Tuesday 29 March 2011

Summer is almost here

Geneva currently has what I would consider ideal weather conditions for me. Not too hot, not too cold (10-15 degrees Celsius) and the sun is shining from a blue sky. If only it could always be this perfect...

Another month gone by. Without any foil hardware. It's not funny, it's not frustrating, it doesn't make me angry. It's just the way things are. The transport has been initiated afaik, so maybe it will be here next week.

Working on light mapper, coding things I've thought about so many times before but never have implemented. Next step is to orient the charts and pack them in textures. I haven't thought about size problems yet, but it'll creep up on me sooner or later. I have not thought much on the real time indirect lighting, I will first try a high quality offline baker and see what can be done for incremental updates. I want that, otherwise I could just bake in a 3d modeler.

Didn't think on it much, but there will be quite a few new interesting games this year: Battlefield 3, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Mass Effect 3, Rage, TES5 Skyrim. Slightly off this list are Diablo 3 (eta 2012?), DNF (meh), Max Payne 3 (hmm). Trouble is they all go for mass markets: the combat in BF3 looks like more of the same mind numbing kneading, DXHR looks horrible and stupid compared to the oh so wonderful original for its time, ME has always botched a wonderful premise with a crap action game (slow deep story and interactive action sequences don't mix!), Rage is an id game (gorgeous, but boring) and Oblivion was so close but ended up being stupid (I was the master thief, assassin, magician, warrior and whatever else in the world eventually). Where is the new tight Raven Shield, difficult Ghost Recon, funny and superdiverse NOLF, evil Diablo 2, zany clicky adventure games, Oblivion like a Sim X game where things don't go according to plan...

Side-note: Grim Dawn. I have higher hopes for that than for Diablo 3. Looks properly evil and gritty.

Game development articles online are really depressing too. It's either about making games for the mass market including marketing and business, Minecraft (nice game, but enough already!), portable games for people on the run or the private life of a game artist. It's all facades, games aren't serious anymore. Most people would say it's the other way around, like how AAA titles turn around sooo much money, rivaling Hollywood and they should strive to become art to prove Ebert wrong or whatever. But then it's a business and the hunt for something irrelevant. Games have become a channel. Where are _the games_? Games created by one visionary eccentric designer who can actually write a fair amount of code going "I wanna do this". Not a medium forced on a computer or console, but a computer or console showing you.

Lost Eden may have been bad, but the world is an insta-pull compared to what you see today.

This is why I will never give up programming :)

End of vent.