nilch => ?

Redo of the deep ones environment w/ Unity 2 terrain.  Totally unoptimized and gratutious, and lacking "gameplay" (cough).  But weirdly fabulous.

Updated with flocking, and some new critters...

Help Santa decorate the tree by throwing snowballs and ornaments at it (num key 1/2).  You can shoot Santa too, but you get on the naughty list for that.  FPS Controls.  Merry Christmas!

(rumor has it that the elves and snowmen are planning a rebellion...)

The 29th Arcanum.  A primative organism crawls slowly towards the mysterious light of the cyclical moon, between pairs of opposites.  Fixed camera, still needs the dogs.  Wait for the yod particles to accumulate...

• Here's a useful thread re pinching heightmaps of srtm data from google earph, and converting it.
• Here's another useful tutorial, using USGS data in BIL format

Pesky ball of protoplasmic evil.  Sit!

no sound yet, the ball is rigged and weighted, w/ hinge joints. 

Say, that's a pretty big dungeon you got there...:)

Finally getting some vehicle physics down.  Next, machine guns, powerups, annoying techno soundtrack.  Anybody?

Unity package attached...

The irrepressible Raph Koster has taken the wraps off his company Areae(?)'s new online games development environment Metaplace. From the faq:  "You should be able to stage up a massively multiplayer world with basic chat and a map you can build on in less than five minutes. It's that easy. Inherit a stylesheet -- puzzle game, or shooter, or chat world -- and off you go... Metaplace will support everything from 2d overhead grids through first-person 3d.

Gamasutra article here.   They're working on a web plugin, and plan to make a game portal called "instantaction.com" (wasn't that a band in the 80s?) .   This ups the ante quite a bit, and gives a lot of momentum to GarageGames.   While Torque is the 3D platform to beat on Windows, it's inferior in many ways to Unity, IMHO.   But with a workable browser plugin,  XNA integration, and the Dillions in funding, the gap may be narrowing. 

Now that the Austin GDC has wrapped up, I have a few impressions that bear reporting.  Overall it was a great experience, informative and entertaining.  It was one of the few trade shows I've attended that I actually enjoyed, maybe due to a genuine interest in the people and companies and what they have to say.

Mesa Bizarro environment - click pic to play (requires Unity player)