Sprint 12+ Summary: Holidays and Data

Hey there everybody!
Happy Holidays!

 I'm sorry for the delay it's been a while and this update is long overdue. Sprint 12 has gotten a bit extended due to the holidays. Things have been pretty hectic here and a lot of us (myself included) have been spending extra time with our families and friends. However! Work does continue at a somewhat more sedate pace. Some of the things we've accomplished recently:

• Tanks are more customizable than ever
• The scripting system is 75% implemented
• The HUD has been updated, and now includes a widget for displaying scores
• Some early work for decals such as tank treads, explosions, and smoke effects has begun
• The final version of the title screen is finished courtesy of Kortney
• Fixed a major bug in the map editor saving/loading methods
• As always bug fixes and minor tweaks
• Major optimizations to tessellation code used to generate graphs for path finding
• Lots of profiling/timing

As mentioned we've come a long way on the scripting system and have begun work on some of the more 'flashy' graphical mechanics. Through a combination working on these two systems we finally hit a bottleneck where the game simply doesn't run fast enough to do all of what we want (the frame rate drops below 30 FPS). To fix this we've started with analysis; we've been profiling the code a lot in the past two weeks and doing what we can to optimize it. In one example MathForTanks did a really excellent job at optimizing the tessellation code we use for path finding and achieved nearly 3000% speed increase (That's a difference of 30 minutes down to 0.1 seconds for a large map!). Unfortunately this doesn't apply in-game but is really nice for saving maps. After a lot of profiling and analyzing data we've come to the conclusion that pygame is using up most of our processing for rendering which is not really a surprise. In order to improve this we are currently doing more research and we may switch to a different library such as piglet or pyOpenGL if we cannot get pygame to achieve the speeds we need.

Also a big round of applause to Kortney who just recently got hired at The Athens Messenger as a Graphic Designer! Congrats!

Well that's about all there is for now, I don't expect we'll have another update until after the Holidays. So until then, take care!

Have Fun!

--Donald

Sprint 11 Summary: Files!

Hello!

It's time once again to give an update on our progress for UberTanks! Sprint eleven hasn't been quite as flashy as some of our other sprints, but what we've been working on is still pretty important to the project and we've been making some decent progress. Early this sprint as we were getting into the scripting system we realized that the current file format for our saved maps was pretty inadequate and that it would probably be necessary to fix this problem before we could implement the scripting in the way that we wanted. So that's what we did! The file format has been updated and now reflects the maps and the objects much better. Here's the full list of what else we've been up to:

• Art assets have been pouring in just like always. As previously stated, our artists are awesome!
• The file format for .utf (uber tanks field) files has been updated.
• Loading and saving for .utf files has been upgraded so that the program can determine which version of our map files it is using.
• As always there have been bug fixes and a few tweaks.
• A few updates and tools have been added/fixed in the editor.
• We've started work on allowing the player to pick a custom color for their tank.

During sprint twelve we'll be working extra hard to get the scripting system done which will open up all sorts of new things to work on and play with (sound, score, play modes, etc). To accomplish this I also have vacation time coming up next week, a lot of which will go toward working on UberTanks. Also we're hoping to have a nice surprise ready by the end of the month for anybody who's actually keeping track, so stay tuned and pay attention. Well that's about all for this time, so until then;

Have fun!

--Donald

Sprint 10 Summary: Life

There has been a lot going on this sprint, but unfortunately most of it hasn't been related to UberTanks. A lot of life issues have taken their toll this past sprint on our members and as such we have not gotten as much done as we had hoped. One of our programmers has been sick (MathForTanks), I was out of the state for a good portion of the first week, Justin has been particularly busy with work, and a list of other things have happened. There is some good news however: Our great artist Jessica Staub has been hired at Indie Pub Games as a Casual Game Manager. Congratulations Jessica! She has said that she is excited for this new position, but still wants to work on UberTanks in her free time. Now for the low down on what has been happening this sprint:

• Thanks to some great work by Ashley the official logo for UberTanks has been finalized. Once it goes through some final cleanup you should start seeing it up around the site very soon.
• Work on the scripting system was halted for a little bit due to all the life issues our team has been facing, but as of last night we are back on the ball and working toward getting that implemented.
• As always there have been bug fixes and a few tweaks.
• Using this great article as reference we were able to program a pretty nifty color-picker which we should be able to use to allow players to customize the color of their tanks soon.

That's all this time everybody, see you again in two weeks!

 Have fun!

--Donald

Sprint 9 Summary: Parts!

We're back once again!

As always we have more exciting happenings here in the world of UberTanks. The latest we've been up to includes:

• Now that we have a functional field editor, work has begun on the scripting system for the game. There have been a few snags with implementation but we hope to have those figured out soon. Once the scripting system is working though it will allow us to add lots of new features to the game including but not limited to: Scoring, dynamic objects, sound, and new gameplay modes!
• Justin has been working on the parts system like a champ and the first version of that is just about ready to hit our beta testers. Now players will be able to customize their tanks to suit their own personal play style with a list of available parts.
• As always there have been a few bug fixes and a few tweaks to the code as well. 
• Last sprint the shear volume of art assets that came pouring in through my inbox made it clear that our system for sharing those assets was sorely lacking. To that end we have made revisions in our pipeline so that art assets can be more quickly and easily passed back and forth between team members through the repository.

This sprint hasn't been quite as exciting as our last few sprints have been. Our team members have busy lives and for many a lot has happened in the last two weeks. It's important to remember that everyone working on the project is doing so in their spare time. We'll be sure to catch up more next sprint!

Until then!

--Donald Bush

Our artists are great!

Hey everybody!

I just wanted to take some time to acknowledge the hard work that is currently being done by our excellent art team! All of the artists have been doing a great job and spending tons of hours working away for the project. Most especially Ashley, Kortney and Jess have really been out-doing themselves. Between the three of them my inbox has been flooded with messages containing new super-cool images almost every day. In fact there have been so many images that I haven't been able to comment on all of them yet. To that end, all three of them have earned gold stars!

Keep up the great work guys!

--Donald