Jesse Gomez » blog

Same idea, 6 months later.

Jesse — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:57:35 +0000

Thought I’d post the beta version of a project I’ve been working on, mostly because it makes me chuckle. It also, for represents a major shift in thinking and ability. I’ve been able to make things quirky, fun and actually have a sense of style for a while now, but I’ve reached 5k hours of solid practice recently and something has just “clicked” which means things are getting rather effortless.

There’s some solid MVC here, a custom liquid renderer built on top of box2d, along with he sensors update I posted before, and basically a much better foundation than before. It took about a week to complete from concept to creation. When I get the edits, I’m going to optimize those metaballs, and fix the instantiation glitch that’s eating up so much memory.

(As usual, click the image for the demo. I’d suggest clicking “Great Depression and WWII”. The machine turns on when there’s ahead in the jar, and the head gets sucked up a tube if it’s the correct head.)

Simple Quickbox2d Sensors

Jesse — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:12:00 +0000

Hey, wouldn’t be nice if you could make sensors easily in quickbox2d (which is already fantastic and easy). Well, you can, and here’s how, really easily. I’d post the source code, but if you haven’t figured it out by yourself, you might need the practice tinkering (besides Zevan will add it soon, I’m sure). This is painless, I promise.

If you don’t know what a sensor is, or why you’d want one – think of it as a physics object that detects collision but doesn’t actually affect the movement of anything its collides with – like passing through a ghost. No category or mask bits needed here, just a simple “true” or ”false”.

here’s how to add it to quickbox2d:

OVERVIEW:

you are going to open and add one tiny line of code to 3 files.

Step 1) open com.actionsnippet.QuickObject.as

Step) find the function “defineDefaults” should look something like this:

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private function defineDefaults():void{
defaults = {x:3, y:3, linearDamping:0,
angularDamping:0, isBullet:false,
fixedRotation:false,
allowSleep: true,
isSleeping:false,
scaleSkin:true,
density:1.0, friction:0.5, restitution:0.2, angle:0.0,
maskBits:0xFFFF, categoryBits:1, groupIndex:0,
draggable: true,
lineColor:0x000000, lineAlpha:1,
lineThickness:0,
fillColor:0xCCCCCC, fillAlpha:1
}

When you create an object, you pass parameters. these are the default parameters and we need to do as add “, isSensor:false” at the end so it looks like this

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1 of 3 completed. Now lets add a couple of tiny bits of code to the “BoxObject.as” and “CircleObject.as” files as well

BoxObject code: “boxDef.isSensor = p.isSensor;” see example below

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override protected function build():void{
var p:Object = params;

if(p.skin is DisplayObject){
bodyDef.userData = p.skin;
var t:Number = p.skin.rotation;

p.skin.rotation = 0;
if (!p.width){
p.width = p.skin.width / 30;
}
if (!p.height){
p.height = p.skin.height / 30;
}
p.skin.rotation = t;
}

if (!p.width) p.width = 1;
if (!p.height) p.height = 1;

var boxDef:b2PolygonDef = new b2PolygonDef();
shapeDef = boxDef;
var hw:Number = p.width / 2;
var hh:Number = p.height / 2;
boxDef.SetAsBox(hw, hh);

boxDef.density = p.density;
boxDef.friction = p.friction;
boxDef.restitution = p.restitution;
boxDef.filter.maskBits = p.maskBits;
boxDef.filter.categoryBits = p.categoryBits;
boxDef.filter.groupIndex = p.groupIndex;
boxDef.isSensor = p.isSensor; // <------ HERE IT IS!

CircleObject code: “circDef.isSensor = p.isSensor;” see example below

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protected override function build():void{

var p:Object = params;

var circDef:b2CircleDef = new b2CircleDef();
shapeDef = circDef;

if (p.skin is DisplayObject){
bodyDef.userData = p.skin;
if (!p.radius){
p.radius = p.skin.width/60;
}
}
if (!p.radius) p.radius = .5;

circDef.radius = p.radius;
circDef.density = p.density;
circDef.friction = p.friction;
circDef.restitution = p.restitution;
circDef.filter.maskBits = p.maskBits;
circDef.filter.categoryBits = p.categoryBits;
circDef.filter.groupIndex = p.groupIndex;
circDef.isSensor = p.isSensor; // HERE IT IS!!!

so, now, anytime you want an object to be a sensor, just tell it so on creation.
Examples:

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sim.addBox({x:someNumber, y:someNumber, width: x:someNumber, height: x:someNumber, density:0, isSensor:true});

sim.addCircle({x: x:someNumber, y: x:someNumber, radius: x:someNumber, density: 0, isSensor:true});

Cheesy laser blast and cartoon smart fire

Jesse — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:24:37 +0000

Had some down time at the new job. It’s been so long since I’ve done any animation I wanted to see how rusty I was, So I busted out the cartoon smart tutorials and found a great laser tutorial HERE. Our department’s name is CLEAR, and this is a gag ad. It’s downresing in realtime form 720p (i wanted to see if flash 10 had come the far, it hasnt) hence the laggy parts. all in all, fun and decent.

