In absencia

I've been bad. I haven't worked on Rustbot since my last relevant post on April 6, making it eight days of rustless existence.

I don't rightly know where all the time went, but I'm actually itching to work on it. I'm still getting some basic functionality working, which is a bit depressing because I'd honestly hoped to be further along by now. My next task is integrating the tiled landscapes so that I can better implement level-of-detail rendering (i.e. land at a larger distance is not rendered with as much detail - read : not as many polygons - as land that is closer to the camera). Following that, I'm not sure what to tackle next.

There are two items on my mental agenda following the LOD stuff. One is an inventory system, the other is to better perfect the functionality of attaching/detaching objects. I'm leaning toward the latter for two reasons, the first of which is that once that's done, I can at least release some sort of free alpha build that should be fun.

The second reason I'm likely going to work on object functionality is that working on Kataminecraft has given me some ideas. After my failed attempt at making an awesome Katamari-meets-Minecraft video, I thought about how to make it run smoother and have significantly less hiccups in framerate. I generated some ideas, and it quickly became apparent to me that most of those ideas can be applied to Rustbot as well. That realization was a spirit-lifting* breakthrough, if you ask me. Bear in mind, however, that I haven't even tried implementing these methods so it's not a given that they'll work. Having said that, I'm hopeful.

Having said that, I won't be able to work on anything for some time. Tonight I have to tutor after work. Tomorrow night, my fiancée and I are going to watch some more Battlestar Galactica (did I mention we just started watching the 2004 series and it is awesome??), then Saturday and Sunday is family/wedding stuff.

Can I please have some free time? Just a little? Ugh stupid real life...


*Just because Ghostbusters is my favorite movie of all time does not imply that I believe in ghosts. I don't.