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[IfThenSoftware]

I plan to cross-post to here from our main journal at http://members.gamedev.net/ifthensoftware/journal/.

We are currently working on an MMORPG with the code-name "Loradon 3.0" and an online game called "Stick Adventures Online". We are working to get a preview version of Loradon 3.0 released, but we have not yet given a release date. After releasing the Loradon 3.0 preview, we plan to add much needed features and content to Stick Adventures Online. This journal will detail the development of these two games and any other projects we are working on.

Here are the latest screenshots that we have released for Loradon 3.0.


Loradon 3.0 is temporarily using the Loradon Online website at http://www.ifthensoftware.net/loradon_online/ where you can find our forums and even play Loradon 2.1. Loradon Online might be considered the "classic" version of Loradon 3.0, but the two games will have nearly nothing in common. A detailed progress page for the Loradon 3.0 Preview is located at http://www.ifthensoftware.net/loradon_online/progress/.

The Stick Adventures Online website is located at http://www.ifthensoftware.net/StickAdventuresOnline/ and is where you can find the forums, view screenshots, and download the game.

We have an IRC (internet relay chat) server setup which you can access via the javascript client "Mibbit" at http://irc.ifthensoftware.net or at the top of the forum index http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/. If you want to use an IRC client such as X-Chat or mIRC, the server is irc.ifthensoftware.net, the port is 6667, and the most active channel is usually #lobby

We also have a Twitter account setup which our programmer updates as he works throughout the day. It is located at http://twitter.com/ITS_Invisible.

[IfThenSoftware]

News

IfThen Software LLC's project which is code-named "Loradon 3.0" has finally been unveiled as Volund!

Volund Screenshots:


This marks the start of the closed beta for the Volund Preview. Closed beta will last for at least two weeks, at which point we will release the Volund Preview to the public.

We have released the Volund website, which is located at http://www.volundgame.com. Volund also has a Facebook page located at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Volund/294832706108 so be sure to become a fan!

A new article titled "From the Testers" has been added to the newsletter.  This article will contain information on what is happening in the Volund Preview closed beta, along with a screenshot taken while testing.

This issue also introduces a new article titled "Funny Quote of the Week" which we will include in the newsletter as quotes become available.  These quotes are taken from our community, and could be from our online chat, forums, or the chat from any of our online games.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I can safely say that I am not interested in working on another web site for a while.  We had already created a site for Volund about 2 years ago, but it wasn't finished and needed to be redesigned.  It was fun, but this isn't my main line of work and I will be happy to return to the comfort of MSVC++ and my engine.

Firefox seems to change the brightness of images automatically, which was making both of our recent websites look a little strange.  If you go to about:config and set gfx.color_management.mode to 0, the problem should go away.

Unfortunately, I could not get the registration system to refill the form after returning to it from the EULA page.  I tried various things, such as setting up a hidden form on the EULA page and turning the back button into a submit button, but there was always something crucial wrong with my plan.  I suppose this comes from not working in the field very often, which means my bag-o-tricks is somewhat small.

I am rather proud of the way the screenshot viewer turned out.  It was one of our last minute decisions, but really enhanced the website.  You are shown the screenshot description at the bottom, and you are given previous and next screenshot buttons which allow you to easily scan through all of them.  The page will also automatically scroll down to show as much of the screenshot as possible.

If you are getting error 500 from your web server after making a change to your htaccess file, make sure that it is using consistent line endings.  I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out why a perfectly legal change to the htaccess file was bugging the web server, and finally got it to work after telling Notepad++ to convert the file to UNIX format.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #18

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Community Spotlight
Written by InvaderKED

"Loradon 3.0"'s real name has been revealed!  After about a year, the staff found and decided on giving it this name.  On February 7th, 2010 InvisibleMan unveiled its name as Volund!  This name means "Battle Brave" in the language of the Old Norse.  Right now it is in closed beta of the Preview, in which the level cap has been set to three. The crew of beta testers consists of Acaceol, Chilincheese, Giygas, GreyKnight, InvisibleMan, Jay, KingSpore, pifreak, Rector, Roarman, and TekkenIronFist. From the screenshots at www.volundgame.com that I've seen, this game looks absolutely amazing. There has not been an official release date for this preview yet, but hopefully we get to experience it soon!


From the Testers
Written by Acaceol, Jay, and pifreak

(Click to enlarge)

Teaming up against a tough monster.

Volund so far is shaping up to be a really nice game; it's very fun to play and to work with.  There are a few bugs (no, not those types of bugs, SAO fans), but most of them (if not all of them) will be fixed before the release.  This is as expected, though, since it has not been intensively tested until now.  Because of the loot system and the different methods of play, the game itself is very addicting even when nobody else is on.  It should be really fun when everyone's playing, but even with this small amount of players it's a really great game.  Testing the Volund Preview has been interesting and it is a great privilege.  I'm looking forward to PKing everyone else soon too. :D

See you in the woods,
Ace, Jay and pi


Funny Quote of the Week
Acaceol

Acaceol was playing the game and found a bug that duplicates items.  The following is Acaceol's response to the programmer's request for a detailed description of the bug.

