Exciting things at M3D

Most of my programming time these days has been going into my work at M3D LLC which is a 3D printing company based in Maryland. I'm very excited about what's been going on inside the company and am excited about the Pro and ProMega 3D printers.

ProMega Information
Pro Information

AI System Progress

Long time no post. I've been working with M3D LLC to make software for the Micro 3D printer and that has been taking up a lot of my time, but today I had a little bit of extra time so I wanted to do a little coding. I've started designing and build the foundation of the navigation system for my AI engine. Hopefully I'll be able to get the basic stuff done before I go to work at M3D.

What's Up with Me and the Micro 3D

I've been away for some time now. A lot has changed since my last update. As I've said before, I used to teach English in Korea, but in April, my wife and I moved back to America.  Now I've been trying to get back into the swing of things. I want to spend more time coding my game, and for a month, I did that, but since I need money for things like food and a place to live, I decided to get a job. Before I came back to America, I started doing some heavy networking and a 3D artist and designer that I've work with put my name into at this company M3D LLC which makes 3D printers.  I've been working there for about 2 and a half weeks so far and like the startup environment. Everyone is very motivated and wants to put together a good product, but some the atmosphere is very relaxed. I guess that's what happens when you like what your doing. We joke around, talk, and do startup things like have barbecues. It's fun. It sometimes feels like a University of Maryland alumni meeting because almost everyone either graduated from UMCP (University of Maryland College Park) or is currently attending. I graduated from there in 2003. There's also an engineer who went to Yale. Yeah. He's pretty smart.

In my spare time, I still do Squared Programming stuff and continue to work on Auxnet. I've gotten a lot of work done on my AI system. For now I've decided to use a finite state machine as a low level framework of the AI system. I want to use the FSM system to develop more complex behavioral systems like planners, hierarchical FSMs, and behavior trees. The initial FSM system is done. Next I want to work on a navigation system that can be expanded to work with different algorithms and different kinds of maps. Then I'll add an extension to the system to allow state logic to be written in AngelScript. Once these things are done, I'll have a solid base. After that, I'll move onto other parts of the game like the animation and weapons systems.  Once those are out of the way, I'll revisit the AI system.

Auxnet: Battlegrounds Progress

I've been making a lot of progress these days. I've just finished most of a major renovation (hopefully the last until release) of the graphics engine. Before I had limited each model to one set of textures (diffuse, normal, effects map), but by artist request, I've added the ability to use a second set for added customizability(not a real word). I've also added the ability to change the colors of models in the engine. This will allow characters to be able to choose there colors. This isn't new earth-shattering technology, but it's a big deal for me.

I'll be moving back to the US tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to force my way back into the job market. I guess if things don't work out, I can always move back to Korea, but I'm going to try my hardest at becoming a successful indie developer.

Latest - March 31

I've just finished the initial framework of the AI engine. I just need to add some more implementation and I hope to get the AI to move an AI agent around in a few days.

Useful Game Programming Videos

Here are some links to some useful programming videos that I've made.

An Intro To Video Game AI for Beginners and Young Programmers
http://youtu.be/wsmMOJj6ETo

Game Engine Modular Architecture Overview - Making a Video Game
http://youtu.be/TZ30H-dDWx4

Game Engine Entity Attachments - Making a Video Game
http://youtu.be/8FWULdNHqJE

New Journal Post on Game AI Engine

I've just added a post on my journal page about the AI engine that I've been developing. I give a lot of details. You can read it here. http://journal.squaredprogramming.com/2014/03/building-ai-engine.html





Building My AI Engine