Shark Tooth Entertainment is now using Flash Pro and ActionScript 3 to develop games faster. The first project is small in scope focusing on implementing a fun mechanic, adding polish, and finishing the game. Once completed, the goal will be to acquire a sponsorship through a site like Flash Game License.

Significant progress has been made on this project. Unfortunately, it’s too early to share online as a sponsor would want their branding associated with the game when it is first made available.

Coming soon: a FINISHED game!

Shark Tooth Entertainment has a new site banner! The old banner was over a lighter background and looked like this:

The new banner features a mean S-T-E shark logo based on a design that my girlfriend came up with. Many thanks to her!

A demo of skeletal animation is now available here.

Skeletal animation is the most common way to animate 3D characters. This demo features a creature that I modeled, rigged, and animated myself, using Cinema 4D. It’s been quite a learning experience, fun as always.

To comment on the demo, just reply to this post.

If you experience any difficulty viewing the demo, please contact:
rmachardy@sharktoothentertainment.com

It should look like this:

Enjoy,
Robert

The visual demos now have performance and crash reporting mechanisms in place. The main goal of this is to improve the experience of viewers like you. It will be instrumental in the process of identifying and fixing software bugs. I’ll be able to use data like the frame rate of the rendering engine to tweak code and delivered content. All information reported this way is encrypted and sent over a secure connection.

Sincerely,
Robert

A friend of mine recommended that I look into Google Analytics. After some investigation, and a quick install, I am proud to say that this site has it. In no particular order, some of the things I like about the software include:

Installation is quick, simple, and non-intrusive.
The site is well designed and easy to navigate.
The data provided is meaningful and presented effectively.
It’s “free”!

It was worthwhile to find a good definition of analytics. From Wikipedia, “analytics is the application of computer technology, operational research, and statistics to solve problems in business and industry”. Installing the scripts is only part of the effort. It’s one thing to gloss over numbers and it’s another thing to translate them into decisions and actions. I am confident that the data provided by Google Analytics will be a great asset.

Sincerely,
Robert

A demo of normal mapping is now available here.

Normal mapping is a great way to enhance the detail of 3D models. In the future, I will likely use this technique a lot in the content I create. This was another feature for the rendering engine that took a bit of time and effort to implement, but I feel that it was well worth it.

To comment on the demo, just reply to this post.

If you experience any difficulty viewing the demo, please contact:
rmachardy@sharktoothentertainment.com

It should look like this:

Enjoy,
Robert

A demo of simple shadow mapping is now available here.

A lot of effort has been put into the shadow mapping capabilities of the Shark Tooth rendering engine (need a better name). Unfortunately, it’s not over yet. While it works on my machines, the demo appears to fail on many others. But hey, give it a try and see if it works on your computer.

For a good introduction to shadow rendering in 3d graphics, check out this site at Østfold University College.

To comment on the demo, just reply to this post.

If you experience any difficulty viewing the demo, please contact:
rmachardy@sharktoothentertainment.com

It should look like this:

Enjoy,
Robert

Shark Tooth Entertainment LLC is on the map!

To kick things off, let me introduce myself, the author of this blog. My name is Robert MacHardy. I am an artist and software engineer with a passion for game development. I studied all three at the wonderful James Madison University and I currently work for Video Gaming Technologies.

It’s been a lot of work to create this site, and I think I’m finally comfortable enough with it to share. A goal for the site starting out was to “release early, and release often”. I would say it’s a little late to be considered releasing early, but I still have a shot at releasing often. Now that there’s a baseline, future releases should come easier. Moving forward, I am striving to become more efficient and avoid the mindset of “done when it’s done”, without sacrificing too much quality… of course.

This blog is our opportunity to talk about anything to do with game development. Comments are always welcome.

Enjoy,
Robert