Alex's Week 7 Report

what were your concrete goals for the week?

My todo list was: (1) Adding the actual planet, (2) addressing disappearing triangles of models on main branch, (3) start actually using materials, (4) fixing lighting, (5) aiming and shooting mechanics for player lasers, and (6) particle effects.

what goals were you able to accomplish?

I completed (1), (4), and (5).
For (2), the disappearing triangles, Claude says it can be fixed by having Sofia export models with "triangulate faces" turned on.
For (3), we are finally actually importing materials, but the material files reference other files supposedly on Sofia's lab computer and not in git, so we need to address that too.
I will try to work on 2 and 3 on Monday with Sofia.
For (6), I implemented some very simple, pure-OpenGL, particle effects for asteroid destruction. Tonight I will probably try actually importing a very simple sprite sheet. Then, nothing will stop me from implementing animated particles! mwahahaha!
I also did a few miscellaneous tasks, like a toggleable debug menu, and line drawing to improve tractor beam clarity.

if the week went differently than you had planned, what were the reasons? note that this happens regularly...I would prefer you to be aggressive in what you want to try accomplish rather than limit yourself to goals you know you'll easily achieve. so answering this question is more of a reflection on the development process and the surprises you encounter, it's not at all an evaluation.

This week went differently because I spent the entire week working on a CSE 227 assignment I had procrastinated, and didn't touch this class until the weekend. I still got a lot of work done, but none of it was with my group. I have no more due dates until week 10, so this won't be a problem for the next few weeks.

what are your specific goals for the next week?

Not sure yet, I'll probably have an issue list after I meet with everybody on Monday. I suspect 2d UI will be a big part of it. I also want to start experimenting with some more wacky shaders, since all of the edges look very sharp, and I feel like shaders that make everything look softer will mask a lot of the rushed-ness of the game.

what did you learn this week, if anything (and did you expect to learn it)?

The two important things I learned was how animated particles are rendered, and how to use imgui to quickly display some useful information.
I also figured out how to add directories to my windows PATH without looking anything up, which I couldn't do in high school. Turns out three years of computer science education does make you better with computers.

what is your individual morale (which might be different from the overall group morale)?

Good.