28 Feb 2004
I know, I know. Long time ago since the last news. But I have an excuse. I moved to
another country, 10000 kms far again from my home. And my actual job is very
time consuming. So I must manage my time wisely.
27 Nov 2003
I have been profiling the game, and detecting where I lost most of the CPU time. Also
I improved a lot the loading process. Now it takes from 3 to 6 seconds to load (it mainly
depends on how old is your 3D Card). I probably can reduce on 1 second more, but I
think it’s enough.
I also started to design an external config tool, it’s in an advanced stage, check a screen:
21 Nov 2003
I'll try another Sound Library. OpenAL gives me exceptions without reason (or at
least I don't found any). FMOD seems a good one.
I have added some new screens.
17 Nov 2003
I’m working on the replacement of SDL sound libraries to OpenAL. OpenAL allows
an easy 3D sound positioning. But it’s giving me many headaches. I usually have
runtime errors, and some things work fine on Delphi, but fail on FreePascal.
11 Nov 2003
We continue working on the game.
The news room is almost complete. It left constants adjustement and better graphics.
News are created using MetaNews. That allows us have up to several millions of news on a
small
group of text files.
The MD3 to SMD conversion was succesful. As a colateral effect, the rendering
speed
was increased (vertex arrays instead of inmediate mode). And the new model looks better
on
game.
Static SMD objects are cached. Only one model is loaded, and from that we
create instantes.
That
reduces the memory usage and time load.
The ZIP file system was improved. Now filenames inside ZIP's are cached. On
some computers
that
means a time reduction of more than 900% (from 2min 45 sec to only 15 sec).
Now I'm working on the Main Menu. New Game, load, options, etc...
26 Oct 2003
After many changes to the SMD unit I found, now we are able
to use SMD files. Here you can see an example of a new model:
24 Oct 2003
I'm trying to change the model format from MD3 (Quake 3) to
SMD (Half - Life). SMD files use skeletal animation, which
simplifies the animation process. So unfortunately Sarge will
be fired from our TV Channel ASAP :)
23 Oct 2003
I finally finished my career (now I'm a Telecommunications engineer ^_^).
So now I have time to spend on the game. We are creating the news room.
I'll try to keep the daylog up to date (see TVStation Status).
26 Sep 2003
I'll be back soon!
28 Jun 2003
That will be my last program update for a while.
I must finish my Final Degree Project, and I start working on a few days.
We made that webpage in order to get new members that continue the
project meanwhile I was out, but we didn't get any help :(
So the executable will remain stable until December or so.
Nevertheless, Tente will continue growing the game Database.
Changes on this version 0.05:
-Added 4 Archives Rooms. Now you
can move programs to your briefcase. Useful to sell old films.
-Bug fix when press space.
-Added TV Info. When the cursor is placed over the TV screen, a new popup appears.
-Programmer now shows the total programs per subgenre.
-When you place an advertising on programmer, now a copy of the advertising
remains on your cursor.
-TV buttons now bright.
I forgot to post here the 0.04 changes:
-Fixed many bugs.
-Added Load/Save feature. With keys F5-F8 you can save 4 states.
-With keys F1-F4 you load one of the 4 states.
-Test program database translated to english.
10 May 2003
Lots of things today :)
I almost finished the Content Agency Room. It will need some tweaks and
better graphics, but now is operative.
In addition to that, I also finished the Advertising Agency, where you can
take new advertisements, and earn fresh money $$$.
But that's not all. I've done heavy changes on the internal structure of the
game. Among others, I introduced four concurrent players. With keys 1-4
you change between them. That features is more important that you can
think: Without lag, differences between that and a multiplayer game are
minimal.
And finally, AainaalyaA AA has joined to our project. He will make some
2D graphic content for the game.
I uploaded some screenies that show some of these changes.
7 May 2003
Working on the Content Agency Room. In that room you can buy and
sell films, series and special events. Programming stuff on that room
is 90% done, but it lacks of good artwork yet (see the latest screenshot).