29th April 2010 » I know, I know
I can be terrible at keeping this site up to date. There's really not been a whole lot going on for me over the past couple months. Work has been busy and the artists helping out on my game are all currently involved in other projects.
I have recently made some crazy purchases, music-production-wise. I've recently tried out a new DAW, Presonus Studio One. It's one of the few sequencers I've tried that I can bear to use, so I recommend it to anyone who finds Cubase/Logic/Protools/etc. a bit stuffy to use. It still lacks slightly when it comes to the piano roll (compared to FL Studio, at least) but the development team seem keen to improve it based on user feedback.
I have access to 3D Studio Max 2011 now. The 2010 plugins for Battlezone seem to work fine in them so I won't be re-releasing an update. I am keen to try compiling them as 64bit plugins as well, though. Right now you're forced to use the 32bit version of Max to use them, which sucks a bit.
I've recently launched catpee.net which is updated far more frequently than this place. It's a repository for all the stuff I make day to day. Whereas the stuff that gets posted here is always high-quality, finished work, catpee.net contains tons of work in progress, unfinished or deserted projects. Check it out if you're bored!
28th October 2009 » It's nearly halloween
and I have done nothing this year :(
Apologies for no updates on the main page. However (as usual) the site has been updated in various places. You can keep track of all the latest content via the Last additions box on the left. I've added a few new pieces of music over the past month or so that you can check out.
I recently purchased the LASS sample library from AudioBro and its turned out to be an awesome addition to my studio setup. It's nice and dry sounding so you can add convolution/reverb to match your current libraries. It also has an extensive selection of articulations, full legato intervals and if that's not enough, the whole library is divisi allowing you to build up sections how you need. I can't recommend it enough to anyone who has the spare monkeys.
21th August 2009 » Continuing to work on
Multivaders. We're getting ever closer to a demo release! Right now we're at an internal testing phase, with a small group of people regularly playtesting to work out the bugs and optimise the gameplay! Expect to hear more over the coming weeks!
Self-plug, but I also have an album out on Amazon called Cats make the best parents. It has a few weird tunes that used to be in the Music section of the website (as well as a couple new songs). Check if out if you've got the time :D
16th July 2009 » My music workstation
died yesterday. The HDD containing all my samples seems to have broken and I now have the joy of reinstalling everything onto the replacement I've ordered.
Work has been commencing on Multivaders, and we're getting close to the stage of having a demo ready for people to play. More on this soon! I'll also post some more music I've been creating at some point this/next week.
10th July 2009 » Lots of things going on
as of late. First up, I was recently interviewed by Igor Posavec of 3D-IO (producers of the 3D Studio Max plugin FlatIron). We sat down and discussed my game, Multivaders, the production workflow, challenges we've experienced and the future of indie games development. You can find the article here.
The Multivaders website is also up and running now and content is beginning to be pumped into it. We'll slowly be unlocking new information over the coming months, so keep checking for more updates (or subscribe to the RSS feed on the site). You can visit the Multivaders site at http://multivaders.com.
30th May 2009 » Apologies if
you've been trying to contact me through the contact section. I had not been receiving anything and just noticed today that it has been sending to my old email account (which was being overrun by spam). This has been fixed now and I should receive anything you send.
The website for my game is now online. It's located at http://multivaders.com and contains info, screenshots and videos of the game. It will slowly build up over time revealing more of the back-story and game details.
As a small treat, here's a screenshot not on there. This is work-in-progress and doesn't represent the quality of the final product, and all that jazz.
And here's a video from the site showing the latest 'skirmish' gameplay. Skirmish is a 'quick play' mode in the game for people who like to jump right into the action. It has various gameplay modes - this video shows horde (think Gears 2).
15th May 2009 » Fixed the problems
I've fixed the weird problems with the site - it seems like some of the index.php files were corrupted.
I've just done my usual recompile of the Battlezone GEO/SDF/VDF and XSI plugins for 3D Studio Max 2010. These are untested so please drop me an email if you experience any issues with them. I had to fudge the XSI exporter a little (more changes to the max SDK meant it wasn't behaving) so this one may be a little fragile.
I've been periodically updating the site with music and links, despite the lack of front page updates. You can find a list of recent happenings to the left of the news posts.
I'll be posting more about my game project soon - It's getting ever-closer to some kind of unveiling.
15th December 2008 » Almost two months
since my last update to this news page - apologies, but rest assured I have still been updating things around the site. Over the past month or so I've added 4 or 5 new compositions to the music section. They all feature Project SAM's Symphobia - I hope you enjoy them as I think they're some of my best work so far.
Not much has really happened that I could update on here lately. I have been forging ahead with my game, with the help of my trusty artist side-kicks. We almost have a complete ship modelled and textured now, and have lots of characters done and ready to play with. The ship/location editor is also complete and we're going to start churning out some proper content with it. I'll hopefully have more to report on in the new year.
18th October 2008 » If you hadn't noticed
I've still been updating the site, regardless of the lack of front-page news updates. There are quite a few music pieces added as well as links, pictures, etc.
Work on my game has been continuing and we're now well underway creating the environments. Our artist, Carl, has been doing some awesome work designing and modelling props and objects. Here's an example:
How cool is that med-bay-rejuvination-bed thing?! The guy creates consistently awesome work and has really defined the look and style of the game!
