general / news
9 April 2009
We are going to breakpoint!28 August 2008
ToolsWe are quite happy that our NVScene production is so well received. We had this really awesome idea for a demo, but due to lack of time we were not able to complete it. Still we wanted to release something, so about ten days before the deadline we ditched the first idea for now and decided to do something completely different.
Whether you like it or not, making a tool for the demosystem we have, has really helped us making and finetuning this production. Without it, it was no use even trying to get something done for NVScene in the amount of time we ended up having. I thought it might be interesting for people who are wondering if making a tool for their demosystem is worth it, to get a look backstage and to get a little bit of information on how our tool came to be.
First off, this is what it looks like:
Our demosystem is written for .Net using mostly C# and we made the demos by writing code and editing script files. This sucked donkey balls, not only because as a designer typing some weird script just sucks, but mostly the time that was needed after each edit of the scripts to verify if what you have changed is satisfactory, was unacceptable. This long turnaround time really holds you back on your creativity.
When we got confirmation that we were about to receive a demokit, we decided that we should either make a new demosystem from scratch in cpp (everyone has random (re)usable classes spread all over their computer right?), one that would be better suited to make a tool for, or we hacked a tool ontop of our good old .Net engine. The .Net engine however, has evolved over a few years and probably don't have to elaborate in what condition it is code-wise :)
After scraping some cpp classes together from old projects into a nice static library, I changed my mind and went on to code on an effect in C#. At this moment I was so fed up with the hassle I needed to go through to get just only one effect on the screen I decided to make an as lightweight as possible exe which I could feed the effect dll on the commandline, in order to be able to quickly get feedback on what I have done. I called this thing `MiniPlayer` and it worked like a charm.
After some coding on an effect I wanted to tweak it in realtime, again to get feedback quickly, so I hacked up a simple interface with Windows.Forms where I could change some effect parameters runtime. With the background I have in Qt using the Windows.Forms was quite straightforward, and I must say I was impressed about the quality of this toolkit (Having seen old methods to make interfaces on windows).
I showed what I had made on our next meeting and TheBat and Numtek were like, "Wow, awesome you are making an editor!". But this was not my intention at all in the first place. I just wanted to make a simple little exe that would just run the effect I was coding on and STFU. After the enthusiasm of the designers and after adding some more functionality it was ready to be used as an alternative for editing the script files. At this point we were just able to load one effect dll, tweak its parameters and copy on the clipboard the script text needed to paste in the demo scripts.
Seeing how relatively easy the interface part was I kept adding more features, till at one point I was duplicating so much code from the main demo I just had to merge. And so I did, this was the first time since N months I had looked at the system's code (RenHoek has coded most of it, or at least in the beginning of this project). It needed alot of small changes (read: dirty hacks) so I could work with the fundamental limitations the system has. But the result is what you can see above. And if I see what Numtek and TheBat made with it in such a short time I know I have made a good choice in spending some 80 hours making the tool, instead of making some effects code.
BetA
26 August 2008
NVScene 2008We've just uploaded our NVScene entry. Due to summer vacation and stuff we started shortly before the deadline, but thanks to our new tools we finished barely (alive) on time.
Last week we had an entirely different concept, but as time was running short we decided to put on our sunglasses and go with the happy summer vibe. Now it's time celebrate your summer with everyone's favourite subtractive colourmodel, CMYK!
Special thanks for EatMe, who made the soundtrack. He's got a lot more tunes online at http://ietmie.nl/
31 July 2006
DemoZone 2006We just returned from DemoZone 2006, we ended on the 2nd place in the PC demo competition! The party was enjoyable and we had great weather. Many thanks to the organisers for bringing us this party. One of the things which made it easier to enjoy the party was that we did not have to work real hard to finish our demo. Off course we still had some work to do, but it was mainly script-work.
It seems like we're finally getting closer to the stage of better preparations, and creating the biggest part of the demo before we head to a party (it only took us like 6 years to get to this stage, then again, better late then never).
The C# system is getting better and better too. Many of the 'basic' features are implemented now, with less and less bugs. Profiling and speed optimising will be one of the next targets, because Bluem has a huge loading time.
Soon the preparations for BCN will start, where we will (hopefully) release the 4th demo using this system.
So, see you at BCN!
Did you know that 'interviewing' random gamers passing by in the middle of the night with a lamp, okkie and some fellow sceners can be very amusing? You should try this once!
4 screenshots taken from the 'Bluem' demo, released at DemoZone 2006.
11 June 2006
Outline 2006
The demoparty Outline had gone to a multiplatform party this year (including PC),
so we decided it was time to bring it a visit. And a visit it was worth, there were
several releases, we had a very good time at Outline.
Finally a party were we did not have to work till the deadline to finish the
demo, we decided on forehand we would not finish it.
We did set some other goals, one of the ideas was to expand the demosystem, but because we were
too busy relaxing we did not really do much.
These are 2 of the releases at Outline
64k "Terug naar de grondtoon - Numtek"
Still image "Fuzziness - TheBat"
Coming up next: DemoZone, expect a good release from us there.
18 April 2006
Breakpoint 2006
We returned from Breakpoint, and had a real nice party again this year. We managed
to finish our second entry using our own demosystem, and although it ended at the 20th
place i think we made good progress.
About Breakpoint, it was a great party again this year, the atmosphere was fantastic,
the location had even better facilities this year. The food was better, the noise inside was better,
there was even a seperate seminar room, a big thanks to the organisers for bringing us such a great party.
As expected we managed to release a new demo at Breakpoint 2006. It's the second demo released
using our own C# system and it's called Kukulkan. The title of this demo is a reference to one of the famous Mayan temples
which is called "Kukulkan". The theme was inspired by the 'rumble in the jungle' theme for this breakpoint.
The music for this demo was custom made for us by Dead.Circuit.
Here you see some screenshots
15 January 2006
Welcome to the new Guideline site!
After a long time (about 2 years) of 'coming soon' with the same image and nothing happening
for a long while (you see the image above this little note), we decided it was
time for a new site. Well initially our Alusi decided it was time for a new
page, and after some hassle and some discussion, a new design was made and
that's what you can see here. The design is not entirely finished yet, but at
least it's somewhat decent. We plan to do some more updates (and more often)
in the future, about projects we're working on, things that bother us or other
stuff that comes to our mind. Right now we're working on a new demo for Breakpoint 2006, i will post more about that later.
5 december 2003
site is coming soon!