I proved an important theory today. Having a conversation at 150 yards can indeed be just as awkward as a conversation from 3 feet away. I often look down from my apartment building and spot people I know. I find it amusing to call them on their cell phones and notify them that I am judging them from an elevated position. Then I tell them exactly how and why I am judging them and hang up. Sometimes I keep it short and sweet. If you know me and are walking past my building it is not uncommon to receive a phone call and hear “Nice pants loser. Ya’ll just got judged!… CLICK”. If you quickly turn around and look up at my floor you might catch me ducking behind a sofa. Anyway, today one of my friends managed to pull me into an awkward conversation about network cards before I was able to judge them. The conversation was fine but it was made awkward by the fact that the person I called stopped and looked at me while having the conversation from 150 yards away. It’s very odd to make extreme gestures like you are yelling to someone far away but then be talking in a normal voice. The entire experience was terrifying. I’d like to try it again someday. Finally, incase you were wondering, I actually yell the work “CLICK!” before I hang up a phone.
One part of our next milestone consists of extending our automated build system. We already use Buildbot to automate most of our builds and testing. Every time source code is checked into the repository it is compiled and all unit tests are run. If the compile or unit tests fail the entire team is notified via email.
Our next milestone requires us to take our automated build system one step further. Source code and game source assets will be automatically built and distributed for all to use when checked into the repository. Any changes to the source code or game assets will result in all developers automatically using the updated version. If bad source code is checked in (it doesn’t compile or fails a unit test) then the build will fail, the team is notified and the broken version is not automatically deployed. There are many other cool extras we get for free when using this system. For example the ability to automatically deploy any version of the repository. If something went horribly wrong with the latest checked in version we can instantly build and deploy any prior version of the repository and all developers will automatically be using that version. Developers can deploy and work on different versions of the repository at the same time. This can also extend to branches and tags. We can have one part of our team working on an unstable branch of the engine while the other part is working on the main trunk of the repository which is stable. Each team works on their own branch and any changes they make are automatically deployed to the others using that same branch. When the unstable branch becomes stable and is merged into the main trunk then the new changes are instantly deployed to the group working with the main trunk.
This will also be very useful for game assets. The artist never has to compile or generate game assets from their source assets and then check the generated game assets into the repository. They just check in their source assets which are then automatically built into game assets and deployed to all developers. To test the new automated build system we decided to make another small game. Gavin and I are going to do most of the modeling so we can become acquainted with Maya. The game is a simple target range where you can shoot at various objects. As a result I felt compelled to name our current milestone “Hogan’s Alley”.
We finally got internet at our new place today. The release of our Pub Crawl milestone should happen shortly. We also replaced our old 100 Mbit networking hardware with new 1 Gbit switches. I was worried about the cost being too much for the extra speed. I was also worried that we wouldn’t see a big difference in our transfer rates. After hooking up the new switches my worries were quickly put to rest. The new transfer speeds over the network are wonderful and it was worth every penny. If you are deciding whether or not to switch to Gigabit Ethernet I highly recommend you do. If your computers don’t have Gigabit Ethernet cards you can pick them up pretty cheap and the money saved by using 100 Mbit hardware will not justify the slower transfer rates.
We have been hard at work on our fourth milestone titled ‘Pub Crawl’. All of our major goals were finished by our deadline on Sunday. This included creating ScriptNodes, updating snTools, and creating a small game to test them. I went into the milestone with the idea of creating a hacky throw away game system which sole purpose was to test the ScriptNodes. The system turned out better then I thought and we began to gain some insight into how our actual game system might operate. Denrei has been working endlessly on modeling the pub and its characters. His apartment filled with water during the flood and I think he has been living off of Zebra Cakes and Chipotle as it’s all I have seen him eat. Our milestone most likely won’t be publicly available for a little bit because of our big move to the new apartment. A lot of our time this week will be spent packing and unpacking. Not to leave you hanging here is a development screenshot of Pub Crawl.