--How to Duplicate Items on Volund--
--An Informative Guide--

  THINGS NEEDED:
    Two (2) Persons
    Two (2) Items of the Same Kind, one with Magikal Properties
      For Example: Linen Coif and Dexterous Linen Coif of Brute Force
      (these being the items that I used)
    Any (?) Number of Items Which be Pleasing to Have More Of

  PREPARATION:
    Make thee sure that the First Person has the Aforementioned Unmagikal Item Equipped
    Make thee sure that the Second Person has All Other Items

  PROCEDURE:
    1) Start a Trade with either Persons
    2) Put thee All the Items into thou Trade Window
    3) Accepteth thou Trade with thou First Person, this thee must do first
    4) Accepteth thou Trade with thou Second Person
    5) Take Off thou Unmagikal Item from thou First Person
    6) Pick Up thou Magikal Item with thou First Person
    7) Thou First Person shalt be Disconnected
    8) Connect thou First Person
    9) Thou shalt have Two of every Items Which be Pleasing to Have More Of
   10) Thou shalt be Holding the Magikal item

[Swattkidd]

Awesome! This is turning out great, cant wait until we can all start playing 

[IfThenSoftware]

News

There is no news to report this week.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I spent most of the passed week setting up the servers to run as services, the idea being that I wouldn't need to worry about manually starting and stopping them.  I managed to get them to run as services, but ran into a snag; I can't guarantee that the MySQL server will still be online when the game server is being shut down.  To fix this problem, I will need to restructure the way the database is kept in sync with the server, which I don't have time for right now.

While learning how to run the servers as services, I discovered something which I have been curious about for a while; how to read HRESULTs (error codes from Windows).  The 32-bit HRESULT is split into parts.  Bits 0-15 store the result code.  Bits 16-27 store the facility code, which tells where this result came from.  Bit 28 is reserved.  Bit 29 is set if this is a customer defined result (set for all non-Microsoft defined results).  Bits 30-31 store the type of result, 00=success, 01=informational, 10=warning 11=error.  For further information, read winerror.h in the PSDK.

After the services work was finished, I started fixing our Bugzilla installation.  For some reason, attachments became corrupt after I reinstalled the dedicated server last week.  After discussing the problem with the people in #mozwebtools on irc.mozilla.org, the problem was found; apparently the attachment data became corrupt when I pasted the backup SQL into Query Browser to perform the restore.  Restoring again from the original backup using the mysql command-line tool solved the problem.  I would like to note that the Mozilla channel I mentioned earlier is one of the friendliest that I have ran into so far.  Special thanks to mkanat for taking the time to explain the Bugzilla code to me.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #19

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Community Spotlight
Written by Jay

AbyssalPhoenix, on the forum, created a Volund fan thread. This thread consists of an image that shows a layout similar to the Volund site; however, it shows information about the history of Volund, important information regarding the game, and predicted (by AbyssalPhoenix) release information.


From the Testers
Written by Jay and Acaceol

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An insanely high (and probably glitched) DPS.

The journey began. As a tester, I must find bugs, glitches, and make sure that the game runs as it should; however, there was another thing I had to try to find: Karth. This secretive being was first alluded to in a conversation between Invisible and another tester, but I had to ask myself, "Where and what could Karth be?" There was no simple answer lest InvisibleMan told me the location himself. I decided then and there that I would find this so called "Karth." The map of the town's outskirts is no laughing matter, but I figured that would be the correct place to look. After a little bit of time had come to pass, I found a secret area. I was excited because I thought this had to be the place; however, that thought was soon overturned as the monstrous Blarg chased after, and killed my character. I then decided to check every single spot between every single tree and on every wall (including in town). I even tried to burst a rock in order to open a wall, but that failed. I finally, after a week's worth of ideas and failures, stumbled upon the great Karth whom had something of great value to give.

This week was spent setting up for some serious bug squashing. The server's now going strong, our bug list is being compiled, and our attention should soon be completely on bugs. We've found some bugs for Invis to work on now that he's able to focus on fixing them, and hopefully we'll blaze through these. I'm looking forward to testing these bugs out, especially the item duplication bug.


Funny Quote of the Week

Background information: HAL uses a "." instead of a "/" for commands.

Acaceol: My bank is full
Acaceol: I have seven Dextrous Linen Coifs of Brute Force
Acaceol: Six Weak Linen Gloves of Brute Force
Acaceol: And four Linen Sandals of Rock
Acaceol: :/
InvisibleMan: From duping?  
Acaceol: ...maaaaybe
HAL_: undefined method `strip' for nil:NilClass

[IfThenSoftware]

News

There is no news to report in this issue.


