Sorry that I have not had the chance to put any new posts up. As I had anticipated, teaching responsibilities this semester have put a slight damper on my development activities. In addition, I have also been investing more effort into the research side of the endeavor - and reaping the benefits! I have two articles coming out in the next few months: one in The Language Educator and the other in Computer Assisted Language Learning. I will post more here on these articles later.
I'm also working on a piece right now for L2 Journal, a new online journal based at the University of California. The first effort at publishing here was rejected (which I would have to agree with - it was a half-baked idea), so I'm reworking what I got into an examination of narrative structures in 3D computer games as a potential means of supoprting second language acquisition. Hopefully, the second time around will be better. And then, well, I'm thinking of focusing more on Blender to get one game level designed and use what I have learned in this push forward with a book project. Gotta feed the tenure beast, right?
Good luck with blender! I tried to learn how to use it myself but found it too unintuitive to use.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andrakon. Blender has been anything but intuitive, but I think that I am starting to finally put my head around it. I like the fact that it has a built-in game engine, which actually is very easy to implement inside of Blender (press "P" key - and you're in). Wings3D looks easy and powerful; what are you going to do for your engine?
ReplyDeleteI will be using IRRLICHT http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately it requires that I grow C++ programing skills. I also like that Blender has a game engine built in and I do think that it will work good for your project. I just decided to not use Blender myself because every time I try to use it something major breaks. Blender is more of an all inclusive program with animation and better materials than Wings3D. Since my chosen program for modeling does not have animation, I also have to use some other program for that.
I wish you luck with your project! I am looking forward to seeing more of your work!
I was actually dabbling in OGRE 3D for a while, which also required C++, but I was getting hung up on how and where to get my meshes. At the time I came across Blender and found out that it shipped with the Bullet physics engine, which game me a "one-stop shopping" solution for all my development and testing problems. I'm a one-person development shop, so I'm really into the whole streamlining thing. The logic blocks inside the Blender GE allow me to get really basic functionality up-and-running quickly, although I will have to grow Python skills to get more advanced stuff created.
ReplyDeleteEventually, one I get all my meshes made, I may go back to OGRE or even try out Irrlicht; I'll keep an eye on what you are doing and see how it develops! Good luck to you!