Sunday, July 12, 2015
The 2015 Indie Game Making Contest!
For the second year in a row, The Indie Game Making Contest is being hosted by Game Dev Fort and Humble Bundle. The dates to create your game are from July 7, 2015 to August 7, 2015. The theme this year is "Growth." Humble Bundle has a fantastic Bundle just for this contest. Its pay what you want for a few game engines but as you increase your donation you get some wonderful extra tools and engines. As it stands right now if you pay at least $12 you will get close to $2000. worth of game making tools and some indie games to show you how its done! Good luck to everyone that submits a game!
Saturday, June 6, 2015
My review of "Learning Raspberry Pi"
“Learning Raspberry Pi” by Samarth Shah is not the introductory book to the Raspberry Pi that you might think from the title. The book is meant for someone who already has some experience with the device and is looking to expand their knowledge of what’s possible. The book assumes that you have a model B Raspberry Pi and the special camera that was designed especially for the Raspberry Pi which you usually have to buy separately. Additional hardware is required to complete some of the exercises in the book.
The book begins by explaining how to set-up your Raspberry Pi and use New Out Of the Box Software (NOOBS) to load the Linux operating system on the device. Once this is done all sorts of wonderful things are possible! Each chapter in the book covers different projects that you can complete with your Raspberry Pi (usually some extra pieces of equipment).
The second chapter discusses how you can set-up a web server and create web pages with the Python computer language and Wordpress. By the end of the chapter you can have your own music station running from the Raspberry Pi.
The third chapter does a brief explanation of basic electronics and then helps you create your own digital clock and finally an actual alarm clock. This all requires extra parts that you would need to purchase separately. On a side note I got my Raspberry Pi in the form of a kit (many of which are available online) that came with several pieces of extra equipment including diodes, resistors, etc. Most of what you need for the clock is contained within that kit.
The fourth chapter covers robotics, one of my favorite aspects of having a Raspberry Pi. The projects in this chapter definitely require you to purchase extra equipment including the special Raspberry Pi camera. Three separate projects are created and then these three are combined together to make a robot. Lots of scripting in Python is required to make each part of the robot work.
The next chapter is about image processing and some of the amazing things that can be done with the camera and your Raspberry Pi. The OpenCV image processing software is used to let you manipulate pictures that you capture with the camera. You also learn how to take time-lapsed pictures and how to set-up a Twitter controlled camera.
Chapter six dives into software algorithms that can help with the image processing. Details are given on how to set-up facial recognition and even object tracking. So your Raspberry Pi can be set-up to be a surveillance camera of sorts. How cool is that?!! All of this takes patience and determination but is achievable with the details provided in the book.
The book ends with some tips for using the Raspberry Pi as well as help with common problems that can occur. Resources for more advanced projects are listed and author provides his email address so that you can tell him of any Raspberry Pi problems you may have.
This is a very interesting book and is great for someone who has completed a couple of projects from the Raspberry Pi website. Many hours of enjoyment and learning can be had from following the projects provided in this book.
Saturday, May 30, 2015
I will be posting my review of "Learning Raspberry Pi" on Saturday June 6th.
Good afternoon everyone,
Something a little different for this blog. I am reviewing a book on the credit card size computer, Raspberry Pi. This little gem lets you do all sorts of wonderful things, from playing a special version of Minecraft to learning the Python computer language to building your own robot. The book that I am reviewing doesn't cover all of this but looks to be a great start figuring out what a Raspberry Pi can do. Look for my review of "Learning Raspberry Pi" by Samarth Shah next Saturday.
Something a little different for this blog. I am reviewing a book on the credit card size computer, Raspberry Pi. This little gem lets you do all sorts of wonderful things, from playing a special version of Minecraft to learning the Python computer language to building your own robot. The book that I am reviewing doesn't cover all of this but looks to be a great start figuring out what a Raspberry Pi can do. Look for my review of "Learning Raspberry Pi" by Samarth Shah next Saturday.
