Regnum Online technology update

I have been away from this game mostly due to lack of time, crappy hardware and my terrible connection speed (regrettably, it does not handles lag too good). I asked a new Nvidia Geforce 9500 for development purposes, but also wishing to test this game with better quality settings. And Im glad to know that they have a technology update that you can see in this video. Im sure it will look great with my new video card.
Regnum Online is a free 3D MMORPG developed by NGD Studios, an argentinian game development team.

Ogre 1.6.5 released

We have the last release in the Shoggoth branch! Unless some weird and important bug demands an extra version, 1.6 is about to become ancient history. Expect 1.8 to hit the shelves in some months. It is going to be a long wait, Im really eager to see the new terrain renderer in action.

CEGUI Layout Editor

The first time I used this tool it was buggy and complex to use. So, I decided to  create the layouts by hand. Later on the development process I found that maintaining a layout with so many components, each one with lots of children was unfeasible and I decided to give it a second try. There was a new version and this time it worked much better. Since then CEGUI Layout Editor has became an essential part of my toolchain, I have saved my hair and kept my mental sanity.
So, you want to develop an RPG. You have choosen an engine or written your own, and you are deciding what GUI API to use. Well, my advice is to automatically discard any choice that does not includes a working layout editor. A game with more than a couple of windows and a start menu requires too much effort to manually maintain those widgets.
I have to admit that I dislike many CEGUI aspects, but it is one of the best GUIs for Ogre available and CE Layout Editor makes it an offer you cant resist.

OpenGL 3.2 and GLSL 1.5 code samples

More OpenGL 3.2 code samples. By the way, if you are using ATI, there is a new driver supporting openGL 3.2.

Intel: Design AI for Your Games

Intel has published an article about designing AI for games. They are prettty basic and avoid excesively technical details, which makes it a good reference document for newbies. You should have it in your library: part 1 and part 2.

Emotiv EPOC in action

Want to see the new mind controller in action? Watch the video here.

Gamestates and actions

Ok, time for some shameless self promotion. Even when I tend not to mention here, I have embarked since some years ago in the impossible quest of making a 3D RPG. I talked here about my dialog system (that requires a serious redesign) and now is time to say that I have completed a working Game states system and started to implement the actions system.
I can successfully push and pop game states from stack, and even can go back to previous states. Sounds good, isnt it? The action system is in early stage: I can execute basic scripts, but it requires a major redesign. Would be nice to have some help here.
As soon as possible i will post new videos of the game.

Intel cancels Larrabee

When I read it in Slashdot i couldnt believe it. Larrabee wont reach the consumer market (read the links in original news for the details).
Even when I never completely trusted Larrabee's architecture, considering it just an Intel's approach to the graphic problem (add more general purpose cores), I was eager to see how it would perform in real life. Innovation is good, so, Im really sorry that this happened.
We will have to wait to see Intel get into the high perfomance GPU market.

Cyphesis 0.5.22

We have a new version of Cyphesis, the Worldforge small to medium scale server with builtin AI.
Major changes in this version:
The persistent server ruleset can now be fully managed from clients
The administrative security model has been improved.
The test suite has been expanded massively.<
Lots of bugs have been fixed.

UDK videotutorials

I read in Slashdot that Epic has released about 20 hours of videotutorials illustrating the use of Unreal Development Kit. They not only give the tool for free, but also the training to use it, an smart counterstrike to the release of other game development tools to the public.
Obviously, Epic is trying to make with Unreal Development Kit an offer that you can't refuse. First, they give you an AAA quality engine, second, the let you pay when you have reached a certain amount of money, and third, they give you free training!

Motion controllers

The motion controllers are almost here. I have seen this story several times before, so Im pretty sure they are here to stay. Perhaps not as widely used as mouse, but they will become as popular as other gaming accessories like joysticks or gamepads, and the price will be affordable, once the first wave passes. I even dare to say that they will be integral part of next generation consoles.
The big guys are getting ready for this: Ubisoft announced that they will release 10 games for Natal, and 4 or 5 for Sony Motion Controller. It wont take too long to have them in PCs, so, you should be seriously considering if your game can benefit from using one of these devices.