Expanses of Naryan / News: Recent posts

Apparently my Windows FTP client doesn't like me. The Sortua download is fixed, sorry for the inconvenience.

As promised, Sortua has been released. Unfortunatly, I did not have enough time to port it properly to Linux, so just a Windows release this time. Good news is, you don't have to compile it yourself! Be sure to have a relatively powerful machine, Sortua has been known to bring lesser computers to it's knees. Happy New Year, everyone!

Also, be sure to check out the new Roadmap in the mortic portion of our web site.

Quite a bit ahead of schedule! Consider this a pre-gift to Sortua tomorrow. New in this version includes an overhauled Virtual File System, easier Python integration, and a much better configuration system! Also, check out the new tutorials in the Mortic documentation ASAP! Happy New Year from Everyone Here!

Onward to Isildur!

Take this as the very first official Mortic release.

Merry Christmas! Changes from the last version include a cleaned-up build system, a working linux version, some pretty documentation, as well as multiple web site upgrades! Go check it out!!

To follow with out holiday release schedule, expect some form of Sortua by New Years! It'll be pretty sloppy code, but it'll work like a charm!

And for everyone who's been waiting since September for Sortua, all I can say is: Thanks and Sorry!

And so I finally fufill a deadline. Wow, that's a first :D

Anyhoo, the new site features a new video in the Sortua section, so go check it out and gape over it until the program itself comes out. Once you see the video, you'll see why.

agrif

Despite my promise of a tech demo in the previous weeks, I have managed to post some beautiful screenshots. Go check them out!

Also, there will be a video in the coming days somewhere in the mess of Google Video. Expect there to be a shout here when the time comes. Sortua cannot really be expressed in mere images, it needs to be animated.

Oh yeah. I've recently rediscovered the lack of a proper website for this little enterprise. If anyone's out there, expect a full site here over the weekend. That should make things a bit easier to keep up with, as I'll be free to post there without feeling like it's not important enough.... read more

After about 3 years of bad luck, we finally have something else to show. It's not pretty, and it's not end-user, but it's the very beginnings of the game engine that the Expanses of Naryan will be based on. In the next few weeks, expect another graphics demo, this time less a proof-of-concept and more a small world. This demo will NOT take place in the game world, but will just be a pretty place.

A few features in this game engine are: Virtual Filesystems, Options XML, Scene Manager, Embedded Python, and a Pull-Down console.... read more

Now that Sourceforge lets me use Subversion, I will. Sorry for anyone (seriously, is anyone out there?) using the CVS to checkout source at this time, but it'll be back soon. And no, this project is not abandoned. It's just I'm the only hacker on this team, and it seems noone out there wants to help me :(. Granted, we don't really have anything good to show yet.

agrif

I understand, it's been a very long time since anything ever came out of this project. I'm very sorry, but trust me, it'll pay off. Starting from scratch again, Mortic is finally able to show stuff. It has all its data types, all its spokes, and all its dependancies in place. Now all it needs is somthing to prove it with.

Like a game.

There's no scripting yet, and probably none in the next release. However, it will have a video engine, and a scene manager with dynamic agents loaded at runtime. No sound, no physics, no scripting, no net. But we're getting somewhere, finally.... read more

... yet again. It's like the world hates us.

My hard drive fried last night, and with it went all the code. Again. I had neglegted to invest in a backup power unit, and I'm regretting it now.

However, like before, this can be a good thing. For starters, I'm moving from Irrlicht to OGRE. OGRE is much more flexible and allows stunning visuals much easier. Second, I'm switching to the more open-source friendly Audiere audio API. Fmod was nice and all, but it really conflicts with the next point: The Mortic game engine will be released under the LGPL, and the ExNar game itself will be released under the GPL.... read more

And we mean it this time. Seriously.

Soon to come: forums and a "special" help wanted section.

Happy new year to all!

We were hoping to release a new demo today, but it seems we still have a lot to do.

The new demo will feature a fully-revamped Motic Engine, a large, detailed, and living city (minus the people), and, sadly, our first release without our concept artist.

Seriously. Expect a relese next week.

Well, seeing as though Halo 2 has just been released, I will more than likely not get any work done this week. It's about time we stopped making a game and started playing a game.

It's not such a bad thing. This punctuation is actually going to cause me to clean up the code, and make the first official release of the Mortic engine. No python yet, but I'm still working out a way to use polymorphism between C++ classes and Python classes. Now that is hairy.... read more

Python will probably enter the cycle once again as Mortic nears it's usable stage.

Ironically, python was developed for windows with MS VisualStudio, so I'm having some trouble getting it to work with MinGW. However, on the linux side python works like a charm.

Almost everything is done in mortic now. Don't mind the tasks, I'll clear them up when I have the time. All that;s left to do is a message system and some debugging, and possibly some python.

The hard drive on which the experimental content for the game became corrupted, so we basically had to start from scratch. The new game engine is much faster, however, and much more flexible. A new release should be expected this month.

The next release will include detailed, awesome-looking shadows, and a completly re-done surface. The in-game menus will make a debut, as well.

One of our primary concept artists has recently moved out of state, so communication will be tough. As a result, we may not have as much new stuff as we had planned.

Also, we have begun to model the second major area in the game, the Capital City and Temple.

After much deliberation, I have decided to call the game engine in development the Mortic Game Engine. As such, the GUI preveiw of the Blender exporter is called the "Mortic Blender Exporter".

Why Mortic, you may ask? Well, it sounds just plain cool. Not good enough for you? Well, it's really a refrence from the game that we do not want to disclose. You'll probably never notice it, but beleive us, it's there.

Yes, it is ahead of schedule. I just figured it was time. Like I said in an earlier post, it is much more interesting for programmers than for veiwers. However, I beleive you will have a surprise :) .

No, it's not a new file... Just an update on why it's taking so long for v0.7.

The new version will, probably be a visual step-down. There will probably be no animations or particles. However, the new version will include a GUI, but it will do nothing yet. The main update in this release will be under the hood.

I am proud to announce that the new Tech Demo will be twice as fast, and include an XML parser for scene loading. THAT is why it is taking forever.... read more

After months(hours) of planning, the homepage is done! Just click the link at the toolbar on the top!

To begin to comprehend our happyness, just imagine what Kermit the Frog looks like dancing. Yeah. We're that happy.

Yes! After working fo 2 days straight, I think we're ready to release version 0.4 FINAL! Added some content, got some particles going, and, of course, motion and dynamics, however basic.

Yay! First official project release! Really, it's just a tech demo, but hey, it's somthing!