Sentience

I don't know why I ****ing bother sometimes...:rolleyes:

bought SC/BW now, so I've got my own cdkey :)

interview seemed ok, should know soon.

Well, when you speak to me properly you can give me a blow by blow account of your interview.

Got anything sorted for Saturday night yet?

My feet are killing me.

I also posted a while back about the quick build buttons you sent me. You've written 'quickbuild' all as one word and I don't think it looks right. Could you either seperate the words and resend them or come up with some alternative wording? I want to put the buttons in before we release the next version. Cheers dude. :)

Oh, and also I might have a massive request for buttons that you've already done as some of them are built into the game and I want them loaded from file (to make Sentience 'skinnable' as it were).

I don't know if you've kept all your old buttons but it doesn't seem to take you long to make them anyway. I'll get back to you with more info shortly.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
Well, when you speak to me properly you can give me a blow by blow account of your interview.

Got anything sorted for Saturday night yet?

My feet are killing me.

I also posted a while back about the quick build buttons you sent me. You've written 'quickbuild' all as one word and I don't think it looks right. Could you either seperate the words and resend them or come up with some alternative wording? I want to put the buttons in before we release the next version. Cheers dude. :)

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*can't remember the dirty details - my mind is a bit of a blank. It all went pretty well though - theres a thread in chitchat if you're interested.

Saturday I'm pretty free, but I don't want to make a big evening of it. I was thinking of going for a swim :)

Oh yeah, quickbuild buttons should be ok. i'll try it with two words, but if it still doesn't look right, I'll need some suggestions

Going for a swim sounds fine to me, but you were saying evening. The sports centre's not open past 6 I don't think. I'll confirm that. I'd like to go for another swim. :)

When you say "not make a big evening" what exactly do you mean?

Not getting drunk?
Not staying over?
Only popping round for an hour?
Only going swimming?

You are the vaguest person I know....

RE: Quick build thingy

I'm not sure what else to call it. My mind's a total blank at the moment - I've got variables running round my head.

I dunno, be creative. :)

I have the vast majority of tomorrow (Saturday 13th April) free. From the moment I wake up at Rachel's until I go to bed (preferably in my own bed), I have no solid, definite plans.
between these two times (approximately 9am Saturday and 1am Sunday) I would like to spend some time swimming. You are hereby cordially invited to join me. Time TBC.

Excellent.

Let me know what time you're coming round, so I can

a) be up and about
b) in
c) ready with my swimming togs

Completely forgot...I am busy in the evening...Got a housewarming to go to.

So what does that mean?

Are you coming round or not? In the morning/afternoon? Are we going swimming?

PLEASE try to be a little more precise.

I've been streamlining my code and realised that the quick build mech code is very similar to some existing code that the computer AI uses to automatically build its mech.

The quick build code is actually better, so I've cut a big chunk out from the AI and now use the quick build code. Chopped about 200 redundant lines out. Mint!

I'm on the hunt for sounds now.

What are we doing for ambient sounds?

Heroes has a sound play for the buildings that are visible on screen, but some of these do your head in after a while and you can't turn them off.

What are we doing (if anything)?

I'm collecting some generic gun/explosion sounds and some ambient stuff. I'll send the zip across when I next see you online.

I'm going through all the forms now removing all the hard coded buttons so I'll post a list of buttons when I'm done for you to send me.

These would take priority over anything else as Sentience won't run until you get them to me.

PS - I'm also comparing the list against stuff that I can find on my machine, so I'm only asking you for stuff that I can't find.

Some of these you've already done but as I'd hard coded them into the game I didn't keep the bmps. I'm hoping you've still got them, should save you some work... :)

Right dude, here's the list...

Like I said, if you could these to me asap as Sentience won't run without them..

90x30
Add
Remove
Infiltration
Components
Mechs
Accept
Diplomacy
Help
New
Start
Stop
Pause
Manufactured

161x25
Add design to template

162x40
Back
Continue
Main Menu
Generate

A plus side to this is that it's shaved 500k off the size of the executable (down to 1.7 mb now).

A minus side is that it's likely to crash a bit more for a while until I resolve any naming issues.

Right, I've done enough for today I think - I'm off to bed. Catch you in the morrow... :)

I would say to have the buildings have sounds, but have it so that they can be turned off. You may also which to have sounds which play when you click on a building, and possibly mechs too.

There are sounds when you click on a buildings, and also speech for when you click on a building. These can be turned off under the options screen.

It would be difficult to have sounds that play when you click on a mech as each mech is constructed differently. It might also get a little irritating as you'll probably have quite a few mechs.

PS - Behemoth, the above buttons... I only need the on states for them, don't worry about the off states... :)

Thanks for buttons hairy guy, appreciate it. :)

I've been through them and there were a couple than needed white corners removing but that was about it.

