Fresh from spring break everyone worked on their particular tasks. To kick off, we each decided upon a personal objective for the night. This consisted of getting the basic mutator script up and running for the provided UT Game (to provide a programming foundation for the rest of the project), working on a handgun model in Blender, and working more on the first level. We made significant progress on all fronts.
To help facilitate communication and resources, a new phpBB forum was set up at http://www.ryanwersal.com/phpBB3.
Game Design Group has been working hard to gain traction on their game project. Towards this end, the past few weeks' meetings have turned into work nights for the parts of the group to work together cohesively to achieve their objectives.
The primary focus at this point in time is the design of the first couple levels using the Unreal Development Kit. We are also forging ahead with learning the aspects of the programming that Unreal has to offer. In addition, a few individuals are looking into 3D rendering in order to bring the concept art into the game environment.
As far as solid progress, our biggest gains at this time is in the form of a story and numerous pieces of concept art.
One of the largest changes we have made is we have updated to the March 2010 UDK beta because of numerous new features and optimizations. Downloads are available for free from the UDK website.
Game Design Group will continue working hard to have significant progress this semester and hopefully bring in more talented students to bring life to this project.
The LAN group met today (the 24th) and worked through numerous ideas for the upcoming LANs this semester. First, a recap of what was discussed for the prior LAN:
- Network worked well - continue utilizing the DSUNIX connection
- Power was good with a handful of exceptions
- Donations were made
- Success in part due to Steam's Shattered Horizon free weekend
- Monitor rentals not so successful; advertise more
- Food sales were relatively poor; purchased too many brats
After discussing the above topics (the recap) the group moved on to discussing ambitious ideas for the April LAN:
- Keep Dakota Prairie Playhouse date
- Plan out power utilizing power grid map etc or other resources
- Pre-Register
- Get more people
- -from other colleges
- -from high schools
- -from the community
- Raise money
- Sell games? Charge at the door?
- Purchase new equipment?
- School involvement
- -talk to Student Services
If you have any questions or concerns in regards to the LANs or the LAN subgroup, please contact Adam Klindworth.
The February 11th meeting consisted of a quick walkthrough of some communicative and administrative technologies that the project will be utilizing heavily:
After which the group split into the various subgroups that are focusing on a certain topic area (programmers, level designers, story creators, artists) and set about creating tickets, or tasks, for themselves during the coming week. You can find more details by
checking out the milestone tickets.
If all proceeds well, the group should make measurable progress this week in the way of unique data generated and art/story created.
New Logo
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After a few rounds of voting from a field of ten or so candidates (depending on how to slice them), the members of the Computer Club have voted on the logo appearing to the left.
This logo will be used for multiple aspects of Computer Club, including t-shirts, the website, banners, advertising materials, etc.
So congratulations to Jimmy Chattin on creating the winning logo! The logo will have to be approved before it can be used by an official club of Dakota State University.
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Thotcon
For those unaware of Thotcon, here is a quick briefing. Thotcon is an alternative conference to DEFCON, although marketed as being for those on a budget, located in Chicago. Thotcon is set for April 23rd, 2010. The organizers are aiming for a relatively small conference and, as such, have limited tickets. Joe Kahler is helping organize a trip for DSU students to go to Thotcon. Total cost per person would be between $100 and $160 depending on the number of people going. Contact Joe Kahler for additional details and learn more about Thotcon at their website.
Netwar
Next up was a presentation on the Netwar LAN party located in Omaha, Nebraska. Netwar is taking place February 26th-27th this year, so time is short, but here is the information you need. DSU students have attended in the past and "had a blast". Events include tournaments, suggested game periods, dodgeball, etc. Cost is as low as $25 if you pre-register before February 19th, $35 if you pre-register before February 26th, or $40 if you pay at the door. You can find additional information at the Netwar LAN website or contact Alan Luense.
Subgroups
Security Group
Due to issues with schedules this semester, the question was raised as to what time would work best for people to attend security meetings. Please email suggestions to Mike Ham. You can read on what security group has been up to until now on their subgroup page.
