Uni
Changed Award
I’ve switched awards. I’m no longer doing Games Programming, I have switched on Computing Science. My main reasons for this were that I didn’t want to do any of the games modules next year and I wanted some a little more open.
This has given me much more freedom for my final year project. I have a few ideas but I worry that they might be a little ambitious. Maybe I need to scale the design down a little. The problem I am having is that 2 years of games programming has really only left me with knowledge in general programming, graphics and AI. I haven’t really done any other topics in any detail. This doesn’t leave me with much of a starting point.
Back in Newark
I’ve now moved out of Stafford, need to go back this weekend to get the last of my things but that will be it then. As Tom mentioned in his blog we are all starting our placements soon. He is moving back across the country tomorrow to start on Monday, we don’t start for just over 3 weeks and moving to Munich in 2. It’s strange to think that we won’t be back at uni for a year. I’m still not spending my time doing anything constructive really, I probably should but I don’t really know what to do. I need to complete some games so I might do that, although I am needed to help build some steps in the garden so that might fill a few days.
A while ago I posted about Project Euler, I haven’t done any of the problems on there since about then so I might do that to get me back into a programming mind set before I start work. I haven’t really done any programming at all since we finished our assignments just after Easter, that’s nearly 2 months ago now.
I still intend to get myself a camera and take plenty of pictures while in Munich so some might find their way on here.
2nd Year Done
My second year of university is now finished. AI was my last exam and after that there is nothing left. Since I am going on placement next year then it will be September 2010 before I am back in lectures for my final year. I am anxious to get some results from this semester now but it will be at least 6 weeks before I get anything. I’m not worried about what I will get I just want to know.
I don’t really have anything planned for the next 2 months before I start my placement at Eurocopter so I don’t really know what I will get up to. While I am glad that the year is over, it is strange that the last 18 months of my life has been about university and it is nearly another 18 months before I will be going back there, I don’t know what to do as since I started at uni there has always been something that I had to do. Part of me wants to keep learning. That is why I am at uni in the first place, I enjoy learning new things but another part of me wants a break from it.
There has been no new games out recently that can keep me busy. Another game that I can really get into like Fallout 3 would be good. That filled this space after the first semester exams were over as I played it solidly for nearly 2 weeks. The only problem with that was that I played it to completion. I did everything that the game has to offer in a single play-through. I only missed being an evil or neutral person and one achievement for speech successes. I didn’t really have a very high skill in that. I would be tempted to play it again although I don’t think that I would enjoy it as much, maybe doing everything in one play-through wasn’t the best idea.
I have just been looking at the top sellers list on play.com and the only games on there that would interest me are ones I already have.
I am considering making a fully fledged game engine over the next couple of years. I may start some work on the designs or plans for that. I would like to make an engine from scratch that could handle graphics, physics, networking, possibly AI and have a complete tool set for as well. I am think that it may be a little too ambitious for me to do on my own so I may need to scale back a little.
There may be a few changes to this blog over the coming months once I start my placement, this is of course, if I get round to changing it. I was thinking of adding a photo gallery for picture I take in, this will also mean that I’ll have to get a camera.
Back in Stafford
I’ve been back in Stafford for the weekend and now my assignments are all done. We have to demo it at some point but that will probably be next week. I’ve still got exams but other than that I am all done for the year. I don’t really know what to do with myself. I thought about playing some games but there isn’t really anything that I want to play. There is still a few games that I haven’t completed but I don’t really feel like playing them. I don’t think there are any games coming out soon either that I would want. I haven’t looked in a while but nothing comes to mind.
I still haven’t heard anything new about my placement yet, I might need to find out about that soon. I don’t really have an exact start date or anything yet. I would like to book flights etc. and work out how I am going to get my things over there such as my PC.
It’s a very sunny day outside, probably one of the warmest that we have had this year. I wouldn’t mind sitting outside and doing nothing but everyone else seems to be busy.
Still home for easter
I’m still at home and still planing on going back on Friday. I spent 4 days over the bank holiday weekend working in the garden. We were preparing for tomorrow when we are going to be getting some big machines and a massive pile of soil. We have also been trying to control the weed problem. It has gotten a little out of hand over the last couple of years so we need to make up for it.
The fruit cage has been hacked back so next year we might be able to get in there to get the fruit. We may still pull out some of the gooseberry bushes as there is just too many. We have also been tackling the Japanese garden as that has become overgrown. There is a lot of work to be done but we are getting through it slowly.
I’m not sure on my feelings about tomorrow. While it will be good to get it done, and it shouldn’t be too much hard work as the machines are the ones that are working. I’m just a driver. It is still about 150 tonnes of soil and we have to do it all in one day.
As for my assignment, it is nearly done now. I think that the programming is basically finished. Maybe just a couple of hours work to tidy it up which I was going to try and get done this afternoon. Then there is just the report to go. I’m not worried about getting it finished on time, I just have lost all motivation to work on it as I have done all interesting bits and now it is just the boring bits left. Once it is handed in then there is just the exams to go. It seems stupid that we start the 3rd term next Monday but we have finished for the year 3 weeks tomorrow after our final exam.
I think I will probably have to come home again after that because they will want my help with something else but we will have to wait and see.
Home for easter
I’ve just come home today for Easter. I was planning on going back to Stafford next Tuesday but it seems like it might be Friday now. I was roped into helping with some landscaping in the garden on what I thought was going to be this Friday, although now it seems that it isn’t going to be until next Thursday.
