Blog Joonamo

Work in Progress Trailer for Honey Escape

2012-02-08T20:15:00.001+02:00

I am working with Charlotta Tiuri on a new game created with Unity. The game will be part of Charlotta's Thesis Work, which is about designing art for an infinite game. Honey Escape will be an "infinite runner" type of a game, like Monster Dash or Robot Unicorn Attack. It will be released soon for Mac and PC.

Music by Anamanaguchi, used under Creative Commons licence.

Julkaisu: Paikkatieto ja pelit

2012-02-07T09:20:00.001+02:00

Sorry English speaking readers, this one will be only in Finnish.

Julkaisen kandidaatintyöni blogissani. Työn aihe on "Paikkatieto ja pelit" ja se käsittelee yleisellä tasolla kuinka erilaisia paikannustekniikoita voidaan hyödyntää peleissä.

Tutkimuksen tiivistelmä:

Tämän kandidaatintyön tavoitteena on tutkia kuinka tietoa käyttäjän sijainnista ja liikkeestä voidaan käyttää erilaisissa videopeleissä. Aihetta käsitellään teoreettisesta näkökulmasta ja esimerkkipelien avulla. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on vastata kysymyksiin: ”Miten eri tavoin paikkatietoa voidaan hyödyntää peleissä?”, ”Miten käyttäjät suhtautuvat paikkatietoon peleissä?” ja ”Miten peleissä syntyneitä innovaatioita voitaisiin hyödyntää tutkimuksessa ja GIS-sovelliksissa?” Tutkimusmenetelmänä on kirjallisuustutkimus.

Pelaajan sijaintia ja liikettä hyödynnettäessä on tiedolle yleensä tarpeen tehdä muutoksia. Tarpeen mukaan pelimaailman koordinaatistoa voidaan skaalata, rajata, siirtää ja orientoida uudelleen oikean maailman suhteen. Näillä toimenpiteillä voidaan peleistä saada esimerkiksi nopeatempoisempia ja rajata niiden pelaaminen vain tietylle alueelle. Pelimaailmaa suunnitellessa se voi perustua osittain tai kokonaan todelliseen maailmaan. Tätä kutsutaan isomorfiaksi.

Käsiteltäessä laajoja aihealueita on niitä tarpeen jakaa alaryhmiin. Paikkatietoiset pelit voidaan jakaa esimerkiksi mobiileihin peleihin, paikkaan perustuviin peleihin, kaikkialla läsnä oleviin peleihin ja lisätyn todellisuuden peleihin. Esimerkkipeleiksi on valittu viisi eri tavoin paikkatietoa hyödyntävää peliä. Esiteltävät pelit ovat Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (2006), Time Warp (2008), Foursquare (2009), Shadow Cities (2010) ja Nintendo StreetPass (2011).

Tutkituista peleistä voi löytää yhdistäviksi tekijöiksi sosiaalisuuden, internetin hyödyntämisen ja käyttäjien nokkeluuden. Tärkein edellytys paikkatiedon yleistymiselle peleissä on helppo saatavuus. Kuluttajat eivät mielellään hanki uusia laitteita tai lisälaitteita vain tiettyä peliä varten. Viimeaikoina paikannuspalvelut ovat kuitenkin yleistyneet mobiililaitteissa ja ne ovat mahdollistaneet pelien kehittymisen. Paikannuksen hyödyntäminen peleissä tulee todennäköisesti yleistymään tulevaisuudessa.

Artikkeli on ladattavissa Download-sivulla:
https://sites.google.com/site/joonamo2/

Bing search accuracy

2012-02-02T09:26:00.000+02:00

I am a Google user. I use Google Reader, GMail, Googles Blogger and of cource Google Search. Blogger puts text "blogitekstit (atom)" link on all blogs when viewed in Finnish. The link is for subscribing blog post atom-feed. Today I checked what searches bring people to my blog and one of the search terms was "blogitekstit (atom)". I checked Google and could not find my blog, but on Bing it was The First Result! Of all the Finnish blogs out there Bing chose my blog to be the one to show. This probably will change soon, but here's photographic evidence of the incident:

Thanks Bing for bringing people to my blog!

Source: http://www.bing.com/search?q=blogitekstit+%28atom%29&go=&form=QBLH&filt=all

Finnish Game Jam 2012: Best games I didn't make

2012-02-01T09:46:00.000+02:00

On FGJ2012 there were also nice games other than just Sad Cactus. Here are some I liked best. They are not in any particular order.

Samuel L. Jackson's Super Sledding '86

This is my favourite. If I had an Windows Phone 7 device, I'd definitely had to get this game on it. The music, graphics and humour perfectly compliment each other. Only downside is that the game is only for Windows and WP7. But if you can, i definitely recommend you to take it for a spin:

http://globalgamejam.org/2012/samuel-l-jacksons-super-sledding-86

Grindstone of Time

Winner of the Helsinki site. This game has interesting time mechanic, when the character moves right time flows forward and when moving left time flows backward. Music also plays backwards when going back in time, which is a nice touch. The game runs on practically any desktop platform, give it a try:

http://globalgamejam.org/2012/grindstone-time

Dance of the Underdog

Another game with retro style sounds and graphics! Created with Unity and played with Kinect! How could you possibly resist a game like this? Probably only if you are like me and don't have a separate power cord for Kinect... The game could have another song, but it is created in 48 hours after all. Go get it:

