And I'm back

Well, I returned last friday at 23:22, but it took me till now to write a blog update.

And my Fazit is: It was Awesome!

I may not have a contract at CryTek already (something some others may have hoped for), but I have gained a lot of experience, and knowledge.

I enjoyed each and every lecture I took, had some great chats with some real developers.

And if the GDC showed me one thing it is that I need a card.

Some volumteers even made it that way: "Hello, my name is " *hands over card* *asks question*. What is quite a bold move, I think. Especially if I think about my native reaction to such a 'hello': *take card* *throw card, quite visibel, away* "Hello" :)

Another thing I found out is that companys most of the time want stuff to see from someone, a port folio. ... My port folio is quite empty ... which means that I have to fill it. Which means that I have to contiue on Hexamat.

The problem here, is actually not a problem, but a pile of work. Last week I have changed the data-structure, and I still have not change all that methods that have to work with the new struture.

Ergo, what I learned from that is: Always make a good and solid plan before you start something, later changes can be a pain in the ass.

Greg

Up, Up and Away

Everything is packed, hotel booked, and train goes in 3 hours.

As far as I know I'm ready for the GDC-Europe and following that the Gamescom.

First I will have a 11 hour train raid to Cologne. For that I have one book, one GamePro and one GameBoy DS in my backbag, only waiting to entertain me.

I will arrive at around 5:45, which gives me 7 hours I can spend to see Cologne before I can check in the hotel. Once I have unpacked my laptop and my clothes, I'm already on my way to the orientation meeting in the Kölner Messe.

There I will first meet my fellow volumteers and get instructions about what to do when, where, why, how ofter, etc. This is supposed to take till 16:30, after that I finally will have a few hours to spend in the hotel room, taking shower, relaxing. Because at 20:00 there is already the next event on my timetable. This is when the speackers of the GDC meet in the so called Haxenhaus (German appearently don't know what a 'Haxen' is ...).

On the next three days I will be one of the guys with a GDC-Shirt standing in a corner, or walking though the halls, looking for people I can help out. .. can't wait :D ...

Then I'll have one and a half days time to enjoy the Gamescom. Wallking around, taking pictures, playing games, taking give-aways, talk to developers, ... you know just taking stuff.

On Friday my train goes at 14:00 back to Austria.

So Long,

Greg

Reinventing the Wheel

Till yesterday I had a problem, with my Levels, about how to delete a section of a Level while every section holds a number for identification. And all numbers had to work together ... well ... it WAS a problem.

Thanks to the greate community at creators.xna.com I found a solution. Instead of useing Lists where you have to know where the asked section is (the number), I now use Dictionaries.

But why stop with the levels? Why not use dictionaries everywhere where they fit? Actually not a bad idea ... if I would not have to rewrite the entire code ... :(

But I will still do it just because they also are a solution for my futur scripting problem, as I now make the basic tile grids not with integers but with strings, if I now add a additional grid, I can store in it tile based scripts.

Brilliant, am I not? :D

Well, yes, its not written down, nor tested, but in theory it looks much better then before. Everthing looks so simple now. :)

Greg

New Blog

Hey, I have a new blog.

I had to close down my old one, because I don't use the E-Mail address it was connected too anymore.

Further more will I use it to start over, with the stuff I post here. Before did I also post some post about me (what I will continue), but I will try to focuse on my projects, like its now: "Off Planet".

Lets start right away.

Ok, the last few days I did not that much, but not because I still have probelms with the C# (I reinstalled it, and now it works), but simply because it was weekend. ;)

Today I woun't be doing anything either, ... a friend has invited me to play through the Halo ! campaign, would you have said no?

Anyway. Once I'm done with lazzing around I will be confronted with the WorldEditorControl. My Save/Load code works fine for weeks now, the ProjectManagerControl starts to have its affects too, so I now can start to work on the Worlds.

A world is like a Level, with the only difference that its supposed to be HUGE. So that it will be splitt up in different 'part' or 'screens', where you later can move from one to another. After that I will start to work on the LevelEditorControl. I know that level is not the right name for it, but I will come up with something.

That what realy bugs me is that I sooner or later will have to figure out how to place stuff you can interact with, or better how to scrip them ... but I still have time till then.

Greg