I can now continue working on S - so I shall.

Speak to you tomorrow.... :)

Misanthrop,

Replying to your question asked in that other thread...

There are a few problems to look out for when the project starts getting big. Some are technical, others are mental and psychological.

Off the top of my head....

Technical:
(*) Ensuring you've made regular and comprehensive backups so when you implement a change and it cocks it all up you can take a step back without losing too much work.
(*) Good framework plan. Planning the game at the start reaps massive (unseen) benefits towards the end. Behemoth and I keep wanting to implement changes to the core way the game works, and changing the framework 2yrs after it's been written is extremely hard.

Mental:
(*) Keeping your head around all the code. Sentience is now over 33000 lines of code and it becomes somewhat difficult to remember where it all goes, what it all does and how it all talks to each other.

Psychological:
(*) Keeping motivated to actually finish it. Sentience has been going 2.5 - 3 yrs now and there have been a couple of times when Behemoth and I have nearly packed it through lack of motivation. It's hard to get back into the swing of things after that. You need to ensure the project is something you want to do, and are something you're going to finish.
(*) On a project where you're not the only person, ensuring everyone else keeps up the rate of work is also an issue. If they're paid, it's easy to do as you have leverage - but if they're volunteers or a friend, it's rather difficult.

I've just woke up so that will do for now... :)

Behemoth, if you have anything to add to the above, speak up... :)

I tell you what Behemoth, that wine I was drinking last night gave me some really bizzare dreams!

I distinctly remember 2:

The first one, we (me and some other random military type guys) were fleeing from some kind of Predator type thing (invisible, firing plasma bolts at us, asking us if we wanted candy, that sort of thing) and we were retreating into this kind of bunker. The door was set in the floor and didn't open - you put your finger against this tiny hole and it sucked you in. When it was my turn I couldn't figure it out and whilst I was dillying a couple of guys got shot. So I moved out of the way and played dead whilst the others went through this hole. When the predator type thing came over and was trying to figure it out I coshed it over the head. And it turned out to be a slim brunette with a cute face and lovely little breasts. But boy did she have a surly attitude. Weird dream.

The second one was much nicer visually. I was at some kind of small town and I was looking to find an apartment to rent with a balcony. Don't know why. The town was gorgeous! It had a huge, slow moving river (more like a long thin lake really) runnin right through the middle of it. In fact the town was built spanning it. The middle of the town has this massive Cathedral (with the lake/river going underneath it). The people spoke with a French accent. It was visually stunning. I have a few images from it stuck in my mind but I lack the artistry to get them on paper... :(

I'll be drinking some more of that wine tonight... :D

Bought some more of that wine... :D

Right, I've been working on the quick build mech wotsit and added the checks to make sure you don't get aircraft with lungs and yeti claws, but it could still be improved a bit though.

At the moment it only goes of the highest might chassis in stores and tries to build a mech with it. It may not be possible with that chassis but a less mighty one have the correct components available to allow a mech to be built.

I'm going to need to put some kind of looping in, but then it cacks up the reporting from the function. This is going to be painful.

OK dude, hoping you'll get this this eveing....

A quick look at the build building screen marks it as nowhere near as nice as the SMAC one. It consists of a scrollable list of six buildings on the left along with their name and cost on the right of each of them.

40x40 images as well.

I was thinking that maybe we should expand them to 160x160 or at least 80x80 and have a single text field describing them beneath. Similar to the SMAC matrix, but with a little more detail beneath.

I can also animate the screen if required. I was thinking of doing that to the majority of screen to provide a little more movement.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
OK dude, hoping you'll get this this eveing....
nope, went to bed as promised

A quick look at the build building screen marks it as nowhere near as nice as the SMAC one. It consists of a scrollable list of six buildings on the left along with their name and cost on the right of each of them.40x40 images as well.

I was thinking that maybe we should expand them to 160x160
we had 160x160 images for the help screens, so that might work
or at least 80x80 and have a single text field describing them beneathnice. Similar to the SMAC matrix, but with a little more detail beneath.

I can also animate the screen if requirednot a ****ing chance sonny. I was thinking of doing that to the majority of screen to provide a little more movement.

