We are moving forward with our Fortune Hunter Project. My first task was to fix the "transparency bug." All of the enemies in the game are drawn as simple 2D figures with a pronounced black outline, or should be. The black outlines were not showing up in the game. I took all of the enemies into Adobe Photoshop and changed the black lines into a very dark gray, which looks black.
This was a very tedious process because Photoshop is on Windows, so I had to restart my computer, and then play through the game until I found an enemy every time I wanted to test my fixes. It was particularly frustrating because if I missed a single pixel, then there would be a noticeable white dot somewhere in the enemy. I also set up the rest of the concept enemies that still had backgrounds, and took out those backgrounds so that they can be put into the game as well.
I'm looking forward to POSSCON this weekend. There are three people that I am particularly interested in seeing. When I was looking through the people that would be presenting, "Mad Dog" stuck out. He looks like a mad scientist, and I think that alone will make him interesting to talk to. Also, he has been very influential with Unix, which is an integral part of open source. He seems like a strong advocate of open source projects, and I would like to know how he finds time to work on projects and still make a living. Actually, I would like to ask all of the speakers about this. Walter Bender from One laptop per child will be there. Not to play favorites, but I am most excited to see him. Since I'm working on the sugar labs/OLPC project, this will be cool to see the guy who started the whole thing. Also, he was involved at the MIT media labs. I am interested in getting into interaction design and the creative side of computer science, and the MIT media lab is legendary in that area. I would also like to talk to another guy who might be there on Thursday from the MIT media lab. I think that will be the main part of his presentation, so that would be really informative for me. I can't wait until next week!
My next task will be to start looking into adding a visual to the lightning attack. I am really looking forward to this task. I loved working in the graphics package in python programming class; I got really into the program we had to do on a jack-o-lantern and spent way a ton of time on it. My jack-o-lantern with flashing eyes was voted best in the class :)
I am excited to see what the other group members have done this week when we meet today. Every Thursday Brittany is going to report back our weeks progress. Fortune Hunter project is looking good so far, but I think my next endeavor will be much more challenging.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Back to work
I just got back from Spring break in San Francisco; I had a great time. I guess that means it is time to get back to work. We have created a timeline for our project. We we plan to accomplish several smaller tasks au lieu of one big task. That way we will be sure to have something accomplished, even if we cannot finish them all. That being said, I think that we have taken on tasks that are difficult, but I know that we can do them.
We have decided to have specific tasks that each of us are to work on. Brittany is going to be working on documentation and link between four's company and Fortune Hunter. Jaime is working on on the dungeon bug; Staci will be working on other coding and design (including menus), and I will be working on graphics.
My first task is going to be to fix the invisible outlines of the enemies. I have found a simple solution for this bug, so I will have it done by next Tuesday. In addition to this bug, I will work on adding visuals to the game whenever the player does an attack or magic event. I will probably just have a simple flashing graphic for each spell including fire, lightning, heal, and also attack. The lightning graphic should be accomplished two weeks after I finish the bug. Then each week after that I should have another implementation completed. I think that this is a realistic goal for the end of the year, and it should add a lot to the experience of the game.
We have decided to have specific tasks that each of us are to work on. Brittany is going to be working on documentation and link between four's company and Fortune Hunter. Jaime is working on on the dungeon bug; Staci will be working on other coding and design (including menus), and I will be working on graphics.
My first task is going to be to fix the invisible outlines of the enemies. I have found a simple solution for this bug, so I will have it done by next Tuesday. In addition to this bug, I will work on adding visuals to the game whenever the player does an attack or magic event. I will probably just have a simple flashing graphic for each spell including fire, lightning, heal, and also attack. The lightning graphic should be accomplished two weeks after I finish the bug. Then each week after that I should have another implementation completed. I think that this is a realistic goal for the end of the year, and it should add a lot to the experience of the game.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Project Goals
We have been looking at Fortune Hunter now for a while. We were able to fix the scan bug, and now we need to think about what we want to complete by the end of the semester. First, there is one more bug that is listed on the bug tracker, although I think that there are definitely some more bugs. This bug deals with getting stuck in one of the rooms. This will be a difficult bug to fix because in order to test it, we must play through to that room each time. This could take quite a while, and it will get really frustrating.