Monday, April 20, 2015
My review of "Unity 2D Game Development Cookbook"
Packt Publishing latest book on Unity is “Unity 2D Game Development Cookbook” by Claudio Scolastici. Since it is a cookbook that means there are recipes on how to do many things with Unity 2D on 3D objects. Packt Publishing also provides asset files as well as the code to download. There is also a downloadable PDF that shows the colored images from the book.
The book begins with techniques for importing models and scenes from Maya. Maya is used for this demonstration because of its popularity and its ability to export FBX models. Most 3D software can export FBX and this chapter explains how to import these models into Unity with little hassle. Importing of animation for the 3D models is also discussed.
The next chapter discusses importing textures from Photoshop or other 2D programs and then turning them into materials that you can place on objects. One of the recipes also discusses how to set up a texture atlas from a group of images. Another recipe covers animating 2D UV maps on a 3D object.
The third chapter is all about creating and animating a game character. The recipes cover everything from setting up an animation tree to creating a blend tree. This is a nice overview of the Mecanim animation system. I really enjoyed this chapter because almost every game is going to have some sort of character in it and being able to animate your character and have it move in a variety of different ways makes your games more realistic.
The next two chapters take the character that was created in chapter three and give it a scene to move around in and provide physics to let the character react to objects. First Unity’s standard assets are imported from the Unity store. These assets contain a character controller package which includes prefabs, textures and scripts that are modified and used in our game. Later on collision detection and scrolling backgrounds are discussed. Lastly, a recipe for creating a camera that keeps our character at the center of the screen is created.
Chapter six has us code a game manager that is a state machine that gives us better control over the game. Recipes are provided for setting up the games UI as well as displaying “GAME OVER” and “GAME WIN” conditions. Chapter seven is focused on adding audio and video clips to the game.
Finally, in chapter eight setting up a 2D game with sprites and spritesheets is briefly talked about. Recipes are provided for animating the sprites and using keyframe animation with sprites.
Overall the “Unity 2D Game Development Cookbook” was a very interesting book on using 2D objects in a 3D game. I learned a lot from the different recipes and plan to keep this book on my reference shelf.
The book begins with techniques for importing models and scenes from Maya. Maya is used for this demonstration because of its popularity and its ability to export FBX models. Most 3D software can export FBX and this chapter explains how to import these models into Unity with little hassle. Importing of animation for the 3D models is also discussed.
The next chapter discusses importing textures from Photoshop or other 2D programs and then turning them into materials that you can place on objects. One of the recipes also discusses how to set up a texture atlas from a group of images. Another recipe covers animating 2D UV maps on a 3D object.
The third chapter is all about creating and animating a game character. The recipes cover everything from setting up an animation tree to creating a blend tree. This is a nice overview of the Mecanim animation system. I really enjoyed this chapter because almost every game is going to have some sort of character in it and being able to animate your character and have it move in a variety of different ways makes your games more realistic.
The next two chapters take the character that was created in chapter three and give it a scene to move around in and provide physics to let the character react to objects. First Unity’s standard assets are imported from the Unity store. These assets contain a character controller package which includes prefabs, textures and scripts that are modified and used in our game. Later on collision detection and scrolling backgrounds are discussed. Lastly, a recipe for creating a camera that keeps our character at the center of the screen is created.
Chapter six has us code a game manager that is a state machine that gives us better control over the game. Recipes are provided for setting up the games UI as well as displaying “GAME OVER” and “GAME WIN” conditions. Chapter seven is focused on adding audio and video clips to the game.
Finally, in chapter eight setting up a 2D game with sprites and spritesheets is briefly talked about. Recipes are provided for animating the sprites and using keyframe animation with sprites.
Overall the “Unity 2D Game Development Cookbook” was a very interesting book on using 2D objects in a 3D game. I learned a lot from the different recipes and plan to keep this book on my reference shelf.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
My next review will be for the book "Unity 2D Game Development Cookbook."
On April 20th I will post my review of "Unity 2D Game Development Cookbook" by
Claudio Scolastici and published by Packt Publishing. I am looking forward to reading this book as it covers creating a complete 2D game in Unity and that includes importing models from Maya. I'm always interested in learning something new about Unity so I will let you know how that goes in my review.
