In case you’re here because you’re interested in the MMO we are creating for the Pandora handheld (which is likely) there are two threads on the Pandora forums you might find interesting. These contain discussion pertaining to the MMO and may contain details that you can’t find elsewhere. Just follow the links:
Just a quick post to note that Purple Pirate Productions now has forums up at http://purplepirates.darksiren.net/, so go there to discuss the MMORPG we have in development for (among others) Pandora.
Youtube recently added HD video support to their site. When viewing videos in HD the height on screen is 480 pixels, and 854 pixels wide. This means that, with some added letterboxing, Pandora videos display in their native resolution. Of course getting a video on Youtube and processed as HD takes a bit of work, so here is a guide to help with converting your Pandora videos so they’ll be displayed as HD once uploaded.
Spent some time today researching how to more efficiently pack my sprites and tiles into one large texture. I had an algorithm that worked, it was just hideously inefficient in terms of space left unused. I came across Nuclex’s Rectangle Packing and ported Cygon’s packer to Python. Below is the result.
The PanMMO (working title) team has gone from one member to three. Dark Siren Sally (who graciously provides my webhosting) will be taking care of the server’s database backend and sysadmin duties. RavenKazuki will be making sound and music for the game.
This means a revival of Purple Pirate Productions. Expect a somewhat official PPP site/forum to open probably sometime in the new year.
Speaking of which, merry Christmas everyone, and a happy new year!
The best ideas – for me – usually come late at night when I’m about to lay down in bed and sleep. Subsequently I have to flesh the idea out in my head and get all excited that I’ve finally solved some problem or other and then I can’t sleep. Suffice to say I didn’t sleep too well last night.
Now I’ve been programming rendering engines for 2D games for a while. Some types are easy to optimize, others not so easy. It can be easier or harder depending on whether you’re using software rasterization or you’re using a GPU for your rendering. I’ll go over traditional ways of optimization and finish up with my latest and greatest idea.