We found another bug that we would like to fix. This involves the enemies' images. The color black in the enemies shows up transparent. After investigating this issue, I saw that there is a method convert alpha. This changes the alpha (transparency) of a given color. This allows you to have a character drawn on a certain color background, and then get rid of it to allow the actual game's background to show through. There must be a call to convert black to an alpha of zero, which makes it transparent. We could probably go through the code, find it, and fix it, but I think there might be a simpler solution. If we were to go into photoshop and change all of the black to a very dark grey, it would look practically the same. However, the dark grey would not be converted to an alpha of zero, so the image would remain intact.
Other possible features that we could work on would be to add visual elements to the battle scenes. For example, I think that it would be cool to have a simple fire image flash when a fire spell is called. I saw that there was actually a fire image already in the source code, but I'm not sure what it's used for currently. Since the graphics are very simple in the game, I don't think that it would be too hard to add a simple 2D images into the game. We would just need to look into how the images are drawn onto the scene. Once we figured out how to do one, it would be simple to add images for the other attacks such as lightning.
I hope that we are able to make some good contributions to Fortune Hunter. I think that if we stick to fixing things that are not out of our comfort zone, then we will be able to make an impact on the game.
We found another bug that we would like to fix. This involves the enemies' images. The color black in the enemies shows up transparent. After investigating this issue, I saw that there is a method convert alpha. This changes the alpha (transparency) of a given color. This allows you to have a character drawn on a certain color background, and then get rid of it to allow the actual game's background to show through. There must be a call to convert black to an alpha of zero, which makes it transparent. We could probably go through the code, find it, and fix it, but I think there might be a simpler solution. If we were to go into photoshop and change all of the black to a very dark grey, it would look practically the same. However, the dark grey would not be converted to an alpha of zero, so the image would remain intact.
Other possible features that we could work on would be to add visual elements to the battle scenes. For example, I think that it would be cool to have a simple fire image flash when a fire spell is called. I saw that there was actually a fire image already in the source code, but I'm not sure what it's used for currently. Since the graphics are very simple in the game, I don't think that it would be too hard to add a simple 2D images into the game. We would just need to look into how the images are drawn onto the scene. Once we figured out how to do one, it would be simple to add images for the other attacks such as lightning.
I hope that we are able to make some good contributions to Fortune Hunter. I think that if we stick to fixing things that are not out of our comfort zone, then we will be able to make an impact on the game.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
getting to the good stuff
After we chose what bug we would fix, we started looking through the code to find anything that related to the scan. The bug was that when the player tried to scan an enemy, it would attack them and would not actually scan them. We quickly fixed the problem concerning attacking the enemy when a scan is used. There was actually an attack command under the scan enemy function. We just got rid of this peice of code to fix that problem. I believe that Jaime has found the solution to the other part of the bug.
Now that we have fixed the bug, we need to start thinking about what we can do to contribute to Fortune Hunter. When I played the game, I thought that there was a serious need for improved graphics. One of the characters was really pixelated and was see-through in parts of it. Also, it does not react at all when it is attacked. I would be interested in adding some sort of graphics element that made the game a little more interactive. I think that this would be a feasible project for this semester. We will see what the group decides.
Now that we have fixed the bug, we need to start thinking about what we can do to contribute to Fortune Hunter. When I played the game, I thought that there was a serious need for improved graphics. One of the characters was really pixelated and was see-through in parts of it. Also, it does not react at all when it is attacked. I would be interested in adding some sort of graphics element that made the game a little more interactive. I think that this would be a feasible project for this semester. We will see what the group decides.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
extermination
After attempting to build the project all weekend with no success and researching possible problems for hours, I got into the classroom and tried to show my teammates the problem, so I used the exact same terminal commands that I had been using all weekend....it worked on the first attempt! In a way, it was frustrating, but I am really happy to have the project built. Our project uses git, and it has a repository within the main repository called "fortune engine." That was where my problem lay; I had to get the files from that repository by updating the git submodule using the terminal. I kept getting the same error, which was something like "no socket available." I researched what could cause this error, and the main consensus was that I had a firewall up that blocked the connection between my computer and the repository. I'm not sure what it really was; it could have been as simple as my internet connection is too slow at home.
Whatever the issue was, I have the game running now. To build the project, all you have to do is cd to the folder that contains the "MafhActivity" and run it by terminal using the "python MafhActivity.py" command. Something that we thought was weird about the project was that we cannot see the whole game on our laptop screens, and the game cannot be resized. We asked Jonathon (the Fortune Hunter guru) about this problem and he said that the game is made specifically for the XO laptops, and that is the resolution that they need. He jokingly said that the only fix would be to get better computers... although I think that he was not joking.
