Michael’s Blog

This last month has been quite a roller-coaster. I have had two exams, two assignments, three placement interviews, FIVE GOOOLD RINGS and a placement offered and accepted in Munich (Ok, I am still working on sorting out the rings, but its in the works).

I have, about two weeks ago, been accepted onto a 12-month placement with Eurocopter in Germany which I really cannot wait for. Adding the cherry on the cake, Andy has also been accepted to Eurocopter! Come July I will be jet-setting away to work for a year. I am really, really looking forward to this!!

Because of this new placement, when I am over there this website is going to under-go some changes. It will become much less about games and more about myself and my time in Munich. This will be mainly to keep friends and family updated, as it will be quite the adventure and I want somewhere to share it!

So now, I am sat on my couch at home typing this, having just last week finished my last lecture for the next 16 months and between myself and a 1 month holiday sits one assignment and three exams.

This last year has been an interesting one; friendships have been made, changed and tightened and I feel that as a programmer I have shot forward by a ton. I understand most, if not all, of the OpenGL concepts we have been taught and have learnt 2 new languages and at least one more framework. Sample of this years work can be found at the ‘My Applications’ link at the top.

This is the first post in another effort to keep this website more up-to-date and it will be successful this time!!

Placement, University Life, University, update, Work

Phew!

Been a long week, 4 exams and 2 assignments over the last 5 days. With the exception of one report, last semester is finished! Onto a week of sleep and games

Im back in Stafford now, have been since the 3rd and its been differant getting back into the student life style and will be even more-so in the coming week when the first lectures start.

New year has been fun, had quite a quiet day as most of the family who normally come around were either out or ill .

On a completly unrelated note however, Game’s sales are crazy. Yesterday I picked up a brand new copy of the collectors edition of Alone in the Dark (the new one)… for £6.99… Bargin! It even came with an awsome little figure of some guy who I presume is the main character…

Hope all has been well for everyone!

Gaming, Programming, University Gaming, University, Work

Long time no post, well, here it goes.

In the few weeks before Christmas I’ve been trying to get as much of the big areas of work done as possible, so that more time can be spent being joyous, merry and what have you. So its been quite a busy week. 

My OpenGL project is almost finished (Screenshot of which will be up *after* hand-in), only really got the finishing touches left to add, but the meat of it is there. I havnt spend much time working with XNA, mainly due to the ease that it brings working with it. Plans are in motion for ‘Level 2′ (our own custom level), with the to-the-spec level being almost complete. Just need to add in some balloon->wall collision, and the life system… then get it to transition to level 2. All of which shouldn’t take long!

I have however, hit a large brick wall. I have been developing my OpenGL work on my gaming PC, however it will need to work on my laptop for demonstrating. Well fine, so I load the thing up and get given quite a hefty 14FPS. Some would say reduce its 1600 spheres down, but I say nay! That’s a last resort, I quite like the large amount of objects it uses . Now, my second thought was to reduce the size of the call stack it generates, but according to Andy, this will produce negligible results. So after sifting through my code, changing the odd line or three, ive given it a 4FPS boost. What I really need is a profiler to find out where its getting dragged down in performance…or some kind of mega-powerful laptop…

PS. I am planning to write the ‘About Me’ section at some point before christmas

OpenGL, Programming, University OpenGL, Programming, University, Work, XNA

Ive been doing alot of programming this weekend towards my two assignments left from this year (OpenGL and XNA).

I have only just started the XNA, getting a basic framework in-place today with level stacks and what-have-you. 

Yesterday I finally finished getting a perfect free-look camera implimented in OpenGL, I might start on the 3DSMax file reader tonight.

On the gaming side, Vox ex Machina have posted an interesting article about Age of Conan and its ‘death’ (Thanks Kotaku! – Clicky). Really is a shame, I was hoping to hop back into Hyboria now I have this new PC, but now, well…meh.

Gaming, OpenGL, Programming Age of Conan, Kotaku, OpenGL, Programming, Work, XNA