to big is an unfinished but fully playable version of Tower Power 1250 Tournament Edition GL. The download is just under 1 Meg. Sadly it is PC only (tested on Win95, Win98, NT4.0 and 2000 tested) I should be able to convert it to IRIX and hopefully other flavours of UNIX quite easily. You'll need OpenGL hardware acceleration, but if you're using a 3DFX board you'll probably suffer slowdown since their OpenGL drivers aren't very good :(
This is my own game which I originally started on the PlayStation Yaroze (better known as the black PlayStation). I'm not allowed to post Yaroze stuff apart from on my Yaroze site. Unfortunately you can only access this page if you are a New Yaroze member.
In all honesty, the
OpenGL version
is better anyway. It's more complete, and plays better.
The game is loosely based on Tetris. Well it involves blocks falling
from the sky, onto the ground. The similarities end there! The game is
3D, and instead of stopping a tower from building, your aim is to build
as sturdy a tower as possible in the time allowed. To hinder your progress,
weather plays an important part!
I originally started the PlayStation Yaroze version January 1999. Unfortunately it was much harder than I had anticipated. After Easter I decided to continue the game and come Summer rather than write the 2 player and 1 player Vs CPU game, I opted to write an OpenGL version for my MSc main project. I ported the collision detection across, but I had to rewrite most of the other code.
I would be very grateful if anyone did download the 905kb zip I have posted here, especially if you e-mail comments and suggestions.
Feel free to e-mail me with any problems
in downloading or playing the game.
Many thanks in advance to anyone who does take the time and trouble to download
my game and e-mail me comments.
It just occurred to me, the more hard-core of you may check for updates so I should probably add what updates I make as time goes on! You can assume that each time I update the list below, I've uploaded the new game too! If I get enough feedback I'll put full downloads and just the .zip, since the .zip is about 230kb, where as the full .zip is closer to 920kb.
You can also download Breakout 3D GL(238kb), if you'd like! This is an unfinished, but playable 3D Breakout game. I started it to demonstrate real physics, special effects and particle systems, again it may not like your Voodoo!
Since I unfortunately don't have shed loads of money testing has only been done on the following PCs, belonging to my friends and I. At the moment the game only runs under Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT. When complete I may convert it to Linux since that shouldn't be "too" difficult!
| Processor | Memory | Graphics Card | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel P3 500 | 128Mb | Voodoo 3 2000 | Good |
| Intel P2 450 | 128Mb | Nvidia Riva TNT 16Mb | Good |
| Intel P2 450 | 128Mb | Voodoo 2 | Good, some texture problems |
| AMD K7 450 | 128Mb | ATI Rage 128 Pro 32Mb | Good, but crashes a lot |
| Intel 233 MMX | 96Mb | Voodoo 3 2000 | Slow, can't use fullscreen |
As well as emailing me your comments on the game I would be very happy to receive comments on how it ran on your hardware!
I have noticed in some cases on a PII 450 using a Voodoo 3, performance was not as good as on my PII 450 with a Diamond Viper 550 (Nvidia Riva TNT 1). This is probably due to 3DFX not always supplying proper OpenGL ICD drivers on their Voodoo boards :(
So, now you read all the boring stuff, click here to download the game. It's about 905Kb.
After an interview I had with a games company, they suggested I wrote a simple breakout game as to demonstrate game special effects. This game is very much work in progress. It does not have a front end such as TP1250TE, and is not yet a fully playable game.
It does however currently demonstrate simple particle effects. The collision detection is my current project. The ball collides and rebounds properly with the walls, and collides correctly with the bat, although I need to refine the rebounding.
The biggest problem is when "multi-ball" is activated. By hitting a certain block (or pressing a certain key ;) ) 3 balls will fly about the screen. The collision for them is currently rubbish! Collision is normally correctly detected, but the actual deflection is completely wrong! This is why I now have a physics book sat next to my computer ;) Time for the hard-core maths and physics to begin! Which me luck!
So, now you read all the boring stuff, click here to download the game. It's about 238Kb.