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if you get chance, try to download some of this for inspiration or ideas:

Ministry - the one and only album I have is supposed to be a classic. Try "thieves" or "burning inside"

Pitchshifter - anything before their current album. older stuff sounds kind of heavy/industrially with a sort of Ministry sound. More modern stuff is sample-laden and punky. Also, because they're really nice guys, they've given away nearly 200 samples on their CDs, which are completely public domain on the simple condition that you credit the band by name. Perhaps try "ZX81" for an intersesting drum 'n' bass / ambient instrumental

Fear Factory - the names a good start. My personal favourite album, Demanufacture is very rhythmically sound, with a crushing industrial edge. Essentially metal with technological overtones (they were described as cyber-metal in their early days), they went on to produce concept albums concerning the struggle between man and machine (sound familiar). "Remanufacture" is a comple remix album of "Demanufacture" and pushes the whole thing in a dance / dub / drum 'n' bass / techno direction. Check out "Faithless" (a remix of "zero signal"), "scumgrief (deep dub trauma mix)", or for a complete industrial head****, try "refinery" which sounds like...a refinery. oh yeah, have a listen to "HK - Hunter Killer" too. Its been used in TV ads and has a very sci-fi feel.

Pi soundtrack - its all pretty much industrial ambient drumnbass. Clint Mansell - "pi r squared", "2 pi r", or Psilonaut - "third from the sun"

Tribes of Neurot / Walking timebombs - TON have been described in the music press as "dark ambient", this album is very slow, quite disturbing, full of interesting samples. Get hold of any track off it. The track listining is: "unspoken path", "rust", "recurring birth", "march to the sun", "origin unknown", "blood and water", "edgewood", "head of the scorpion"

Misery Loves co - normally industrial tinged metal, try "kiss your boots (urban jungle mix)" if you can get hold of it. techno / drum and bass rhythm sounds nothing like the original

White Zombie - taken from their remix album, try to find "Electric Head pt. 1 (satan in high heels mix)" its a bit cheesy but its got a fantastic mechanical intro. and the remix title is cool too.

apartment 26 - blah blah, more stuff that you wont even read anyway :p. Try the intro to "dusk"

errr...Thats about it. There's loads of other stuff that didn't feel quite right (eg Prodigy, Tool), and I just thought I'd compile something for you, to get the ideas flowing. Let me know what tracker we're using and we'll play around. Good to know we've got some free samples too...:)

Oh yeah, nearly forgot, try anything from the Traffic Soundtrack for a pleasant ambient feel. Theres some nice effects in there.
oh yeah, and that drumnbass album I suggested was called "deadly chambers" by enforcers

I've got a couple of those albums on MP3 from when I burned them from you. I'll have a look/listen a bit later.

I was thinking of dynamically expanding the images to 80x80 and animating them. It wouldn't entail any extra work for you. I think 160x160's in a matrix would look a bit big at 800x600. You wouldn't get more than 6 buildings on screen, which is no different than now....

So you'd have a matrix of buildings (4x3 or something) and a text box underneath. When you click on a building, it tells you what it is, what it does and what it costs. Double clicking brings up the help screen.

Last night I expanded the messaging system for internal messages, so now you can allocate a message to a player when it's not their turn. This means I can use it for the diplomacy messaging and also to reports combat results.

I was thinking of having a message manager (as you're going to get bombed with messages when the turn starts) so you can pick and choose what messages to read. Similar in look to the help screen.

You'd also be able to re-read messages later on in the turn (something that is currently impossible).

Whaddya think?

And whaddya think to the post above as well....?

hello :)

As attached - the new build buildings screen....

Looks good, except that a lot of the images look grany/pixelized. You might wish to find someway to fix that.

They're grainy/pixelised because they're expanded from 40x40 to 80x80. It doesn't look so bad when they're animated. At 40x40 they're much too small (especially when running at a high resolution).

Behemoth,

I was also going to ask you about an intermediary screen for the quick build.

Concept sketch attached... :D

The panel on the left is the chassis genre to use, the one on the right is a list of basic types (assault, defense, stealth, spotter). The player would pick one from each of these (air defense or sea assault etc) and that would give the quick build some focus.

The last chosen settings would be remember so when they next click quick build it's already set to what they last had. They can click ok if they want it again.

I just though it would provide a little more depth. Whaddya reckon?

*ahem*

Concept sketch attached here...

I know why they are grainy, but I thought you might want to fix it...

As for the quick build selection screen, I think it would be a good idea.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter
As attached - the new build buildings screen....

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That looks kewl!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Gaming_World
I know why they are grainy, but I thought you might want to fix it...

As for the quick build selection screen, I think it would be a good idea.

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Thanks Gaming.

How do you suggest we fix the grainy images? We don't have time to redraw all the graphics at 80x80, so it would have to be some magc code.

Any ideas?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Arbiter


Thanks Gaming.

How do you suggest we fix the grainy images? We don't have time to redraw all the graphics at 80x80, so it would have to be some magc code.

Any ideas?

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You could smooth the image to blend pixels into one another

Quote:

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Originally posted by plenderj


That looks kewl!

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It looks better than the old one certainly... :)

You were also supposed to be sending me a mail yesterday. I ain't got it. Or did you send it to me work account (I've been off work for 5 weeks).