VinceArter.com

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Well I’m sure those that are waiting for SPORE Game Packager (SPG) are wondering … where is it? I mentioned it only a few days after SPORE’s release. I have been busy at work and the 90 software releases we have going on in our projects right now so I haven’t had free time to finish SPG.

I did, several weeks ago, start re-writing the UI. It looks nicer and does use the Krypton Suite. I also fixed some of the bugs in the temporary file handling. The code is still ungodly ugly and horrible (I hate to admit it) but right now I just want to get it out there and will do some OOD later. (Hey … at least I refactored it so none of my methods have more than a few lines of code in them and got rid of unnecessary stuff but it’s still very procedural).

Anyway I hope to finish it in the next few weeks if there is still interest. I haven’t received as much interest as I did initially but I’m guessing folks are just waiting.

Oh and yes … this will be for Windows only right now. I chose to do in C# with the .NET 3.5 framework and it uses Windows environment information so at this time it will probably not work on UNIX / Mac even under Wine (I’m guessing).

Here is the latest screenshot. If you are still interested drop me a line and I’ll get it done faster.

SPG Screenshot

 Vince

So the SPORE Game Packager has been delayed a few days. I really wanted to clean up some stuff and make it more user friendly. I have just recently (acutally a few months ago) started working with a neat package of tools called the Krytpon Suite (part of which, Krypton Toolkit is free). VERY cool suite of tools and early testing shows that they perform very well.

Right now the package is almost done. I have everything packaging up nicely and am working on some clean-up items I mentioned:

To Do

• Clean-up packaging code (it’s messy now)
• Re-design UI (it’s just nasty at the moment) using Krytpon Suite and better layout
• Use temporary folders for more efficient restoration (unpackaging).

So I want to get some of that conversion finished and I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the tool and how it is going.

For those interested in the project (and it seems like a lot of people are for some reason) one thing to note (and the program will warn you) is that this does NOT do a merge. It is basically like backing up from one PC and the restoring OVER the other one … it is to copy everything from one location to another. IF enough people are interested in the project and I have time I guess I could dig deeper into the folder structure of SPORE and figure out how to do more of a merge approach.

Another question I have been asked is will it cost anything (or will it be Open Source). It will not cost anything but if you really like you can donate (coming soon) to help me continue development. It will not be Open Source. I have a friend (Trent) who is a big WoW gamer and has been thinking of doing a similar project for WoW so at some point we may merge our code streams (I THOUGHT YOU SAID NEVER CROSS THE STREAMS RAY!) so that could be a change in the future as well.

Well have a good rest of the week and look for more on SPORE Game Packager after the weekend (and probably an Alpha Release sometime during the weekend).

– Vince

I’ve seen so many threads about how people are struggling with copying or moving their SPORE data between PCs (say if you have a big PC and a laptop).

Actually you can. It is a pain in the rump. You have to copy your %APPDATA%\SPORE folder (in all its glory) and your My Documents\My SPORE Creations (or on Vista it is something like User\Documents\My SPORE Creations).

I’ve been so pained by this I am currently writing a little SPORE Game Packager so I can make it easy to do this … it will create a file that you can move between PCs … kind of like back and restore. I’ll post it for free on my website when I’m done if anyone is interested. It is ugly and poorly written (the REAL programmer in me wants to make it nice and object oriented but I’m lazy right now … PLAYING SPORE!). Anyway … keep an eye out here for the program. Here is an early screenshot. Note that most of the application is a “covering my butt” statement. You can click the thumbnail below to see a bigger picture.

Vince (V2)
http://www.vincearter.com

OK … so I’ve guided his creation and he’s come a long way baby. I spent way more time in Creature mode than I should but I was having fun running around making everyone extinct. Yeah he’s pretty mean. Some good videos. I upped the resolution to 640×480. YouTube reduces that but it’s better than earlier videos that were tiny and YouTube made them look terrible.

