A minor update on the cocktail cab today – everything is now primed and ready for painting.
The legs have also been installed to make sure thing thing is actually level.
Painting can now proceed 
Going all the way back to my first sample – (the Plasma Demo Effect), I was porting another old Pascal Demo effect of mine at the same time – a basic Fire effect. I never bothered finishing it off back then, instead moving onto more interesting things. I recently returned to complete it since it was 90% done.
The effect itself is quite simple, and is really nothing more than a filter applied over a 2D grid. You can tweak the config variables to make it taller, wider, more/less colours, etc. It’s quite a simple thing.
You can download the source here: [Download]
Some more progress on the fight stick.
First up was to get the top panel and support pieces together with some wood glue and screws. I also had to get the router out to make the start and select button holes shallower. The buttons I purchased for these were not very deep.
With the top panel and support pieces glued and screwed into place, it was time to assemble the unit. Some more wood glue, liquid nails and a few small brackets and screws for extra support, the unit was assembled.
A couple of layers of red paint were added to keep with the colour scheme. I was lucky to have some red paint left over from a previous home project, although it’s only a flat colour – I think next time I will go a more glossy type.
Buttons and joystick added also – and it’s looking much closer to completion.
The base has also been painted and is ready to roll.
Next up – wiring.
Around 10 years ago now, I spent some time teaching myself assembly language on the Gameboy Advance Console (ARM7). I had spent time writing assembly on the C64, so was no stranger to getting into ASM. While I was learning to work with the gameboy advance hardware, I produced a number of small samples to help beginners with some of the basics. I came across these the other day, so decided to add them for download here. They are still hosted elsewhere on the net, but might as well make them available myself
Note: I used the Boycott Advance emulator, which can still be found on the net for download.
Additional Note: Digital Inline Productions was a name I was releasing my source under at the time. The name didn’t last long
This set of samples includes things like setting up different video modes, parallax scrolling, sprites, fonts, a plasma demo effect and a few other things. You can download the source here: [Download]
The assembler I used back then was goldroad, which I also have available for download here: [Download]
Another less interesting, but important feature in Corona is sound (SFX and Music). The ninth entry in my Corona Samples series shows a simple audio system, which allows for multiple sound effects playing at once, along with an audio track (mp3). Please note that the audio files have not been included in the download zip. You will need to source your own and put them an audiodata folder.
There isn’t much to see while this sample is running. You can press the buttons to trigger different sound effects, along with controlling the playback of an mp3. This is really the bases for an audio system for use in game, and can be expanded to support additional features as required. I also use an internal event system which can be used for subsystems in a game/application to respond to.
You can download the source here: [Download]
After some really cool samples earlier, these next few samples will be much less interesting to established Corona devs but still of interest to new comers. The eighth entry into my Corona samples is a basic analog joystick which responds to touch control.
There isn’t much to see here visually – other than a small virtual analog stick in the lower left corner. In this demo, you can use this to control the speed and direction of the ball. There is no acceleration or physics applied to the ball – it simply moves in response to your analog input.
I decided to keep the joystick class simple to allow for easy expansion as building a joystick class to fit all situations leads to a lot of bloat. This does the job nicely and can support images for use instead of the vector objects.
You can download the source here: [Download]
A little while ago, I was inspired by some work done by a fellow Aussie Arcade member on a series of fight sticks (Link).
After some planning and design, I thought I would try my hand at creating my own fight stick also.
First up was to decide on a button layout and size. I knew I wanted to have 8 player buttons, along with select, start and guide buttons since this is to work on a PS3 and Xbox360 console. I have gone with a top face size of 300 x 200mm. With the side panels added, this increases out slightly. With that decided on, and a button layout, I went about cutting the top panel to size, and cutting out the main player buttons and joystick hole.
Once I had settled on the size, I also ordered a piece of acrylic (3.5mm) to sit on top. This will give a better surface feel for my hands, and protect the artwork too. I have cut out the main player buttons and joystick hole also.
I wanted to make the fight stick look visually nice, so decided on some Ken artwork – which also allowed me to finalise the colour scheme for the fight stick.
With the artwork decided on, I could then purchase buttons and a joystick to match. I went with a bubble head for the joystick – slightly more expensive, but looks much better
The heart of the fight stick will be a Dual Strike v2 PCB. This was a more expensive option than my original thoughts on hacking a USB controller ($40 compared with $5). If all goes well with this fight stick, I will look at doing a cheaper version using a hacked controller also – but one thing at a time
To try and avoid having just a “box” fight stick, I went with some architrave that looked a little smoother. Pieces were cut for the 4 sides, along with small support bits that will be used to help hold it all together.
So where to from here?
1) Sort out Start, Select and Guide buttons
2) Cut holes for those 3 buttons
3) Create wiring
4) Create hole for USB cable
5) Assemble
So still some work to be done, but given I was able to get quite a bit done in a single day, it shouldn’t take too long once the last few road blocks have been removed.
Work on the cab has been a little slow of late. Lack of time, and at a stage where it’s mostly planning what next and how to achieve some things. But this weekend was very fruitful.
My first task was to get both control panels constructed and ready to attach to the cab (along with painting, applying artwork, etc). This was quite easy and just a copy of the first one.
Next up was to spend time on the front / back panels. Sections were cut of for the control panel wiring to pass through, along with using the router to create the speaker grill. I decided to have a grill on both player sides, although only P1 will have the speaker. The P2 grill will act only as a passive vent – but I think it gives the panel more character, making it less boring.
From there it was time to finally construct the box.
It came together very quickly and easily. I found it much easier than the two uprights – I could actually lift and move it around when needed.
Final task for this weekend was to get the floor (base) panel attached also.
A hole was cut for the power cable, along with additional pine supports which internal panels will be attached to (for the power supply, game board, test switches, etc.
Next up I need to sort out the monitor housing / support, along with constructing a small coin box. I also need to source another 15″ CRT – the one I had ready to go in this cab fell of a 1m tall drawer set, onto the concrete in the garage just recently. I’ve got 19″ and 21″ monitors, but both are too big
A few weeks back now, I released a sample for the Corona SDK showing off a basic raycasting engine.
After playing around with sprite sheets in the last week, I decided to see how they would go applied to the render system in the raycast sample to get textured walls.
The results look nice – but the frame rate takes a big hit.
I have updated the sample to include both rendering modes, and a button in the top left to switch between then. I think the usage of sprites in the renderer can be improved, and I may return at a later date to do so.
You can download the full source here: [Download]
For the seventh entry in my Corona samples, I decided to share a small test sample I wrote to learn a little bit about sprites under Corona.
On screen, this is a pretty bare bones demo of putting a sprite onto screen and animating it. When you click / touch the screen, the robot will walk to that point.
The main drive to write this sample was to get an idea of how I plan to handle sprites in future games I write with Corona. Included with this is a sprite factory, and a gameobject class to take care of the basics involved with getting a sprite animating on screen.
You can download the source here: [Download]
