Flash Skybox Viewer ready for update

Some time ago I made a 3d flash skybox viewer which had limited functionality but in order to make it useful it required a chunk of time to code a dynamic userbase element which would, in turn, require me getting new hosting.

The skybox viewer is purely a way to display and browse the thousands of skyboxes that people make that get no attention for what can be hard work to create.  I know that writing the cubecross actionscript for the skybox gave me a few days of nightmares as I tried different techniques to get an 8-vert cube cross to display the lowest poly/triangle skybox I could.

In the upcoming release my flash skybox viewer will give you the ability to upload, share, browse and network with other modellers, artists and general geeks like me ( ).

I will be writing it for the 3 main 3d flash platforms but first release will be for alternativa 3d and flash player 10.

Stone2tile ToDo list

Current Task

• Client Details needs expanding to cover delivery address and possible other questions.

To-Do list

• alternate order method form details needs validating
• Not all the tile lights are displayed
• Paypoint payment system needs implementing. (update : payment system working but needs a callback page to redirect the usr to after payment is accepted or declined. )
• Receipt page needs securing via either a login or htaccess protected page
• The site will need a login script for customer data and viewing admin only pages
• Checkout links are hardcoded and need replacing when site goes live
• Receipt/Invoice email links are hardcoded and will require changing when site goes live
• Mail script needs activating when site goes live
• A data capture voucher system was advised would also be on the site
• Live support option is not yet on the site
• Not all the pictures are loaded into the revolving banner. The product name should also be printed on each picture with the opportunity to click on it to take you through to that product page. (example given was roccostone .co .uk ) The Banner does not give a good impression of the room so could it be made slightly deeper?
• some items have no roomshot.
• URL REWRITE needs enabling
• Deals page needs creating and linking to
• Sitemap needs creating but will require URL REWRITE implementing
• Meta tags needs updating
• Search Engine is only basic and requires more complex search functionality
• Shopping Cart will need finalising after design and navigation is complete
• IE css fix needs to be made to ensure cross browser compatibility

Completed tasks

• shopping cart footer does not contain the usual footer content ** DONE ** – 09/11/2009
• Error form needs creating in case a product fails to pass the delivery postcode check. ** DONE ** – 09/11/2009
• SG002RS needed rebuilding from the original image at stoneworksltd.co.uk ** DONE ** – 09/11/2009
  
• Order process requires postcode choice for delivery option implementing ** DONE ** – 09/11/2009
• Paypoint does not allow free transactions so some code needs to be written to seperate the free samples from the real orders and deal with them seperately.  Probably by mail. ** DONE ** – 05/11/2009
  