From the Testers
Written by Jay

(Click to enlarge)

A suspicious new banker in town...  When did he show up?!

Using an item cloning bug found by Acaceol (and described in Newsletter #60 - "Loradon 3.0" Closed Beta), I started to clone rare items to amass a large sum of cash. Of course, doing this after the preview is released would get you banned (however, it will be fixed by then), but for now it's okay as long as we are testing it. Anyway, after buying and duping more expensive items as I went along, I ended up with 55 Talcite (the equivalent of 5,500 Gold, which is the equivalent of 550,000 Silver). That is... a huge amount of money.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

The update system for Volund has been in place for a while.  Your client is notified if it needs to install any updates, and which exact patch to download.  It then accesses the HTTP server and downloads the patch, which is an executable.  Volund then runs the patch and terminates itself so that the patch can update all files.  The patcher waits for Volund to close and then starts downloading the updated files from the HTTP server, saving them to the correct locations in the installation.

This works well, but unfortunately it would mean that you can download Volund without being logged into your account.  To remedy this, I am creating a file transfer server for the updater (and I will most likely be able to reuse it for future projects as well).  The update system will work pretty much the same, except it will now ask for your username and password before patching.

As I usually do, I am experimenting with different (and hopefully better) code designs while creating this file transfer server.  One big design issue that I have ran into in the past is object lifetime.  At some point in an object's update code, the object may need to be removed for various reasons (client objects need to be disconnected, character objects need to die, projectiles need to collide with something, etc).  This causes a problem when later update code is executed on the removed object in the same frame.  To solve this, each object has a state.  When an object is in a certain state, the object's manager removes it at the end of the frame.  If parts of the object must not be accessed when the object is pending removal, the code will need to check for that state and deny access if it is set.

With this new server, I am using atexit() to handle shutdown.  Previously, I was using kbhit() to detect a key press, which would then execute the shutdown code.  The problem with only using kbhit() to handle shutdown is that your application will not shutdown correctly if the console window is closed or your program is terminated with Ctrl+C or similar methods.  Another downside with kbhit() is that if you accidentally press a key while the console window has focus, your application shuts down.

If you are using atexit() and your program is crashing on shutdown, make sure you aren't using the common language runtime.  For some reason, the CLR causes atexit() to fail (at least for me) with "the string binding is invalid".


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #20

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Community Spotlight

There is no community spotlight in this issue.


Funny Quote of the Week

Background Information: GreyKnight went to sell stuff to the blacksmith, but found that the blacksmith had somehow become cloned.  The game glitched when he tried to trade with the clone, causing his client to crash.  When he logged back in, the clone was gone.  Figuring it was just a bug, he went to the bank...  To find that there was somehow a third banker.

Banker: Welcome to the bank!
Banker: Please deposit your gold here!
Message from Test to Banker: Uh... hello?
Test: That is odd...
Roarman: What?
Test: The "Banker" is talking to me
Banker: Welcome to the bank!
Turret: Sentience!
Test: Did you see that?
Turret: o:
Message from Test to Banker: Hello?
Message from Banker to Test: Welcome to the bank!
Test: Banker stole my torch 0.o
JaytheFrozen: That's not nice
Message from Test to Banker: Roarman, is that you?
Message from Banker to Test: Welcome to the bank!

[IfThenSoftware]

News

A new forum titled "Community Spotlight" has been added to the IfThen Software forums.  Its purpose is to collect everyone's and anyone's contributions to the weekly community spotlight newsletter article.  If you have anything you wish to contribute, please post it!  Instructions are in the thread titled "What Is This For?".  You will be credited for your contributions in the by-line for the article.

Loradon Online is officially closed.  It has been a dead project without updates or support for roughly 4 years, and with Volund being in closed beta it is time to finally close the doors on Loradon.  The Loradon Online forum has been turned into a read-only archive, so Loradon fans will still be able to look back on the history of our longest standing game.

Volund now has its own forum.  The game has not yet been released to the public, but feel free to post in the forum with your thoughts, opinions, and theories.  Some players are even starting up Volund guilds already.


From the Testers
Written by Jay

(Click to enlarge)

This image shows an example of bugged health and mana due to the rings.

Not much has happened in the past week of testing. Most of the testers (including myself) have been logging onto the game less than we have in previous weeks. However, there is one thing I'd like to write about: magical rings. There are currently three types of magical rings in the game, and each one has a different enhancement. One raises stamina, one raises mana, and one raises health (along with additional enhancements you'll have to wait to see).

There is, however, a problem with the rings. They are extremely bugged. By "bugged" I mean that there are several issues that they present when being worn. Depending on which ring is being used, some of the stats will appear to raise to unprecedented levels when in battle (e.g. the ring that raises health will appear to give you 15 maximum health sometimes when enemies attack you). However, these raises in stats do not actually occur (It might say you have 1,000 HP, but you would really have your current max which might be around 140-160).


