Long time no activity

Yeah, I know, sorry, I had lots of things to do.

The content train will be rolling soon.

Introduction to UnCodeX

A quick, very brief introduction to UnCodeX.

Video Version

Subject: Setting Up An UnCodeX
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 6Min
Author: Credit to El Muerte for making UnCodeX
Notes: Very brief intro to UnCodeX

Video tutorial has gone randomly missing, will re-create and upload soon.

Written Version

Theres not much of a written version here.

UnCodeX was created by Michiel Hendriks (El Muerte).

Taken directly from UnCodeX's SourceForge page:

UnCodeX analyses UnrealScript code and provides an easy interface to browse through the code, it can also produce a JavaDoc like documentation of the source code.This is also the home for other UnrealEngine productivity tools like the UC PreProcessor.

Acquiring The Software

1. Download and Install UnCodeX

Setting Up The Software

1. When you load it for the first time, or go to Tree -> Settings, on the left there is a Source Paths tab, click it.


2. Under Source Paths, Add your UDKDevelopmentSrc path to the list. Hit OK


3. Tree -> Rebuild and Analyse Tree

Use

Package tree on the left, class list in the middle, class code on the right.

Really simple, really powerful.

Watch the video for a very brief introduction.

Setting up a Notepad++ Environment

This is a short write-up on how to get Notepad++ to work with your game, which basically only means setting up Unreal Script highlighting.

Setting Up An nFringe Environment for Epic's UDK

This tutorial shows you how to set up Pixel Mine's nFringe plug-in for Visual Studio 2008 to work correctly with Epic's UDK.

Setting Up Your Unreal Script Environment

First you need to set up your Unreal Script coding environment. There are many ways to do this and you may have your own preference as these environments are subject to the taste of the individual. I personally prefer using nFringe with Visual Studio 2008 to develop code, but lately I've been preferring a lightweight solution which uses Notepad++. Some use WOTgreal as well. Currently none of these offer debugging solutions to developing with the UDK, but hopefully one will come around in time.

• Setting up an nFringe environment


• Setting up a Notepad++ environment


• Setting up a WOTgreal environment

There is also another powerful tool out there called UnCodeX, which allows you to browse through your code with ease, use shortcuts for creating subclasses, and generate HTML documentation for your code. I use UnCodeX no matter which of the three above environments I am in.

• Setting up UnCodeX

Directory Structure

This is a small writeup to get one somewhat familiar with the directory layout of Epic's Unreal Development Kit.

Unreal Development Kit (UDK) Stripped Down

So recently Epic released their Unreal Development Kit (UDK), which allows anyone to develop standalone games using Epic's Unreal Engine 3. (which is, dare I say, epic!)

For a project I am working on, I needed to strip down the UDK to its bare minimum, removing all of the Unreal Tournament related content that shipped with it.

I've also seen a few discussions about this and talked to a few people irl and they need to remove all of the extra UT stuff shipped with the UDK as well... so I figured I might as well share this if anyone needs it.

I've deleted lots of content, went through each config file line by line removing all ut package references... and well, I was left with a Content folder weighing in at about 2.5MB (2.2MB being UI_Fonts_Final.upk, .3MB being an empty room)

After a few late hours, I've managed to have a working* standalone...

I'm not sure about the legality of posting this here as none of the base engine files are changed in any way but I do have 1 Epic UT script, that being UTGame.UTCharInfo. There is also the default movies and splash that ships with the UDK as well.

I will be updating my blog post with more info as I do more research/toying around.

After a few hours into the night, this is what I have came up with. http://www.forecourse.com/UDKGame.zip

I ripped out everything out of UTGame and UTGameContent, except for UTGame.UTCharInfo, as for some reason the unreal binaries are dependent on this? I still have yet to figure this one out.

There is -nothing- except the base engine code, UTCharInfo, and some modified config files in this package.

Using it is easy: 1. Install a copy of UDK. 2. Delete the Development/UTGame folders. 3. Unzip my package into the UDK directory. 4. Use the Unreal Frontend to launch the editor/game.

