Rising Damp…

Hhhmm just discovered that my garage isn’t very water tight. It rained a lot here over the past few weeks, a lot more than usual. Anyway I noticed that a very small part of the cab came into contact with water. Thankfully its at the back and out of sight, but it has swollen a bit. I don’t like the idea of having the cab now in the garage for much longer as winter sets in. In the meantime I have raised the cab off the floor and swept the floor to dry it out as much as possible. Will try and seal the areas where the water came in as well. So the plan is to get the thing at least assembled, painted and in the house before Christmas. I will then carry on inside the house with putting in the electrics and applying the art work.

In the meantime I have pretty much finished cutting all the wood I need for the shell of the cab. I will fix it all in place this week, and then start filling any gaps. I also cut the slots for the T Moulding. This went much easier than I thought. I simply lay the cab on its side and whizzed around the edge with a router with a slot cutter bit. It made really easy work of it and the cut is really nice. Below is a picture as of last night. The two holes in the top are for the speakers. That board will be covered with black material and then a speaker grill. Im still on the hunt though for the best matching grille.

For the next two weeks Im away in Brussels, and will have a few free evenings. Hopefully in that time I do some coding on the actual game

Bezel finally underway…

I had the weekend to myself as my wife was in Edinburgh.  I decided this would be the weekend when I would get past the roadblock that was the bezel, and think I have got past the worst now.  Here’s what the cab looks like at the end of play today…

The bezel isn’t fixed yet in place (hence the gaps around the edges).  I will fix it down  properly once I cut the upper roof and the speaker panel.  Then the next step is to start adding all the little decal bits.  My aim is to complete the cab for Christmas.

So whats going on?

Hello,

It’s been way too long since my last post, so sorry about that.  Here’s a quick summary of whats been happening since the last post…

1) On the cab I have tried 2 methods to make a nice bezel, both of which I wasn’t happy with so they were scrapped.  I now have a different plan and will be working on that this weekend.

2) I’ve been distracted by looking at iPhone development, and have been working with a few good guys on some ideas.  This is coming along nicely and hopefully we will have some stuff out soon.

3) Finish University work for this year  Had my exam yesterday… It wasn’t brilliant, but hopefully enough to pass.  Really don’t fancy resitting that one.

Right so as you can see I haven’t been super productive on this project, but now as the winter nights draw in I will have a little more time to devote to it.  Another spur was this article…

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html

Stu for Ovine sent it to me, and when I read the article I thought hey thats me!  No, unfortunately Im not the duct tape programmer, but more the opposite.  I spend way too much time procrastinating, and thinking about the best way to do things.  This is probably why my last project too so long.  Anyway I thought I would set my self a challenge and see if I can change.  I’ve been thinking about the first level of this game and have been getting hung up on how to do a few things.  Well lets see if I can come up with a duct tape solution  Will let you know how it goes next week.  Now its time to fire up the IDE and get coding.

ROTJ Shelved… not really

Hello,

I have been travelling a bit for work lately so haven’t had much free time as I would have liked.  Things are still progressing though.  On the cab side I have added the yoke and the monitor shelf.  The shelf isn’t in its final position.  It’s quite difficult to judge exactly where the shelf should sit, so I took a guess and I’m off by about 2 – 3 inches.  This isn’t a problem as I haven’t glued it in place, so I will just move it in the coming days.  In fact I won’t glue it in place until I have finished the bezel.  I’m still figuring out how to build the bezel.  I think this will be the trickiest part, but as the rest of the cab is coming together so are my ideas on how to tackle it.  Anyhoo here are some pictures of what it looks like today…

On the game side, I’ve started to build an editor to make the flight paths for the rebel fleet.  Its coming along nicely.  In the meantime I have also been reading through the OpenGL Super Bible.  I’m completely green to OpenGL and this book is helping a lot.  I’m hoping I will be able to use some of what I learn in the game.  If I can get my head around it all I would like to build in some nice special effects e.g. Glow.  Not sure if this would be a shader or using some of the buffers.

