tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90228552008-05-10T15:01:50.134-07:00ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-64738108032170937302008-05-10T14:57:00.000-07:002008-05-10T15:01:50.166-07:00

Black Sky has had some delays with the 1.5 release. I decided to make some optimizations and re-write the timer system that the entire game/engine was using. This new method is much better than what I was using, and should give smoother gameplay, and it should only use about 50% of your cpu, unless your in a big battle or have a slower computer. I was also able to squeeze out more FPS from the

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-76296537838394857142008-04-08T15:21:00.000-07:002008-04-08T15:28:41.753-07:00

Here is an early screen shot of the unfinished space dock! I'm attempting to finish it tonight, but I don't know if I will make it. But if I don't, it should be done tomorrow. If everything keeps on track, Black Sky 1.5 will be released in a few weeks.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-40433394809824566842008-04-07T09:19:00.000-07:002008-04-07T09:25:46.516-07:00

I don't know if this is good or bad yet... But, our daily web traffic has more than tripled from just a few months ago. Most of it is in the forums, so I was suspecting bots... They used to be a problem in the early days of the website, but 2 forum mods took care of that. But hopefully the traffic isn't bots, and that my web stats are reporting the right numbers, if so that is awesome. If you

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-9432929974500207842008-04-06T01:15:00.000-07:002008-04-06T01:18:42.785-07:00

Hello everyone, thought I would post a new blog update. Right now I'm working on the starbase docking. I just finished up the tractor beam code, and was testing it out grabbing ships and crates and pulling them around, kinda fun actually. So the tractor beam will be used by the starbases to tractor incoming ships. So once that is done, then it's on to the shipyard menu.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-58933957295281980312008-04-02T03:02:00.000-07:002008-04-02T03:25:00.604-07:00

I've noticed alot of what seems like spam bots trying to get into the forum, several hundred a day. They apparently are accessing the url directly. So i'm changing the forum folder to confuse the bots. This will make their attempts hit 404 pages. So for now, you will have to update any bookmarks you might have made that link to the old location. http://www.blackskygame.com/forum/

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-37440156358588753412008-04-01T15:27:00.001-07:002008-04-01T15:36:28.574-07:00

Ramification and I have been talking about this for about the last year, and we finally decided to do it. Ramification and I believe we are the ones who can truly make a difference, so we decided to join the United States Army in the buddy program as infantry soldiers. We ship out for boot camp in Fort Jackson in Columbia tomorrow. Our training will only last 2 weeks and we will be immediately

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-86647478551685234252008-03-29T21:48:00.000-07:002008-03-29T22:05:15.234-07:00

Well it's been over a month since I last posted a blog update, so I figured I better do one. Progress has been slow on Black Sky and I'm re-scheduling my daily routine to get better productivity time. I find my self wasting a lot of time during the day, so I'm working on remedying that. I'm still working on the starbase menus and going back over how the ships are saved in file and in memory.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-4815294666200117552008-02-08T13:31:00.000-08:002008-02-08T13:37:00.323-08:00

Heads up to everyone out there, the 4x space genre Sins of a Solar Empire was released monday, and the official website can be found here This game has been getting alot of hype and looks very polished, so if your interested, I recommend you go check it out! Most likely some of my free time will be spent on SSE, but not all of it...i hope...

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-85475752453441676812008-02-02T01:17:00.000-08:002008-02-02T01:18:14.094-08:00

This is pretty cool, you guys have to check out this link, it's great! http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornebookofthefutureindex.php

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-30066694037814064742008-02-01T22:48:00.000-08:002008-02-01T22:52:45.405-08:00

Probably the two most important input/controls for Black Sky will be the mouse, more specifically, left and right clicking. Left clicking will be used to select objects on the screen and to operate the turrets. Right clicking will be used to bring up a omni-directional menu and might look something like this. The buttons change depending on what you are right clicking.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-13575032827013248182008-02-01T00:56:00.000-08:002008-02-01T01:00:03.677-08:00

Witness the firepower of this fully functional battlestation! (Still a WIP, but fuctional, the weapons anyways)

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-42792043341217519862008-01-28T17:20:00.000-08:002008-01-28T17:36:13.760-08:00

Hey everyone, Here are some WIP (work in progress) sketches and screenshots of other alien ships in Black Sky that you will encounter.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-37604994954470109412007-11-05T04:32:00.000-08:002007-11-05T04:42:25.661-08:00

