2D Platformer Engine

I just started a new class and we are going to be designing and creating our own Platformer Engine. I am leading a group of 9 people and we must be done in 8 weeks. So I hope that this goes as planned I feel that I can really learn a lot from this experience so stay tuned everyone and I will be updating the status of our project weekly.

I started a company...

Me my brother and one friend are now officially owners of Whack Wild Media L.L.C.we started the company so we can make and publish xna games for the xbox 360. We are going to release our project at either the end of this year or early next year. Stay posted.

It's Been a while...

It has been a while since I last updated, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Since my OpenGL grid project I have been working on brushing up my OOP designing skills in my program architecture class. I have learned a lot about UML and use cases in this class and we are actually developing a nice semi-useful simulation. The simulator we are creating is a system that will allow cars to autonomously drive on our simulated roads. In order for this to be complete there is a lot of work to be done, like setting up all of the paths for the cars and the collision is becoming a very difficult task. My job is the product team leader which means I am in charge of the whole project and I still get to code(which is perfect). I am hoping to have some pictures up soon but lately we have been doing a lot of work with Subversion and DOxygen which don't make for the nicest pictures but they are very helpful tools for developers. I guess with all of this stuff going on it hasn't given me much time to update the blog, but soon enough I will have some pictures and an update as to what I will be doing next.

Opengl grid

I just finished with finals week and I'm ready to show off my opengl program. This program is a 3d grid that can be edited by the user and it can save and load. This program could have had many more features but with only a week to work on it I am proud. I will have screenshots of it up soon so stay posted.

Directx 3d Picking

Many of you may know that picking is how you tell if a mouse is over a point in 3d space. Technically the mouse can be far away but because it is on a 2d monitor the user believes the mouse is over something. This can be achieved by using a ray traveling from the mouse pointer straight through the "3d" space in the vector direction of the camera. If this ray intersects the object than the user will seem like the mouse is over that object. It is quite a complex process to complete through code but today in class I finally finished my 3d picking object. It is a 3d cube that rotates if the mouse is over it. I do not have pictures yet, but I will post them soon.

Direct X

This session in class we have been studying Directx. We started with simple 2d and we made our way into the 3d stuff last week. I am going to post a screenshot of what we made which is a 3d surface made completely in code textured with a grass texture. This projects is just an intro and in our next few classes we are going to be giving it controls witht he mouse and keyboard much like a basic flight simulator
.

Social Networking

Well, I have been hearing a lot about social networking lately, and I actually started this blog so I could show off my projects on my LinkedIn Profile. Which brings me to my next point it seems in today's industry it's not what you know it's who you know that will get you in. So I am on facebook, LinkedIn, and I have a blog which I am trying to advertise to everyone new I am meeting. These are great things to do if you want to do some networking online. However, next week I am going to a job fair located at my school to meet some potential future employers. So you may be wondering why I am writing all of this, and the simple point that I'm trying to make is get your name out there. If you are graduating soon(like me) or not so soon now is the time to start being known. So being as this is a page full of my projects and accomplishments I thought I would talk about how hard I have been working on being known by everyone. Thanks for reading everyone I am trying to update this as much as possible so keep posted please.

-Jared