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I ran into a problem with the garbage collection system's smart array.  Given indices of certain types, the compiler was unable to figure out if it should use the default subscript operator or one which I defined.  This issue was eventually fixed by overloading the subscript operator for every possible index type.

The previous weekend and the following Monday were rather busy for me since the Windows 7 beta which I had installed on my work machine was set to expire on the first of March.  Thankfully, nothing was lost in the transfer back to Windows XP except movable applications in the task bar and automatic desktop wallpaper rotation.  I can't really recover the first loss, but I started looking into ways to automatically change the desktop wallpaper.  I finally settled on writing my own program to do it (how hard could it be?).  That's when I found out that altering the desktop wallpaper is not exactly straight forward unless you know exactly what to look for.

There are a couple of ways to change the desktop wallpaper.  The first method that I found was to use SystemParametersInfo() with SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER.  The problem with this method is that it only supports bitmaps.

The second method is to use the ActiveDesktop COM object.  A code example is probably the best way to explain this, so here is the SetWallpaper() function which I created:

Code:

// Sets the desktop wallpaper using ActiveDesktop.
//
// Parameters
//		a_szFile
//			The path and name of the file which stores the image that is to be used as the desktop wallpaper.  Common image formats may be used, including bmp, jpg, and png.
//		a_dwStyle
//			The wallpaper style.  Possibly values: WPSTYLE_CENTER WPSTYLE_TILE WPSTYLE_STRETCH
//
// Return Value
//		Returns true if the wallpaper was successfully changed, false otherwise.
bool SetWallpaper(char *a_szFile, DWORD a_dwStyle)
{
	// Make sure that the pointer to the filepath string is valid.
	if (a_szFile == NULL) return (false);
	
	// Make sure that the wallpaper style is valid.
	if ((a_dwStyle != WPSTYLE_CENTER) && (a_dwStyle != WPSTYLE_TILE) && (a_dwStyle != WPSTYLE_STRETCH)) return (false);
	
	// Initialize COM.
	HRESULT hr = CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED);
	if (FAILED(hr))
	{
		// COM could not be initialized, so return failure.
		return (false);
	}
	
	// Create an instance of the active desktop COM object and retrieve an interface to the object.
	IActiveDesktop *objActiveDesktop = NULL;
	hr = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_ActiveDesktop, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, IID_IActiveDesktop, (void **)&objActiveDesktop);
	if (FAILED(hr))
	{
		// Creating the active desktop COM object failed, so cleanup and return failure.
		CoUninitialize();
		return (false);
	}
	
	// The active desktop's SetWallpaper() function only accepts filename strings in wide character format.  So we need to convert from the multibyte string to a wide character string.
	WCHAR wszFile[MAX_PATH];
	int iLen = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, a_szFile, -1, wszFile, MAX_PATH);
	if (iLen == 0)
	{
		// Converting the filepath string from multibyte to widecharacter failed, so cleanup and return failure.
		objActiveDesktop->Release();
		CoUninitialize();
		return (false);
	}
	
	// Finally set the desktop wallpaper to the image in the file specified.
	hr = objActiveDesktop->SetWallpaper(wszFile, 0);
	if (FAILED(hr))
	{
		// Setting the desktop wallpaper failed, so cleanup and return failure.
		objActiveDesktop->Release();
		CoUninitialize();
		return (false);
	}
	
	// Set the wallpaper style.  The wallpaper can be stretched, centered, or tiled.
	WALLPAPEROPT wallpaperOptions;
	wallpaperOptions.dwSize = sizeof(WALLPAPEROPT);
	wallpaperOptions.dwStyle = a_dwStyle;
	hr = objActiveDesktop->SetWallpaperOptions(&wallpaperOptions, 0);
	if (FAILED(hr))
	{
		// Setting the wallpaper style failed, so cleanup and return failure.
		objActiveDesktop->Release();
		CoUninitialize();
		return (false);
	}
	
	// Save the changes.  This will make the new wallpaper appear.
	hr = objActiveDesktop->ApplyChanges(AD_APPLY_SAVE);
	if (FAILED(hr))
	{
		// Saving the changes failed, so cleanup and return failure.
		objActiveDesktop->Release();
		CoUninitialize();
		return (false);
	}
	
	// The wallpaper has been set successfully, so cleanup and return success.
	objActiveDesktop->Release();
	CoUninitialize();
	return (true);
}

I have also released the wallpaper rotater, which you can download here: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/invisibleman/RotateWallpaper.zip  Please read the included README.txt file before running the program!

I ran into a problem with atexit().  For some reason, the function I was giving to atexit() was not being called in the debug build.  Suspecting the problem was with the project settings, I compared (using TortoiseMerge) the project against another one which worked correctly.  Apparently the project's debug mode was using the multi-threaded runtime (/MTd) rather than the multi-threaded DLL runtime (/MDd).  I would think that both should support atexit(), but it appears as though /MT doesn't.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #21

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Community Spotlight

There is no community spotlight in this issue.