Note: The first time you run the editor or try cooking, it may appear to hang/stall and generally take a very long time. UDK has to recompile the shaders it uses, but it only has to do this once when loading the editor and then it has to cook once more.

If you have any questions/comments/etc, feel free to reply here or my email, or however.

DOWNLOAD: http://www.forecourse.com/UDKGame.zip

Killing Floor

Recently on Steam, Killing Floor was updated with some new content along with allowing everyone to download and play free for the entire weekend (which is something that happens on Steam quite frequently with other games).

Killing Floor is an UT2K4 mod made by Tripwire Interactive, creators of Source Mod Red Orchestra.

When Killing Floor was first released, I figured it was just a Left 4 Dead clone and even though I was thinking about buying it, I ultimately decided not to (as I found Left 4 Dead to be very repetitive and didn't want to go through that again).

I decided to pick it up during the free weekend, and well, I haven't stopped playing since. I bought it for $14.99 21 minutes before the free weekend was over, as I did not want to interrupt my game play.

I have logged more than 30+ hours playing this game in the last 3 days. Seriously.

I will create a more in-depth review later, but my opinion is BUY BUY BUY.

IGDA Orange County Chapter Meeting

Tuesday 20th, the Orange County Chapter of IGDA had one of their first meetings in an attempt to bring independent game developers from around Orange County and even from Los Angeles together to meet and greet eachother while taking the first steps to becoming charted with IGDA. The meeting was held at the Motion Capture Lab at Obsidian Entertainment in Irvine, with guest speaker Feargus Urquhart, CEO of Obsidian Entertainment. Urquhart made a very informative presentation about Contracts and Agreements, which I found to be very helpful in many of my current agreements with developers and publishers I am currently dealing with.
Next meeting is to be held on November 17th, which the group will start the running for board positions.

After I acquire the pictures Estill took during the meeting (including a few shots of me sitting in the front row literally 2 feet away from CEO Feargus Urquhart), I will update this post accordingly.

Heres a pic of me and Johnnie Estill, photographer of the event and brilliant instructor at The Art Institute of Orange County.

Still Being Accused of Hacking

Its been roughly a month or so that I've quit AA3 because -everyone- thinks I'm hacking. For those of you who know me, you'll know that I am strongly against cheating in any way..

But for some reason I am still getting e-mails and steam bashings and all kinds of stuff about how people are proving that I am hacking in AA3. I just don't get it... I am 100% legit and stopped caring what these guys think, but this here is a perfect example of how if everyone in a community is jealous they will turn every piece of evidence they can find and turn it against you, making a false case purely on manipulated evidence.

Doesn't help that AA3 is soo broken, as that makes it easier to do so.

I'm not even the highest ranked in honor anymore, even though last time I checked I still was in the Top 10. Also with my month or so of not playing, I still am apparently ranked 23 in terms of total round wins. Go figure.

Breakable Tree Prototype - Unreal

Luke's IKTree which has failed to do something I ask him.

I need them verticies disconnected from eachother...

http://www.forecourse.com/unreal/failtree2.html

Static Multidimensional Array!?

This is the first time I made a static multidimensional array, moreso, one with 3 dimensions. I'm still experimenting to find out how efficient this is, but so far it is proving to be extremely efficient as its structured so indexing it uses enum's that correspond to the right data you want. There were some comments and stuff describing which block did what but I'm not allowed to discuss the project this is for so I had to remove them. Its also indented nicely but WordPress owned my indentation.

static Vector2[][][] StaticData=
{
new Vector2[][]
{
new Vector2[]
{
new Vector2(500,534),
new Vector2(582,534),
new Vector2(663,533),
new Vector2(746,534),
},
new Vector2[]
{
new Vector2(500,87),
new Vector2(582,87),
new Vector2(663,86),
new Vector2(746,87),
},
},
new Vector2[][]
{
new Vector2[]
{
new Vector2(582,445),
new Vector2(663,445),
new Vector2(582,561),
new Vector2(663,561),
},
new Vector2[]
{
new Vector2(582,50),
new Vector2(663,50),
new Vector2(582,165),
new Vector2(663,165),
},
},

Divide by Zero, Don't Do it

First time I've gotten Visual Studio to give me this error. Oops.

