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Android Game Development (Day 5)

Day #5, Sunday, June 27th.

Here’s the rough concept for timed events I already mentioned in my last posting. It’s working for now, but I’ll do some more tweaks to abstract this even further and make it more flexible.

Android Game Development, Day 5: Timed Events

Android Game Development, Day 5: Timed Events

Android Game Development – Steps 4-5 from Matthias Gall on Vimeo.

Keep reading below if you’re interested in today’s progress. Comments are welcome! In case you missed it, also don’t forget to read the reports on my steps in Android game development: Steps 1-3 and Step 4.

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Android Game Development (Day 4)

Day #4, Saturday, June 26th.

Android Game Development, Day 4

Keep reading below if you’re interested in today’s progress. Comments are welcome! In case you missed it, also don’t forget to read the report on my first three steps in Android game development.

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Android Game Development

I’m building rather boring enterprise applications at work and I love creating more appealing things in my spare time, so I do a bit of game development whenever I can. The main problem for a programmer is to get some graphics, but fortunately I have some nice renderings from my old Project E tutorial and the even older Project D game by sechsta sinn on my harddisk that I could put into use (all done by my friend and favorite artist Martin Ernst, btw.).

This is what I managed to do in three after work sessions so far, if you’re interested in the details, continue reading after the video.

Android Game Development – Steps 1-3 from Matthias Gall on Vimeo.

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Sculptris

There are a very few people who are genius, disciplined and focussed at the same time and thus can put their productivity to a maximum. One of the most talented guys in the Indie gamedev scene I’ve seen so far in that regard is Tomas “DrPetter” Pettersson. Late 2007 he already came up with a really useful little tool called SFXR (not to mention the even more impressive Musagi) and now it got even better. Within only six months he produced an amazing 3D mesh sculpting tool called Sculptris, now available as version 1.0.

Check out his trailer and see for yourself.

Isn’t that great?

Don’t ever say it’s almost done.

Chris Pruett at Google I/O on Android Game Development. Besides that quote I used as the post caption he shows some very interesting ideas how he analyzed the behavior of his users in order to improve their game experience. I love that hotspot idea, probably something useful for my friends working on Glow as well.

And for the record, also watch the excellent day 2 keynote. I had a good laugh at all the Apple taunting. For example, Android 2.2 features tethering and portable hotspot mode and guess what they’re showcasing? They’re using a Nexus One as an AP for “… another device that doesn’t have connectivity. What about that iPad?”

Apple, Google, whatever… they all have their downsides. But they bring so much innovation that I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing more cool things becoming reality in the next years and building cool things with them myself.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

This recording of Steve Jobs is “old” in terms of the Internet, but its message remains cutting-edge. If you don’t know it yet, it’s worth watching.

NB: When I watched that the first time, I was surprised that a versed speaker like Jobs told stories of his own life but still had to read them from his notes.

Unidirectional 1:1 relationships with Hibernate annotations

This is mainly a note to self because I screw up every time I need to write something like that, so here’s an example for myself in the future.

@Entity
@Table( name = "master" )
public class Master {
	@Id
	@GeneratedValue( generator = DBConstants.MASTER_SEQ )
	@SequenceGenerator( name = DBConstants.MASTER_SEQ, sequenceName = DBConstants.MASTER_SEQ )
	private long id;

	@OneToOne( fetch = FetchType.LAZY, optional = false, targetEntity = Detail.class, cascade = CascadeType.ALL )
	@PrimaryKeyJoinColumn
	private Detail detail;

	// ...
}

@Entity
@Table( name = "master_detail" )
public class Detail {
	@Id
	@GeneratedValue( generator = DBConstants.DETAIL_SEQ )
	@SequenceGenerator( name = DBConstants.DETAIL_SEQ, sequenceName = DBConstants.DETAIL_SEQ )
	private long id;

	// ...
}

Reference: java.sun.com, Tadtech

GWT 1.7.x + Safari 4.0.5 = Crash

Last year’s success story continues. If you consider to do GWT 1.7.x development on a 10.5.8 Leopard, you better spare the 4.0.5 update too and stick to Safari 4.0.3; it keeps crashing even though the bug was reported to be fixed in 4.0.5.

