Howie 'biNAry_giRL' Venton

[bINAry_giRL]

• Name: Howie 'biNAry_giRL' Venton
• From: Born UK / grew-up Canada / live UK
• Skills / Tools: too many years in IT hehe.. have always been into programming/making music/sfx/graphics/rendering since i was i was a tiny lad (now 38 ;( ) ..Java/someC+/delphi/sql/amos(amiga yes!). music wise cubaseSx/reason and dabbled with all the others. graphics wise.. all the normal progs. 3d wise..mainly lightwave and dabble with most other packages etc
• Found via: was interested in created a 'gulp' MC clone..and just happened to come across it
• Interests: i love developing things (anything creative) and seeing the fruits of labour...im sure your well above my level with java (just guessing) but i could probably contribute somehow withit (im not daft heh) music wise would probably be my strong point.. graphics aswell.. im sort of a jack of all trades ;p
• Extra: i think ive pretty much said everything i needed to cheers Howie

 

[begla]

I'm glad you're interested in contributing to Blockmania. We'll definitely need another helping hand with this project – and it sounds like you'll be able to contribute to a broad spectrum of different tasks. There are currently many basic things that need to be done... One example is a fluid simulation based on cellular automata, networking code, mobs, NPCs, the player character(s), the rendering and display of items, the integration of a physics library and – of course – an user interface.

Would you be interested in creating and especially designing the user interface (maybe starting out with a small prototype) for the various aspects of the game? I'm thinking of the main menu, options screen, an inventory screen and the global HUD. :?: If you like to approach another task that fits your skills (maybe one of the things I've listed above), feel free to pick one.

 

[Cervator]

Welcome! Good to meet you

There is indeed plenty of stuff to do! UI is probably one of the most pressing. There are loads more details and some being moved into public view soon, there'll be plenty to look at and pick from. I've personally been a tad busy for about a week with a midterm but am clearing up, looking forward to the long weekend

Also, I managed to not subscribe to this forum. Whoops. Sorry about the delay!

 

[bINAry_giRL]

hey guys.. thanks for the reply.. yeah there sounds like a lot of stuff to choose from heh.. UI sounds good.. im starting to think it all might be way over my head looking at how organized and massive etc the source is hehe.. do you mean a small protoypye seperate from the game or that is part of the game already ?

i dont know how much i can get done b4 xmas as ive been offered a remix project and and tying to get a collaboration album out b4 xmas ..but i can try

howie

 

[Cervator]

Part of the game preferably - maybe begla can offer some pointers on where to start in the code, I'm honestly not totally sure myself

We have the little spinning cube as a UI element of sorts, but that's drawn via OpenGL. I'm not sure if that's the path we should take in general or use more general UI components drawn on top of everything.

The first thing of use would probably be a little 10-slot bar for tools

If you feel overwhelmed by the code, that's ok too! Start by finding something small to tweak rather than creating something totally new from scratch. Experiment some, even if it isn't meant for permanent introduction into the codebase (just spin off a branch from your develop if you want to do some throwaway tinkering like that)

For instance, a smaller UI elements of sorts, the Console currently just writes text straight into the left bottom corner, and can't do multi-line commands. Maybe sort out a way to enter multi-line commands (maybe by making CTRL-Enter spawn a newline? Arrow keys able to move around the panel? Switch it to use a text area of some sort instead?). Could also go with a slight darkening of the background of the bottom of the screen when the console is up, sort of like a translucent panel. Could re-introduce the parsing of very simple non-Groovy commands like "respawn" in some fashion maybe.

 

[bINAry_giRL]

i shall try to get some sort of gui going... its very overwhelming looking at the code tho hehe

 

[Cervator]

I know the feeling! It was quite something for me to get into as well, and I still learn new pieces on a regular basis

Just start by looking at something tiny, changing it, see it work, and push it. Then pick something slightly less tiny, and go from there...

The existing console / spinning cube / non-graphical ToolBelt might all be good little things to look at for inspiration and little tweaks

 

[Cervator]

Oh, here's another thought. We need a splash screen! As a brand new GUI component that doesn't need to relate to the main game screen that might be an easy new thing to inject between the current game startup and the loading to screen of the main window.

Main issue there would be that the game actually doesn't preload much of anything - the main workhorse is the render look inside the main game loop. Maybe we can preload the initial state of the game world and leave time paused, then unpause when the splash screen says ready and asks the player to click a button, hit a key, or something?