Posts in June, 2007

Jun 30, 2007
in Tech

In yr code twiddling yr bits

Added a few functions to gameobjects.util that seemed worth sharing. The first two are two-dimensional versions of range and xrange. When iterating over something 2 dimensional (such as pixels in an image) you typically have an outer loop for the y coordinate, and an inner loop for the x coordinate. The range2d and xrange2d functions combine these two loops in to one and take range iterables as parameters.

Here's how you might use range2d to iterate over the coordinates in an image.

The xrange2d function returns a generator rather than a list, but works the same. continue reading…

Jun 15, 2007
in Tech

Master time with PyGame

A novice games programmer learns he can move a sprite by adding a constant to its position every frame. For a while he is happy and mocks the master games programmer for having wasted many years learning. But soon the novice realises his sprites are unpredictable and move at different rates on different machines. The novice is despondent and visits the master for advice.

"Master. Why do my sprites not obey my commands? They jump when I ask them to slide."

"Frame rate is like the wolf, it can not be tamed", replies the master. continue reading…

Jun 7, 2007
in Tech

Game Objects Commandments

I've moved Game Objects to Google Code. It's new home is http://code.google.com/p/gameobjects/. There are source and Win32 packages available.

Game Objects is intended to be a collection of classes to assist with the creation of games, or other realtime applications. Currently there is a 2D and 3D Vector class, and a well optimized 4x4 Matrix class, but eventually Game Objects will contain code for general route finding, entity management, AI and other cool stuff. I'm happy to take suggestions, and if you would like to submit code - even better! All classes should following these commandments.

Jun 4, 2007
in Tech

OpenGL sample code for PyGame

I've uploaded a simple example of how to use OpenGL with PyGame. It's a listing from my forthcoming book, Beginning Game Development with Python and PyGame, and demonstrates how to initialize OpenGL, create a light and draw a simple 3D 'world'. It also shows how to use the camera matrix to create a simple 'fly-cam'.

To run it you will need PyOpenGL, which you can download from the website, or from the command line if you have Easy Install (type easy_install PyOpenGL). Use the cursor keys to look around, and the Q/A keys to move forward and back. You can also press Z and X to roll the camera.

Here's a screenshot. continue reading…

Jun 3, 2007
in Tech

BBCode module moves to Google Code

Postmarkup, my BBCode parser module now has a new permanent home on google code (http://code.google.com/p/postmarkup/). It's more than adequate for my needs now, just wish I had time to work on my TurboGears site! I thought I would have more spare time since becoming a full time Python contractor, but I'm as busy as a... sorry, too busy to think of similie.