• The category description font has been changed to that of the product descriptions, it was supposed to be the other way round ** DONE ** – 04/11/2009
• FSB logo not added * DONE ** – 04/11/2009
• product_codes/1024×768/ images need making for the lightbox popup ** DONE ** – 04/11/2009
• I am not that keen on the white buttons used for “Checkout”, “Empty Cart” & “Order Free Sample”. The same buttons are used for add & remove items but I know these are being changed anyway to a drop down version. Could these be made similar to the “Submit”, “Calculate”, “Confirm” buttons or the “Great Deals” button ** DONE ** – 04/11/2009
• Could we also change the “Subject” to “Telephone” and the message box to say “Message” ** DONE ** – 03/11/2009
• Also, can the boxes for Name, email & phone be made shorter but slightly deeper ** DONE ** – 03/11/2009
• Postal Address amended ** DONE ** – 03/11/2009
• Could we change the text you have put “Use this form if you do not have an email client” etc. to just say Send us a message in the same font as the “Contact us” ** DONE ** 03/11/2009
• Credit card icon logo added to footer below terms and conditions/privacy statement ** DONE ** – 03/11/2009
• User cannot add two free samples of the same product OR buy an item that they have ordered a free sample for.  An error message should show to indicate this ** DONE ** – 03/11/2009
• Free Sample does not reflect price on shopping cart ( ie. free sample order has the original item price) ALSO free sample is causing incorrect sums upon item removal ** DONE ** – 03/11/2009
• Privacy Statement and T&C needs placing somewhere on the page and also on the shopping cart page. ** DONE ** – 02/11/2009
• the remove item button does not need a quantity, it should just remove the total amount for that item ** DONE ** – 02/11/2009
• The total price is in bold but could the word “Total Price” also be in bold ** DONE ** – 02/11/2009
• The confirm button at the bottom of the page looks a little small, I like the button you have used for the delivery “Calculate” could it be similar to this? ** DONE ** – 02/11/2009
• Not keen on the font colour though (individual product listings/pcode=cat) and at the moment you need to click on the name not just anywhere in that box; can that be changed so that you can click on the image as well to take you through to be product page? ** DONE ** – 02/11/2009
• Font & colour for this description be changed to match with with range descriptions ** DONE ** – 02/11/2009
• Contact page needs cleaning up, has a bug and requires email/address/phone adding. ** DONE ** 02/11/2009
• Pls. Remove free sample request from Tile lights ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• Add onto end of the category description for tile lights “Manufactured & tested to IP67 standards” ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• Tile Lights product display misaligned due to large item name. needs fixing. ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• Word “delivery” removed from Free Sample image ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• Word “description” removed from product page ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• index.php?pcode=cat could use some images and css changes to reflect images ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• Redesign shopping cart according to sketch ** DONE ** – 29/10/2009
• shopping cart button is misplaced through the CSS on the shopping cart pages ** DONE ** – 26/10/2009
• Product descriptions need updating ** DONE ** -16/10/2009
• Free Sample order needs implementing ** DONE ** – 16/10/2009
• shopping cart callback page for successful sale needs building ** DONE ** – 16/10/2009
• product page needs some text to define square meters being purchased and work out the price based on amount selected ** DONE ** – 16/10/2009
• Product page needs tidying up and tile image added ** DONE ** – 15/10/2009
• The NO VAT FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY should be animated ** DONE ** – 14/10/2009
• ** BUG ** product pages have embed unordered lists cause irregularities and invalid markup. ** DONE ** – 13/10/2009
• Product images need to enlarge when clicked ** DONE ** – 13/10/2009
• ** BUG ** empty items in shopping cart was allowed to checkout. ** DONE ** – 13/10/2009
• Background image added ** DONE ** – 12/10/2009
• Receipt page needs creating to finalise order ** DONE ** – 04/10/2009
• Basin images need replacing ** DONE ** – 03/10/2009
• html receipt of invoice sent to client and s2t.co.uk in email and record stored for receipt functionality ** DONE ** – 03/10/2009
• Checkout button needs page building ** DONE ** – 03/10/2009
• invoice and receipt database needs building ready for automation ** DONE ** – 03/10/2009
• Checkout code needs to be ready to pass data to paysystem ** DONE ** – 02/10/2009
• * BUG * search engine has no output for zero results ** DONE ** – 30/09/2009
• Products page needs search choice design implemented (browse by cat or type) ** DONE – 30/09/2009
• Privacy statement page needs creating ** DONE ** – 29/09/2009
• Terms and conditions page needs creating ** DONE ** – 29/09/2009
• * BUG * trailing zeros on prices are truncated ** DONE ** – 29/09/2009
• *BUG* price on shopping cart does not display correct price when multiple items are in the list ** DONE ** – 29/09/2009
• LED lights data needs building ** DONE ** – 29/09/2009
• Basins and Led Lights are sold per unit not per sqm ** DONE ** – 29/09/2009
• *BUG* recently added products with double letters in name (ie. ss001ll ) dont show product image. ** DONE ** – 28/09/2009
• Not all the Basin Pictures are showing ** DONE ** – 28/09/2009
• *BUG* Basins product_desc has too much data (ie. Classic Travertine Mosaic Stone Verona 434×168 ) when it should just be the dimensions. This causes drop down list to not work with design. This also inhibits the variable basin data from appearing properly. It will require some database reworking ** DONE ** – 28/09/2009
• *BUG* DIV innerframe needs to stretch to fit content ** DONE ** – 27/09/2009
• combobox of item sizes needs to go into type&tid=1 pages along with link to product ** DONE ** – 27/09/2009
• Some of the colouring on the website is not as per Luke’s design ** DONE ** – 27/09/2009
• The Home, About Us etc buttons at the top are not yet as per Luke’s design ** DONE ** – 27/09/2009
• Clicking on the logo from any page should take you back to the home page ** DONE ** – 26/09/2009
• Images on individual product pages are not of good quality ** DONE ** – 26/09/2009
• *BUG* DIV innerframe needs to stretch to fit content ** DONE ** – 26/09/2009
• In the range section it shows prices range from 0 – ?. I would prefer it just said prices from (the lowest price) ** DONE ** – 26/09/2009
• On the individual product pages you have to select a size before you can see the price. I think it would be better if the customer could see all the prices for the different sizes ** DONE ** – 26/09/2009
• Search Engine needs implementing ** DONE ** – 26/09/2009
• * BUG * shopping cart addItem and removeItem functions need cleaning up to validate item selections for the list ** DONE ** – 25/09/2009
• shopping cart page needs remove item buttons per item for quick access ** DONE ** – 25/09/2009
• Minimum price range needs to be set on type&tid=1 pages ** DONE ** – 24/09/2009
• Product Item images for single items needs dynamic code implementing ** DONE ** – 24/09/2009
• *BUG* cart addItem button needs to pass data for item sizes ** DONE ** – 24/09/2009
• Shopping cart hidden itemid input value needs updating as SELECT box is changed ** DONE ** – 24/09/2009
• UPDATE database with new prices and sizes and change green/grey to just grey ** DONE ** – 24/09/2009
• Fix the item size combobox so the list is sorted in proper size and order ** DONE ** – 24/09/2009
• *BUG * pcode=cat&tid=BASINS and TILE+LIGHTS need an image fix to avoid mis-parsing image url ** DONE ** – 23/09/2009
• index.php?pcode=type&tid=1 needs css output ** DONE ** – 22/09/2009
• *BUG* index.php?pcode=type&tid=9 returns NULL tile lights **DONE** (temp fix requires original data) – 22/09/2009
• H1 tag CSS needs building ** DONE ** – 22/09/2009
• javascript image rotator needs implementing **DONE** – 21/09/09
• *BUG* ADDITEM cart button redirect should NOT move user from current page but should reflect the added item **DONE** – 21/09/09
• shopping cart needs checkout and empty cart buttons adding and the css of the buttons needs work **DONE** – 21/09/09
• *BUG* Header image needs hardpainted menu items removing **DONE** – 21/09/09
• Shopping cart hidden itemprice input value needs updating as SELECT box is changed **DONE** – 21/09/09
• Product page output for single item requires 1 large image + description + sizes + cart buttons **DONE** – 21/09/09
• Template needs rebuilding and all code injections need to reflect the new template **DONE** – 20/09/09
• Index product type listings need roomshot images replacing current ones then resizing to 130×130 **DONE** – 20/09/09
• *BUG* index.php?pcode=type needs to clone homepage **DONE** – 20/09/09
• AboutUs || Contact || Sitemap pages needs building **DONE** (sitemap requires URL REWRITE) – 20/09/09

