07/01/2008

It's the end of the world as we know it...

...well, it isn't, but I enjoy lying. Its the end of the holidays. I haven't done half the things I said I would do, and unsurprisingly I haven't done the other half either. Sounds like the prefect reintroduction to real work.

Played a bit with actual Source modding (taking an SDK copy of HL2 and fiddling with the C++). It was pretty fun, actually - I didn't do much except create a few tutorial entities and modify a couple of the HL2 weapons, but I've enjoyed doing it, and I feel confident that once I am finished with Garry's Mod (perhaps after this gamemode...) I will have somewhere to continue to where I will be to a greater extent training my ability to understand and, ultimately, write game code. It looks hard right now, but so did Lua; within a couple of months of getting into the correct attitude (declaring variables properly and all that shiz), I'm sure I could be as fast at C++ as I am at Lua now (which in some cases is pretty quick).

The problem is, the moment I take the leap from GMLua to Source and C++, I won't have the kind of support and documentation I've come to expect due to the amount we get in the Lua community... looking on the Valve Developer Wiki, information on some things is scarce, because the C++ implementation allows people to be so open that not even all the basic capabilities could be entirely documented. Visual C++ 2005 (Express Edition obviously) is great because it's easy to find the value of constants by putting your cursor over them for a second, and the actual actions of functions via searching parts or the entirety of the game solution (all the code files available to modders).

Still, no fear. B the end of tomorrow I'll have my head buried so deep in schoolwork (and sleeping after doing it) that I won't have any time to commit to anything that's actually going to impact my future. Hoorah.

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