I came across this early this evening and thought it looked a brilliant and fascinating way of coding!

The idea is that code is split into different bubbles, each one representing a function. You can then drop and drag different methods around, adding notes to them, marking them as bugs or flagging that particular function as important. I think this is a great way of coding as coding by nature is a very logical task and so by displaying it in a very organized, logical way makes a lot of sense. Traditionally code is just displayed as a single file with methods listed one after the other which is fine for smaller files/projects with a moderate amount of functions and classes with little to no external dependencies, but when you are dealing with large projects, multiple files and lots of external library’s then this way of logically splitting it up into relevant bubbles really makes sense. So watch the video and see what you think!

Project page here: http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/acb/codebubbles_site.htm

When a new and groundbreaking technology like Unity comes out, it can be hard to get a good grip on it. After spending some time reading Unity Game Development Essentials, it gave me a good insight on the user interface of the program, and how to build a game right from step 1, whether it be creating the terrain, scripting it, creating GUIs or using Unity’s particle systems. All the aspects of modern game development and the vast majority of Unity’s features are covered in this book making it pretty much essential to get of the ground with the software.

The book starts of by explaining what Unity offers in the way of built-in terrain tools, along with an explanation of how to use them. It then puts your new skills to the test by creating a small mini-game based on an island that is created entirely in Unity, which involves creating a terrain using the Terrain (Script) tools, then apply materials provided with Unity which allow you to add an extra degree of realism to your project. Then the book goes on to show how to add models skyboxes and finally sound to your game for a really complete project. The author does this all very slowly and explained step by step which is what I find you need when your learning something completely new like Unity.

After the first mini project is completed players are introduced by first giving an explanation of what players are and how they work. Then things like parent-child relationships are explained and also the basics of scripting Unity projects in JavaScript and how to add in movement. Once players have been covered important aspects of modern game development, Ray Casting and Collision Detection, are brought in which are vital to any games success. The math behind these two topics is the first thing to be explained to the reader showing them how rays are calculated and what is needed to see if a player has been shot or not. Clear diagrams were included to allow those visual learners amongst us to get a good grip on the theory. Then these techniques are show how to be implemented in JavaScript once the prior configuration has been done in the Unity IDE.

One essential aspect of any game is a HUD (Head-up Display) and is show along with how to use colliders as Triggers. This enables developers to restrict certain actions like the opening of a door until the player has a certain object. Learning techniques like this allow beginners to take the interactivity of their games to the next level. Also adding in-game hints is show as this can be really helpful when you introduce challenges that have to be completed before progress can be made. If helps are available then this stops the player getting bored if they cannot figure the puzzle/challenge out on their own.

Next you learn how to create instances of objects in the 3D world and also rigid body physics which is when a physics engine, like Nvidia PhysX which is the one used by Unity, is applied to an object in the game which tells the game engine to apply physics to this object. All these concepts are then out into practice by creating various mini-games which allows readers to know how the link together in a complete game.

Particle systems are key to all special effects and are one of the more complicated aspects of game development and this is what is explained next. They are explained in general then how to add them to your projects by creating a fire with wood, rocks and matches. With a lot of the key parts of the modern game being covered all ready the book then shows how to introduce a menu to a game. Textures are added and adding interactivity to the menu is show and explained, the how to animate and make your menu more interesting.

Lastly seeing as Unity supports a multitude of publishing platforms (Windows, Mac, iPhone*, Web, Wii, Mac OSX Dashboard Widget) it is important to understand how to publish your projects for these platforms. Clear instructions are given for how to publish to these platforms and an overview of each platform is also given for those who are unsure what one is or what they are appropriate for. There is also advice on how to share your complete game and a few noticeable differences between Unity Free and Pro. The last chapter tops it all of by giving advice on how to thoroughly test your game and boost its performance.

Overall I think this book is great for people who have no idea about the Unity IDE but have a basic understanding of game development and also having a background in JavaScript would be useful. I am extremely excited about building more with Unity once I find the time and I can’t wait to see what comes out in the future.

You can find a sample chapter here: http://www.packtpub.com/files/8181-unity-game-development-essentials-sample-chapter-4-interactions.pdf

Get the book here: http://www.packtpub.com/unity-game-development-essentials?utm_source=harrynorthover.com&utm_medium=bookrev&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=mdb_001397

*You must be an approved Apple Developer for the iPhone and install the iPhone SDK (requires Intel-based Mac running OSX 10.5.4 or later)

I know, it’s a bit late for the Merry Christmas part of the title, but never the less. I would just like to wish you all a happy Christmas and have a great new year, and decade!

I myself and very very excited about next year, as for me it is a real turn point. Next year I finish school and am off to college, finally doing subjects that I’m actually interested in, which the exception of maths (Business Studies, Computing, Maths and Photography), at a college which is close to home, which is nice seeing as my current school is a quite a drive. Before that can happen, I have to take my GCSEs which is a pain, but in a few months they’ll be over and I can finally get back to updating this blog more regularly.