To contribute to future community spotlight articles, please visit this forum: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=37


Funny Quote of the Week

Background information: Acaceol apparently trained a polar bear to spy on InvisibleMan.

pifreak: why is the ping so high?
Acaceol: Mountains
Acaceol: :/
InvisibleMan: Rats.
pifreak: The wires are chewed up?
Acaceol: I told you rats didn't conduct very quickly
InvisibleMan: Acaceol: Neither do polar bears :/
Acaceol: You can't patch cords with rats, use copper wire
Acaceol: I'd need a bit of capital to send robots to spy on you
Acaceol: Trained animals are easier
InvisibleMan: Well, all these trained animals are ending up as part of the phone line...  Send a gold plated something next time
Acaceol: Hmm, maybe I'll send a bug d:
Acaceol: That'd be useful to have in the phone line
InvisibleMan: *ba-dum-dum tssh*

[Epitaph64]

Hmm no responses? Anyways, this looks really nice. I like the artwork in the GUI! It seems quite high quality.

[alspal]

Can you fight slimes in this game?

[IfThenSoftware]

News

Volund Preview 1 will be released on Saturday, April 10th, 2010.  Be sure to checkout the Volund website at http://www.volundgame.com for a countdown to the release and information about the game.

The Volund Facebook page has been given an easier to remember address. http://www.facebook.com/Volundgame


From the Testers
Written by Jay

The beta has gone through many game versions in order to make sure that all the bugs are found. When one version is created, most of the previous bugs were fixed; however, we had to test to make sure more bugs weren't created. There's the rub: there have always been some new glitches and bugs with every version. This is not necessarily bad, because the newer bugs have usually not been as serious as the older ones.

With the announcement of a release date for the first Volund preview, a rush of orders came in that, when summarized, told us to do absolutely everything anyone can do and make sure it works properly. This is when testing the balance of classes became important. Though it's a pretty easy task to test everything, it is extremely time consuming. Making sure classes are balanced, testing the banking system, testing the trading system, leveling to the level cap with every class possible, testing out group combinations for both PvP and PvE. Hopefully our efforts will not be wasted and the preview will be released without a bug or glitch in sight.

(Click to enlarge)

A prime example of a "bug".


A video created by Jay to show InvisibleMan and GreyKnight a glitch with the map so they could fix it.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

The network server system has been touched up a bit.  Rather than having a single class which handles all connected and connecting clients, there is now a server object which listens for incoming connections.  When a connection has been established, the server creates a client object, connects it to the client who has just connected, and hands this to its owner.  The owner is from this point responsible for the connection; the server object has no control or knowledge of it.  This same client class is also used for connecting to servers, removing the need to have a server-client and a client-client.  There may be unforeseen problems with this design, but at the moment it is working well.

The engine now uses a result code system modeled after HRESULT.  It allows me to easily check if the result is a failure or success, and retrieve additional information about the result.  Each result is tagged with the code of the system which generated it, along with a system specific code describing what happened.

Due to time constraints, the Volund Preview 1 will release without an automatic update system.  Fortunately, the download is relatively small so reinstalling to update your game shouldn't be too much of a hassle.

I have spent most of the passed month fixing bugs.  There are still a few problems, but all majors issues have been fixed.  We are very close to the release of the first preview!


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #22

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Community Spotlight

With the release of the first Volund preview announced to the public, the Ifthen Software community has gotten a surge of activity. Members that have not been around for a while have come, and new members are coming. The forum, which is usually relatively quiet, is now bustling with posts all over. Volund has restored the community to its former glory.
-jaythemage

After a long time of silence and secrecy, the Stick Network announced it's return.  The clan was resurrected by AbyssalPhoenix and is already getting new members.
-Eeevil

Well, I doubt any of you care, but the banned RageMan1990 is back to play Volund (if you haven't known yet).  AbyssalPhoenix's fan site at http://volund.isgreat.org/ has been created.  Also, Ironhide has made a Volund Wikia, editable by anyone, at http://volundgame.wikia.com/wiki/Volund_Wiki  Furthermore, the excitement has caused players to create clans before the game was even released. This shows that Volund may be the greatest thing IfThenSoftware has created.  Oh yeah, I forgot about my 'Volund History thing": http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1904  And if you want to see Miotatsu's SAO history: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1776
-Clignotement

All in all everyone is excited for the release of Volund in a few days.
-SadisticusMaxim

To contribute to future community spotlight articles, please visit this forum: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=37


Funny Quote of the Week

Background information: Jay (a Volund tester) was talking to some people in IRC about Volund.

