I hate reruns

At one point I mentioned that every time I'm motivated to work on this project, some life-changing event happens to stall it. It was a somewhat tongue-in-cheek statement.

I lost someone close to ALS three years ago. It set in motion several major life changes, including leaving the world of logistics to chase a comp sci degree. We turned something horrible into something good. My main supporter in that endeavor granted me a roof on the condition I do well - a condition I happily met. Now an illness is quickly consuming him and treatment options have failed.

I've donned my caregiver cap once again to do what I can. It hasn't even collected much dust.

Model test

Round 2, Fight!

Classes pause until September, so it's time to work on the next phase of FrosTrainer. That's the deal I made when abandoning the doomed life of a shipping clerk for academia: while classes are in session, they get top priority. So, bear with me, there will be some dramatic pauses.

That said, new objectives for this phase:

• Move to OpenGL
• Automatic road generator
• GUI cleanup/overhaul
  
• New road editor

It'd be nice to swap out the modest sprite riders with some retro polygon based riders while we're at it.

(As for the leap into the full-time student life a good fifteen years removed from the classroom, it goes extremely well! A very special thank you to all the friends and family that got behind me on this.)

-Frost

Videos, more or less

After a day of frustration with an antiquated camera and crashing video software, there are two rather low quality videos here.

These will be replaced later with more details, proper split-screen, and real screenshots. I just wanted to throw something up, however small, for the curious.

Frost out.

Soon

Interface rewritten again, major bugfixes in the renderer, and several additions and tweaks. As is tradition, a low res mobile snap showing very little:


Video this weekend, optimistically.

Tweaks and Finds

Found a very thorough and interesting site on methods for presenting an oldschool road. A little late to be useful to my renderer though. Still some good thoughts in there, like faking corners, that I might bring over. My abrupt angle changes aren't very convincing.

Rewriting the bike sensor functions again after a live test as the last go overlooked some important details. I really ought to do live tests more often.

Happy 2011

Getting used to a new lifestyle/schedule and having real live free time. I've taken that opportunity to rewrite a big chunk of code and overhaul both the renderer and sensor interface. The bad news is that doesn't change much on the surface visually, but under the hood it's a lot more stable, balls-on accurate, and a bit more open to move to OpenGL some day in the future. In the meantime, for the record, writing a software renderer has been a blast - and challenging. Really the same thing.

I suppose I ought to get around to that video?



PS: It is with deep regret the DOS port has been broken through the updates :(