Oh great, dentist time

Fantastic, lost a filling, so now have to call up the dentist and make an appointment to get the filling replaed and probably get my troubelsome wisdom tooth pulled, and maybe they can save a probably dead incisor which is the product of 25+ years of receeding gum, that has resisted every toothpaste nd mouth wash under the sun, even the stuff that really really burns.


Oh well I guess its time, I've been a bit scared of the denstist since the whole having my jaw ripped out cos of cancer thing...but its probably time I started my regular 6 monthly visits, after all i am paying bloody insurance for it.

Anyway, I have a special guest coming to stay with me for a few months, so denstist hassles aside, I've got a lot to look forward to today,  Lets see how that works out.


Ahthankyew

tits. lost 9 pages

I had some comments in the margins of the book, using a Word feature, and to print out a few chapters I removed them, so I was more than a little upset to seem my 768 pages suddenly turn into  759 due to some reformatting of the size of the page..

oh well, its still going well, but not going to make end of the month delivery, a couple of the projects are holding me up, and I'm short some art and cartoons....will send what I have on Friday and get another extension.

It is looking good though.




Ahthankyew

756 and still finding things todo

As I was writing I added a lot of todo notes, things that needed code or art, so I'm going back through those and shit...there's a lot.

The Page count is rocketing up due to the code snippets going in, but sometimes I need to have a little discussiona about what's doing and that's eating up time

damn this thing is never going to end past 1000 pages

Ahthankyew

721 yup, flying now

As I expected, adding in code snippets and explaining them is really quite a straightforward way of moving forward, Also a few illustrations nave gone in to bulk things up.

I am still having some nightmares about how to explain physics, I'm not going to try to write a library, I am just going to use Bullet Physics, but I dunno  how much I need to explain the concept...and indeed learn exactly how Bullet works, (I tend to use PhysX)  I will tell you when I get it all working in place...and then decide how to write about it.


Anway, code is flying out, pages are flying out, its going well. The 2D stuff is complete, and I've got to put together a couple of SVN repositories so my students can test it for me...

exciting.



Ahthankyew

700 pages....homestraight here we come

I hit 700 pages last night, wow....what a landmark.

I'm pretty much done with the writing now, really its a case of including code snippets and explinations of what they do and its done..  That almost certainly will take it up past 800. and I need to edit it down then

I printed it out the other week at 550 pages and its 2 inches thick double sided printing too...probably 3 inches now.

Flipping through it, its very nice, still a few things I need to pad out a bit, and maybe some things to drop, but it really does seem to be quite complete to me, It should take a beginner from Hello World, to Halo...not sure they'll do it in the 30 days I had originally hoped for, I added a lot of small tester projects in there to compliment the game projects so things grew...

Of course I still have to finish the projects, sometimes thats a bit frustrating becuase I really can't go into the level of quality/depth I normally do but as long as its expandable, the readers can take it to new levels.

Cannot wait to finish it....so I can go out and do things again.


Ahthankyew

oops had to kill 10 pages

I'm starting to lose the plot, I repeated a section I'd already written afew weeks ago, so I had to examine both versions and merge into 1.. lost 10 pages doing that. But was able to get them back in the session explaining a top down chase game, as a means of demonstrating environment interaction. and then twisting that into a side view platformer

There is actually a lot of repetition in some parts, not direct repeats like this, but restating a point made a few pages before, I have to edit that sort of stuff out. A point well made does not need to be restated, it can be referred to but not defined twice... Sometimes though when I pop back to finish a section now that the code for it is complete I do that in the code explination.,

That's one reason why I am aiming for 800 pages before I start to edit, I'm bound to lose 50 or more in the edit process with things like that.

Can't wait to get to 700 pages though, hoping to do that tonight when I add the code for the chase and platform games.

the other 100 "should" now come quite easy as its almost all code explinations, only the Physics stuff to really explain, and I'm using an engine so I'm not really going to get too into  the maths, just set it up, show it working and let the user get into it.

I can see the bend for the home straight, time to kick for home.


Ahthankyew

683...I need a break

Nope, can't take a break, have to get more pages written, but it is starting to feel complete. Only the section on Physics is still in a frameowrk format, I'm hoping I can work that out next week.

This week finishing up the 2D code, pasting it in, and then clearing up the 3D work which will of course use the physics.

2 reasonably quiet weeks coming up, so hopefully will be able to devote more than 4 hours a night to it.

Ah well if its not done, its not done, I will have to extend again, I think the publishers will be impressed by the amount and quality done..

I hope :D


In other news....there may be romance in the air, or their may not, not really sure yet, been chatting online with someone and we're going to be meeting up soon. Will have to just play it by ear.


Ahthankyew

670 pages its getting there

I think, think its all there...still need to pad a few sections and do something about so simple AI concepts.


Ahthankyew