...

So, I continued my work on Mr Ball 2. Mr Ball can die now. I know it's a very unpleasant thing to say, but come on, no one's immortal right? (unless of course, you're one)

Okay, I tried to use the free 3D modeling application from the net, Blender3D. It's damn nice to use. But the problem I faced with it is the UV coordinates. What are UV coordinates? These coordinates are used when you wanna "wrap" a 3D object with a picture, or called as a texture.

Every vertex can have UV coordinates. They are just your average (x,y) coordinates, just that they are denoted (u,v), I think. But anyway, Imagine a picture. The top left corner of that picture has a UV coord of (0,0) and the bottom-right corner, (1,1). So, let's say a vertex on a 3D object has a UV coordinate of (0,0), it'll then refer to the top-left corner of the picture. So, whatever colour is on the top-left of the picture will now be on that vertex. Smart right? 3D games fascinate me all the time.

I'm not sure why, but misalignment of UV coordinates in my diamond model caused my texture to go haywire on it. In the end, I used back the old model from the first installment.

Okay, diamond down. Now what? Well, I chose to model a spear. Remember the black diamond? Okay, if you didn't play my game before, see it at the Updated Mr Ball post.

Spears are his weapons. Without it, he's nothing but a diamond. Yeah so, tried to model a spear, and you know what, it's so damn THICK! Sigh... got to go remodel. Blah!!!!

So far so good

Mr Ball is coming along great. The targeting system has been rewritten. It's not like the old lock-on system which requires you to press T to lock on to the enemy. Now, you can only target the closest enemy. So, you've got to approach them. Not good for Mr Ball eh? Another thing, this time it won't be the T on the keyboard which activates the targeting system. Just turn the mouse wheel. Move the mouse wheel forward to lock on, move backward to free the camera, ie, stop targeting. I've done this because I want most of the game play to rely mostly on the mouse.

So, I have utilised the whole mouse.

• Left click - shoot
• Right click - jump
• Move the mouse - move the camera
• Middle click (clicking the mouse wheel, usually) - Zooms in or out from Mr Ball. Zooming out lets you see more things around Mr Ball.
• Mouse wheel - targets highlighted enemy.

To know that you will be targeting the right enemy, just move close to it and a ring will appear below the enemy. Here's a picture, with a dummy boss (well, actually 2) to test the targeting system:


There he is, closing in onto the enemy, and the highlight ring appears. Notice, the enemy's life bar is also "highlighted". Don't ask why I named the bosses Diamond instead of erm... black hole. It's just for testing.So, I've moved my mouse wheel forward. The ring turns read, indicating that I'm locking onto it. Now, you can keep targeting it no matter how far away it is, until you disable the lock-on.

So far, I haven't modeled any bosses yet. Sigh... but at least, I can start making the first level soon. Right after I finish the overlay object (the object that displays the status of Mr Ball and the enemies on the screen). It's not really done yet.

Hmm... cutscenes. I'm thinking how I should do it. It's gonna be one heck of a challenge.

Sadly, there isn't any Sound effects yet.

Kitchen O Pank working! Well, sort of

My favourite game, Kitchen O Pank is erm... well working i guess. It's damn hard finding for the right plugin to play the game. Too bad though, after all that searching and configuring, it's damn glitchy. Once I finished the first level, the scoreboard refuses to load. Blah it!!!

Anyway, my progress in Mr Ball 2.
Okay, so here's a list of what I have done for Mr Ball:

• Movement and Jumping
• Gravity
• HP, MP (may be renamed later) and Power gauge system
• Modeled the water cannon for Mr Ball, but haven't program it yet
• More importantly, I've finished the camera, but it still lacks some features, like locking on to the enemy
  

And here's the task I'm supposed to finish by the end of today:

• Get the water gun ready
• Add the tendency to be pushed away by enemy attacks for Mr Ball
• Create the overlay object to draw the gauges onto the screen
• Create the damage display (the number that floats above the character after getting hit)

I'll probably create more textures for Mr Ball. Because I want Mr Ball to erm... show a different expression when getting hit rather than smiling all the time. Come on, isn't weird to smile when getting slashed by hundreds of spears?

I'm also currently planning a very stupid yet simple storyline for the game. So there's gonna be dialogues. I might voice the dialogues but that would mean adding more loading time to the game.

Oh, and the controls are very different now. It relies more on the mouse. Keyboard alone is not enough. You use the mouse to look around, something like a First person shooter, but this is third person. Anyway, they are just similar. Like FPS, Left click is to shoot. The [CTRL] on the keyboard works too. The right click makes Mr Ball jumps. Alternatively, you can use [Space] for that. The directional keys allows Mr Ball to move. It is no longer WASD keys like in the first installment.