As always, I'll post more things as more things happen.
2nd September 2008 » I have a day off!
It's the first in a while. I've been out exploring most of the day as it has been amazingly sunny since the weekend. I have some pics on my camera I can upload later.
I finally have access to the Max 2009 SDK. I've recompiled the Battlezone plugins (XSI exporter included) and did some basic tests - they seem to be working ok. I've stuck them in the files section. Be sure to check them out if you're interested.
23rd August 2008 » I got it!
Symphobia is mine! It arrived today and I've been excitedly making things with it. I've stuck them in the Music section of the site. I've also added a couple of new Multivaders songs there - I think I'm going to build that up into a proper soundtrack over the next few months.
Other than that I have not been up to much. Work is progressing on the game I've been working on and the art is starting to come together. More on that soon!
14th August 2008 » Games development
Is awesome when you have a small team of designers, artists and smarties. I'm going to be updating the main Multivaders site soon with more information, but for now I have the below stuff to show (all done by my awesome art-team).
A few things we've been working on lately. More to come soon!
4th August 2008 » An update
I haven't updated in a few weeks. I've been quite busy with the development of my game. Things are full-speed-ahead now that artists are involved, and it really is coming together. I've been playing with the idea of getting some action figures made for my desk.
It'd be really cool but it's too expensive. I'm looking for other companies that will print them in 3D for cheaper.
I have a team of 5 or 6 artists now cranking out awesome stuff. I'll post some more details on my game as we get stuff done.
16th July 2008 » Project SAM
have updated their website with more information on their upcoming Symphobia library. You can reserve yourself a copy now for £720ish (woohoo). Check out the demos and try your hardest to resist pre-ordering it :D
Work on my game is still progressing. Here are some amusing pictures to show what I have been up to lately.
I will post more as more needs posting.
8th July 2008 » Far too early
to be up and doing thngs. It's only 8:30am! I've been up about an hour now and I am seriouly eye-stingingly-tired. Work on my game has been progressing a little slower lately, though polished, proper art is actually being made. I now have three or four artists helping out. I'm still looking for an animator, so if anyone's interested and wants to help make a cool little game, contact me.
Alongside the game I've been working on quite an extensive project management system. We had been using Assembla initially, but it just doesn't do the things I wanted. I'll post more info from work shortly.
22nd June 2008 » Lots of things
happening lately. I have found a few artists willing to help out on Multivaders so work on that is progressing. It's looking promising and the art being made so far looks amazing - stay tuned for updates on that. It has been a struggle getting the project up and running. Lots of documentation needed to be written and the lack of concept art designs meant it was a challenge to communicate things to the artists at first. I think it's all come together though and should be smooth sailing from here.
I'm still looking for help in the following areas. If you think you can lend a hand and want to join the team, contact me.
Character Animator
2D Concept Artist
11th June 2008 » Work is progressing
on my game. I was going to post a few teaser screenshots this week but the plan has changed slightly. I posted a request for help on a few forums and have had quite a few people interested.
However, I do want to show how the project is progressing and so I'm going to post a few pictures. Some design, some in-game. It's more of a teaser than a preview. If you want to help out on the project to get some kudos, linkage and some work for your portfolio feel free to contact me. The project is going to be released for free, and all your work is yours to do with as you like (so long as I have the rights to use it in the game). Without further-a-do:
5th June 2008 » Mega-Hectic
So it has been mega-hectic at work lately so I have not been doing too much in the evenings other than relaxing on the couch. The few things I have done:
Stress tested my new Gigastudio machine
I wanted to see how much I could load with the machine still being stable and usable. I managed to get it up to 6.4gb and then test 32 of the channels (that's all the MIDI channels I have available for now). It ran flawlessly, no BSODs, no crashes, no stutters. The machine is indestructable!
Continued developing my game
I ran into a little trouble with the client-prediction code. It can feel seriously 'bouncy' at times and It just doesn't feel right. Something I can easily tweak. Other than that the engine is working near flawlessly (there's an issue on certain AMD hardware which I think is more down to XP than Nudge).
More updates later when I am not so tired!
30th May 2008 » Mars Phoenix lander
The Mars Phoenix lander arrived at its destination this past week. I'm tempted to update the Astronomy section with a program to read the raw image files - it depends how much time I have over this weekend. You can view their mission page here.
Still continuing my work on my new game - still getting closer to revealing it. I'll post more information next week with some screenshots, perhaps.
27th May 2008 » RME HDSP 9652
What an awesome piece of hardware. The RME 9562 is installed and working perfectly. Had a play about with Gigastudio over the weekend and the last couple days. It has been rock-solid and I've pushed it up to around 4gb so far (using it properly, not stress-testing it). The DAW was stable and fast and working perfectly - no latency, no underruns, no skips, no nothing! It's so nice not to have to worry about a 700mb limit! I've uploaded what I made to here if you're curious!
More tomorrow!
23rd May 2008 » Nearly ready
to make an announcement about a game I'm working on. It's getting close to the stage where there's releasable content that gives a good impression of the final game. There is still a way to go but it is getting there.
