I thought I had posted this already, but it looks like it did not post for some reason.

So I've read books and articles on game development and most seem to cover either the programming aspect or how to structure the game environment but I was curious as to what a typical, if there is any, game development process looks like.  Like other software development or application development efforts, does game development go through some sort of formal process to come up with the architecture such as Agile or the older Waterfall model?  Is something like Model-View Controller used considering a game is basically a User Experience?

I have the Scott Rogers Level Up! (2010 edition) and it is a fun book to read with a lot of good info, but its mainly focused on the Game Designer.  I'm looking for some more inline with the software architecture process that is common in game dev.

Any thoughts or info would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Jon

Its so much more important than people realise. I cover it a little in my book, but here's a really great video to see it in action, this shows how you can make a small amount of gpu go a long way

I just recently started to pick up issues of Retro Gamer on my weekly trips to Fry's Electronics although the magazine is a bit behind here in the States. 

In load (issue) 185 the 40th anniversary of Space Invaders is featured with an image on the front cover, but I was pleasantly surprised to see there was an section dedicated to David Jones, creator of Finders Keepers, Spellbound.  Although 40 years of Space Invaders is impressive,  someone who can stay active in the Game Industry for 30 years is doubly impressive.  The article is very cool and I found it interesting how he came to be a Game Developer.  I never had a ZX Spectrum, but I am certainly going to find more about this if I can.

And, I do believe this is the same David Jones that is mentioned in the in Brian's Fundamentals book.  

I'm really liking Retro Gamer as well as Wireframe; both are good reads. 

https://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/r...issue-185/

There are a few really good 2D (and some 3D) map editors out there, for the beginners I strongly recommend using Tiled, its got lots of very cool features, is simple to use, outputs data in a lot of good useful formats and more important is still being updated regularly 

https://www.mapeditor.org/

its not really missing you can find it in the invaders code and copy it over. Many of the files after invaders are starter projects where you have to add functions/macros and methods. But its causing a bit of confusion so I've added it to the Kamikazi base code, and here it is

inline float Rand(float a_Range) { return ((float)rand() / RAND_MAX) * a_Range; }

its a small inline function, I add it to Game.h but its at home in any frequently included header file.

Well not quite, its a cut down version restoring the old model A brand. But still nice, only 512MB though, so a bit limiting as a game machine.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/new-pro...3-model-a/

Whats much more interesting is the confirmation that the next Raspberry will indeed be a new system, I can't wait to hear about that, but I'm sure we'll find out in March 2019.

Humble Bumble have a nice RPG asset sale at the moment, very nice for anyone who needs a bunch of 2D and 3D graphic systems, as well as sounds and other fx

A lot of it is Unity based and in formats we've not covered yet but its all useful in some way..

$20 for a bucket full of useful stuff is a good investment

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/rp...le_index_1

So, I'm trying to work through the KamaKazi Base InvaderStart code and ran into a few issues.

The first thing is that there was a switch from using Objects to GameObject.  The book mentions that Game Objects Classes from the previous example, but there was only an Objects class.  

The describes adding the code for Star.h and Star.cpp, however part of that code includes using Rand but this is not defined anywhere in the project so the IDE/Compiler complains.  I added this to GameObjects.h since it was in Objects previously.  I hope this is okay.

Also, in GameObject.cpp OBJID is assigned the value of NumberOfObjectsCreated++ however with Eclipse and the GNU Linker  with c++11 I am getting an undefined reference for 'GameObjects::NumberOfObjectsCreated.   After some Googling, I found I had to add the following initialization code at the top of GameObject.cpp.

   int GameObject::NumberOfObjectsCreated = 0;

This eliminated the Linker error.

After this and adding the code for Star, I am still not getting stars to show when the code is run as is mentioned on page 126.

While we all wait for the Raspberry Pi4 which, if it exists won't be announced until Pi Day   (14th March)
A possible contender for best SBC ever, has come up, and almost immediatly gone down in my estitmations.



the Rock Pi 4,  visible at  http://rockpi.org/

Looks like a total beast of a machine, a Raspberry config but based on a Rockchip 3399..... that's a beast...

At first glance I was salivating, I'm already falling in love with my T4 and Neo4 from Friendlyarm, and a $39 RK3399 equiped chip with full ports is a bargain. 
But nothing about the company behind the launch of this newcomer inspires me, its touted in the press releases as costing $39 up...nope, after a few days of being unable to find a retail supplier, it turns out the base price is closer to 68euros, excluding postage, or heat sinks that almost certainly will be needed for an RK3399.

So its going to be around twice the price of a 3B+, but  you will get about twice the power in theory, the hexacore RK3999 is extremely fast and smooth to use, and the GPU is also wonderful, though I have fears about the drivers not being fully implimented yet.

In short this is a sexy beast, but it looks like they announced it a couple of weeks too early. The sites are woeful, the retail is non existant, and no idea what the final cost is going to be. And who knows how effective performace really is until we see an OS running.

Its locked itself into its own drawer of shame, but I'll check back in a month or so to see if they've got the price, the supply, and most important the software under control

So far I've been using TinyObjLoader and my own MD2 and MD5 loaders, to load static and animaed models, all of which work fine. But its fair to say finding models in those formats is a tad tricky. but we need to be able to cope with more modern systems and trust in our artists/modellers to produce models which are low tech enough to use. But they need to be able to save out in modern formats, which means FBX, 3DS, Blend, collada etc.

For that we need a modern and reliable import system!


So I've been having a bit of a tinker with Assimp and creating an intermediate flexible mesh class, which willl allow me to load various model types including the all powerful (but massive overkill for a Raspberry) FBX...Assimp is available in source and lib format, I am usiing the libassimp-dev lib which can be apt-get 'd on Raspberries and most other Linux os.

My initial tests are pretty good, but I need to work on it a bit more before I can release a fully working (at least with certain formats) system.

if anyone one has any advice/info on using libassimp-dev please let me know