Fortune Hunter only has two active bugs at the moment, so that made it easy for us to decide. One of them was that once the player got into a certain dungeon, he couldn't move around in there. We thought that this could be too difficult to find the source of the problem. Instead, we chose the bug about the "scan" function. Players have the ability to attack, perform magic, or scan an enemy. The scan function should show the enemy's weakness and the number of hit points left. However, when you scan now (which we have done now in the game) it instantly kills the enemy. Not only does it attack when it should not, it doesn't even show the enemy's weakness or hit points left.
We thought that this was a bug that we might be able to fix. We have started looked at the source code that involves the scan function. We found the def of scan in a python file. It seems to be correct. That means that the source of the problem is that the scan function is not actually called. When the player hits the "scan" button, it must call attack or something. That is our current theory, we shall know soon enough with further investigation.
Whatever the issue was, I have the game running now. To build the project, all you have to do is cd to the folder that contains the "MafhActivity" and run it by terminal using the "python MafhActivity.py" command. Something that we thought was weird about the project was that we cannot see the whole game on our laptop screens, and the game cannot be resized. We asked Jonathon (the Fortune Hunter guru) about this problem and he said that the game is made specifically for the XO laptops, and that is the resolution that they need. He jokingly said that the only fix would be to get better computers... although I think that he was not joking.
Fortune Hunter only has two active bugs at the moment, so that made it easy for us to decide. One of them was that once the player got into a certain dungeon, he couldn't move around in there. We thought that this could be too difficult to find the source of the problem. Instead, we chose the bug about the "scan" function. Players have the ability to attack, perform magic, or scan an enemy. The scan function should show the enemy's weakness and the number of hit points left. However, when you scan now (which we have done now in the game) it instantly kills the enemy. Not only does it attack when it should not, it doesn't even show the enemy's weakness or hit points left.
We thought that this was a bug that we might be able to fix. We have started looked at the source code that involves the scan function. We found the def of scan in a python file. It seems to be correct. That means that the source of the problem is that the scan function is not actually called. When the player hits the "scan" button, it must call attack or something. That is our current theory, we shall know soon enough with further investigation.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Looking better
Things are starting to look better for four's company. Originally, I was trying to build the fortune hunter project in netbeans, but after contacting one of the main developers, he said that he just runs the file mafhactivity.py, and that runs the game. We tried this, but we got an error regarding one of the files called game engine. When we looked in the game engine folder, there was nothing in it. We asked John about this, and he said that this was an easy fix. We just needed to do a git submodule update, and we would be able to run the game. Everyone was able to run the game except for me! I am going to ask my group for help updating the git submodule.... This should hopefully be a quick fix, and then we will be able to start looking for a bug that we would like to fix.
I went to do the homework for the class today, but for some reason the cs.cofc.edu was down, so I was not able to access that. will blog about it after I can access the site again...
I went to do the homework for the class today, but for some reason the cs.cofc.edu was down, so I was not able to access that. will blog about it after I can access the site again...
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Rough Week
This has been a tough week for four's company. Staci and I have been sick for the last few days, and Staci has had even more trouble with her computer. Our team has not been able to meet and work on this deliverable together, so that has made things more difficult. Four's Company have officially decided to work on Fortune Hunter, which is an educational RPG activity for Sugar OS. We originally thought that this project was too complex for us to work on, but we will be able to manage will all of the support that Fortune Hunter offers. We have all been trying to get the code and build our project on our own, and none of us have been able to complete this. We have all been able to get the code for the project. I think that we have all done it in different ways. Jaime used the terminal to get the code as well as Brittany, but she was able to do it in OSX.
I was able to get the source from the GIT repository for our project. It was fairly painless, once I signed into the repository, there was one button to get a ".tar" for the whole project. I installed Netbeans with python plugin to try to build the project, but I have been unsuccessful. Now that Staci and I are feeling better, We need to work on this together so that we can build our project. We have now fallen a little behind, but I think that we will be able to catch up.
I was able to get the source from the GIT repository for our project. It was fairly painless, once I signed into the repository, there was one button to get a ".tar" for the whole project. I installed Netbeans with python plugin to try to build the project, but I have been unsuccessful. Now that Staci and I are feeling better, We need to work on this together so that we can build our project. We have now fallen a little behind, but I think that we will be able to catch up.
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