Game Design Group
Game Design Group is a subgroup that focuses on creating their own game. They have decided upon the Unreal engine and have been meeting on Thursdays at 5:30pm in East Hall 306 regularly. After several demos on the Unreal Development Kit provided by Ryan Wersal, the group is forging ahead with bringing their game concept to life. They are currently looking for people with art experience, programming experience, 3d modeling experience, UDK experience, or anyone in between. Everyone is welcome to join them for their meetings regardless of experience! The only requirements are to be there and work hard to learn and execute the vision! Contact Ryan Wersal with questions or more information. You can also read their subgroup page for information on what they have been up to.
Programming
The programming group is researching Blackberry Smartphone development and will be tinkering with Lego MindStorms. Everyone is welcome to join this group and hop in whenever they would like. Feel free to contact Tyler Steinle for more information or if you have questions.
LAN
The LAN group met after the meeting and is currently working to produce the LAN on February 20th through the 21st. It will be held in East Hall as the group has decided to try out a new venue. Feel free to hop in whenever you would like if you have thoughts or an opinion on how the LAN should be run! Contact Adam Klindworth with questions or for information. Meeting notes and recap information can be found on the LAN subgroup page.
Hardware
Hardware group is meeting every Wednesday at 5:30pm in room EH 002. They are currently working on overclocking an average computer to test the boundaries and are also researching game console mods/hacks. You can contact Nate Gates for more information on this subgroup or read up on what they have been up to.
Ideas for this Semester
A number of ideas were thrown around for what the Computer Club should do this semester. Here are the ideas:
- Presenters on Network Security topics
- Daktronics presentation
- Visit a campus with a CA.VE system
- Console hacking
- Latest cellphone demos
- Overclocking topics
- Programming for controllers and/or wiimotes
If you have particular thoughts on the above or would like to provide new ideas, contact us with your opinion! We would greatly enjoy hearing from you!
We talked about different things that we want to implement for this upcoming LAN. We decided that we want to sell brats/hot dogs instead of pizza.
The network will need to be set up friday night before the lan, probably during our LAN prep night.
We are going to push open source/free games, and also only allow legit copies of games for the tournaments.
ADVERTISEMENT
- KDSU Advertisement - In the works
- Posters put up - done
- Scroller in TC - done
SETUP
9:00 AM Saturday morning
LAN runs 11 AM Saturday - 2 AM Sunday
We are currently meeting each Wednesday at 7:00pm in EH 002 to help plan the LANs to hopefully make them better! Hope to see you there!
Hello everyone, trying this out from the Computer Club site as opposed to keeping everything in emails that can get lost, not read, and not easily shared. Here goes:
There are a number of tasks that need to be taken care of by
everyone throughout the next week. Please search around the Internet for collections of materials, textures, and static meshes that are directed more towards modern day (since the UDK is geared towards a more futuristic environment). Everyone is expected to find at
least two resources and
post them in this thread on the forum.
The next meeting on February 4th will be focused on beginning the execution of the first level. Everyone should be there, not just the level designers. Every group in the Game Design group must be involved and in gear for us to continue moving forward with this project.
Everyone should also be watching their respective pages on the
Game Design project site and continually tinkering with their respective applications.
I am looking forward to moving through this project and getting the vision closer to a realization. With everyone working together, communicating, and staying involved we can definitely get whatever we want done.
To conclude this post, I want everyone to be mindful of the fact that you
should be working on your component of the project throughout the week. The meetings on Thursday should never be seen as the only time to work on the project. You should be spending a few hours each week tinkering with the UDK or programming environment, reading articles, or finding resources to enable us to complete the project.
Today we held our weekly meeting in our new location (EH 306 for those that forgot). Here is the basic recap: I did a tutorial covering the following topics:
- BSP Brushes (Cubes etc)
- Actors (Lights, PlayerStart Locations, etc)
- Applying Materials
- Static Meshes
- Terrain Creation
- Terrain Materials
We then covered the important aspects of the first level in regards to actually building it. In fact, the topics covered above are the most applicable to the level.
