During the past month I’ve managed to get the mission system off to a good start. It’s not done yet, but you are offered a mission which you can complete. The data for that mission is pulled from a Python script. There are still two major components which need to be worked on. The first is just hooking up more events to report to the mission scripts (right now there is only an event for when you buy something and one for when you put it in your cargo hold). After that I need to open up functions in the game which can be called from Python. Things like having a bunch of new ships warp in or having AI change tactics or something.

More recently I’ve been working on graphics. While reading the OpenGL Shader Language book I learned how to make shadows. Actually I learned how to do these without shaders, and then how to improve on them with shaders. So for now I’ve built a demo app which shows shadows (without shaders) which I’m very excited about. There is still a lot to learn and implement on that topic, so it will probably be a while before I get something into the game. I’ve also cleaned up the GL aspects of the engine a bit, trying to group similar functionalities into classes that make sense.

In any event, I’m off for vacation this week, so nothing new will be getting done for a while. Still no work on the character management stuff I mentioned earlier. Also the space station continues to look like a donut.

I’m working on a handful of things at the moment. In the short term I’m making a mission system. This includes the general windowing, storage, managing of mission data, as well as a bridge into Python to allow for missions scripts. The Python bridge is going to be the cool part, but as of right this moment I’m still in the UI of it all. Only snag to all this is I don’t know the first thing about writing Python scripts. I’m gonna try my hand at a beginner tutorial that will walk a new user through the different windows and ship controls.

In the longer term I’m dreaming of cleaning up the graphics a lot. The current graphics system was laid down in 2002 and wasn’t cutting edge back then. I’ve purchased the big OpenGL Shader Language book and am slowly working my way through that. I’ve also created a new, high polygon model for the Velotek Egg (currently the header image for this page) and I’m working on figuring out how to create a normal map and get it into the game.

For the even longer term I’d like to work on character management, skills, ship refitting, and at some point I have to bite the bullet and figure out things like masses and forces and what not. Oh yeah, and I need to FINALLY replace that horrible space station that looks like a grey donut with a stick through it. What I wouldn’t give for a 3D modeler.

Anyway, that’s enough of a log for now. I should get back to mission construction.