http://globalgamejam.org/2012/dance-underdog

Mr Suns Singularity Adventure

This game would be nice on a touch screen platform. It was meant to be for WP7, but rumour has it that the developers got the promised test device just 30 minutes before deadline. I played the game with a Wacom pen tablet, which was as close as we could get to a real touch screen device. The game is kinda hard and the controls could do with some fine tuning, but with some polishing this could be a nice addition to WP7 game library. Try it:

http://globalgamejam.org/2012/mr-suns-singularity-adventure

Tenderizer

Another Unity game! This has a nice and consistent audiovisual execution. As a hardcore platformer i would say that the jumping mechanics aren't too great, but the idea and Portal-like aesthetics give me good vibrations. Try it out too:

http://globalgamejam.org/2012/tenderizer

Honorable mention for non-Finnish game:
Sifteo Nyan Cat

Nyan Cat on Siteo cubes? I have to get those cubes, like RIGHT NOW! A download link could appear on this site:

http://globalgamejam.org/2012/sifteo-nyan-cat

Game Development in 48 hours: Sad Cactus

2012-01-30T21:52:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I took part in Global Game Jam. People all around the world gather on GGJ sites and arrange a team and create idea for a game on the fly. Our team consisted of 7 people; 3 programmers, 2 artists and 2 designers. I worked on programming side. The idea was to create game about a cactus, who is sad because he can't hug anyone. We created the game on Unity and we even had time to sleep! The experience was great and I recommend these kind of events for anyone who can program, create art, design games or manage projects. Especially for project managers, we only had one on site and many teams could have probably done better with one on their team.

Take a look at the video:

Want to try it out? It runs on a Mac and PC and is downloadable from GGJ site:
http://globalgamejam.org/2012/sad-cactus

Global line simplification algorithm POC

2012-01-23T20:15:00.000+02:00

I created this line simplification algorithm as a proof-of-concept for a school exercise. The simplification is based on "Ramer–Douglas–Peucker algorithm" (Wikipedia entry), which is a global simplification algorithm. Code is written in Python, which doesn't support recursion too well. Python will throw you with an ugly "maximum recursion depth exceeded" error if the line consists of too many points and the tolerance value is too low.

I will only release the python source because the software doesn't really do anything interesting, but anyone interested can take a look. The file jGeom.py contains required classes and geomUI.py is the crude runnable UI-implementation. I you implement my code on your project, please credit me as the original author.

Download page

Tutorial: How to make anaglyph (red/cyan) pictures from 3ds photos

2012-01-21T23:46:00.000+02:00

Making anaglyph pictures to view with old-school red/cyan-glasses is pretty traightforward. Here is a simple tutorial for creating an anaglyph picture with 3ds. Only the first step is 3ds-centric, all other steps can be applied with other cameras too (But you'll need to take two photos with a regular camera).

First you obviously have to take the photo. If you use 3ds you can find the photos on card at /DCIM/100NIN03/ . 3ds saves two files named HNI_XXXX.JPG (2d) and HNI_XXX.MPO (3d). Preview the .jpg file and select corresponding .mpo to extract. You can use any software you like for extracting, but I have created a tool for that. Open these files in Photoshop and put them on different layers, left on top. Set blending mode on left picture to "Screen".

Select the right image and from select Image -> Adjustments -> Curves. Choose only the red channel and move the point from top right corner to bottom right corner. Picture should change to cyan. For the left image repeat these steps, but instead of red channel change green and blue channels.

Next you have to set the "zero-level". Choose one spot which you want to be at screen level. Move either of the pictures left or right to match the spot in both pictures. You may want to wear anaglyph glasses while searching for the perfect spot.

Now you are almost ready. Just crop the photo to desired size and enjoy your 1850's hottest new technology created with 2011's hottest new technology!

Here are some sample photos for your enjoyment (Click for bigger picture.):

MPO converter Release 2

2012-01-21T14:33:00.000+02:00

Taking awesome stereoscopic photos with your Nintendo 3DS but on your computer you only see one picture and a weird .mpo-file? Well here is a solution! This software extracts both left and right pictures and saves them as standard .jpg-files. Then you can convert them to anaglyph picture or edit them as you wish.

Software is completely open source and written in Python. There are standalone versions for Windows and Mac and a .py-file for Unix users. You are also free to implement my algorithm to your own software if you wish. Just credit me as the original author.

Download now:
https://sites.google.com/site/joonamo2/files
The Download includes Windows and Mac versions, source and a sample file.

Update: Tutorial for creating anaglyph (red/cyan) photos with 3ds:
http://joonamo.blogspot.com/2012/01/tutorial-make-anaglyph-redcyan-pictures.html

Introduction

2012-01-05T10:47:00.000+02:00

Hello there!

My name is Joona Heinikoski. I am an Engineering student at Aalto University School of Science and Technology. This blog serves two purposes; it is a personal blog for me where I write about technology, games, software and anything that interests me at the moment. This also serves as my portfolio. I will publish my software and games here for everyone to see and try.

Posts about my published software will be in English so anyone can understand them and try out the piece of software. The regular blog posts will mostly be written in my native language, Finnish. That way I can express my thoughts better. This may change in the future, but the software posts will always be written in English. I will also publish my CV (in Finnish and English) here for those interested in hiring me for work.