My RME HDSP 9652 also arrived yesterday. Ever since I built my XP64 music DAW for Gigastudio 4 a few weeks back I have been unable to actually use it. I had an M-Audio 1010LT which (also is a great card) has no decent 64bit support. The beta drivers are almost 5 years old and obviously have no support to GS4. I only had time to install the card/drivers and check it worked but I was glad to see Gigastudio 4 reporting a GSIF device! Initial GS4 tests had shown that I could fit about 7gb of data into memory. A huge step up from 700mb and I'll be sure to test it this weekend and see just how much of that is usable.
18th May 2008 » Sometimes I wonder
Why I do things the way I have done them. Tying in with my last post, ever since the first Nudge engine when delta compressing net-code I have always determined which object properties to send the same way.
Create a copy of each object. This would use the = operator on each object. Every object is copied to a second instance (though not all properties may be copied - only ones we care to delta compress).
Perform a game frame, updating all the objects in the world. This includes everything such as objects, connected clients, world states, etc.
For each object to transfer from server to client(s) we create a buffer. This buffer contains an index for the object and a byte with 8 bits to flag which properties have changed (larger objects use a ushort or a ulong). We also put the properties that have changed in the buffer.
Send this buffer to each client. The clients all know what objects (index byte) and what properties (flags byte) have changed and can update the game state on their end.
I've used this method for years and never really thought twice about it. It has a big advantage in that there's always a copy of the last game state and all properties readily available which makes client-side-interpolation easier. The two things that have always concerned me about this method are the memory usage (storing two copies of the game state) and the cpu/memory bandwidth (creating a fresh copy the game state every frame).
I was thinking about it this morning watching TV and I realised I've never tried something that's really obvious. Drop the second copy of the game state - it's not needed. All I need to do is have a byte for change flags in each class that needs to be send and have the mutators update this byte when a property is changed. This byte is then cleared when the data is sent to everyone. This method lets me see when properties have changed in an object since the last send without having to copy and compare objects each frame.
The only disadvantage this has over the original method is that I don't have copies of the original data to perform client-side-interpolation on. However, I could continue to use this method on the client-side and only have it keep copies of key values used for interpolation. The other advantage of only doing this on the client-side is that the client sees a lot less objects than the server does so the memory usage and bandwidth is a lot smaller.
Definitely something to investigate when I start to optimise Nudge4.
16th May 2008 » There has to be
A better way to organise the bytes that need to be sent to every player connected to the game server, right? This is the basic method I'm doing now:
The amount of data allocation/deallocation per frame worries me slightly. There could be up to 128 clients connected at one time with the Nudge4 engine with an update sent 10-20 times per second (depending on rate settings). Buffers are locked at 4k which means that up to 4kb x 20 x 128 (worst-case) data allocated per second. That's 10240kb - 10mb per second under full load.
I'll have to investigate better ways of doing this!
11th May 2008 » 3D Studio Max 2009
is now out and it looks like plugins for Max 9/2008 don't work again. I'll be recompiling my plugins once I have access to the SDK at work and posting them again. It looks like there are some nifty additions to this year's update but I'm still dubious as to whether it's worth the upgrade costs now that they seem to be yearly.
Also been working on nudge4/new game. A group of testers at work have volountered to help test it this week, so that should be interesting. I'll probably post a gallery of the playtest at some point.
9th May 2008 » New Nudge Niceness
Crazy - it has been a week already since my last update. I've been continuing to work on Nudge4 and the new game I'm working on. It has been cool moving Nudge in this direction as the engine is now capable of powering the ideas I have had (including Deadbound) quite efficiently. All that's really left to do on the games I am developing is content generation (I know - the hardest part).
The timing issues I mentioned in the previous post seem to be mostly gone. It has proved really annoying to fix them as it seems hardware dependent. It's all to do with the timer on the client not being in sync with the server. The current workaround is to reset the timer when connecting, but obviously things like sudden latency cause it to go off track.
The next Nudge system that needs to be moved to Nudge4 is the room/location/scene manager. This has always been the weakest part of Nudge as it is still based on Nudge2's code. There is still a lot of hardcoded content from the original Deadbound prototype developed 5/6 years ago and CLocation, CLocationRender, CModel and CMesh all need to be rewritten to be consistent with the rest of the engine.
That is all, maybe some screenies a bit later!
1st May 2008 » Nudge3 server
I haven't been up to much the past week or so that I can really show. I've worked mostly on Nudge4's netcode, trying to get it synchronising games between two PCs all by itself. Right now it does a decent job (takes a class, converts it to bytes, uses delta compression on class members, etc). I'm having some issues to do with timing (Nudge4 uses set timesteps rather than dynamic frame times) but it's nothing that a little bit of messing with code couldn't fix.