Version IV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQgqvsDdmOM

IV Sprinting and Gliding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LM2uJCNFyI

IV Savagely Destroying a Hive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koRtuq7Xyho (Note this one is violent)

Version IV (Just started using him): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heaaXM5tVL8

After a few stressful weeks at work I needed a break and needed to blow off some “virtual steam”. It was fun. I spent too much time on it (3 hours) but it was a nice diversion. Enjoy.

V2

I did another video of Mandislug. This one shows a few things:

1. Mandislug found a big stick! I thought, “Hmmm. I wonder if I can use it to beat things with?” So I picked it up and slung it at another creature and hurt it!
2. Then he kicked its hiney to oblivion.
3. Then he ate it.

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLZHCV2p-WE

I’m going to have to see if I can get better video quality out of SPORE than this.

V2

So I’ve been playing SPORE for a few days (only a total of a few hours really) and a non-Christian and evolutionist person I know asked my how a Christian who fully believes in Intelligent Design as God actually did it (and as documented in the Bible) could like a game like this. Personally I find the game to be more about ID than evolution or at least guided evolution but I don’t care. IT’S A GAME! I don’t go out on the town with an M4 after playing Call of Duty! Oh brother.

Anyone that knows me knows what I believe (and if you dont’ just pick up a copy of the Bible and start reading or send me an e-mail and I’ll gladly tell you).

I like playing video games sometimes and this one is very good but it is a GAME. I don’t set my beliefts on games, TV, movies, books (other than God’s Word). Now with that said I would never get involved in something that would be harmful but trust me … if you are mature you can play a game like this an not be listed on the Richard Dawkins Christmas Card list. Oh wait. He’d never send out Christmas Cards.

BTW … a good review of the game is at http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/09/1516246&from=rss.

And they call religious people touchy and one sided. Plus, IMHO, SPORE is more ID focused than the game designers probably thought about … or maybe they did … but I’m sure the game designers would send hitmen after me for saying that thus ending my “evolution”.

V2

Oh yeah. SPORE (http://www.spore.com) got released today! I picked up a copy and spent like 2 hours going back and forth through the manual. Yeah I know. I should have just loaded it and played it but I wanted to understand it.

I had played the Creature Creator demo and just loved it. Now I’m playing the full thing and I have to say it is a lot of fun. Not Populous but … cool.

My first creature is pretty tough already.

Mandislug Animated Avatar

I had a lot of fun for a few hours … from little guy to big guy. Pretty fun. I uploaded some videos of my creation at different stages to my YouTube account (http://www.youtube.com/VArterJr).

V2

My wife has started a t-shirt shop on Cafe Press. There are a lot of them out there but hers is unique with some pretty cool designs and more coming. She has some already out there. You can access her shop by clicking the image below.

Elaine was messing around on the net last week and found some songs our daughter did with Chris Porcelli (Vic Porcelli’s son … Vic is on the radio here in St. Louis, MO) and Mitch Leitschuh they were messing around with some Standards. Rate the songs a five. She sounds like she is from the 1930s and 1940s not the 1990s and 2000s. :-) So I’m proud of her.

You Give Me Fever - http://youtube.com/watch?v=sCSA4sJd8ek

Why Don’t You Do Right? - http://youtube.com/watch?v=nd7yKgLs7Kk

V2

I had been looking for an RSS aggregator (and more) and something that works kind of like Yahoo Widgets (but doesn’t suck). I found KlipFolio awhile back and it is really a neat little app if you want to keep in touch with several sources of information. It’s very easy to use and the new Beta for Version 5 has some neat new features.

I love the Facebook Friends update … I don’t have to log in to see my friends statuses. I even created some shortcuts to Twitter and Facebook to updates so I can update more frequently.

The programming interface is basically JavaScript and XML … I wrote a small Klip (like a web part in SharePoint) in just a few minutes (was building a clock and the object model didn’t work as expected). Anyway … it’s a pretty neat little application if you like that kind of thing. In combination with TrueLaunchBar and Actual Window Manager (the two utilities I just can’t live without) you get a lot of power, freedom and control over your Windows environment.

Vince