Detour

I'm taking a step away from the "effects," learning/programming, that is going well. In dealing with the artist of the game, I've discovered that trying to explain things 300+ miles away (he's in NYC) is getting harder. So, I'm taking a step away from the effects programming and going to write an animation viewer tool for the Mac. So, this means I have to push ahead to something that was coming a bit later on my schedule. I have to learn Cocoa and implement the animation viewer tool, so that he can use it and see the animations (sprite sheet) he creates before sending them to me. This way he will know if they work or not before sending them to me.

So, 2 weekends from now I will travel to NYC, deliver the tool, and also the game doc along with the full list of assets needed for the game. We can discuss face to face how things should be formatted, labeled, and packaged. The animation tool writing for the Mac OS is good, because I was going to develop an editor for the game anyway, this just gives me a head start on that. Thus, the animation viewing tool will be expanded into the game editor a little later down the road, but in the meantime we will both be on the same page of what the game needs and he'll be able to sit back and crank things out. We can hash out the creative and technical stuff over that weekend and from there on out, we are both speaking the same language.

I have a game design doc and assets list already, I will put them in a more legible format. Now, where are all those napkins, and loose leaf papers...just kiddin'. :)

A train trip in 2 weeks, so I better get cranking on the tool.

All aboard!