I've also continued porting over key systems from Nudge3 to 4 (mostly rewriting or tweaking them to be more efficient). An example is nudge::CTimer. Before this was a mess - for some reason I thought it'd be a great idea to have the class provide multiple timers but this just made it complicated to write decoupled code. That's replaced now by nudge4::core::CTimer which handles a single interval of time:
DWORD Steps = tTimer.GetTicks(0);
for (DWORD i = 0; i < Steps; i++)
{
//Code here to execute every 20 milliseconds
}
Steps = tTimer.GetTicks(1);
for (DWORD i = 0; i < Steps; i++)
{
//Code here to execute every 50 milliseconds
}
nudge4 code
nudge4::core::CTimer tTimer20(20);
nudge4::core::CTimer tTimer50(50);
while (tTimer20.SinceLast())
{
//Code here to execute every 20 milliseconds
}
while (tTimer50.SinceLast())
{
//Code here to execute every 50 milliseconds
}
As you can see, a lot less complex than before! It's also now scalable (before each CTimer had 10 timers built-in) and individual timers can be passed around as function parameters/class accessors/etc. I'll post more as I get more done.
28th April 2008 » New source added to the site
I've added some new source to the site. After various emails I've decided to release my Battlezone SDK as open source. You can grab the cpp/h files from the source section of the site. Be sure to read the license file when using this code in your own projects.
Hopefully people can make some cool Battlezone editors from the source. I just don't have the time nowadays to hack about with this kind of stuff :(
25th April 2008 » XSI plugin updated
I've updated the XSI plugin for Battlezone 2. It should now work in 3D Studio Max 9 and 2008. Thanks to GreenHeart for testing this out (I don't have either version at my disposal). If you have any problems with it, contact me.
23rd April 2008 » How cool is this...
That's right! 6143mb of samples loaded into Gigastudio 4 under XP64. The thing I need to work on now is somehow jury-rigging the audio to work. The M-Audio card does not support XP64 very well (no audio output on machines with >2gb ram). The current route I'm following is to recompile Wormhole for XP64 and try to route audio over the network. I'll post more once I've attempted that.
21st April 2008 » New Music PC
Is all built and working! I've updated the small studio page in the music section to reflect the new hardware. I've had some teething problems with it. My intention was to run the thing on XP64 so that Gigastudio 4 could run with all 8gb of ram the machine has. Unfortunately a good 64bit driver doesn't exist for my current soundcard so I have rolled it back to XP32 for now while I hunt down a decent 64bit audio interface (suggestions welcome!). I'll post some music I get made once I have something!
17th April 2008 » New music
I've added a new piece to the music page. It's my take on the Stargate theme. I was mostly practicing composing techniques and using samples. It features the VSL and True Strike. I think it came out pretty good.
I also ordered and built my new music PC yesterday, but the motherboard looks like it's DOA. I have a replacement arriving tomorrow so hopefully that should fix that! I'll post more then
9th April 2008 » Project SAM legato
As I mentioned in the previous news update, I'd been working on creating a Gigastudio patch based on the Project SAM trumpets library. I'd taken all the interval patches and chopped/cut/diced/etc. them into a legato patch similar to what the VSL and many other libraries now use for performance patches.
A quick test showing the final result! It needs a little tweaking and some work, but it sounds alright so far. I need to make some of the transitions a little smoother and tweak the timings.
6th April 2008 » RSS
I added a little RSS feed to the website. This should let you stay up-to-date on all dummyworld.net news. You can subscribe to it with the little icon above.
I've also added a new piece to the music section. It's from the Multivaders soundtrack and was a bit fingers-in-throat-cheesy for my liking but it turned out alright so I figured I'd share. It's not really that noticable, but this piece tests out my Project SAM trumpets legato instrument. I'll post more about this at some point this week!
4th April 2008 » New modules
I added some new modules to my dummyworld.net site admin that you'll start to notice. The first one I've used is the gallery to upload some pictures of my game engine. The module handles all the thumbnailing, resizing, etc. so it makes my life a little easier when it comes to posting pictures and images.
You might have also noticed several other cool features on the site, one being the info-bubble when you run your mouse over things on the left-menu! I'm intending on making the content a lot more dynamic and one thing I want to add is the ability for people to leave comments similar to post-it-notes on the site.
I never got round to messing with music the other evening but I will definitely try to come up with something creative this weekend.
1st April 2008 » Patapon
I changed the logo of the site. I recently purchased Patapon for my PSP and was surprised to find it was an awesome game.
Too busy this evening to get much done. I did add a couple of (old) pieces of music I found laying about on my drive this evening. I want to have a play with making some new music at some point tomorrow after work so I will post what I come up with here.
31st March 2008 » I'm back
from a weekend in London. It's actually not a bad journey (about 4 hours travel time from my doorstep to doorstep). It was really strange to walk about in the street and not hear any Scottish accents.
I want to work on some more music at this point. I have gotten so rusty since moving up here. Speaking of music:
Pre-ordered! Now I just need to prepare my 64bit XP install, upgrade the memory on my PC and away I go!
24th March 2008 » I haven't had
a coffee yet today. I need one.
23rd March 2008 » More musical madness
I had more music problems today since the reformat, more to do with samples from a certain library not working (I'm pretty sure it did before). I'm mid-reinstalling and patching now to see if that fixes. While I've been waiting for that I decided to take another stab at the Paradum Games logo remake. The original was made years ago. I have always had trouble trying to recreate it with the same kind of sound and feeling. Today's attempt is available in the music section of the site.