Amassing the Rebel Alliance Fleet…

Hello,

This week I have spent time making some of the models for the first level.  There are still a few more to do, but so far so good.  I also reworked some of the previous models by reducing the poly count.  The lower the poly the faster it will run

Anyway here’s this weeks work…

Also I have added new panel on the left of this blog —>  I’ve finally signed up for a Twitter account, so occasionally I put up some progress reports there as well.

Cheers for now.

Missing in action…

Phew where did those three weeks go :s ?  It’s been a bit of a whirlwind around here lately with work.  Ended up going to Wales for week, followed by another week in Luxembourg.  I’m home for a couple of weeks now before heading to Germany and France at the beginning of July.  I’ve landed two new projects in work which is really biting into my time.  Anyway, I’ve just dusted off the code and will have a look at the step.  Hope to make some progress this week.

In the meantime I fixed the marquee light in place and have attached the yoke to the cab.  Also got the marquee artwork as well and it looks pretty sweet.  It’s a little too shiny perhaps but nothing too much to worry about.

Right let’s have a look at that code

Quick Update

Hello,

I’ve been meaning to post an update for about a week now but I was waiting for something to turn up in the post.  Unfortunately it hasn’t turn up so I thought I wouldn’t wait any longer.  In the meantime I haven’t had much time to code with work being very busy.  I’m sure a lot of people are in the same boat in that we there have been a fair few redundancies at our place and with loosing some good people it really stretches the people who remain.  Anyway I’m not grumbling as I am happy to have a job.

In the hours off I have worked a little more on the cab.  I’ve got an old coin mech which I tidied up, and have added that.  I have also added the back door which is kept in by a nice barrel lock.  I was really pleased with how that went.  I have also made the marquee frame, and the speaker panel (not shown below).  Little by little its coming along.  I’m learning as I go along.  

The next part is probably the most trickest.  I need to make the monitor mount and bezel.  Also I need to attached the speaker panel.  Although I’m still trying to find a decent speaker grille.  B&Q have material which is ok, but it’s far from the look of the original.  If anyone knows where I can get some then I would be happy to hear from you.

Work starts on the new home for the yoke…

I didn’t get any programming done last week as I was tired of looking at a computer screen (after working on one for 10 hours a day for real life work).  Instead I decided that I would start work on building the cab for the game.  I’m just thankful we bought a bigger car now, as I only just got the wood in.  B&Q cut it down to roughly the right size, but it was still touch and go.

Anyway I marked out the plans which I made based on photos from the Internet and side art dimensions.  Im pretty pleased with the way it’s coming along as I have never attempted anything like this before.  So far I have cut out the sides, and made the base.  I have also cut out and fixed the top sections.  Today I worked on the back section.  I still need a cam lock to keep the back panel in place, but it all fits very snuggly.  Next week I have the coin door coming and then I will start work on the front.  Here’s some photos of the progress so far…

Launcher Released and a couple facelifts…

Hello,

The more observant among you may notice the blog looks a little bit different  I had half an hour to kill yesterday so I thought I would have a go at making it look a little more interesting.  I hope you like it.

Over the weekend I also tidied up the yoke a little bit.  I bought the yoke overlay at http://www.arcadestickers.co.uk/and I can highly recommend them.  The quality is excellent, and so was the customer service.

Finally I also got around to finishing the first version of the launcher.  I’ve added a little config file so users can tailor it to their systems.  I also added sounds to make it a little more interesting.  I would still like to add a fade out routine, but that will be at a later date.  You can download version one here… http://www.urbaninteractive.net/Launcher v1.01.zip

So thats it for now.  Another update next week.

SW Yoke

Hello,

Just thought it might be interesting to post a few pictures of how my SW Yoke / Dual Strike hack went.  I followed the excellent instructions at

http://arcadecontrols.com/Mirrors/mirror/www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/dual_strike/1up_hack/projects-dualstrike.html

It was quite easy to do but it did take some time.  Here is link to photos along with my explanations of what’s happening.

http://www.urbaninteractive.net/DualStrike.pdf

And above is the final result after it has been mounted in its temporary home.  It’s ugly I know, but it works for now.  In the end it will have a much better home for sure.  For the finishing touch I have ordered the graphic overlay which should arrive next week.