Talking about my blog reminds me that I’ve take the chance to draw up a few comps of what my new site is going to look like, and here’s a preview of the homepage.

I hope you like it. I was aiming for a very clean, but interesting look. I don’t know how long it will take me to get this live as my HTML is very rusty, but this is a good chance to get it back on top form. I plan to use ExpressionEngine as my CMS as it’s very customizable, and suits my needs better than the other CMSs I looked at.

I also have a book review in the works on Unity Game Development Essentials, which should be up within the next week or so. I have to say though, this book is really good and very easy to understand. After than I intend to hopefully write a few tutorials for sites like Activetuts and sell a few things on FlashDen.net to get a bit of extra cash.

Finally there’s the case of my portfolio. I’m shelving this for the time being as I there’s so much else I want to learn like C# + Silverlight, Cinema4D, Better AS3, Obj-C and the list goes on, so once I’ve got my new blog up, with a basic works section I will get to grips with some of these and then see how it goes from there. I feel I’ve lost focus over the past few months with school, fitness and a few other things, but this new year is a great time to get back on the ball and catch up.

So I hope you all have a great time over this celebratory period and are looking forward to the new decade as much as I am! I feel this decade is going to be the most important one of my life.

Speak next year :p

Harry.

I’ve just received my copy of Unity 3D Game Development Essentials which is written by Will Goldstone. In a nutshell its about giving novice programmers right the way through to experienced developers a good and thorough handle on building a game with Unity. It covers physics, scripting, particle effects,instantiation terrain generation and generally everything required for the modern game.

It’s based on the 2.5 version of Unity and uses Javascript for its scripting language.

Once I’ve finished reading it I’m gonna post a review which should be up in a couple of weeks, but going on first impressions it looks a great book! If you what to get a better impression on how the book is written and whether you’d benefit from it, there’s a sample chapter available here.

If you already have the book, let me know what you think!

Recently Joshua Davis and Brendan Hall released a new framework call HYPE. The aim of the framework is to allow everyone from newbie level to professionals experiment with ease using Flash.

I’m hoping to find some time in between GCSEs to have a go at making some stuff with this, so keep any eye out. You can download it here, and find the setup instructions here.

Have fun!!

Before you ask, no I wasn’t at MAX, but after making an attempt at going through some of the 250+ hours of footage I have found a few jems that I think are worth mentioning. It sounded quite an event and plenty of exciting announcements were made! Heres a few key sessions.

By now I am assuming you have all heard about native compiling to the iPhone in Flash CS5 and if you haven’t then be very ashamed :p . Well here’s a session that sheds some light on it if you haven’t got a clear understand:

Building Applications for iPhone using Adobe Flash CS5 professional

Now the next one is on the Flash Player its self, and what makes it tick. With each update the Flash Player gets more and more advanced, and with it complicated. Questions you never even had are answered in this session and it is a must see from my point of view.

Flash Player Internals

A lot of these things in this video I have never really thought about, but when they are explained you see what a difference they make and how important it is to know some of the stuff explained. One of the interesting concepts was at the start about rendering, describing the difference between Immediate and Retained rendering. Now I know this is simple stuff for the ‘pros’ amongst us, but for me I had never really understood this so it was nice to have it explained in simple terms.

For me one of the biggest announcements was that there is a new FLA format, which is going to be based on XML! This is a lot better than the current version which was essentially a ‘black box’ as XML is an extremely open and widely used language. The new format is essentially going to be a modified ZIP file contain separate files for the library assets, publication settings and document information which will make it easier to use in source control systems and other similar management tools.

XML based FLA: The New Flash File Format

Also, sorry it has been quite recently! I have been rather busy with school seeing as I am coming up to my GCSEs quite soon. I am also starting to think about work experience for the 2010 summer (July-August), and if anyone has any suggestions or offers then that would be brilliant!

Harry.

This piece found its way to me through Twitter, and it’s simple awesome! The piece is called “No Keyframes”, and was created by AixSponza. The software used was Cinema4D R11.5 and MoGraph 2 but apparently there is more infomation on the piece coming soon.

Just click on the picture to view the piece.

Like many other creative folk in the interactive business, I have a burning passion for music. So I thought why not share some of my favorite tunes with my readers? From now on I will be posting one track/mix/set/whatever a week here and hopefully this will help you expand your music library.

This weeks track is Sargasso Sea by Salt Tank.

This track is one that follows a Progressive/Trance genre, and according to one of the users comments, it is a remix of the track Eugina which was part of the compilation Serve Chilled Vol. 3 (Track 2).

I love this type of music as it seems to take me away to a distant land, and make me thing about what and who’s important in my life, and also what lies in store for my future. Problems and doubts seem to fade away into the background when you immerse yourself into this tune, and gives you the power over yourself, and the ability to think things through properly.

That said, this tune, like any is best shared, so pass this on to everyone and anyone who has an interesting in Trance!

Enjoy this beat!

Harry.