21st March 2008 » Music PC memory issues
Last night I had enough of my music DAW playing up. For a while now it has had what I can only describe as some kind of resource/memory leak. Over the space of a couple hours it would gradually get quirkier and quirkier (BitBlt's not being able to update GUIs, lack of physical memory despite nothing running in the process manager, etc.). It had also had some kind of affect on Gigastudio as lately I have struggled to load more than 350mb of samples into RAM.
I reformatted. At first I dual-boot installed XP 64 to see if it was my XP install or some kind of driver/hardware (and I got a bit carried away and figured I'd prepare for the inevitable arrival of Gigastudio 4) but XP64 seemed clean with identical driver versions (64bit obviously) and I cleared both installs and just put XP on. It's now back on form and was fine for the few hours I used it this morning. Gigastudio actually managed to load to 59% memory (980mb) before it blue screened my PC.
I really want Gigastudio 4 now. It has gone to the duplicators, but I want to know when I can expect to be holding my copy!
19th March 2008 » Updating from a PS3
I was curious to see how my dummyworld.net app worked on the Playstation 3. Obviously it works pretty good! Commence postage from a PS3 -
Something completely unrelated, but Cassini performed a close fly-by of Enceladus (one of Saturn's moons) this week. They were flying the probe through water-plumes to gather data but also took some amazing pictures:
The second one is particularly awesome and is the highest resolution we've ever seen the moon at. There are also some awesome pictures of Saturn taken today that I thought I would post:
13th March 2008 » Testing the new system
Testing the new system today, I've placed an article with some images in the media section. I'm looking at adding some way for the site to say 'hey this is new since your last visit' on the front page, which'd be cool.
Some mp3s on the music page should also be streamable now using the small play button on the left of the download. Currently this only applies to the 'best bits' section but I will extend this soon.
Finally, I have also added search functionality to the site. You can search through articles, news, music, etc. using the search box on the left menu.
12th March 2008 » dummyworld.net overhaul
The dummyworld.net website has been totally overhauled and is no longer a bare-bones HTML site! It was either this or turn it into a wordpress page (ugh)!
Hopefully I should be able to post more frequently now as I no longer have to mess about with an FTP client writing HTML and uploading files - we shall see!
I've added a new piece to the music section entitled Soldier On. It's based on the Killzone soundtrack by Joris De Man.
28th December 2007 » It's getting dangerously close to 2008
And I haven't updated in a while. A lot has happened lately. I left my old job at Electronic Arts and moved up here to Scotland to work for Realtime Worlds. We're working on an awesome project that should kick some major ass when it is released.
As such I've not had a lot of time since September to do things (lots of my computer bits and CDs are still boxed up). I did manage to get a few things done though that were worthy of posting. The first is an update of the Battlezone 3D Studio Max plugins. I have recompiled the SDF/VDF importers in Max 9/2008. These are in the programs section. I'm working on getting the xsi importer updated but some of the things Pandemic did aren't working with the new SDK. I'll post an update of that as soon as I have it compiling.
I'm contemplating a redesign on the site to make it more informal. Some kind of regular journal style update format that lets me post smaller things more often. We'll see how that goes.
6th July 2007 » Yikes
It has been a while. It's not that I haven't been busy or made anything - It's just that I have not had time to write about or publicise it. I've put a few new pieces of music onto the Music page. A few multivaders bits and a waltz I wrote. I'll try and post more of my recent happenings later.
The music, incidently, got mentioned and played on the VSL Podcast - many thanks to Hetoreyn for that. His page has been in the links for a while, but make sure you check out www.elvenmusic.com and maybe pick up a copy of his latest album!
25th November 2006 » Archived News
A new piece has been added to the music section entited 'An unwelcome guest'. It's from the upcoming Multivaders soundtrack. I tried to fuse in electronic sounding stuff with orchestra. It didn't come out quite as well as I planned, but oh well.
25th November 2006 New music
There's a new piece of music in the music section entitled 'V: Jump on in'. It's for the V project I'm still working on. Hope you enjoy it!
12th September 2006 Music
Firstly, apologies - I've been neglecting this site lately. A new work-in-progress piece has been added to the music section called 'V:A new beginning'. It's another variation of the main theme from the V project.
18th July 2006 Hello!
Damn, it has been a while since I posted on here! I've just made the first piece of half-decent music in a while (it's for a project I'm working on that I may post more of in the near future). You can grab it in the music section.
8th May 2006 Artwork
The first of my Crash-road texture series is available to purchase on Turbosquid. If you're looking for any decent-quality road textures, these should prove awesome.
23rd April 2006 New mini-piece of music
I went and saw the Silent Hill movie on friday with a few friends. I'm a big fan of the games and thought the movie was awesome. I noticed several pieces of music in the film were slight remixes of the game music. To test out my new DAW I decided to try and remake one of the cues in the movie (the Promise (Reprise) one). You can find it in the music section.
20th April 2006 DAW complete
I've finished building my new DAW computer and after some initial teething troubles (an outdated BIOS, incompatible chipset drivers and dodgy memory tweaks) I've got it up and running Gigastudio considerably well. I can currently load around 1gb of samples into RAM and have it perform 256+ polyphony flawlessly. I'll post some music as I get some made on the machine. For now, I'm off to get some sleep.
18th April 2006 New plugin
Sort of an update, but not- I've added a new version of the XSI exporter to the programs section of the site. It's simply another version of the plugin that has been recompiled for 3dsmax 8. If you have Max 8 and are trying to make Battlezone 2 models, this should help.
