Mirlix

Hinge3D, my game framework, isnt used by many people around the world. Right now there is one, me. And even I only use it to program testgames to improve the framework itself. This will change in April. Then there will be twice as much people using Hinge3D. A friend of mine and me :). Next Semester we participate in a hands on lecture at our university, which focuses at game development. So for the next six month 2 programmers and 3 artist are going to use the framework and created the next big MMORPG.

Or rather a nice small casual game with innovative game mechanics and a unused setting. More details will be made public when a first prototype is running. Which should be at the end of May. To develop the game Hinge3D have to be improved and extended. Im excited how the game will be and what effect this project will have on Hinge3D.

Right now I cant start programming right away, because my university thinks it is a good idea to have exams at the end of the semester. After the 7. April I can start the project. Until then I have to learn .

Today I tried the XML feature of Qt and once again Im astounded. After only 2 hours, my editor is now able to save and load xml. I can save my created games and load them anytime I want. Its much better then doing everytime the same thing to test a small bit of the editor. No only drag and drop and context menu is missing until the first version of the editor is usable and presentable. Im think I can implement these features using some time on monday and thursday before the next round of Jugend Forscht begins, where I will present my editor to the public.

I had some spare time the last days, so I was able to play a bit more with Qt. After getting moc to run like I wanted,moc is a Qt tool needed to created new gui widgets, I started developing the first prototype of a ComponentEditor. It took me 4-5 hours until the first functional version was done. At this state I can load packages, create new ComponentOwner and create new instances at the start of the game. This is enough to create a small demo game. Of course the editor isnt usable, one wrong click and the whole editor crashed, but if you know what to do it works, its not comfortable to use, but it can be used.

The next step is the make it more error proof and add a save/load dialog so the user dont have to start all over again when something goes wrong.
Later I will post a first preview of the editor.
Edit: Here the youtube link

Im planning some aspects of a new version for the componet system, which will take some time, because i dont have much time to think during week und on weeking im going out with friends, so the only time are my weekly traintravels, but it isnt enough. i dont think i will be able to programm the next weeks, but hope with the start of university this will change. I have to learn japanese on evenings so i can attend the university course , which is startin april. Also the BEC Higher(an business english certificate) is due in march. So may day is getting pretty cramped even without much work on the component system, recredibly, but the other things are just more important right now.
Hope i have some good project news soon.