Welcome to Daniel Alvizu's Homepage

News

10-18-03

Don't think I've been idle or anything... it's just hard to update a website that nobody visits and that you have to edit every page when you add a new project, I'm just not up to doing that every day... much less every week. I get around to it when I get around to it.

I've started the OpenGL project, it's going to be a lunar lander program because I haven't made one like that before. The layout of the whole game/engine concept is something I like a lot... I've also derived an application framework from Game Programming Tricks of the Trade, and I'm finally using base classes to get stuff done. That shit is actually really, really helpful. C++ is fun!, although it took me a while to finally get to using it full swing. I've got a little triangle "ship" on screen, so now I've gotta just make a game out of it... the fun part :]

Currently Reading:
OpenGL Game Programming [again]
Elements of Logic
TRS-80 Basic: A self-teaching guide! [hey, it cost me 1 dollar!]

Currently Listening to:
Fuck Armageddon, this is Hell -- Bad Religion

10-08-03

Taking off from what I had before, I've gone ahead and created a working console using directdraw and directx. Just make your own Draw_Text(char*) function for whatever API you may be using and you've got it working there as well. This was for a project I recently quit after inquiring why my associate had a Ku Klux Klan icon all of a sudden. Racists in Deleware, who woulda thunk it. The Input.h/cpp were taken directly from the project, replace with your own stuff and it's all cool. Source code is available here, and the executable here. More information about this project can be found here. Now to make an opengl managing class. Ciao.

08-30-03

In the end, we were both beaten up. I sat in my chair, bruised but victorious. Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Standard Edition lay in front of me, graceful in defeat, but defeated nonetheless. That's right. Tetris is done. No more memory leaks, no more crashes when deallocating memory, no more strange collission detection... and no music and sound either. Good game MSVC++. Say hello to 'Tetris II'... that is until I can think of some other name so that I don't get sued by the creator.

But until then, I give you Tetris!

08-27-03

Tetris could have been done by now, were it not for
FUCKING ILLOGICAL BUGS!@##
I've also uploaded some screen shots of the artwork so far. Check out the Tetris page for that. My main problem is getting collision detection and finding some god damn memory leak that keeps crashing MSVC++ after a while. Oh well, back to work. I got all day tommorow... kinda

08-26-03

I've programmed a simple bot for the GameDev: Arena AI programming challenge. I've basically done the most basic bot imaginable and it kicks a surprising amount of ass. It turns around like a madman until someone wanders into it, then it proceeds to stay absolutely still and lay a stream of fire onto the hapless opponent. You can download it here, and can find information about the contest at its forum here. Back to finishing tetris and homework.

08-24-03

Work has been hard, and so has homework. I haven't had time to code since Friday, but I have had a chance to upload old code. That's right, say hello to "ski dude." This is the first game I ever made, for visual foxpro. All I have is code, no executable, however. Just look under the "past projects" section for more information. Hehe, I love skidude. If anyone wants to procure a copy of foxpro for me, I'd be glad to put it together, art and everything.

08-23-03

Another news post after about a month. I'm renewing Tetris II! This game, my first game in C++, was all but finished but for a nasty problem displaying the "game over" screen. I restructured most of the stuff but lost focus and started work elsewhere... when all of a sudden my current project found the solution to this problem! The game over screen needed to have a width divisible by four! After finding some colorful words to describe this simple error, I have begun coding on Tetris again.

I estimate I have less than four hours of work remaining, possibly more if I run into any nasty stuff I can't figure out. In other news, the "tileset" project, as it has come to be called, has been progressing as well. I can now load certain "frames" of an image and display them where I want. An hour or so mastering file i/o and this program could be shaping up! Before I go back and go hardcore on tileset, it's a moral imperative that I get at least one thing in under the "past projects" section... and do my math homework. I have work in about an hour, so I don't have time right now. Pity.

07-29-2003

This is my first news post, I still have to learn a few things about php and make a news script and such, but as-is, this isn't that bad. I hope to turn this page into an archive of my past work and present labors for both me and anyone else interested to see. I will put up a short bio of me soon, but right now I must figure out how to make 16- and 32- bit images from a given 24-bit file, ciao!