On a music-related note, I've just ordered the parts for my new DAW PC. I'll post more about that when it arrives tomorrow.
2nd April 2006 New music
There's a new short piece in the music section. V: Welcome to our world is my first composition of 2006 and was written for a cutscene in the V project. You can find it in the music section from the menu at the top.
14th March 2006 I'm not dead
Just a little post to let everyone know I'm not dead or anything. I apologise for the lack of updates but I literally have nothing (complete) to show. I've spent the last month or so both working on the Multivaders game (see previous post) and rewriting my main game-engine (Nudge³). Thanks to EA's C++ course they provided me with, the engine source/structure is now clean (no more disgusting C/C++ hybrid code!). It's also officially now a shader-based engine and should allow me to create some pretty-looking games. The engine is almost complete but still requires a collision system to be built. I'll post more information and media as soon as I have some.
29th January 2006 Multivaders 1.5
The update for the game I mentioned in the last post (Multivaders) has been released over at my Multivaders website. You can grab the full install or a ZIP for the latest version.
Speaking of Multivaders, I've had several emails from people suggesting a weekly scheduled match (to combat the current-trend of the server being empty all the time). I'll post more about it on the Multivaders website in the near future.
22nd January 2006 New game
Apologies for the lack of updates this past week, but unfortunately not much has happened that I can show. I've been working on a major patch for a game I created a while back and it has meant stripping out all the old code and replacing/recoding it piece by piece.
However, rummaging around my hard drives this morning I found an old GBA game I had created whilst tinkering with the hardware. It's a port of the 'QA Olympics' game I recently posted and relies on old-school button mashing to win olympic events based around Eletronic Art's QA department. I've uploaded the game to the Files section of the site so feel free to grab it. It runs on all GBA emulators as well as the actual hardware itself (if you have a devkit/flash cart).
15th January 2006 Mass Media update
Quite a lot of content has been moved from dummy's codedump to the media section. This includes various tutorials for the games Robot Arena II and Battlezone. A new section has also been added to the Programs page containing various small games and desktop toys.
12th January 2006 Multivaders site
I've just gotten done redesigning the Multivaders website (a game I made a while back). It was noted that the old site was quite confusing to navigate, so this new one makes it a lot simpler. You can check out the new site (and the game) at http://multivaders.com.
10th January 2006 Gigalister
A new piece of software has been added to the programs section under 'Music apps'. Gigalister is a tool to create directory listings of GIG files and the patches contained within them.
9th January 2006 A year in review
It's a bit late, I know, but happy new year to everyone who visits the site. I intended to post an update last weekend, but time seemed to slip by and I never got round to it. There's nothing overly important to announce, but I have some spare time and came up with the idea of a post that sums up the (dummyworld.net) year that has passed, and outline my goals for this one.
This year has seen dummyworld.net's construction (initially as a simple file dump) and its ascension into a proper website. The transfer of programs and information from dummy's codedump, postings of a considerable amount of music and releases of new software have resulted in a site now filled with goodies to download and play with.
I've released quite a few piece of astronomy software this year which have proved extremely popular. However, (to me) the most important event this year has been my purchase of the VSL, which has allowed me to create much more orchestral realistic music. It has also resulted in the creation of my two FL Studio plugins, VSL Legato and VSL Repetition, both of which marked the beginning of my use of proper c++ (goodbye bad c habits!).
But enough of the old, what's planned for this year?
First off I've started messing around with my sampler again. A few people who've discussed my music with me on various sites/forums will know that prior to purchasing Gigastudio, I had experimented with writing my own sampler and managed to get some decent results (considering how crude the software was). Recently I've begun to map out GIG format files in more detail, and have put down some basic framework for an FL Studio plugin of my sampler. Whilst the goal is to officially support only the Vienna libraries, theoretically there's no reason that it could not be used to play any sample in GIG format.
Another plan of mine for this year is to write a full length album of orchestral music. I want to set myself a challenge of writing 45 minutes worth of music that is thematically and melodically linked, and a virtual soundtrack seems the perfect goal.
Finally I plan to release more [non-music-related] programs again this year. Lately, software development has taken up little of my free-time (mainly due to my expense on sample libraries this year proving a distraction). I have some ideas for software that I'd like to try out in the near-future, which I'll reveal more of once I start developing them.
I guess that's it for now. I'll post more updates as things begin happening.
31st December 2005 Plugin update
A small update to the VSL Repetition plugin has been made. This update fixes the same issue that the VSL Legato plugin had, and also adds the First keyswitch delay property found in Vienna's software. This update is 100% compatible with the previous version of the plugin, and you can find the update in the programs section. The byte has also been updated with information on this setting.
29th December 2005 VSL Repetition plugin and more music
My VSL Repetition FL Studio plugin has been added to the programs section. There's also a new byte containing a full explanation of the plugin.
There's also a new composition in the music section called 'Vastness of Space', an epic-retro piece for an upcoming project.
18th December 2005 Sonic
Just a quick post to let you know a new mp3 has been added to the music section. It's a rendition of the Boss theme from Sonic 2. Enjoy!