Jay: I believe all of the testers' accounts are going to be wiped before it goes public
Jay: But yeah, I know all about the game
xXLonelyEmoXx: Yea..
xXLonelyEmoXx: So a big headstart..
Jay: If they're not wiped, then I'll have the most amount of money that anyone will ever get
Jay: Well, at least with this version
xXLonelyEmoXx: How much is that?
Jay: It was in one of the newsletters
Jay: It's around 620,000
Jay: I think
xXLonelyEmoXx: Wow nice..
pifreak: hax
pifreak: dirty duper
Jay: Indeed
Jay: But now that bug is fixed
Jay: Good thing I tested it thoroughly
Jay:

[ITS_Mike]

Thanks for the replies!

Can you fight slimes in this game?

Yes, there are two types of slime monsters in Volund Preview 1.

[IfThenSoftware]

News

The first Volund preview has been released!  If you haven't already done so, go to http://www.volundgame.com and register your account.  You will then be able to download the game by clicking on the "Play Now" button.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

Other than getting Volund Preview 1 out the door and working correctly, I have been trying to setup a video creation workflow.  Video creation is not quite as easy as one might expect.  After roughly a month of research and trial and error, the workflow looks something like this: Capture video - Fix audio sync and convert to raw .avi - Convert to lossless .mov - Edit - Export to raw .avi - Convert to a high quality format which YouTube does not mess with much.  So far, it is working well.

I have also been doing research for a new project we are working on.  More information will be provided in the next newsletter issue.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #23

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Community Spotlight

With the release of the first Volund preview, the community was going wild. Forum posts were continuous, people were always on Volund, markets were being created, and many rumors of fake monsters were created. However, after a little over a month of public exposure, Volund is not as active as it originally was, and forum posts have been less common. Yet, with hopes of the next preview being released shortly, the community silently awaits their return.

Also, many members are excited over what is ITS's mystery project. InvisibleMan announced to IRC-goers that a new project was being worked on, yet that is all he had stated. Those who know that something new is on the horizon have been busy making guesses at what the surprise might be.
-jaythemage

To contribute to future community spotlight articles, please visit this forum: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=37


Funny Quote of the Week

Background information: shares5, RageMan, MagillaGorilla, SuperSunMan, and ryanyoyoyo were troublemakers/annoyances in the community.

pifreak: InvisibleMan for your next game make us all little moderator looking characters with banhammers and we have to fight a giant boss that is a combination of shares5, RageMan, MagillaGorilla, and SuperSunMan (which spits ryanyoyoyo minions)

[Alex May]

Looks good guys.

[davidp]

this is looking really awesome!

[IfThenSoftware]

News

We have officially announced that we are starting a new project.  You can view the first released piece of concept art on the forums by clicking on the following image:



From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

The week started off well.  It was fairly easy to get a single layer of isometric tiles to tile without seams.


However, when I progressed to walls, I ran into some depth problems which I wasn't expecting to have to deal with that soon.  I still don't have the problem solved completely, as I will need to decide on a maximum view distance, but the basic occlusion seems to be working correctly.



Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #24

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Community Spotlight

The community, though not as active as in the previous months, has had some things to talk about. First off, there is ITS' new mystery project. This project has been hinted at in the "Announcements" forum. Not much information has been released about this project aside from two pictures and a depth test of the isometric engine on ITS' YouTube page. The members have speculated what the project might possibly be about, but for now no one is quite sure. On the forums some new topics have been posted, but overall it has been a lazy week over on the ITS forums. Though IRC still has members come in daily and is more active than the forums.
Rest assured, activity at ITS will most definitely pick up once schools let out their students for summer vacation.
-SadisticusMaxim

There has been a number of things going on in the IfThen Software community and a couple of these 'things' include:
-Concept Art for a new project:
There has been a new Project going on and little is known about it except for a picture.  Some members of the ITS community have debated what the name would be.  And to think that all of this came by one piece of art.  We do know that the project will be Isometric.  No release date has been given yet.
-Text RPG based on Volund
A new text RPG by Infection is taking its toll on 5 members of the community and is turning out some-what of a success.
-Infection

I still think the isometric engine looks like it's for RTS games.
-jaythemage

To contribute to future community spotlight articles, please visit this forum: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=37


Funny Quote of the Week

Background information: If you aren't a programmer, this joke probably won't make sense.

Acaceol: if ( !try{} ) { while(1) try{} }
Acaceol: If at first you don't succeed, try try again
Acaceol: d:

[IfThenSoftware]

News

The codename for our main project has been revealed as "Merki" and a forum for it has been created.  http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=41


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I've been learning how to create and use projection and view matrices.  Tiles are created as 3D meshes and rendered at an isometric angle with orthographic projection.  We still need to get the content creation pipeline working for this new setup, but that shouldn't be too difficult.  I am currently looking into using Milkshape3D and Wings3D for the mesh creation and uv mapping.



Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #25

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Community Spotlight

I have compiled a list of known information about the project codenamed "Merki", which can be found at http://ace.kingsporeestates.com/Merki/.  I will be updating the list whenever anything major is announced or released. If you have anything to add to this page, please email me at the link provided in the page. Note that the speculation at the bottom of the news posts is not official, and may not be completely accurate.
-Ace

Due to further posts on InvisibleMan's Twitter account such as "Working on converting from screen space to world space," many members of the community have changed their decision (if it was not decided) that the new project will be a turn-based (like Final Fantasy I through X) or real-time RPG like the 'Tales of' series). Some members of the community have even stated that they think it will be a Tactical RPG (like Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy Tactics). Even with all this speculation, the development team has given no more deliberate hints to allow us to form more thoughts about the upcoming project.
-jaythemage

To contribute to future community spotlight articles, please visit this forum: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=37


Funny Quote of the Week
From the IRC chatroom

Background information: Blarg is a tough boss in Volund.

Jay: Time to solo Blarg without potions
Ace: That's going to take a few forevers :/

[IfThenSoftware]

News

New concept art for Merki has been released, along with a look at the artwork pipeline.







From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

Last week I created a model viewer for our artist, GreyKnight.  I was unable to find a 3D modeling program which allowed enough fine-tuning of the camera and projection.  The artwork needs to be drawn at an orthographic custom-isometric angle so that the texture looks correct after being applied to a mesh.  The closest I was able to get was Wings3D, but it wasn't quite close enough.  While powerful, their custom camera coordinate editor wasn't designed with this kind of thing in mind.  I finally settled on setting up a special copy of the isometric workbench which loads a model called test.ms3d and displays it.  It would have been nice to keep model editing and capturing in the same tool, but this works fine.

It turns out that it was a good thing I created that model viewer.  One of the requirements for it was a lighting system.  The reason for this is to make it easier for GreyKnight to find the edges between polygons; with flat shading, the only way you will see them is if you color them separately in the model editor.  I already had a usable lighting system jury-rigged to the vertex projection system (the testbed uses software transformation currently), but the lighting would change as you moved the camera around, and it wasn't at quite the right angle.  So I created a basic light which could be moved around until we found the correct angle.  Unfortunately, as I moved the light around I noticed it was flashing in and out at certain positions.  After double-checking the code, I found what appeared to be the problem: the dot product was taking into account the w component of the vectors.  Thinking it must have been a copy+paste error, I removed the code and tried the demo again...  To find that everything had disappeared.  You may have already guessed it; that w in the dot product calculation was being used in projection.  To make matrix-vector multiplication code easier to read, I was creating temporary vectors from the matrix and performing a dot product between them and the vector.  Unfortunately, the w component is infact required for this to work correctly.  After I found what the root problem was, the solution was rather direct: create separate 3x3 and 4x4 matrix classes, as well as 3D and 4D vectors.  The math system is once again working correctly, as far as I can tell.

I was two days into the design of the rendering pipeline when I stumbled on an interesting technique: instancing.  Instancing, in reference to rendering, is where you have one copy of a mesh's geometry which is drawn over and over again for each instance of its use.  For example, you would send the geometry for a tree to the graphics card, and then just send a bunch of draw operations with different world matrices to position the tree in the correct location and orientation.  Without instancing, you would need to send the geometry for that tree in addition to each world transform to the graphics card with each draw operation.  I started work on a new design, but the events I mentioned previously held me up for most of the week.  I plan on finishing the design next week, and hopefully I will be posting a video showing off the new renderer.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #26

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Community Spotlight
Written by jaythemage

Over the past week, a challenge was issued to the SAO community: If we donate a total of $500 to IfThen Software, the development team will update SAO.

There has been much debate over what would happen should this actually occur, but the general consensus is that if anyone has a few extra dollars, he/she would donate a little. Maybe over time, the $500 mark will be reached.

To contribute to future community spotlight articles, please visit this forum: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/index.php?showforum=37


Funny Quote of the Week
From the IRC chatroom

Background information: Pifreak (an SAO moderator) was talking with the people in SAO, and tried giving a link to the forums using a non-existent HAL command.  HAL shows the SAO in-game chat in real-time.

pifreak: .say forums
pifreak:
HAL: Syncopation: http://www.ifthensoftware.net/forums/
InvisibleMan: Wow, it worked

[IfThenSoftware]

News

Development on Stick Adventures Online will be starting very soon.  Check the game's website to see our progress till then.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

I've spent the last 4-5 months studying physics.  I'll need that knowledge for Merki, the SAO updates, and probably every other project we work on.

For anyone interested, these are some good resources for learning physics:
http://www.brightstorm.com/math - Introduction to calculus
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/ - Calculus, differential equations
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/ - Beginner level physics
http://electron9.phys.utk.edu/phys135d/Modules.asp - College level physics.  There are some typos though, so watch out for that.
http://chrishecker.com/Rigid_Body_Dynamics - Rigid body dynamics, specific to game programming.
http://gafferongames.com/game-physics/ - Solid groundwork for making a physics simulation.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~baraff/sigcourse/ - Particle systems and rigid body dynamics, specific to game programming.

