| Mac Creatures 1 under OS X !!! |
[Sep. 25th, 2006|02:55 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| |  cheerful | ] |
 As many Creatures fans know, back in 1996 the Mac Creatures 1 originally claimed to require only "System 7.5 to 8.1".
Yet, as you can see (photo left), the game has installed into my Mac Mini G4 OS 10.4.7 with Classic 9 and runs following two reboots!
Woot woot! :) |
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| Norn Builder 3D |
[Jan. 13th, 2006|05:17 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| |  artistic | ] |
If you load a 3D model in a game world you can colour and texture it pretty easily. You could apply a different texture to each body part or you could consider designing a 2D image that could wrap round the mesh as with The Sims. Then, if you could paint or texture a Norn in such a C++ program it wouldn't be hard to get to game to take 2D slides of each body part in a set of poses and save them as bitmaps, or even straight into SPR/S16/C16 files. It would be straightforward to program; time consuming but straightforward. Perhaps this can be a project for later on. |
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| Creatures Remastered Patch |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|12:39 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | cheerful | ] |
After doing some finishing up work today I believe the Creatures Remastered Patch is now done! I'll give it a test on either Sunday or Monday to verify it works on a clean install and then that will be one job complete.
I'll probably finish off Norn Builder next, as I can't do anything with my new website until I have the money to increase the bandwidth to meet the site's needs. After that I've got a (joint) top secret project that should be cool. I just need to maintain the motivation to keep ploughing on. Give me energy 2006! ;) |
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| Creatures 3 - Teaser - Better GUI |
[Oct. 22nd, 2005|04:34 pm] |
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| Expansion |
[Oct. 20th, 2005|10:52 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| |  accomplished | ] |
I am definitely thinking about starting a Creatures expansion pack. I have soo many ideas, it would be excellent. I would love to add some exciting new planets to the game and... no, I won't give away the plan just yet, but it will be cool. I've also been going back to Norn Builder today to see what else I had to test. It would be nice to get everything done and completed together. The site, the developer tools and more downloads, all released on the same day. I wonder when I'll be able to do that. Hopefully soon though. |
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| Its soo obvious! |
[Sep. 17th, 2005|02:24 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | creative | ] |
I was just looking at a nice message on the forums when suddenly an idea hit me. I now know the easier method to help people make new Creatures breeds. The tool that would go before Norn Builder in the creative process. I'd just need to work out the proper layout for it, and how I would do the converting... *races off excitedly* |
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| Norn Builder Video |
[Sep. 15th, 2005|10:04 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | accomplished | ] |
Fancy seeing a short, low-quality video of Norn Builder in action? All the norns, ettins and grendels are currently loading, as you can see, so I just need to add the short text descriptions to the last two sections and the Windows release should be finished!
Download Video Clip |
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| Creatures Village Expressions |
[Sep. 13th, 2005|02:39 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| |  contemplative | ] |
Images 1-6 we know as Normal, Happy, Sad, Angry, Surprised and Tired, from C3DS, but what about 7-18? According to the genetics we have the following sequences:
07 Very Sleepy
08 Very Happy
09 Mischievous
10 Scared
11 Poorly
12 Hungry
13 Scaredy Norn
14 Clumsy Norn
15 Brave Norn
16 Freezing
17 (Unlisted)
18 (Unlisted) |
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| Norn Builder |
[Sep. 12th, 2005|11:55 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | accomplished | ] |
I've been loading Norn Building and looking at Creatures 2 norn breeds, then Creatures 3 ones, then Creatures Villages ones, and then the cute Creatures 1 ones, and it does make you feel happy to see it working. *hugs to fuzzie*. I've been adding to the Creatures Wiki as I go (e.g. PALETTE.DTA last) to help future developers, but there's still lots of features I'd like to add. Now if only I could get round these 16 bit Desktop problems where all the colours mess up.
Edit: *out of interest, changes one line to "SDL_SetVideoMode(w, h, 32, 0);" with the Desktop in 16 bit colour and looks amazed*
Would this work under Linux/Mac? |
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| Keeping busy... |
[Aug. 15th, 2005|05:27 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | accomplished | ] |
At the moment I have some text labels to add but it is all fully working. I'll probably include a few more features that I have in mind, and then I have a selection of other developer tools I'm beginning work on as well. Hopefully being fully C++ based it will eventually run under Windows, Linux and on the Mac, especially with the upcoming release of Creatures Exodus for Mac OS X. |
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| The projects collide |
[Aug. 15th, 2005|02:18 pm] |
I haven't really been well enough to check the Community forums over the last week but of course I've still been sneaking to any nearby computer every chance I can to keep working. I'm currently:
- updating the CCSF website each day with the latest addons (after debugging)
- beta-testing the C12DS metaroom project
- finishing off the last few bugs with the C12DS breeds in time for their release
- adding in a few new surprise C12DS cross-breeds
- writing a new (Creatures-all-versions) developer tool
- updating my Creatures Remastered Patch to handle the My Documents issue
- uploading pages for my revamped Creatures website
- collecting and categorising the CCSF competition entries
- and much more besides.