Low Balance Threshold

Story of my life.

Fallout 3 HOVERBOARD MADNESS

Initial testing

Model by Kyle Bardiau

http://www.forecourse.com/falloutstuff/Hoverboard.mp4

VLC sometimes does not play this right so use something like Windows Media Player 11. <_ <; Also, I totally had my Windows Media Player 11 on a shuffle of "Top 100 Songs of the 80s", and FRAPS usually never works with recording the audio I am hearing instead of my microphone, but this time it did. How odd. I think the overplayed cliche stalker song works well here though.

Hoverboard

Material and Lighting Final - 3 Weeks Before Due

So, I started work on my Final for my class Material and Lighting. The assignment is to create a Traditional Japanese Interior. Yeah. The textures I've used here are temporary just to get a concept in my head visualized, and will be overhauled and stuff. I'm envisioning blood. Anyways, not much else to say, here we go:

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

...is an incredibly fun co-op game.

I've been playing it with Kevin over the past few days over hamachi... sure a lot of the time its pretty bullshit but its definitely fun.

However, I played it soo much that my skill in AA3 has plummeted and I can't kill anyone anymore.

Allar's Definitive Honor Guide To AA3

So, once Rick told me about AA3 coming out, which was a few days after it was download-able on Steam, I started playing it like mad and now am one of the highest ranking players in terms of honor. Throughout my time playing so far, there have been numerous threads about how I've apparently 'hacked' my honor, and in-game theres been many of admins who have banned me because I get too many points too fast, or I get too many headshots, etc... So I've decided to write up how I manage to win almost every match and level quickly. Here is a link to my personnel jacket.

http://login.aa3.americasarmy.com/personnel_jacket?soldier=Allar

At the time of this post, I am level 85 honor.

How I Started:

When I first got AA3, I qualified Expert under every available training exercise before I moved on to multiplayer (which I later found out I was not supposed to do) as that is the way I play games. It took me a few days or so to be able to tell the difference between friend and foe. They do look really similar when you start playing. Soon after, I got my microphone working in-game and started hopping around to various pubs meeting people, learning strategies, and basically working as a team. At that point, I found that I was exceptionally good it seemed at everything I did on the map Ranch. I played Ranch for hours and hours non-stop, day after day, defending the house from all alien invaders and swiftly clearing rooms and taking objectives before the enemy knew what hit em. After doing so for a few days, I've noticed that my honor level went from level 7 (after all training was done, I was level 7) to level 20. I sat trying to figure out that happened so fast, and so I started breaking down the honor system. No one I asked had a clear idea about the honor system yet as the game was just released and it was a little confusing at first, especially with the Honor bar not leveling you up as it would intuitively mean. Until recently actually, I thought Honor level was the pure raw valor experience (i.e. 100,000 Duty points, not just the current level of Duty) all added together and divided by 6, which would give some result to be compared to against some honor 'xp scale', which many on the AA3 forums have posted. I started putting the mission first in every round of every match of every map I played, always opting for Squad Leader, willing to sacrifice teammates to complete the mission at hand. My ways since then have grown, and, well, now I'm level 85. :D

Allar's Blacklist:

I figured this would be a nice place to put this... I've been banned from the following servers by admins who accuse me of hacking, even though I am 100% legit.

-ACI- The Real Combat Vets
{KRUS} Killing Fields
The AA Guys
The Love Shack
Stryker Brigade
[NEO] Total Gaming League (I think this was because I preferred taking objectives instead of killing though)

And a few others that seem to no longer show up on my server browser.

How LDRSHIP Works:

Material and Lighting: Midterm Complete

Okay... so... yeah there is lots of stuff I can fix with it; but I am really content with it as is and I believe it is well more than enough for the midterm for Material and Lighting.

So if you haven't read my previous post, I used a 20-hour-free render farm @ http://www.renderrocket.com to render this in less than a half hour. It took 14.7 hours of processing time.