Claudio Scolastici and published by Packt Publishing. I am looking forward to reading this book as it covers creating a complete 2D game in Unity and that includes importing models from Maya. I'm always interested in learning something new about Unity so I will let you know how that goes in my review.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
My review of "Learning C++ by Creating Games with UE4"
“Learning C++ by Creating Games with UE4” is one of the few books available for the Unreal 4 (UE4) gaming engine. It was written by William Sherif and published by Packt Publishing. Files that contain the code and assets for this book are available on Packt’s website as well as a PDF that contains the colored images from the book.
I have always wanted to learn C++ because it has been the computer language used by most professional game programmers. With all the casual and mobile games now available I don’t know if this statement is true anymore but nonetheless C++ is still a great language to learn.
The book starts out gently guiding you through the basics of C++. By chapter 3 you begin working with Unreal which is great since that is presumably why you bought this particular book. This chapter’s project involves changing the colors in the puzzle game that comes with the Unreal engine. I have to admit that I was quite thrilled with having this work when I hit the play button in the engine.
The middle chapters build on what you have learned previously. I have tried to teach myself C++ in the past and I usually end up stopping when I get to pointers. This book helped me understand what pointers are and how to use them. It accomplishes this using the Unreal engine. In addition, I enjoyed learning about classes and object-oriented programming.
Starting with chapter 8 you get to create a scene and build an example game that includes NPCs that will talk to your player character. You also learn how to cast spells, give the character an inventory and fight enemies. It is wonderful to see how all of this is done.
I really enjoyed this book but I also found it very frustrating. The code that is provided doesn’t always work and it is difficult to know where to exactly put each additional portion of code as it is introduced. This is not the author’s fault. The Unreal engine updates quite frequently and I discovered some issues with trying to use the code in the current version of Unreal. I think that any book written on Unreal 4 would almost have to be a living document that updates as the game engine does.
In summary I recommend the book’s first seven chapters as a fun way to learn C++. After that, you can use the book to learn C++ and UE4; but be prepared to use the Unreal engine’s own website to help you understand how to update the code so that your game works correctly.
I have always wanted to learn C++ because it has been the computer language used by most professional game programmers. With all the casual and mobile games now available I don’t know if this statement is true anymore but nonetheless C++ is still a great language to learn.
The book starts out gently guiding you through the basics of C++. By chapter 3 you begin working with Unreal which is great since that is presumably why you bought this particular book. This chapter’s project involves changing the colors in the puzzle game that comes with the Unreal engine. I have to admit that I was quite thrilled with having this work when I hit the play button in the engine.
The middle chapters build on what you have learned previously. I have tried to teach myself C++ in the past and I usually end up stopping when I get to pointers. This book helped me understand what pointers are and how to use them. It accomplishes this using the Unreal engine. In addition, I enjoyed learning about classes and object-oriented programming.
Starting with chapter 8 you get to create a scene and build an example game that includes NPCs that will talk to your player character. You also learn how to cast spells, give the character an inventory and fight enemies. It is wonderful to see how all of this is done.
I really enjoyed this book but I also found it very frustrating. The code that is provided doesn’t always work and it is difficult to know where to exactly put each additional portion of code as it is introduced. This is not the author’s fault. The Unreal engine updates quite frequently and I discovered some issues with trying to use the code in the current version of Unreal. I think that any book written on Unreal 4 would almost have to be a living document that updates as the game engine does.
In summary I recommend the book’s first seven chapters as a fun way to learn C++. After that, you can use the book to learn C++ and UE4; but be prepared to use the Unreal engine’s own website to help you understand how to update the code so that your game works correctly.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
My next review is the book "Learn C++ by Creating Games with UE4"
On April 8th I will post my review of "Learn C++ by Creating Games with UE4" by William Sherif and published by Packt Publishing. Unreal Engine 4 has been out for a year now and other than the books by Ryan Shah their haven't been any complete written work for the engine. This book hopes to rectify that.
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