All the deadlines seem to have come together at once ( ... ) |
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| Remastered Patch |
[Jul. 12th, 2005|11:52 pm] |
I've just finished updating the Creatures Remastered Patch (for The Albian Years, Creatures Exodus and Creatures Village) to version 1.2 to include support for the official developer tools as well as all the original breed and addon installers. It took longer than I expected but there was a lot involved tracking down the problems with the games and then rewriting the Patch for those updates and to clean up the code.
It seems I now have a lot to do for the CCSF, especially with Liam being away on holiday atm. I am really going to have to focus, and I need to find out who is actually going to make something for the event so we can start planning some release times. I guess the advertising will need to start next week... so that doesn't leave long. |
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| Freedom! - Six Week Plan |
[Jun. 19th, 2005|08:25 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | creative | ] |
Tomorrow is Monday June 20th. The Sunday at the end of this next six weeks is July 31st: The first day of the Creatures Community Spirit Festival. That gives us six weeks for the plan...
I'll probably still need a part-time job at the same time though for money. I've got a few little things to finish off this week so I'll probably be job-hunting a week Monday if the weather is cooler. |
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| Sunburnt but happy |
[Jun. 19th, 2005|12:23 pm] |
Well I had a fantastic day yesterday. Would you believe I went to the zoo for my first day of freedom to de-stress, and its still a great day out. I have plenty of photos so I might upload a few later on. The downside though is that the weather was so unbelievably hot I seem to be somewhat sunburnt. In fact on arriving back home last night I found myself so overheated that I had the most amazing headache, which has luckily gone today. I guess I'm just not designed for anything above 23°C absolute maximum... 17°C is about right usually.
Today is around 24°C in the shade, so that's where I'm staying, very very still. I'd like to start working on my website now I think, but the host is having some troubles and I can't connect :(
Actually its probably best that I can't do much on the computer today since my wrist, which hasn't been too bad for a while now, has got slightly worse recently as I have begun to work on some more graphic orientated (and thus mouse orientated) projects. I still have to get it treated by the physio each week but its so much better than it was this time last year. I just need to take things slowly.
In the mean time I can plan what Creatures-related projects I could start/finish over the next week weeks now I'm officially unemployed, and soon to be on the look out for a new (9-5) job. |
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| Plans |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|11:41 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | artistic | ] |
Okay, so I am finally going out for the day tomorrow :)
 I can't wait to start work back on some of my other projects after that. I'll probably focus on uploading the website first and then I might do a little more testing on my upcoming project (left); Plus I really want to get to work on some ideas for the CCSF and I'm hoping to get more involved in C12DS as well.
If only I had some money to get me through in the mean time, but anyways, the time off should be good. |
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| Next job... |
[Jun. 7th, 2005|03:13 pm] |
# Tuesday
# Wednesday
# Thursday
# Weekend off!
So my contract (for more than one thing actually) finishes at the *end of June* and I will be *free*, to find a new job.
I have been doing tech support for many years now but full time it feels rather unproductive. I've built computers/written software to order at different places but again that can get quite repetitive. I enjoyed working in games development and mainly disliked the lack of creativity when working purely in research. So what next? I am desperately in need of money and I have a few job offers but I don't want to do something I'm not really interested in again.
Do I try a new field in the computer industry or go back to something I know... Hmm, where is my sign? ;) |
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| Windows > Linux > Mac |
[May. 28th, 2005|07:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | contemplative | ] |
My train of thought for today: C++/SDL on Windows
How likely is it to run under Linux? How likely is it then to run on a Mac OS X? |
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| Webcam |
[May. 21st, 2005|06:40 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | developer | ] |
| [ | Current mood is |
| | cheerful | ] |
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| Mini Game? |
[Apr. 21st, 2005|05:45 pm] |
There is still so much to do, but since I've been working on a large 3D strategy title recently I did pause last night to make a mini strategy/puzzle game, just to cheer myself up... I may upload it later anyway if anyone's interested.
Hopefully people will change from linking to my old domains (like amberzoo.co.uk) soon as I won't be using them for much longer. With money getting tight I'll probably end up just using www.webpetz.com soon. That reminds me, some people have some really strange names for my sites... I should label them clearer I think.
Anyways, back to work... until June. |
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