Um... oops.

So I finished my last post by saying I'd hoped to implement the afore-described physical motion that night.  Well, a few things happened, I got severely sidetracked and as a result I haven't so much as glanced at any code since that writing.

Basically, my girlfriend is out of town for a week for a work seminar, which freed up the PS3 and Xbox360 (which until her leave had been utterly dominated by her playing Fallout: New Vegas). So on Monday, instead of tackling more coding, I finished Heavy Rain for the PS3, which was all kinds of amazing. As intended by the game designer Quantic Dream, a few things happened during the course of the game that I wish hadn't, and I'm tempted to play through again (multiple times) to see how my different actions pan out. I must say I was upset with the identity of the Origam Killer not so much out of disappointment, but a sense of being offended. I certainly did not see it coming.

As for last night (Tuesday), I sparked up the Xbox and returned to the kingdom of Albion with Fable 3. The levelling system is completely different from previous installments in the series, but it works extremely well (compared to, say, the changes in levelling from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2, which were abhorrent). I can't say for certain yet, but I might enjoy this method more. I just hope I can still grow horns from all my evil deeds.

It is with great regret that I can't recall the source of my next comments, because they deserve credit. One review that I read pointed out that the goal of Fable 3 is to overthrow a tyrannical ruler and the point is abundantly defeated if you exercise the main selling point of the series, which is to say that you choose between performing good acts and evil acts. If you choose evil acts, then you are arguably no better than the king you're deposing. So why should anyone follow you? Indeed it is difficult for me to choose evil acts explicitly because I am hoping to enlist support in my revolution, and that tends to remove the freedom promised by Monsieur Molyneux.

That doesn't mean I'm not having fun. I'm already in love with the game, though the different interface for choosing how to emote with NPCs leaves me pining for the old.

Buuuuut you're not here to read about games I'm playing, you're hear to read about the game I'm making. Unfortunately, I don't have much to report in that regard due to everything I've thus far been discussing in this post. What I can say, however, is that I think that I may need to overhaul how I handle object rotation. Allow me to explain.

Currently, each object stores three angle variables: theta (thay-tuh), phi (fi, like pie) and chi (ki, like pie). These are each values that determine rotation about the x-axis, y-axis and z-axis, respectively. In my last post, I spoke of getting one angle measurement about one axis, determined by the cross product of two vectors (read more here). Well, either I need to figure out how to convert one angle about one axis into three angles about three axes, or I need to change how each object defines its rotation from the get-go.

I'm leaning toward the former for two reasons. One is that I'm not sure how to handle player-driven object rotation with one angle and one axis (in other words, how to translate mouse movement in two dimensions to four degrees of freedom - one angle and an x, y and z component for the axis). The other is that when a rotating object collides with something else, the axis of rotation is likely to change, and I'm not sure how to implement that either at this point in time.

I suppose I can start jotting down some vector math when I get home so I can figure this out. Or, alternatively, I could research it online. There's nothing like standing on the shoulders of giants.