Couldn't get GM7

I'm trying my best to get Game Maker 7 Pro, but I just can't pay USD 20 for that. So, I'm sticking back to Game Maker 6 to make Mr Ball 2. I know that it wouldn't really work on Vista, but apparently the creator of Game Maker (Mark Overmars) has made a nifty tool to make GM6 games compatible with Vista, so I'll rely on that.

You might ask, "Bee Lee, why don't you get a pirated version of the program? Like getting a crack/patch or something??". Well, I wanted to and erm... I did, but I'm just not confident that it would be safe. My computer already terkena virus and I'm still trying to track down that annoying virus. I don't want another virus to wreak havoc on the laptop.

I'm gonna start creating the game after this. Wish me good luck!

Mr Ball may be available for Vista

I just converted the Mr Ball executable so it's compatible with Vista. But I don't entirely guarantee i would work. So, if you wanna play it, you can request for it bu asking me through MSn or in school.

My first fishing trip!

I would like to thank my uncle for this! Anyway, my uncle brought my cousin and me to a fishing pond somewhere near Sungai Long to go, well, fish! This is my first time fishing, so there were a lot of erm... mistakes.

I got my very own fishing rod, courtesy of my uncle! My first few throws tangled up my fishing line. In the end, I wasted quite a lot of fishing line. Lol! It was humiliating. Then, I wanted to throw my bait further, so, I attached a counter weight at the end of the fishing line. I just tied a reef knot. I always expected reef knots to be tight. So, anyway, I threw the bait, and there were 2 splashes?? What the hell? It seems that the counter weight came off and it dropped into the pond. Sigh...

Later, when I tied another weight, I REALLY tied a dead knot, until I couldn't even take it out! Haha! And it works!

The fishing ended at 5pm. Too bad though, I didn't get any fish! It was embarrassing. All my uncle's friends, my uncle and my cousin (who is just Standard 4) got fish! And I'm the only one who didn't get any!! Not even a single fin! Only a leaf! Haha!

I guess I wasn't lucky. Or maybe my bait wasn't fresh enough. My bait was a small prawn. I really couldn't watch myself pierce the prawn onto the hook. It was a very heart breaking moment for me. Maybe I'm just having too much feelings for animals. The prawn's heart was still thumping when I skewered it. It was incredibly sad for a person like me. I almost broke down. I just couldn't bear the fact that I murdered some innocent prawns.

I got badly sunburned during the fishing trip. You can definitely see the tan line on my arm right now. I'm fearing my skin would peel later. It's gonna be unpleasant.

The next day, I went to watch High School Musical 3! Wheee! It was quite nice lah. To me, I prefer the 2nd one. The songs were okay. Hey. you can't blame me for being such a big HSM fan, right?

A "jogging" trip!

So, Hon-Son and I were having our usual jog around the neighbourhood. Like what we always did, we went friend's house hunting. First, we went to Jun Ray's house. We invited him to join us, and join us he did. Next, we walked all the way to Pei Jiun's house. Before that, we stopped by at Wai Phun's house (erm... I hope I have spelled the name correctly, :P). I yelled out his name, no response. Anyway, on to Pei Jiun's house. Hon-Son, Jun Ray and I were like wondering who would go to the front door and ask whether Pei Jiun is in. Everyone (except me) insisted that I go because I have the "guts". Yeah right!! Anyway, I did what I had to do.

........
Took out my hand phone and dialed. You see, you see how I added suspense in my post?? Lol!! Okay, I know is lame. Anyway, back to the story.

I dialed Pei Jiun's cellphone. No answer. Called Shan Min to ask for Pei Jiun's house number. Then called Pei Jiun's house. Then a lady picked up. I asked "May I speak to Pei Jiun please?". It is followed by a very short silence. Then she spoke to me in Mandarin. Well, I understand a bit, only the part where she said "Pei Jiun bu zhai". So, then I said "thank you" and went off. We then thought of walking to Kai Leong's house.

Okay, it was further than we thought it would be. It was in SS2! Yeah, so I called Kai Leong to ask for his house address. We walked all the way there, then, we were greeted by his sister. It seems that Kai Leong hasn't finish bathing. Sigh... so we walked all the way back home. It's a 1/2 hour walk. But it's still a good exercise though.

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Just now I went can rings hunting with Audrey, William, Jia Tern, Jun Ray, David and Chia Sing. It was fun, unless you want to count in the horrible encounters with creepy crawlies!! Ewww! And it's all stinky. I don't even want to think how long th cans have been kept there. The Soya Bean grosses me out the most. I mean, it turned into Bean Curd (Tou fu)!!!!! OMG!! And it stinks! Whoa, luckily I have gloves!

I just only came back and now I seriously need to use the toilet!! It's gonna be a big one!