17th December 2005 Plugin info
The next plugin from my VSL Performance plugin range is nearing completion. Currently I'm composing tunes with it to test that it's functioning properly and there are no issues with it. This next release will be the VSL Repetition FL Studio plugin, allowing you to use Vienna's Performance Set samples to create realistic repetition passages.
Unlike the Legato plugin I previously released, this tool does not exactly mirror VSL's in-house tool. I have written the methods and algorithms myself to create a simpler system for FL Studio. More information will be available (including a tutorial) once the plugin is released over the next week or so.
Finally, the link section has also been updated with links to several sites of musical composers. I recommend checking them out as they all contain excellent (and free!) music.
16th December 2005 Robocod
Another musical number has been added to the music section. This time it's a remake of the theme tune to the classic game 'James Pond II: Robocod'. It's mostly original composition by myself in an epic-cinematic style.
15th December 2005 New piece in music
Just a quick post to let you know there's a new piece in the music section titled 'Change of Season'. I've also nearly finished the second plugin in my 'VSL Performance' collection. I'll share more info on that over the next few days.
11th December 2005 Theme remake
As promised, here with the piece I mentioned in yesterday's post. I've been watching Space Cadets on Channel 4 recently (I'm an astronomy fan, not a reality-tv fan) and love the composition of the intro music, but the samples they used really, really bug me. There's a machine-gun effect on the MIDI synth-sounding cellos that just irritates me when I hear it. It prompted me to have a go myself and see what I could come up with. The result has been posted in the Music section. Again, it's just a remake I made from ear, but it does show off how awesome the Vienna Symphonic Library is and really shows off how awesome the original tune is.
10th December 2005 Small jabber
I was just looking at the referral list on my webhost stats and noticed that several people have connected to the site from the goggle search ' how do i use gigastudio? '. What's amusing is that it's the third hit you get, and its me ranting about how much Gigastudio sucks. I take all that giga-hate back now. The program has really grown on me the past few weeks. It's just a shame that VSL are no longer supporting it on their Symphonic Cube (though I'd love to mess with their VI software, and fully intend to buy it within the next few years).
On the topic of music, I've got yet another short piece I've been working on the past couple days. I'll probably post it tomorrow as it's not quite ready to be heard yet.
8th December 2005 Bite-size bytes
A new feature is slowly being integrated to the site. Bytes are pop up links that lead to further information related to a page (for example, the Studio byte in the Music section). There's also a full explanation of the VSL Legato FL plugin available as a byte (with a tutorial on creating presets). Expect more bytes around the site in the near future.
7th December 2005 Woohoo! part 2
The second part of the Vienna Symphonic Library Pro Edition arrived today,
alongside Epic Horns (which live up to their name!). I'll post more info later.
4th December 2005 Dummysoft Audio Apps
The first Dummysoft audio app has been posted in the program section. 'VSL Legato' is a fully-featured plugin for FL Studio, allowing easy control of Vienna Symphonic Library's Performance Set samples. The program automatically manages keyswitches and note transitions, allowing you to recreate realistic orchestral pieces in real-time, without the hassle of connecting to the Vienna Performance Tool. VSL Legato plugs right into FL Studio and provides you with a quick and efficient way to take advantage of the Performance Set sample library.
I've also posted a couple pieces of music in the music section of the site. The first is a small remake of the Day of Defeat:Source theme (made using the FL plugin above). The second is a new short piece I wrote the past hour or so.
3rd December 2005 Tweakage
I've tweaked the site a little. Links have now moved to their own page (which I'll be adding to soon). The Desert rats mp3 postedly previously has also been tweaked and re-uploaded (mostly just messing with the EQ to make it less muddy). I'll have some more stuff to post in the next week hopefully.
19th November 2005 Desert rats
A new piece of music has been added to the music section. It marks the first piece that I've written with Gigastudio as the sole sampler. I have to say that I'm slowly growing fond of it. Now if only it could mix-down in faster-than-real-time, store it's performance data in the sequencer file and not have to manually bounce down audio. Here's hoping that the Symphonic Cube comes in Kontakt/HALion flavour!
15th November 2005 Making music
Vienna Symphonic Library Pro Edition is even more awesome than I had expected. However, the same cannot be said for the transition to Gigastudio. If VSL wasn't such a huge install (238gb), I would have already started converting it to my usual sampler's native format. However, I don't have the spare time or drive-space so I'm forcing myself to use Gigastudio.
I've added a small demo to the music section pretty much showing the best thing I've been able to come up with so far. I have no clue how so many people can use Gigastudio. It feels to backwards, it's almost like having to use a hardware sampler (audio output external to the sequencer, having to manually bounce to disk, etc.). Hopefully I'll get used to it over the next few weeks/months and start posting awesome music again.
7th November 2005 Woohoo!
It's here! I'm so happy I could backflip! I'll post more about this later; I have to go install it!
4th November 2005 Halloween
As a (slightly late) ode to October 31st, the finished 'Halloween' track has been uploaded in the music section.
27th October 2005 Throne room piece
I've added another musical piece that I got done today called 'The Throne Room'. You can check it out in the music section.
23rd October 2005 Another musical number
Another composition from a game I'm working on has been posted in the Music section of the site. The piece, entitled 'Snow Battle', will feature in one of the cinematics set in a winter-battle.
