In order to accomplish this I made the decision that rather than try to come up with a project on my own I would attempt to clone a game that I had enjoyed many years ago.  That game was Crash Bandicoot.  This decision made designing the game more of a focus on technical skills rather than artistic creativity.  Before I would look at this as a way of giving up, not doing the entire thing by myself but I believe now that this allows someone who is not very experience in the field to make a fun game while building their abilities for future projects.

Build the first model of the game seems to be coming along just fine.  In fact the only real hurdle I have had so far is now that it is finished an animated when I export the model the animation gets squirrelly.  This could be an issue with my mesh but I will continue to play and see if I cant find something that works.  Here are some of the first pictures of my model in blender:

The next step was picking a 3d game engine.  For this I ended up going with Panda3d thanks to the suggestion of a friend of mine who is also a developer.  He was mostly interested in using the python interface; however, I decided that I wanted to do it in c++.  This would have been fine until I found out that the gnu compiler is not supported by the library and I would have to do some major hacking to get it to where it would compile.  Instead I decided that this would provide me with the perfect opportunity to learn python.  This makes life extremely easy with code as simples as:

from direct.showbase.ShowBase import ShowBase
 
class MyApp(ShowBase):
 
	def __init__(self):
		ShowBase.__init__(self)

		environ = loader.loadModel("models/crash/crash_crude")
		environ.reparentTo(self.render)
		environ.setScale(0.25, 0.25, 0.25)
		environ.setPos(0, 5, 0)
 
app = MyApp()
app.run()

for loading a model.

Over the next few weeks I hope to have a running demo so keep your eyes peeled.

One of the biggest projects that I have wanted to dedicate my time to since the time I started programming was a game.  Gaming was something Ive done my entire life and most likely one of my first memories.  Because of this, Ive always wanted to make a game.  I lack any 3d modelling skills and or time to spend sitting down and writing an entire game.  Recently Ive decided that I would make time.  Not only because I want to make a game but also because Id like to keep my skills in application development in tip top shape.  More will come from the game but currently it is in the early stages of development which I will save for another post.

Please feel free to keep an eye on this blog as I am hoping to provide recent news on any programming projects Im working on and also tidbits that Ive found useful at my place of work.