It is a hard way to make the game you want without a big budget. There are a lot of steps like technical design document, game design document, programming skills, long time motivation. . . Each one of this tasks doesn’t only make the indies headache

Like we know, every project is based on time, money and quality. These are the next steps to conquer.

Despite everything, the are a lot of different solutions. We take it our way and call it “production drops”. The idea is to split one big project into many little projects ( I thing this is the point where everyone starts to laugh). But the clou of this idea is to finish all sub projects (production drop or PD) as a single project. That means, we put into every PD some key features of our big project. Each of this application is fin and can be thrown on the market.

This is our goal to be highly motivated over long time, because we make little project at a short time. In addition to this, we can test some big project features directly on the market without losing time and alter them for our aim. During this time we have all time we need for the documentation stuff. More over, it is possible to source out PDs on 3th party developers.

This workaround must be based on a very modular project library/source code. And that is the first logical step for the whole production. We are not sure how long it will take to work on this pipeline. But one thing is sure, the only parameter which will rise is time. Other problems like money and quality will be fixed by the production drops.

The first production drop will be released soon.

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I write this post to make the transfer between C++ or Java to ObjC (Objective-C) a little bit easier.

One of the biggest differences between ObjC (Objective-C) and C++ or Java is the philosophy behind functioncalls. While you speak about methodcalls in context of Java or C++, in ObjC its called messages to objects.

With a methodcall under C++ or Java the method is binded before the programm starts. This means that the objects method must exist, otherwhise there would be an compilererror and starting the programm would be impossible. This early binding has the benefit of preventing mistakes due programming of methodcalls. However early binding is very unflexible.

Among ObjC you send messages to objects. This comes from Smalltalk. Messages are send during the runtime, enabling late binding. The object interprets the messages while runtime and decides which function to call. This means that the compiler dont check the existence of the function before runtime. Late binding hold the drawback of making mistakes while programming functioncalls. But the big advantage of flexibility.

This Example looks very simple but wouldnt work on C++ or Java:

implementation ClassOne
…
-(void)doSomeThing
{…}
@end

implementation ClassTwo
…
-(void)doSomeThing
{…}
@end

int main(…)
{
id *object = [[ClassOne alloc]init]; //id stands for any type of object
[object doSomeThing]; //call ClassOne`s method
[object release];
object = [[ClassTwo alloc]init];
[object doSomeThing]; //call ClassTwo`s method
}

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(Version:1.0)

Big thanks to sharecg and skudman for the model. This tutorial is  for 3ds Max and Mental Ray. It  is about rendering a character with very low resolution because of the hardware(iPhone developing) and style. To finish this tut you must be familiar with 3ds Max.

Every game design document contents a art document with all art directions. After the style is defined and you want have only pixel artworks or pixel sprites or whatever. A lot of us make the graphics with a 2d tool because of workflow.

I thing the better choice is a 3d tool like 3ds Max because you are very flexible with texturing, lighting, animating,….

The biggest problem are renderings like this:

(This pic have only one big problem. IT IS TO BLURY. That means I used the wrong antialiasing/ sampling.)

(OK, these are my settings)

Sampling per pixel: Minimum value define on wich pixel Metal Ray(MR) will work.

1/4-> every fourth pixel

1 ->every pixel

4->every pixel *4

Maximum value give more subdivisons to a sample

// We need the values 1 and 1. To fix every pixel with one colour.

Filter: Filters define the details. Box makes a very blury pic. Gauss is a better one, and so on… Lanczos makes the sharpest antialiasing.

// For our fin rendering we take the Lancoz filter.

Spatial Contrast:This parameters are something like colourthreshold. If MR find two different pixel with high RGB values it will recursive sampling.

//I think I take 0,0,0 because it will sample everything.

All in all, I settup my Sampling Quality like this:

And my picture looks pretty well, now.

Ok, I hope it was a nice introduction to Sampling Quality of MR and 3ds Max. Moreover I think it is possible to organize all graphics creations for iPhone with a 3d software. At the moment I need only a rig to make very fast animations, render them out and put all the stuff into xcode

thx and cheers

PS: special  thx to weltenbauer.

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Today we finished another little project that comes out of nowhere. During our projects we need something to eat, of course, but we couldn’t decide which food. So we came with this idea to let the iphone decide^^.

link to game

Thanks to iApper for posting our game,www.iapper.com

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We started the next project called “sculptNgo” for the iPhone / iPod Touch. Its a kind of “Paint” for 3D-Objects. We published this Prototype-Demo to find out whether the users need such a tool.  Find out more on youtube, the link below.

Youtube:

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Our first game is finished. We worked a lot on balancing to make the game easily to understand but hard to master For few days we upload it to apple servers. We have to wait, now. Find more informations on our page or visit youtube.

Youtube:

Pigru take an individual way of game design. It works only with a handful expressive colours and iPhone/iPod touch moves. Procedural made background hue goes step in step with music. All in all pigru go away from ubiquitous games and try to present a new experience. A powerful 3D engine let you play the game all the time in 3D. That means that every part of pigru, also the menu, is moving in 3rd dimension space.

Match beautiful pixel artworks! This game is a different puzzle game. Every pixel picture is broken in parts. Tilt your Iphone/Ipod touch to bring the parts together. It seems that it is too easy but try to get the best high score or all 31 pixel artworks at one run.

Moreover, after finishing a puzzle you will see colourful and nice particle effects.

Filip tested our game, read more at
www.creativeapplications.net

Thanks to iApper for posting our game,
www.iApper.com

Thanks Blender we were able to model this beautiful graphics,
www.blendernation.com

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After some weeks of work we finished the game assets and programmed the hardest part of the game. The game will be a some different puzzle game. We named it “pigru”

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