Abit Of detailings

Here's The latest bot design.

Latest Bot Upgrade

I humbly present MY latest work. I will have to think of a creative name other than dreadnaught now since it has been modified and based off 4 different robot designs, namely, the CNC 3's GDI juggernaut, Battlefield 2142's T39 Bogatyr and L5 Riesig, and ultimately the dreadnaught from warhammer 40000.
Not much comment or creative writing for now since it's still a work in progress.

Edit:
after some critics from some people, i have changed things quite abit... The new bot looks like this
Yeah, the previous design had a flaw, the canons were solid, so they could not be kept, in this version i broke the canons into 3 segmented barrels. The rockets were resized to be larger and the gattling gun is resized to be smaller. Also, i added the exhaust pipe back, since it was missing, but shrunk it for the 13inch guns.

Industry Review

So, for some people who know me or may not know me, i'm intending to make it big in the game industry, but i'm not looking at working for a big time or big name firm in the game industry. Well, it's either the GEN Y push that's making me have this drive since i was small or my experiences in working. Eitherway, one thing i can compile to make a successful business i intend to build.

Firstly, there should be openess. There will be a time to slack and there will be a time to work. They should not go together, unless, well, you consider work to be slacking, heh. Which in some ways will work. For me i enjoy modelling as a part time thing, but i don't intend to do it forever. so yeah.

Secondly, your problem is my problem. If you're not happy, i'm not happy. Simple enough to understand. If you are not happy it would not be in my interests to keep you unhappy, since you would probably do crummy work.

Thirdly, inspiration can come from anywhere. In this industry, we actually incourage people to have extended vacations and what nots as it gives opportunity to relax and at the same time have an inspiration to do other things.

Fourthly, try everything, and choose something you like. If you like rock climbing, why not incoperate that as an idea.

Fifth, one of the important things, ETERNAL FREEDOM, it's something i define as. The freedom to choose where to work, to choose what you want to work on, though sometimes you have to do things you don't like, the freedom to give something a chance.

Sixth, money should not be a factor or a driving force, it should be passion. If you love it, you will work for it, if not then it's not worth working for.

Lastly, and the most important, and is my personal philosophy, if you like your work, you will excell. No point on working on something you don't like. it doesn't make any sense. Have the dream and work towards it.

Mine has always been to be a leader. To create a company well known for games that step out of the boundary and make it big. That is something most companies lack these days. Even yes, dare i admit? Big companies. They neglect proper gameplay for graphics. Which in someways, maybe good, but in others, that just makes the game more of an eyecandy than anything else.

I love games and i love business, that's why i want to merge my both my loves together and making something big in the future. Who knows, perhaps it may grow into something successful.

C++ Loops...

Well, the more people i showed this blog to on the C++ lessons, the more they want me to keep an up-to-date blog on the lessons made.... lol. okay, i can only do that if i understand. And i guess if i do a write up the more i'll understand better, and in a way it's my notes too. okay, so this week the discussions was on loops... so let's have an indepth look at loops.


So, how do i begin.... okay... picking off where we left off from switch,

cin : Ask User What sex is he or she
switch(userinput)
{
Case 'Male': Tell him he is a man

Case 'Female': Tell her she is a woman

default: user did not input what he is
}

So, let's say we want to keep on asking the user to input something that is either male or female. so here we can use the loop statement.

while(expression)
{
...
}

which in this case we can do,

-Declare what is USERINPUT.
-Declare what is TRY.

set TRY to FALSE

while(if try is FALSE loop again)
{
cin : Ask User what sex is he or she
switch(USERINPUT)
{
Case 'Male': Tell him he is a man
Set TRY to TRUE

Case 'Female': Tell her she is a woman
Set TRY to TRUE

default: Tell user the entry is invalid and to try again
Set TRY to FALSE(Or not since it is FALSE by default)
}
}

So, that would work in that form. So what happens is that when the user starts this program, it will ask the user to key in their sexual state. lol. And have to type in either MALE or FEMALE. If the user keys in anything else, it will just repeat the same question over again.

One of the dangers of using the loop statement is the eternal loop that can follow if it is missused. What happens is that, it will continue the loop as no one defined where it should stop. so let me show you an example.

Define User

While(if user is human loop again)
{
ask user what user is
}

That is an obvious thing. Since only humans can use the internet. It will keep on asking the user what he is. Also, since it's in this state, the program is still running so it will keep on asking this question over and over again. an endless loop that the user can only terminate by an ALT-F4 or by restarting the computer. In extreme cases it's the latter choice.

So the important thing is always to keep the expression in the while statement up to date, unless you want it to keep on annoying the user on something. There should be a point in which it can break the loop. That is the most important in coding.

Okay, now that we have looked at the simple way of coding, now let's look at the more streamlined way to do it. This way is better as firstly it's alot more cleaner, makes you look pro and beats writing alot more code... which i will show you in a while.

for (initial statement;loop statement;update statement)
{
...
}

...hmm... this part i'm not exactly sure right now, so i'll leave it down here for now, i'll be back when i properly understand this part, and then i'll continue this lesson.