I managed to resend my project through the farm, and it still had some discolored stripe issues; but I realized that I can requeue those strips before the project is done and that generally solves the problem. Render Rocket is sooo user friendly, its an incredible service.

So, no more talk, here is my render!

FULL SIZE RENDER! CLICK HERE TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE DETAILS IN EVERYTHING! (4MB JPG)


[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="464" caption="Small preview of the full render. Click to enlarge preview. To see the full thing, click the links posted above."][/caption]

Material And Lighting: Render Farm Experience

So I was surfing the internet looking for some free render farm action so I can get my midterm for Material and Lighting rendered in godly quality without making my computer unusable for 15+ hours.

I came across http://www.renderrocket.com and when you sign up, you get 20 free render hours; so of course, I signed up.

Their website is incredibly user-friendly... you just login, upload your files, set up your render options, and go. Then you got a huge amount of quad core computers chipping away at your render.

I used their service to render my midterm, which took 11.6 render hours and completed in less than a half an hour, at some incredibly power hungry render settings. They managed to overexpose 3 'strips' of my render but hey, it was free. I am really impressed with what I got. A preview is posted below, along with links to the full size (I rendered it out at 5989x3300 pixels) .JPG and .TGA. The .JPG is in high quality, but due to the nature of the format, some quality was sacrificed to maintain a reasonable file size (4MB). The .TGA is an uncompressed image at the highest quality possible, but is 80MB.

Zooming in on the drawer knobs to see detailed in the full 40MB TGA reflections tickled me pink.

Full Size .JPG (4MB)
Full Size .TGA (80MB)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="505" caption="Midterm Preview, click to enlarge preview. Full images are linked to above."][/caption]

Taking Requests for Content

If anyone would like me to post a specific tutorial about something related to programming, XNA, 3DS Max, or, well, anything that I know, let me know and I'll try to write up something for you.

Also, Boe said I should have pictures in all my posts, so heres me testing a new wordpress webcam plugin.

[kaltura-widget wid="xlocahh6m8" width="400" height="365" addpermission="" editpermission="" /]

RAIDMAX RX-700 PSU Sucks ass to the MAX!

A year and 3 months ago I bought an RX-700 power supply from Newegg. Newegg has never done me wrong with my plethora of PSU purchases along with other hardware, and I've never had a problem. I've tried all kinds of power supplies, ranging from starting from Antec ranging to the most generic. I must say, out of all the PSU's I have ever had, the RX-700 has definitely been the most disappointing.

For the first 8 months I had it, the power supply worked perfectly fine for my medium spec computer; however about 9-10 months in, I started getting random shut offs and blue screens. I attributed this to what I believed to be my faulty ram, but then when month 13 rolled around, just as the warranty expired, my cpu started becoming undervoltaged and no matter how I cranked up the bios voltage settings, I've seemed to be locked in at v1.1, same with my RAM. Things started getting unstable fast, but I knew I couldn't return it so I just had to deal with it.

It is now 3 days short of exactly 1 year and 3 months since I have had this PSU, and when I was copying over some critical school work files (for my Material and Lighting class), the PSU decided to just randomly die for what seemed to be no reason at all. I've tried multiple hardware setups and standard troubleshooting to confirm that the PSU is dead. It does not function enough to even output enough standby power to a motherboard.

I strongly encourage all of my readers to stay away from RaidMax products, especially PSUs, as I do not want to see anyone suffer from post-warranty-trauma.

Material and Lighting Assignment

Assignment: Make 3 props.

I came, I built, I rendered.

Click image for enlarged version.

The "Unnoticeably" Noticable Civony / Evony Girl

...is friggen all over the internet, and even sometimes on this site.

I strongly discourage you to not click her, because that just lets the advertising beast continue to spam the interweb with their ridiculous ad.

Also, her complexion seems pretty manly imo.

Abandon your journey now, my lord.

Material and Lighting: No Poly Count!?

For my midterm, I'm going to put my props on like a kitchen counter...

And what kitchen counter is complete without a sink/faucets?