I have also moved the project off of Google Code and onto a campus server which will eventually be the home of all DSU projects. Currently the server is only available while on campus and through an IP. To make it easier, however, I have pointed my personal domain to this server for easier access and easier to remember url. You can get to the
project site as well as a
phpBB forum.
Below is a copy and paste of the email I sent out to all members of the Game Design group:
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Hello everyone,
Following is some important information that will be utilized on Thursday the 28th. It is
your responsibility to make sure that you read the email, get everything installed, and be ready for the meeting. I am also including a number of links to resources to begin reading. They should provide a small overview of each group's particular task in relation to the programs we will be utilizing. This is a rather long email, but please read everything so we are all on the same page for Thursday.
First, the most important info:
From now on we will be meeting in
EH 306. We will be utilizing the lab throughout the creation of our game.
After reviewing the UDK and comparing it against Hammer, I have decided that we should move forward with the UDK distribution. I will cover the reasoning briefly on the 28th and will have a basic hands on tutorial prepared so everyone can gain a measure of experience with the UDK Editor.
Second, what you will need:
Programmers, please head over to Dean Halverson's office and ask him for the Visual Studio 2008 disc. Have that installed as we will be using the
nFringe plugin which will provide a number of useful features (syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, etc). You can
skip right to the download, but you will have to have VS2008 installed first. You will likely have to wait until Monday to get into the office. However, if you would like to get this installed immediately, you can visit me over the weekend in my dorm room: 302 Higbie. I can burn additional discs as needed.
Map designers and anyone else interested in the map editing process (which should be most of you), please also head to Dean Halverson's office and ask him for the UDK 2010 disk that I left with him (so it is in a centralized location). Even if you have a version already installed, please uninstall and install this version. For those of you that would rather wait a few hours for the download, please be sure to download the
January 2010 Beta release. As above, you will have to wait until Monday to get it from Halverson's office. You can also visit me in 302 Higbie to get a copy faster if you do not wish to wait for Monday or the download to finish.
Concept artists and story writers/planners, feel free to also get your hands on the UDK so you can test levels as they are being developed (after all, more feedback is better for everyone and the project itself).
Third, here are some resources for each of you to glaze over/read:
Programmers, I would appreciate if you could read over the
First UnrealScript Project document to gain a basic understanding of how the projects are structured when dealing with UnrealScript.
Map designers, please read the
Creating Unreal Levels document to understand the basic components for constructing a level. This tutorial will cover nearly the exact ground that I covered in my Hammer demo, and as a result, should feel somewhat familiar.
Concept artists and story writers/planners, there is no basic overall introductory document, but there is an enormous number of wiki pages dedicated to topics including creating vehicles, textures, materials, etc etc. Feel free to hop on to the
Creation category and glaze over a topic that may interest you. However, for the most part, please concentrate on hammering out some concept art and finer details for the initial part of the first level.
Finally, some closing notes:
The Thursday 28th meeting will consist of an interactive tutorial on building a very basic level using the UDK Editor. It will be very similar in format to my Hammer demo, but will proceed with more explanation and at a slower pace so that everyone can follow along and gain hands on experience with the editor. After the tutorial is complete, we will all focus on hammering out the details for the first level, getting a level layout, and a thorough (but concise) concept of how the level will look and feel.
In addition, from here on out we will be proceeding as quickly as we can so I would appreciate it if each of you choose one of the above groups to have as your
most active group (the one you have the most vested interest in). You will definitely be allowed to participate in the other groups as well to gain more well-rounded experience, but having a single group to focus most of your attention on will provide better focus.
If you know anyone that should have received this email, but is not in the TO field, please forward this to them so they get this information. Please also ask them to send me an email at this address: ryanwersal [at] gmail [dot] com so that I can get them added to my list until we get the kinks worked out of the Computer Club email list application.
If you would like help installing or using any of the above tools I will be at the Computer Club Help Night in EH 105 on Tuesday the 26th at 7pm and will be more than willing to help you.
Thank you very much for hanging in there and reading the entire email. Please try to follow through with the above so that we are all ready for the meeting this Thursday. If you have any questions don't hesitate to email me.
Ryan Wersal