19th October 2005 More music
More music has been added to the music section (which is getting increasingly larger). It's a preview of a Halloween piece I'm working on. Also, a comment bar has been added to the left. Feel free to post any comments/thoughts/questions regarding my site/work/etc.
15th October 2005 Back with some music
Long time no-update. As always, I've been rather busy with work lately. However, that's all done now. I've uploaded a new composition to the Music section of the site. It's another alternative version of the theme tune for the 'V' game I'm working on.
16th August 2005 Programs section update
Another small update to the programs section today. Some of the Robot Arena II stuff has moved over from the code-dump. It's only the major programs, as I'm still deciding how to handle the move-over of stuff such as tutorials and that.
I've also started adding links to the front page of the site. If you're interested in exchanging immense links, drop me an email.
6th August 2005 Battlezone update
Just a small update to say that I've posted a new version of the SDFImporter plugin that should be compatible with 3dsmax 4/5. It's in the programs section.
2nd August 2005 Battlezone goodies
First up, I've begun moving all files from the old code-dump site to here. Right now this consists of the Battlezone editing files. You can find them in the programs section, which I'll be updating again soon.
Related to this, I was searching through my back-up hard drive today and found an unfinished program I was working on: Battlezone SDF viewer. I toyed with it a couple hours and managed to get it working. I've posted it in the new Battlezone section of the 'programs' page. Note that I haven't tested the save feature (other than loading an SDF and saving, and comparing the two versions). I'd love to hear any feedback as to whether it works or not.
Finally, I also found another small Battlezone tool that I forgot to release a couple years ago. HGT Viewer, a program that reads in HGT files, has been posted to the programs section.
14th July 2005 New composition added
A new musical piece has been added from a game I'm working on's project. The piece is a slight variation of the bad guys theme, set to a more action-based pace. You can grab it from the top of the music page.
1st July 2005 Musical piece added
Another piece from my work-in-progress game has been added to the site. You can grab it from the music section. The piece is another slight variation of the 'v_goodguys' piece and features an Irish flute and a bagpipe.
21st June 2005 General update
Just a general update on what I've been up to over the past month or so. A small piece has been added to the music section from the game I'm working on. It's a short looped piece shown during loading screens. I also received my copy of Sam Trombones today so I'll probably be posting some mp3s of what I get up to with that.
Some non-music-related news; I've posted a small demo of a game I've been working on lately (you may have seen some designs from it in the media section). Manic Miner 3D is a remake of the old game, Manic Miner. You can grab the demo from the Paradum Games site, here. The demo contains the front end, some animated cutscenes and a fully featured level to play.
29th May 2005 Update to the music section
I decided to post the few compositions from an upcoming game I'm working on. They're explained in more detail in the music section.
16th May 2005 Update to the music section
A new piece has been added to the music section. It's a piano solo rendition of the theme tune to a game I'm working (the one heard in the previously released mock-up scene). It's the result of a couple hours messing around with my old midi keyboard (I'm trying to get back into the habbit of using a keyboard, since I've ordered a new one today).
On a side note, have you noticed how much I actually get done that you'd never hear/see if it wasn't for this site?
15th May 2005 Update to the media section
The media section has a new article containing a mock-up of an intro FMV's audio track from a project I'm working on. You can download the mp3 from the media section, accessible from up top. I'm still contemplating whether to add the intro FMV's score in the music section, but I'll post here if I do.
14th May 2005 Updates to the music section
Stalker has been updated again. A few glitches snuck past me in the last update. I've fixed the strings cutting out, and adjusted the levels of the instruments (some were a bit loud where they'd been replaced by louder samples).
8th May 2005 Updates to the music section
Stalker has been updated in the music section. It's now considerably longer and has new samples here, there and everywhere. You can grab it from the same link as before in the music section of the site (and if it's not 2.18mb, then clear your browser's cache!).
6th May 2005 Updates to the music section
Another piece has been added to the music section. It's a short piece named trouble which is a short cliché piece, similar to what you'd hear in oh-dear-we're-in-trouble movie trailer moments.
1st May 2005 Updates to the music section
A collection of new mp3s have been added to the music section of the site, mostly consisting of small orchestral pieces I've written for fun. You can access them using the menu bar at the top.
30th April 2005 New design
The new design for the site is up and running. All the files and pages should have transitioned ok, but if you notice any 404's or problems, drop me an email.
KSP: Custom UI gra...
Sonic II : Special...
Kontakt Basic Lega...
Jukebox
I haven't updated in a few weeks. I've been quite busy with the development of my game. Things are full-speed-ahead now that artists are involved, and it really is coming together. I've been playing with the idea of getting some action figures made for my desk.
That's right! 6143mb of samples loaded into Gigastudio 4 under XP64. The thing I need to work on now is somehow jury-rigging the audio to work. The M-Audio card does not support XP64 very well (no audio output on machines with >2gb ram). The current route I'm following is to recompile Wormhole for XP64 and try to route audio over the network. I'll post more once I've attempted that.
Testing the new system today, I've placed an article with some images in the media section. I'm looking at adding some way for the site to say 'hey this is new since your last visit' on the front page, which'd be cool.