Yay for 35k incomplete faucet handles! <_< I know thats way too many polys for this object.. but I'ma go with "TURBOSMOOTH DA SHIT OUTTA IT" for everything. After all, I'm a programmer. :D

Still gotta do the actual faucet... click for a bigger picture.

PropertyGrid Awesomeness

So I've learned some more about Class Attributes, before I was just using [Serialization()] but in order to customize the way the WinForm PropertyGrid control works, there are some nifty attributes you can tie your code to.

Can now change how the texture previews are rendered through the use of a property grid. Not much of a feat, but, I'm proud of it.

Crysis Video Tutorials By Crymod

Found lots of video tutorials on how to do Crysis stuff by the people at Crymod.

http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/publisher:crymodportal

Some good stuff.

Been forever since my last update...

Over the past month or so I haven't really had time to update my blog due to lots of stuff that went down that I had to deal with and that I haven't had time to develop anything regarding Forecourse... but now I'm back. Once again, I will try to remain constant with my updates.

Right now I am focusing on the Forecourse Content Creation Tool, named ForeCreation. It is (will be) a XNA-In-WinForms IDE, allowing the creation of assets that will follow Forecourse standardizations so that they can be used with any Forecourse driven application with ease.

I know its not much of a milestone, but this is my first time really dealing with WinForms, first time dealing with XNA outside of the XNA Game class, and the first time I had to deal with handling the reading/writing of custom data formats for use with an editor, and well, a lot of firsts. It is quite the learning experience and is going quite slow but I am getting there. My little 'yay I did it' milestone at the moment (which is pretty inferior code that could be done by a real programmer with utmost ease...) is the ability to programatically create tab pages that contain XNA renderers within. My first implementation of this is a 'texture preview' of textures inside the GameDataTextures folder of your project. It is more detailed in this video:

Video of Current Status as of July 25

When compiling XNA on an x64 machine...

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD REMEMBER TO COMPILE WITH x86 AS YOUR PLATFORM TARGET.
I forgot about this and wasted an hour of debugging.

Right click your project -> Properties -> Build -> Platform Target -> x86

Forecourse Outlined

I now have a "Project Forecourse" page at the top right of my blog that will detail Project Forecourse along with provide accompanying resources as soon as they become available.

Refactoring Forecourse

I will post all the info I can about Project Forecourse as soon as this is done.

Currently I am in the process of refactoring my Project Forecourse's code so that, well, a bunch of things could happen.

The first and main reason is so that all my code is more readable and programmer-friendly. Also, I have decided to break down main components into C# .NET .DLL's, which will allow me or anyone to use a certain component of Forecourse without having to disable/modify a lot of code, and so that anyone who just wants to start making stuff with XNA can have all the base grunt work already done for them. My main focus on Forecourse at the moment is all code dealing with UI, as it is really hard to make a functionable game without some UI present. I am making this code (ForeGUI.dll) not dependent on XNA at all, so that the UI logic can be used with other projects without rewritting. To use this .DLL though, you must shell out basic functions to wrap a few of my GUI functions, but that is it. I will also be providing working example wrapper code so that you may rewrap the dll to best fit with your project. And the last major reason is so that I can get people working with me in XNA sooner and easier than before, as my previous code was pretty daunting.

Very Basic 3DS Max Tutorials

I decided to post some video tutorials I made at the request of others for 3DS Max, check out my 3DS Max Tutorials page at the very top of the site.

Hello Internet!

Welcome to Allar's XNA Blog! The home of my documented experiments and failures in regards to my programming work with XNA and other languages.

The main focus of this site is to document, inform, and advertise my XNA mini-framework/engine dubbed Forecourse. A project designed to make the building of XNA games easier for those who just want to jump right in to making an XNA game without wanting to doing all the grunt work that is associated with building the backbones of a project.

This project, along with other works I may post here, are also representative of my portfolio I am starting to build as a student at The Art Institute of Orange County, majoring in Visual Game Programming.

I will try to post tutorials and rantings in regards to XNA for those to read/study/criticize every once in awhile, so subscribe to my RSS feed to stay updated!