Not much to say or show, just that the performance problem was due to the textures being larger than the texture cache. Under 10% CPU usage, much better As it is now, on my Mac mini the game runs at under 8% CPU usage in the menus and Zen, and under 10% in Drop. The largest texture is 1024×1024, DXT5 compressed (4:1, or 1 MB). Before it was 1024×1024 uncompressed 32bit RGBA (1:1, or 4 MB)....
This week I’ve been downloading updates for all my tools. Linux distros, as well as Apple tools and OS updates. Yesterday was spent trying to get a 64bit version of Ubuntu running on my Media Center PC (i.e. my old dual core AMD workstation PC, now hooked up to the projector). My initial attempt of installing it to a USB key didn’t work, but I did eventually get it working using WUBI....
Going through my Smiles HD TODO/Wishlist, one thing I’ve been meaning to add to the game for a long time was a minimize button. The game runs on several multitasking OS’s, but your only option up until now was to exit. Now, if the OS supports it, it can be suspended in to the background with just a click. The Exit and Minimize buttons on Windows and Linux While adding the minimize button, I looked to the Mac to get an idea what it should look like (actually, I was queuing up the latest Xcode when I noticed it)....
Well alright. I agreed to do a little contract gig back during the summer that finally caught up with me, so the past couple weeks were spent on that. Yesterday we finally finished and submitted that, so I’m free to work on what’s really important: Smiles HD for computers! Wait… what!? Okay, well I still do have my new-game scheduling plans detailed in the last post, but I’ll be slightly delaying that start time yet again, but not by much....
It’s now half way through the month, and progress on my “October Game” is minimal to say the least. I suppose that was to be expected, since I did have several things to finish this month. My week-days have been filled with various tasks, leaving only weekends to work on this new thing. Next week I’ll be busy with my “1 more thing”, leaving me the last week of October for a final crunch....
I’ll have to make sure I fix/change the spacing when I do an update. Words got crammed. I quite like the aesthetics of the Zune WP7 Marketplace. It’s hard to see, but the background is this large panoramic image I whipped up. The panorama looks pretty sweet on the phone. Whomever was responsible for the Zune and WP7 phone graphic design, it’s some fine work. Hats off to you sir....
Since the summer I’ve been chatting with Microsoft about bringing Smiles to Windows Phone 7. In early September, I was invited to an event “Windows Phone 7 Blogger Night” in Toronto. Typical me, blurry and in motion. Here I am demoing Smiles on the TV (all of the touch-screen PC’s were taken). Also, note to self: don’t wear shorts to press events… you stand out too much in the after event photography....
So here’s that news: Smiles is coming to Windows Phone 7! Here’s proof. And here’s a snap of the game running on a completely different Windows Phone device, an LG. Photo by Joey… I think he’s in a Starbucks I love it when code runs on many different devices. 🙂...
Busy busy. I didn’t get to put much time in to the October game this week, but their certainly was progress. Before: and after… some element are mocked up (character and outlining): Day 3 – Back in the Saddle After a few days of other work (Smiles for Windows Phone 7), and making un-interactive interactive movies with silly internet tools, I have finally resumed working on my October game....
I’ve been doing my daily logs over at the Ludum Dare site, to try and encourage more people to participate there. I’ve really only worked on the game for 2 days, despite my plans to start early. Today I was busy with something else, so this week’s update will be light. This “week” was about getting the foundation of editor up and running. Currently it works on a 2 button mouse (right click to erase), but the editing interface will support a touch screen (tile zero is the eraser). There’s currently no UI, but I can cycle tiles with the mouse wheel. It auto saves/loads the map to a specific file. It started out looking like this: Then by the end of the night Saturday, it looked like this: If you’re interested at all in the process from A to B, hit the jump for more. I was going to do some work today (Sunday), but there’s so little time left, I’m calling it a night early. ...