So far, I have a working particle system and unconstrained rigid bodies.  If you are interested in seeing the physics system in its current state, you can get it here.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #27

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Community Spotlight
Written by jaythemage

In August, after Corvus stated that mods were dead because of the strict rules of using copyrighted material, Ace created and released a "Mod Scene Defibrillator" called SAO_DAT_EDIT. This program allows users to edit the DAT files of SAO to change image proportions which enables modders to edit the sizes of the sprites and have an even broader variety of ideas for mods. However, the program has not been used to create any mods by this time despite the major potential of the program.

The wait has been long, but fans of Stick Adventures Online are finally getting another major update. There have been several predictions of what exactly will be included in the update; however, the most common are that there will be at least one new map and that there will be several new enemies. Though there will be a price to pay for the update, many fans are willing to pay to play SAO's big update, even though they do not yet know how much it will cost.

Funny Quote of the Week
From the SAO moderator's channel

Background information: An SAO player had just been banned for swearing.  pifreak (an SAO moderator) then said this in the moderating channel, regarding the recent ban.

pifreak: *tutorial* How not to respond to the queston: "Why did you avoid the filter?"
pifreak: "i dont know i'm kinda bored lol"

[nikki]

Fantastic posts !

great

i love those sketches too

[IfThenSoftware]

News

There is no news to report in this issue.


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

It turns out that my previous trouble with non-penetrating rigid body simulation was actually caused by an incorrectly calculated collision normal.  On vertex-vertex collisions, the normal was chosen to be pointing in the direction of the center of the body to the point of collision.  Handling vertex-vertex collisions as vertex-edge collisions solved the problem and the simulation no longer stalls as frequently when two bodies collide.

You might have noticed I said "as frequently".  That is the problem I have been trying to tackle since Monday.  The simulation will sometimes stall when two bodies collide, and it will definitely stall if I try to stack two or more bodies on top of each other (or push them into a wall, etc).  I suspect this is at least partially because I am not applying resting contact forces.

I read through the "Resting Contact" section of David Baraff's "Rigid Body Simulation II - Nonpenetration Constaints" from "Physically Based Modeling".  It was informative, but unfortunately not practical for me since it relies on having a quadratic program solver.

"Linear programming" and "quadratic programming" are new to me, and so I have spent the previous few days learning the basics.  Hopefully this will be enough to get through the next article I am planning to read, also by David Baraff, titled "Fast Contact Force Computation for Nonpenetrating Rigid Bodies".  From what I have read, the method described by it does not require solving an optimization problem, so it should be a lot easier to implement.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #28

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Community Spotlight
Written by jaythemage

With anticipation about the SAO update on the rise, some members are taking the time to create some mods while the current version is still the only version of the game.


Funny Quote of the Week
From the online chat

Background information: "neko" is the Japanese word for "cat".

Jay: If a single humanoid alien attacked your hometown and was destroying everything it saw with super lazer beams from its eyes, and told you that you could take one thing out of your room to battle it, what would you take?
InvisibleMan: Err, the SNES I guess.  It can't be used for anything else
Jay: I think I'd take one cat from each of my houses
Jay: Assuming I get one thing from each of my rooms
InvisibleMan: So you'd be kind of like a necromancer?
Jay: Heh, more like nekomancer

[IfThenSoftware]

News

Version 1.2.5 of Stick Adventures Online has been released.  In this update, the in-game chat has been replaced by the web-based chat, a help button has been added, and the ban list has been cleared.

Development has finally started again for Stick Adventures Online.  The game is being recoded from the ground up.  This update is being called "SAO: Redux".


From the Programmer
Written by Invisible

If you are writing a physics engine, I highly recommend reading Nonconvex Rigid Bodies with Stacking.  It's easy to read for the most part, and really helped tie up some loose ends for me.  I implemented the described method, except without using a contact graph and shock propagation (friction was also omitted).  The resulting physics engine was far from perfect, but gave me that final bit of information I felt I was missing.  I believe I now have enough experience with writing physics engines to write the simple one which SAO will use.

I'm currently in the process of recoding SAO.  I have a movable camera and character working, as well as jumping and collision with one-way and solid platforms.  The trick to getting one-way platforms to work correctly is to check if the character was intersecting the platform at the beginning of the timestep.  If so, let him fall the rest of the way through it.  If not, block movement if the character is currently intersecting the top of the platform and is moving downwards.


Currently the game is only showing what it "sees".  This makes it easier to debug.  I am currently adding in the background layer though, so graphics are coming soon.

If you are interested in trying SAO: Redux as it is being developed, feel free to stop on by the online chat and ask for the latest demo.


Artist's Easel
Written by GreyKnight

iScribble Sketches #29

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Community Spotlight

There is no community spotlight article this week.  If you have anything you would like to say in the next community spotlight article, please post it here.


Funny Quote of the Week
From the online chat

InvisibleMan: Wow, I may have set the terminal velocity a bit too high
InvisibleMan: At this rate, your character will move the world when he hits