 

The category description font has been changed to that of the product descriptions, it was supposed to be the other way round.

CMS Systems and me

I have been working with a company making cms systems and have begun developing an SEO optimised cms from scratch with respects to speed of creation, ease of use to update and unique content for search engine rankings.

I am pretty sure there is software already written out there so I wil obviously spending a lot of time learning the methodology in conjunction with the workflow that comes in daily.

This leaves me with no time to do any games development which saddens me but fortunately I really enjoy this work and the time constraints help me focus.  The other advantage of the system is the better i code a cms the more time I will have to work on games development.

Flash only Alternativa3d class files.

These are the Alternativa3d source files converted to use Flash classes only.  There is NO Flex functionality in this version.

 

:: Download link ::

http://forum.alternativaplatform.com/posts/downloadAttach/161.page

::  Source code ::

http://forum.alternativaplatform.com/posts/list/593.page

Blog changes and new direction

I have been working on a flash/scaleform interface for a Crysis mod at http://www.project-rise.org so I havent been working on any Unreal stuff recently. I hate to change direction but this is beneficial to unreal editing also as Epic have just signed up to use Scaleform.  This means I can take my years of experience with flash and my experience with games development to learn 3 things.

Sandbox editing for Crytek engine
Interface development with flash and scaleform
c++ coding and possibly lua

I will miss the level design side of things for the time being but once the interface is done I can get back to it with a better understanding of what i can do.

I will be posting my experiences with the crytek engine now and keep my notes based on what i do. I will define the game and tools I am using with categories.

WIP – DM-Mallrats – Info

I have started a new map I am trying to make in two weeks.  I highly doubt I will get it as complete as I would like in this timescale but trying will help me increase the speed of my workflow (or so im told). 

So far I have my concept and I have begun greyboxing out the bsp. 

