Nintendo 3DS #Nindie game development blog 004
October: A gamedev break and Net Yaroze stuff

This is not homebrew, it’s #Nindie

Continuing from my previous post, about the 3D world.

Well, I had to rethink it, I was trying to be too clever with RGBA values and keeping the quad formatting.
So I decided to remove the RGBA values and only use UV coordinates and triangle primitives.
The main reason for this was Silo 3D, it couldn’t tell me which texture I was using per quad, which made it impossible to edit the world.
But I let the Silo3D people know.

Not so much of a deal breaker, I can still use Silo3D’s quads for simplicity but export will be triangulated.
I used the OBJ format, but I think I’ll use something else, I’ll need to research my options, I have a simple MD2 (Quake 2) parser so I may export and convert it to that.

This also made me rethink my whole engine’s support for RGBA values, the RGB values give textures a nice colour tinting effect, which makes textures reusable, similar to swapping out a CLUT (Colour Look Up Table), this effect was used a bit in early 3D games, especially on N64 with it’s limited VRAM.
Anyway, by dropping RGBA I also lose any lighting/shading calculations, but gain it in CPU/GPU processing and GPU buffer size, so that’s okay for now.
The A (Alpha) set’s the triangle’s opacity (see-through-ness, transparency), which is important so I’ll keep it.

Anyway, that was it for gamedev, I went home to visit family and friends and picked up my old uni stuff, which of course includes my old Net Yaroze 1999-2002 stuff.
And a big stack of 40 Official UK PlayStation Magazines!

[click to enlarge]

Nintendo 3DS #Nindie game development blog 003
September: Simple 3D World Design

This is not homebrew, it’s #Nindie

Continuing from my previous post, about 3DS performance testing, I had to do even more performance improvement!

I was mostly flat this month, from a bit of stress :(
On the plus side, I do a short run on the treadmill when I’m at home and anxious.

I’ve also cut back on lunch meal sizes.
I’ve been eating noodles and tuna for most of my lunches instead of take away or left overs. Easy, portion controlled, cheap and somewhat healthy I guess.

I lost 5 Kilos :)
I was 77KG and now about 72KG.

Anyway, more about gamedev!

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Nintendo 3DS #Nindie game development blog 002
August: 2D Elements, Performance Testing & Health

This is not homebrew, it’s #Nindie

Continuing from my previous post, I got a basic 3D engine running on the 3DS with basic colour (RGA) and textured (with transparency) polygons.

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Nintendo 3DS #Nindie game development blog 001 - Hello world

I didn’t think I would blog specifically about what I’m doing game development wise, but here goes.
It’s mostly a commentary about my random twitter and youtube posts.

I’ll try and keep the dev blogs not so wordy and long.
It will be technical but not in great detail.
I guess this blog is mostly for other game developers, programmers and gamers interested in how the ‘console’ game sausage is made?
Regardless, it reminds me of the few times I updated my Net Yaroze members site, so so many years ago!

The real start of this blog would be the huge post I wrote on Why indie developers should consider making games for the Nintendo 3DS.

Anyway, after the learning curve of the 3DS hardware & software, and getting the development environment working, came the hard part… the actual development!

[This is not homebrew, it’s #Nindie]
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Targeted abuse of content creators on digital stores

Lets be honest, this is abuse, it’s targeted hate speech towards the developer (FYI, Seth didn’t sell his studio).
It’s not a “negative review” nor is it a “comment about the game”.
It doesn’t mention the game at all, just a lack of online players ( and in my day, we BYO’ed friends😁)
And not being updated (again in my day software was finished when it’s burnt to physical media).
He finishes up with a death threat at the end.
This isn’t acceptable, yet it’s tolerated and normal in today’s online world!
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The TL;DR version is:

• Free to sign up
• Strong recent sales, a long life left in 3DS
• Library spanning 3 generations
• Good affordable hardware
• Great software features
• Sustainable ecosystem & eShop features:
  • Developer friendly rating & review system
  • Nintendo brand association
  • Higher value proposition
  • Not shovelware friendly
  • Not a flooded Over saturated ecosystem
  • QR Codes - a visibility tool
• Path way to Switch
• Launching on a console

Update: I’ve started blogging my 3DS #Nindie game development.

Firstly, I’ll start by saying, I’m no indie, I’m just an old hobbyist, so take all this with a grain of salt!
Also, if it’s not apparent by my (Playstation) site, I’m not a Nintendo FanBoy, but there’s a lot that impressed me with the 3DS!
But to “Do the Math”

The Atari Jaguar slogan “Do the Math” is very apt here, with over 70+ million original 3DS compatible units in the wild and with only about 15 new games being launched per month, it’s a financial “no brainier” to be on 3DS! (Not actual financial advice)

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Visual Development for Crash Nitro Kart

Di Davies with Charles Zembillas, Joe Pearson and John Nevarez

When visual style is one of the distinguishing features of a game, it is important to recognize that an ad hoc approach is not a sure way to execute a strong visual direction. There are less than a handful of cases where such an approach has worked and usually there is a strong vision to begin with that helps guide the direction. The typical game development approach involves floundering around in hopes that a direction will magically appear; this naïveté can be the death of an original project and is easily remedied. If you know where to look, and know how to plan, resources are available that can help jumpstart the creative process and actually save production time.

As the scope of game projects attempt to match the entertainment value of feature film productions, game companies are specializing, adding new departments that mimic film production models, adopting a more disciplined approach to pre-production. This approach is not just necessary for monster budget games, but also for competitive more moderately budgeted games and game companies will look to feature film animation professionals and CG film professionals to help answer the call.

Using Crash Nitro Kart released for the Game Cube, Playstation 2, XBOX and GameBoy Advance, as an example of an approach to visual development, this article highlights some of the challenges faced and processes used by visualization teams at Vicarious Visions in Troy, NY and Animation Academy in Burbank, CA to bring a game vision into focus for a cartoon-style racer.

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Original post and comments from Atari Museum’s facebook group here
.
I dislike facebook and wanted a snapshot of this.
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