Lunar Lander Development Diary
Week 1 - 10/08/2010 - 17/08/2010
Started work on the game. Mainly worked on taking code from previous projects as well as working out how to use the bitmap code from Alistair McMonnies and Daniel Livingston. Also managed to get the bitmaps to display and the landing craft bitmap to move up as well as left-right with keyboard input.
Struggling with the parameter passing element of the code at the moment, something that I'll need to look into and work out how to do properly. At the moment there are far too many global variables.
Also had an issue with the program launching and then eating up all my processing power causing my computer to freeze after lots of trial and error I eventually worked out that I had used glutPostRedisplay() instead of glutSwapBuffers(). Unfortunately this is just a drawback of copy and pasting code as well as working from old notes.
A lot of time this week was spent drawing bitmaps in paint and resizing them etc. Most of this work is done now so should be able to get down to some real coding.
Week 2/3 - 18/08/2010 - 02/09/2010
Havent done ANY work on the game until today. Could make excuses but ultimately its just me not being motivated. I need to make sure I set time on my free days to sit for X number of hours and just work. Regardless of that, had a wee look at the game today and did some more coding.
Experimented with changing the control keys from standard arrow keys to numpad keys but it didnt really work so I decided to abandon it. Then went in and added graphics for when the "thrusters" of the lander are being activated, pretty sure the coding practices here were not perfect but I guess it will do for now. Also seem to be having problems with the buffering/timing sequence, comes across very jerky and also leaves the image on the screen after its supposed to dissappear. Also, added a provisional gravity variable.
Starting to learn that working with bitmaps in OpenGL is a lot harder than simple drawing code.
Next steps are to try and sort out the jerkiness of the animation as well as change the input code so that it can read simultaneous key strokes.
05/09/2010
Did quite a bit of work today!
For some reason the jerkiness in the animation took care of itself before I even got to changing any code. There must have been something going on with my computer.
Managed to find the code in my notes for simultaneous keystrokes and implemented it making the animation look much better. Also managed to change around the update() sequence to make more sense and be more in line with "good" coding practices. As well as that I managed to get the first landing part of the game coded so the lander now stops when you land it on one of the flat surfaces.
Next steps are to code the second landing sequence as well as work out how to get the lander to detach from the lander base as well as putting in an aspect of acceleration. After that it will be inputting the graphics for fuel and speed etc.
All in all feeling a little more motivated for this :D