Hey everyone, It's that time again. As far as Black Sky goes, it's going well. Things have picked up again, and progress with Black Sky is developing further ahead. To be more exact, I'm currently going around and making graphical changes and improvements, trying to increase eye candy and maintain playable framerates. But right now the main development is focusing on the spacedock and the ship

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-25023899060836705122007-08-14T16:49:00.000-07:002007-08-14T16:53:50.036-07:00

I added a video section to the website and put two youtube videos on it. In the future I will have higher resolution videos that you can download and the youtube videos just for quick glancing etc.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-27396979633629833992007-07-28T17:42:00.000-07:002007-07-28T17:46:30.478-07:00

Hey everyone, I'm still alive, and Black Sky is still going, just slowly. Just wanted to post another updated to let everyone know the status etc. I'm working on the shipyard menu system where you can remove and upgrade ship components like engines, shields, etc. It's a pain in the butt to make the whole GUI system, and placing objects and click able thing's on menus, but it will be worth it when

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-52357034933839218722007-06-19T16:11:00.002-07:002007-06-19T16:14:31.249-07:00

Hey everyone, sorry it has been such a long time since my last update, just been busy with real life stuff. The project is still going, and right now the members are waiting for me to make a new internal build to start moving along. Our website traffic continues to grow even with a lack of updates, so I felt a need to keep everyone updated, we currently average about 150 visitors a day. I should

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-81408491599515514852007-03-01T08:40:00.000-08:002007-03-03T00:05:36.193-08:00

Another feature of the Black Sky scripting system is the Radio Message. Basicly, it's an incoming message from other ship captions and the like. Radio messages can be created in the script and can be displayed by a few different methods. Here are some screenshots to check it out in action, and as you can see they aren't done, but you should get the general idea.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-3436624594452879782007-02-24T18:27:00.000-08:002007-02-24T20:05:52.752-08:00

I finally added in navpoints for the Black Sky scripting system. Navpoints are used to show where the player needs to go next in the galaxy and inside solar systems. They won't be used for everything, as navpoints make it really easy to figure out where to go, and we can't make Black Sky that easy, sometimes you will need to go somewhere, and there won't be a navpoint to help you on your way.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-10402615193398925932007-02-20T13:40:00.000-08:002007-02-20T17:45:04.929-08:00

Upon request, I have added an RSS feed to the Black Sky website, so now you guys can see when updates occur without visiting the site :D The only bad part was that I went back to some old posts and updated the titles etc for the rss feed, and now the blog thinks they are a new post and the old posts have been moved to the top in the rss feed :(

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-45710881387808768952007-02-15T22:15:00.000-08:002007-02-20T13:13:44.248-08:00

I've been doing more blog posts more recently, as you Black Sky fans (the few that you are...) might have already noticed. Reason for doing so is that it keeps me motivated and on track more, as well as keeps you guys updated, which is a good thing. Also a few people said they stopped visiting because a "lack of updates". Basically the goal right now is to get a new version release as soon as

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-37865931308562238392007-02-13T14:12:00.000-08:002007-02-20T13:14:02.413-08:00

So far here is where I am: I had to stop on the Black Sky scripting system, because I needed to have the custom star systems finished, as the script requires this to exist so the script can use planets and solar systems for certain triggers in the scripts. But before I can even write that, I need to convert all my code to pure STL and structures, instead of pointers. The reason why is because it

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-38613737748832026402007-02-07T00:07:00.000-08:002007-02-20T13:14:26.976-08:00

So I finally decided to uninstall all my games on my computer, as I find them too distracting. Plus they don't help at all with anything else anyways except eating my time and and my hardrive space :(. Being a hobby programmer at home has it's pros and cons, but the hardest part is actually sitting down and trying to write some code, while it's so easy to play some game or visit some website...

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-41288881732973203952007-02-02T15:59:00.000-08:002007-02-02T16:00:24.977-08:00

I have some Good News! Ultimashadow has been found, he is no longer MIA! Although he is really busy, so I'm not sure how much artist like work he will be able to do for Black Sky, but at least we have 2 artists now :D

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-81745334309928789872007-01-22T17:12:00.000-08:002007-01-22T17:13:05.368-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know we have a new addition to the team, Clomaka, our new artist.

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9022855.post-1168756294670328702007-01-13T22:29:00.000-08:002007-01-13T22:31:34.683-08:00

Hey everyone, I just wanted to post an update to let you all know I'm still working on Black Sky. Progress has been slow, but it's still going. We are currently looking for a new artist to join our development team, as our artist Ultimashadow has gone MIA. Hopefully a new release will be available soon!

ViperGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13115861689650912680noreply@blogger.com