http://thecoho.net/upload/files/resistance/

PILLAGE! assets page

Jesse — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:11:15 +0000

This page contains updates of assets as I create for the PILLAGE project. Feel free to download anything and use it at your leisure. CLICK THE IMAGES TO SEE A WEB DEMO

12-30-2009 ROCK, OKTOKING DEATH 2d contraints

turns out the unity packager isnt getting all of the associated assets – so here’s the whole project. The scene “level1″ is the want you want to tinker with. Each king has a health, and dies with a basic blood splat, but it only shows up on the cardboard cutout, i’m assuming because of the cutout/transparency used on the other kings. Rock is much heavier now, modeled and textured. Also, the kings and rocks are constrained to 2d.

DOWNLOAD WHOLE PROJECT HERE

12-29-2009 oktoking and catapult v1

rollover over the catapult arm (more accurately, the scoop that holds the rock) – it should turn blue. click and hold to pull back the arm. release to launch.
uses a hinge joint and motor controls.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD scriptedCatapult unity package

unity3d xml level parser

Jesse — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:01:52 +0000

again for PILLAGE! catapult game. this package parses an xml file to create object on the screen relative to the “castleHolder” position. import the package. create a ground plane (a big one) at (0,0,0) and then drag the “castleHolder” prefab onto the world view. it’s y should 0 but X and Z can be changed.

Any models you want to instantiate are done at runtime by their name, which means they HAVE to be put in the Resources folder.

castleHolder has a pillage level parser script. simple and magical.

pillageParser_1 DOWNLOAD HERE

box2d quickbox2d based level editor

Jesse — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:10:23 +0000

A small group of friends and I are making a Unity3d based catapult game. It needs a level editor, which i plan to do in Unity itself, but I’m still much faster in flash and AS3.
So I spend a few hours and through together this flash based level editor for our game. feel free to use it if it’s useful. it’ll spit out XML, which is great and works with the unity parser prefab I made for unity. Hooray for rapid prototyping.

level_editor_beta live demo

level_editor_beta FOR DOWNLOAD

To use it, open the presets.txt file and add in any game object you want to instantiate at runtime. Prefab = unity3d prefab name. The size is in meters, just like unity3d. the rest is optional. Run the html. A corresponding button will appear in the top bar – roll over to see it’s name. Click it to drop a piece down. rotation is turned off to make it easier to align things. click the save button to save a backup before you test it – which just turned the rotation back on and run a simulation. it’s pretty easy to follow i think.

Flash Front end part 1

Jesse — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:08:26 +0000

In an effort to use wordpress as a back end and flash as the front end for my portfolio, I did a bunch of reading and testing. XMLRPC test. PHP ones. Then I just started using the built in RSS2.0 feed. Couldn’t be simpler, and you can drill down to categories with a permalink.

I also managed to create my first hacked up proof of concept. CLICK THE IMAGE TO THE RIGHT TO VIEW IT.

The idea is that for each of the 3 main categories I have, I completely different flash environment is being created each with different game-like aspects. The one I’m building now is going to be a kitchen with an appliance for each sub category. you have to drag them on the counter and plug them in to trigger a fun animation and turn them on to show content.

This is mostly for my own record at this point. The hack demo above is messy, but runs at 60fps on my 4 year old computer (ignoring how that shadow box on my site seems to slow things down), so I expect it’ll be fine on most others. I’m tired and cranky, so I’m gonna leave it and come back to it, optimize it, clean it up and pit everything into classes, and of course, release it all for free.

Rhonda webviewer made in UNITY3D

Jesse — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:13:36 +0000

There’s a wonderful 3d drawing application called RHONDA (probably made in openframeworks go there NOW!) that recently came out.It’s pretty cool, and I read several requests on their board asking for a web viewer. Well, with flash not dealing so well with 10k+ data sets, I made a Rhonda file web viewing plugin in Unity 3D, which is free now.

And, of course, the files are here, and are free.

Use the spacebar, alt, shift and Z keys while clicking a dragging to do some photoshop/3d app like translations (as explained in the “H” menu).

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

POOT! alpha submitted to Immunity Game Challenge

Jesse — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:38:20 +0000

Hey we met our deadline! Most of the features are implemented, it’s cute and has a nice feel. The levels need to work along with more spit and polish, but it’s a nice alpha version, I think.

Above all, it was a fantastic experience that has highly motivated me to create more games – and switch over to unity3d officially and leave flash behind. I’ve even order the c# reference book. I’ve noticed the lack of c# examples on the docs, but hey that just gives me a niche to fill. Wait, why are reading this? Play POOT!

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

another quick test

Jesse — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:41:28 +0000

30 min from model to rigged unity3d. It’s probably the quickest, worst rigged thing ever created, and it is still very close to passible – for web games anyway. Next rigged test will actually have the time and effort put into it.

oh yeah, and it falls randomly each time, so press reload a bunch.

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.