I understand that some people are wondering why I’ve been bothering playing with color and shadows in DriveyC++ instead of just sticking with the distinctive CameoVision [silhouetted] look of the current demo. After all, existing driving games are loaded with color… not to mention texture and bumpmapping and lens-flaring etc etc… so why don’t I just stick with the thing that makes Drivey unique [as well as fast and easier to code]?

The short answer: I’m a compulsive tinkerer.

The long [rationalized] answer: My programming style is very experimental, and not particularly goal-oriented. This means I will generally pursue ideas that interest me at the expense of ideas that might help pay the rent. I think the CameoVision look is cool, and am by no means abandoning it, but it’s important to realize that it emerged as a direct result of me messing about with what was originally to be a simple Night Driver clone written in JujuScript.*

Tinkering leads to new ideas… occasionally even good ideas.

_________

* First I made ugly white oblong posts on a black screen a la Night Driver… then I added nice bezier-curve road markings… then I thought up a better way to make posts by extruding curves instead… then I made some posts taller [into poles] but found that a bizarre limitation in my extrusion algorithm prevented me from allowing them to cross the horizon line… then I tried making the posts the same color as the ground and only drawing the parts above the horizon, and coloring the sky differently… and that’s the story of CameoVision.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 26th, 2005 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Drivey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.