Major upcoming recode

So Apollo is going to go through a pretty big recode in the next few days - all graphics functions that take an x and a y coordinate will soon take those coordinates through one argument - a table. Unfortunately, this is going to take a lot of work that I don't have time for at the moment, due to finals being next week.

But finals being next week also makes for some very good news - Christmas vacation! Christmas vacation is typically the most productive time for us developers, and I plan on being extra productive this holiday season, while still making time for family and friends, of course.

Also, Xsera now has a pre-intro screen much like the one from the original Ares, but better, because it includes the new Xsera logo and Brainpen logo. And there's lots of other cool stuff going on, which I am too tired to divulge.

Xsera - Now in 3D!

Yes, Alistair is working on the ability to put 3D models into Xsera. No, we're not going full 3D. Yes, you will still be able to play with the original sprites.

So Alistair thought of the genius idea to incorporate 3D models directly into Xsera instead of creating 3D models and taking 2D images of them. When finished, players will be able to use either 3D or 2D models in the game for differing experiences.

In other news, the Xsera team has acquired a web developer for making the website shiny, and also a graphics guy to make an Xsera logo along with weapons and shield graphics. The website overhaul has been started (www.xsera.org to see it) and Xsera's logo is looking great. Hopefully I'll have links to it the next time I post.

That's all for now!

Oh boy. Antares.

So it turns out a guy that appeared to be helping Xsera out, Chris Pickel / Sfiera / Pallas Athene, has really been working on his own version of Ares X. And he calls it "Antares". So forget about the whole authenticity issue, Xsera's going to rock the socks off Antares. Right now Alistair and I are working on some pretty nifty warping distortion effects unlike anything in the original Ares. We will also have the old warping style, but I think once you see the new, you'll like it too much ;)

So yeah, Sfiera... it's on. So on.

... and don't copy our source. That would be very cheat-y.

Xsera and Google Wave

So you may have heard all the buzz about Google Wave. I've gotten a chance to preview it, all thanks to kickme for the invite ;). From what I've seen, it's pretty good, all bugginess aside. I don't know what's the issue, but whatever Google server handles my requests must be messed up, because sometimes it takes 10 minutes just for Google Wave to tell me that I need to refresh my browser. Other times, it's lightning quick and a wonderful tool for live collaboration - you can type at the same time as the people you're chatting with and see their responses live. This makes for quick revisions and quick unification over issues - if everybody checks it consistently enough.

Overall, I find it to be pretty nifty. And we will be using it with Xsera if we can get everybody on board. Which is easier said than done.

The first four weeks of college...

Oh boy. No clue where to start on this one.

Maybe "your car, your bike, and your sister's bike. Only two can work at the same time, at best"?

Or maybe "you got hit by a car but managed to not break anything"?

How about "you want to strangle Alistair for suggesting a certain webcomic* to you that wastes hours of time from your day that should be spent doing homework"?

Well, the truth is that while I have been working on Xsera, it's a slow process thus far. Approximately 99.8% of my time is currently spent trying to survive college or trying to survive it in a somewhat-enjoyable way. I find myself complaining that I have to keep up with everybody on Twitter. OH NO! The pain of having to read 140 characters times the 50 posts I read in a day. :rolleyes:

As for my quotes above, all are true (ok so maybe not so much to strangle Alistair - it'd be too expensive to get the plane ticket). The first is rather self-explanitory, the second... long story, I was biking from school and a slow-moving car turned into my bike. No broken bones, the scrapes are healing nicely. The third: see my footnote.

More seriously, after midterms are over, expect some nice stuff coming out for Xsera.


*On his blog (you're welcome, Alistair), he mentions a webcomic called "Questionable Content." Webcomics are probably my vice, as I've spent a good eight hours this weekend reading said webcomic. And I can't wait for Yahtzee's next review. And xkcd is occasionally cool. And then there's Penny Arcade... bah. Maybe I should just turn this blog into a webcomic about the Ares universe. But I don't think that would go over well - I can't draw beyond stick figures to save my life. And those stick figures would shoot themselves if they could. Enough of a rant, it's time for bed.

200+, 263-... what does it mean?

The numbers themselves aren't that great. If you add them together, you get -63. But what do these numbers mean exactly when I say that I "made a 200+, 263- commit" to Xsera? Quite literally, it means that I added 200 lines of code and removed 263. While this is a good sized commit, it's nothing worth bragging about, exactly. The numbers don't mean that much - I could write 1000 meaningless lines of code, and it would be awesome to say that I committed 1000+, but that's not progress for the project.

What you'll find far more interesting is what appeared in the new 200 lines of code, and what disappeared in the 263. Well, I totally recreated Xsera's colour system (yeah, Alistair's got me using 'colour' instead of 'color'). What does this mean? Nothing absolutely groundbreaking, but it does mean that everything will eventually look a lot more Ares-like, colour-wise.

Welcome to my Xsera Blog!

Hello Everybody,

My name is Adam Hintz and I am one of a small handful of lead developers for Xsera, the port of Ambrosia Software and Nathan Lamont's Ares. I've established this blog to allow anybody following the blog to more easily track its progress - because reading from our mailing list or our source repository's updates is not the easiest thing to do. I'll try to break down what's going on in Xsera, what this means for the user, and what may be happening in the future.

Currently, I'm too tired to write much more, so I'll redirect you to our new Xsera homepage for more information.