I am displeased.

L4D AI

Presentation by Mike Booth of Valve, interesting read. (Via sheijk)

Worth reading

Jordan Mechner’s (creator of Prince Of Persia) old journals. Tales from a time long gone. (Via Chris)

Hauptsache…

DVW Panorama

Christopher, one of my highly-paid sechsta sinn colleagues, has spent some of his expensive hours to compile a panorama screenshot of a DVW map. But it all pays off when the fans are happy.

Click here for the fully blown version.

Small version, follow link to see full version.

Android: Render OpenGL on top of camera preview

I was searching for that today and thought I could write a short wrap-up of what I ended up with. Particularly helpful was the Android TranslucentGLSurface sample code and a thread in the Android Beginners group.

Keep reading below for the fully commented source code.

Android: Render OpenGL on top of camera preview

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GWT 1.7.x + Safari 4.0.4 = Crash

I installed the Safari 4.0.4 update yesterday on my OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard) and got GWT 1.7.x crashes ever since then. That’s a pitty since I’m involved in a larger GWT project (featuring GWT Canvas). There’s already a ticket and a simple workaround available but that’s no choice for production environments. So if you have a Google account, please vote for it so it gets resolved soon. Apparently it’s a Webkit bug which will be fixed in Safari 4.0.5.

Update: I could downgrade back to Safari 4.0.3 using Pacifist and the Safari 4.0.3 installation package. I opened the package with Pacifist and chose “Replace” as the option for all files. Trying to apply the package alone won’t help because it detects that a later version was installed, even if you try to remove Safari competely using AppZapper.

Safari’s “About” screen shows version 4.0.3 again, OS X asks me to update to 4.0.4 again and my GWT application is back running. Not sure whether there are any other side effects, though, so handle with care.

Another update: Someone wasn’t as lucky as me and screwed his system with that approach. Better follow this instruction.

Things Have Changed

One of the best things I did last year around this time was writing ELFrun together with Martin. It was great fun and I think we both really enjoyed it. This year, I have even more pretentious projects but I hardly find the time to sit down and work on them. Sometimes I really want to cocoon myself and eliminate any external influences for hours or days. I guess that’s why I love working at night.

I was always working on PCs before and bought my MacBook Pro solely for the purpose of writing an iPhone app. It’s funny how things have changed in the meantime: I bought an HTC Hero, which is an Android phone, meaning I eventually turned away from the iPhone, but I spend most of my time in front of the MacBook Pro and use my PC mainly for playing games. I even consider buying the new 27″ quad-core iMac – if it ever gets a matte screen.

Funny how things have changed.

Unity 2.6 now free

Earlier this year I purchased Unity3D Indie after I evaluated it for a while, along with several assets to do some prototyping for these adventure game ideas I have in my head. I found Unity to be an incredible flexible, easy-to-use and serious toolkit and actually the first “game maker” that ever convinced me that I don’t have to build everything myself.

I don’t have any time to look into it further right now since I’m way too busy with plenty of other jobs and obligations I currently have. But I’ve heard some great news today (at least for those who did not yet purchase Unity): the Indie version is free now! Unity Technologies has released a new version 2.6 and decided to make the Indie version completely freely available. If you’ve ever considered creating a game or if you don’t emphasize on writing all code yourself, Unity may be for you. It’s the most mature game development toolkit I’ve ever seen and if you’ve played around with game makers earlier, you should give it a try, too. Unity is for Mac and Windows and builds web-player (browser plugin) and stand-alone applications.

Screenshot from a Unity scene I'm working on.

Hello world…

…from HTC Hero, which I personally consider to be the superior iPhone.

Continents conquered travelled…

…updated 08/21/09
[x] Europe
[x] Africa
[x] Asia
Let’s see what’s next.

I really thought…

…Michael Jackson would jump out of his coffin at the end of the memorial and everything turns out to be the biggest marketing gag ever.

If you’re on a Mac…

…it just works!

It just works
(Source)