Edit: Okay so after some deliberation....

basically what the above means is:


for (set ask to 0; if cheese is yes or if "ASK" is 3, exit;increment "ASK" by 1)
{
Ask if user likes cheese
}
switch(cheese)
{
case 'Yes' :
Output YAY CHEESE!~
break loop;

case 'No' :
Boo to you.....you suck
}

See? That would work. what basically is happening is that, at the start by default the program will set ASK to 0 since it needs to be defined. Then what happens is, if the user tried the program and typed in no, it will loop again, for 3 times before displaying you suck. on the other hand, if the user types in yes, it will print yay cheese.

Basically that's all there is to it in loops. i hope you took back something from this. =)

ARGGGGGHHH.....

That's really a catchy tittle. haha. Well... let me do it again..... ARRARRRRGGGHHHHhh...... Finally that's out, well what happened is that i accidentally overwrited my work on the dreadnaughts. And my back up is 3 weeks old, that was the very first version. So no point starting from there. Eitherway, i had wanted to work on the body again, so i decided to rework the whole thing again. In fact, i did it during my VART period which was 4 hours and i managed to produce a working, semi complete product.


And my lecturer thought that the pictures i showed her in my blog was someone elses work, so this is an...IN YOUR FACE JAMIE... haha. lol. This is my pro-ness...face it. haha. Well anyways, in this new version i decided to frankenstein parts from other robots and improve on it's design. Notice that i took a new approach on it's legs. also, i remodelled the rocket pods to be able to hide into the shoulder.

Well, during yesterday's break, i was bored, i decided to work on a small project, and one thing led to another and i made this...



Yeah it's my version of ironman's jerico missile... haha.. it so pwns you... haha. For the background i used one of the OS's wallpaper... can't remember whose. if someone finds out, please tell me. I used it as a kind of backdrop. anyways, back to work, the bot's dateline is next week.

C++ Arguments

Personal comments: I'm bored enough to actually do this write up... so yeah lol.

C++ is not a particularly favourable language for me, but it does have it's benefits. In short the language is used for Object Oriented Programming. So it would make alot of sense to use it to design games, though other languages are equally capable of doing so. However this little write up is basically not about the arguments on different languages, instead it is an arguement on what suits where in C++ programming.

Since in class we recently covered if else and switch, my first argument is when each is suitable and why certain if else codes can simply be replaced with a switch. Most people seem to find ifelse to be highly difficult to utilise, which i see as more of an utter lack of understanding for fundalmentals.

if(...)
{
....
}
else
{
...
}

that is a simple if else statement it's like saying..

Ask user if he is boy or girl
if(user is boy)
{
tell him he is a boy
}
else
{
tell her she is a girl
}

simple enough? Yup, now let's look at switch, usually it's more efficient to write in that situation,
like above, but what if you want to write another add on, like if the person asked is a man or woman. You would see this:

Ask user if he is boy, girl, woman or man
if(user is boy)
{
tell him he is a boy
}
else
{
if(user is girl)
{
tell her she is a girl
}
else
{
if(user is woman)
}
tell her she is a woman
{
else
}
if(user is a man)
{
tell him he is a man
}
}

that was quite a code... imagine if you had to code it like that... that would be madness...well.. perhaps if you wanted to add another one which would be child aged 1 to age 9..... We can use something called a switch, which is,

switch(variable)
{
case 1: ...

case 2: ...

case 3: ...

case 4: ...

default: ...
}

now let's try the first one again with the switch way.

user inputs what he/she is
switch(userinput)
{
Case 'Man': Tell he is a man

Case 'Woman': Tell she is a woman

case 'Boy': Tell he is a boy

Case 'Girl': Tell she is a girl.

default: user did not input what he is
}

See? see how simple the code is now and how short it is? if you want to go one step furthur, you could just combine it with the ifelse, which i won't show it here. So you see certain situations the if else would do well, but in other situations, where possible, use the switch.

Dreadnaught MKIII

After furthur development at the labs, I have designed the next generation walker that will dominate battlefields. Introducing...

Dreadnaught MK III Variants

This latest design was based off the original design and have improved armour plating. The previous design was strictly melee and long ranged with the rockets add on. Now the latest variant has an added Bolter which with penetration powers of up to 1500km/h, it can take care of the troops and vehicles that plague the general battlefield. The stabilisation systems have also been improved with added weight shifted to it's center of gravity. the core which have always failed and exploded at very unpredictable circumstances, has been replaced with a new Mercury-Plutonium mixture, in which the the core will no longer blow up with catastropic losses.

After furthur deliberation, i have decided to phase out the melee only variant and introduce the MARK IIII.

Dreadnaught HBV-MkIIV

This latest update has new and improved rocket pods, which are now on a swivle. The previous designs had been static, which cause the controllers of the robot to be inaccurate at firing the missiles. The missiles previously had to be upgraded to be fitted with a heat seeking capability, thus with the new upgrade, the missile costs can be downsided in place with a more powerful armament. The bolter have shrunk slightly to allow easy targeting of enemy vehicals.