I have an assignment still to do so I will probably have to get much of that work done while I am here as it is due on the 20th. This will mean development on my laptop, I’m not really a fan of that but I suppose I will have to. It is quite slow, even now as I am typing the letters appearing is struggling to keep up with me. The hard drive is quite slow which means that Visual Studio is quite slow. I have thought about getting a new laptop but I don’t really use this one enough to justify it. I might next year while I am working.
Assignments and Left 4 Dead
My AI assignment is done, handed in and demoed. I have no idea how I have done on it. I covered everything that was asked but who really knows how she will mark it. My C# assignment, the multi-threaded airport simulation, is almost done as well. I have already demoed it but need to finish the report and diagrams etc. and hand it in.
I quite enjoyed working on it, the code wasn’t too complicated it was more about the problem solving, protecting the resources and making sure data was securely passed between threads. I had 12 in the end I think and yet it was only about 600 lines of code. The hardest part was solving the problems to ensure thread safety, it doesn’t resolve deadlocks if there is too many planes meaning nothing can move but otherwise it works OK. The diagram is proving to be quite annoying to make. It is supposed to show the use of the semaphores and buffers for inter-thread communication, the problem is with 12 threads, 13 semaphores and 12 buffers there is a lot of elements and lines all over the diagram. Not sure if it will even be possible to make it look neat yet. I will worry about that when I have it all in place.
My third assignment this semester is for physics and AI. I have started working on it but only really got the basics in so far. We are supposed to implement quite a lot of different features in it such as swarming and tracking as well as all the physics to control the movement of each of the bodies. The basics of the physics is nearly done although the collision detection isn’t the best, it is only using bounding sphere so it is not very accurate, I was thinking of having a bounding box as well and have it only respond to a collision in both. It isn’t due until after Easter though I should have plenty of time to get it working.
On another note, I picked up Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 this week. I haven’t played much of it yet, only 1 1/2 of the campaigns but I am enjoying it so far. I think that it makes for a really good cooperative game, we had 4 people playing it briefly and it was a lot of fun. I haven’t tried playing the multiplayer yet though so don’t know what that is like.
I have heard some criticism about the AI for the other characters but they seemed good enough to me. Having another person will always be better but I didn’t think there was any problem with them. I also like the feature of being able to go idle for while and have the AI take over until you get back. There is as always, the console vs. PC argument particularly when it comes to an FPS. I think that the game works well with a console controller, I haven’t really been into PC games for quite a while now. It was really before I started uni that I stopped playing PC games, I still do occasionally but not anywhere near as much as I used to. I much prefer to sit in an arm chair in front of the TV than at my desk on the computer.
Midweek update
This time next week I will have finished and handed in my AI assignment. I need to get some more work done on it although I think that I am quite close to completing the program. It is really just the user interface and then bringing it all together. I still have to write the report though, I tried it last night but realised that I was waffling about rubbish and there is an 800 word limit on it so I can’t have that.
I got the results for my math test from last week though, 100%. It was a multiple choice and I guessed on one of them but that doesn’t matter. Full marks in the next test should make life easier for me in the final exam, I will only need 54% in that to get a grade-point 15.
My C# assignment, the airport simulation, is coming on well though, I keep on working on it when I should be doing AI, since it isn’t due until after Easter I have plenty of time to do it but I have done all of the check boxes except for other so I don’t really know what to do for that. I should probably leave it alone for a while and get on with Physics and AI but I have no motivation to do it. I was hoping that the assignment would be open and we could do anything really as long as it ticked the boxes, but instead we have to do a very specific system and I don’t really want to. I will have to at some point but I would like to get the AI out of the first.
I had another placement interview this morning, I think that it went well and hope that I get offered the job, it looks like very interesting work. I have another interview in Liverpool tomorrow as well though, I am driving up there for that.
No new games at the moment though, there isn’t really anything coming out in the near future that I am looking forward towards either. I still want to play some more Halo Wars, I want to play the campaign again at some point and do some multi-player. It realised the other day that I never really played any multiplayer on Red Alert 3 so I might do that as well. I want a new game like Halo where I can pick it up at anytime and play it for a while without having to think too much. Looking at my game shelf there is a few that I never completed but I don’t really want to, it seems like too much hard work. I thought about getting Empire Total War but I played the demo and didn’t really like it, I’d much prefer an RTS that is a bit faster. I might have another look at it next week.
I’ve been finding myself very bored in the evenings lately, I don’t really know what to do, it is one of the reasons that I made this blog although posting once every few days doesn’t really keep me occupied for long. I need some kind of project that I can work on when I have nothing else to do but I can’t really think of anything now.
This week
It’s been an eventful week. I had a placement interview on Monday, it must have gone well because I have been invited to a second interview next week. That will be my 4th interview then, as I have another next week as well.
Had a Math test today as well. I think that it went OK, we should get the results next week but there were only a couple of questions that I struggled with and have since found that I was right. I have an AI assignment due in a couple of weeks so I really need to get that done soon. The problem is that I have only just worked out how I am going to structure the program. I don’t even know where to begin with writing it in Prolog. Still it should be fun….
We completed Halo Wars as well, there is only 15 missions in the campaign but because of the scoring system attached to it, as well as par time and the collectibles in each mission there is still plenty that we need to do to get 100% completion. I will probably try it on an easier difficulty though as we did it on Legendary difficulty. Playing through it cooperatively was an interesting experience, it is very different to Red Alert 3, the last coop RTS I played, rather than getting a base each we shared the same base, but we could get our own units simultaneously from the same buildings. It’s also possible to transfer units to each other so it makes a very different game to Red Alert 3.