I just wrote up an article on TwoFedoras.com about why I think Microsoft’s Project Natal is awesome and the Wiimote and Sony’s Arc suck.  Check it out.

Two Fedoras – On Motion Control Solutions and the Coming Revolution.

Up to this point I’ve tried to write on a more open schedule, pushing for graphical updates (since everyone loves pretty pictures).  That hasn’t quite worked out for me, since I’ve lately been working on a couple side projects and mostly deep engine stuff.  Instead, I thought I’d try a more stream of consciousness textual update style for a bit and see how that suits me.  Probably pepper that with some screenshots when I have something interesting to show for it.

So, I’m currently re-working the bullet engine to more closely match the design pattern of BulletML, basically making my own flavor of the system that works better in C# using the content pipeline for loading and working with patterns written in xml, as well as hooking into my GPU based particle system using bullets as individual emitters.  This means I’m also working on a fairly optimized version of a tiny expression parser to handle expression based values as read in from the bullet xml descriptions.  Allowing me to write “pi” in a value field instead of hard coding “3.141592″ as well as a “rand” value in expressions which will generate a new random number in the expression every time the bullet hits that part of the script.  I hope to post more about my bullet engine when it’s more fully formed, including code and descriptions of design decisions, because I think it’s fairly interesting.

My apologies for the lateness, but I was recently simultaneously afflicted with both strep throat and jury duty.  That was a fun combination.  On to the screenshots!

While the textures are basic for now, I have implemented dynamic lighting and particles in the stage loading and drawing pipelines.  The sconces contain tiny licking flames, and the stage is overlaid with an ambient color that is modulated with radiant lights, such as the sconce light sources which provide a soft flickering red-orange.

The shadows are dynamically cast, in this case using a large, soft light source centered on the player for testing.  Eventually, I will probably relegate shadow casting to environmental lighting, certain enemies,  gunshot flashes, and some special effects I won’t reveal just yet.

Since I’ve been slacking off recently, here’s a Raspberyl dance party, played on by Yui and Mio to make up for it.

Been working simultaneously on bullet and particle systems.  Here’s a peak at what they look like combined so far!