The concept is based on an abandoned mall scenario. 
The mall has 3 tiers inside.
Each tier has a row of shops that can be navigated for cover and pickups.
The mall centrepeice is a fountain that can be used to get a boost through the hole in the roof.
The roof is covered on both sides by two “facing worlds” style towers.
Each tower will have a teleporter to the top to access the “birds nest” sniper point but it will sound an alarm and a rotating/flashing light will alert the sniper in that spot he has a visitor.  This is to avoid the random shot in the back moments u get in other maps. I want the sniper to be able to fight for his spot. He has to come down for ammo at somepoint anyway.
The two exits to the mall (north and south) lead to a small blocked off street scene where you can get pickups and use the teleporter to the sniper point.
In addition to the deathmatch elements of the sniper towers they can be internally modelled to open up the layout as a small CTF map and also can be used for TDM with proper placement of spawn points.
The mall skybox will be low poly using basic nightsky and some distant buildings. This of course can be upgraded later. The direct surroundings of the mall are a parking lot and some extra demolished buildings.
Jump-pads give quick access to upper levels.
The shops have been gutted and holes in the walls, floors and ceilings have been made accessible for navigation through makeshift walkways.

Back in the saddle !

Finally I have a new pc to edit ut3 maps with so i can carry on where I left off

 

Im gonna carry on with CTF-IronMountain to help build a portolfio and then do one more gametype based map for ut3.

As soon as I feel comfortable with that I plan on making my first game using the ut3 engine.  Its a simple concept so I dont need to get a whole team to create it but when the time comes I will look for one or two people to assist.

 

Wish me luck

Update – August 18th 2008

Heya.

Its been a while since I posted and since then I have diagnosed the cause of my ut3 crashes.  

It seems that patch 2 was what broke it.  It doesnt overheat my system or anything as far as I can tell (no alarm before reset) and patch 1 works fine.  I tried both the beta and official release of patch 3 and that didnt help. 

I read through the patch notes and the only thing I can see that would affect my pc was an optimisation they added in patch 2. 

All I can say is Epic Fail

Latest update June 2008

I have currently been unable to work on my unreal map due to computer problems requiring me to get a new computer. 

It has been a long time coming as my x800 XTPE has only a shader model 2 card and games using the UT3 engine are more often being released without SM2.0 upk files.  This isnt what has stimied me currently though.  When I run UT3 it lasts around 5 minutes tops then my PC reboots.  I have checked temperatures of cpu/gpu, cleaned and reinstalled all drivers using current versions and stepping back to ati/omega 7.1 drivers.  I have reinstalled DX9.0c and made sure all unecessary services were stopped.  Nothing doing though.  My last resort is a full format which I have put off to last or buy a new PC.
Buying a new PC means I need to get a job so I can carry on editing to get a job I want.  This seems like the right thing to do so I wont have to worry about a new computer for a good while.

In the meantime I will be doing some websites for a bit of cash and maybe end up on a 9 to 5 job so if this blog isnt updated its purely because I havent done anything but ill be back ! 

(in fact i’ll be back in the next post :p )

Recent Animation Studies

I have a background in animation with all Flash versions upto CS3 (at which point i moved into 3d engines) so learning animation in UeD and its sister tools has always been a priority for me.

I spent the past few days learning how to add skeletalMeshActors and assign animSets and animTrees to the model for manipulation.

It is a tricky area to learn with the latest UeD as there is a lack of information still so everything I did was from a few concepts I found in various forums and mostly from trial and error.

The trickiest part I found was when it came to using Matinee for controlling the animations.  The timeline system is very intuitive but upon calling the animations I wanted to see I had no response.  I noticed that when I used the Movement Track it worked fine but also animated using stock animSets and animTree.  I figured this might be over-riding my animation calls but the problem wasnt quite so simple.

I learned that you must create an animTree and create a node based system to apply animations stored inside the animSet. The animSet editor is basically a custom Kismet editor to specifically target animating methods.  Upon looking at the stock animTree I was using I figured out that I must tell Unreal when an animation is triggered, what triggers it, the speed of the animations, the blending is utilizes and any other options I needed to apply to my animations.

Now I have this figured out I have to go learn what the animSet nodes and controls must do to work properly.  The documentation for this is practically non-existent.  I fear I must check the source code to see what the different controls are used for.  This could take a long time as there are a lot of functions to search through.

The good thing about animSets are you have unlimited space to create your animations.  It is referred to a “N-blend” where N is infinite.  This is exciting as it means its possible to create a single animSet for all models in your game.  This might not be practical in some cases but its certainly a good option to have.  Especially in the case of a football game or similar where all models do the same things.

Due to the extensive nature of the unreal engine its possible to take any animation and use tools such as 3dsmax and Maya to export in a format ready for unreal importing.  Please sir…show me to the animation repository I got work to do !.

Now I know how to do this my next plan is to learn how to create a faceFX animation so I can create a cut-scene I have planned.