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Wii Internet Channel and Nintendo DS/DSi Browser Homebrew

And the unified community project

Posts tagged with "nintendo"

Press Release: DSiPaint General Release

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DSiPaint is a paint program for owners of the Nintendo DSi handheld who have downloaded the Nintendo DSi Browser. It allows members to draw images with the stylus and save them to PNG files for download on any computer. Other users can browse the gallery and vote on artwork. Any artwork drawn by a member can also be set as the avatar in TWiiter, immediately afer saving.

To begin creating artwork, visit http://dsipaint.com with your Nintendo DSi Browser. TWiiter can be viewed at http://twiiter.wiioperasdk.com. Accounts for both websites are also shared with HB Online at http://hullbreachonline.com, the browser-based MMO RPG for the Wii and Nintendo DSi.

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Sneak Peek - HullBreach Online Lite

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With the release of the Nintendo DSi and its Opera Web browser, I felt it best to take one of my first projects for the Wii's Internet Channel, HullBreach Online, and scale it to the dual screens to let gamers play on-the-go. This project would become HullBreach Online Lite.

While running tests on the Nintendo DSi Browser, I found that although there is support for the canvas object, it seems to be fairly crippled when concerning image data. Apparently this was meant to save RAM on the handheld by not caching off-screen data. Thus, I began working with ways to re-create HullBreach Online's mobile cousin by using nothing but image placement, background scrolling, and other standard DHTML features. From that comes a game that should for all intents and purposes be compatible with the older Nintendo DS Browsers as well.

To save on memory, images have been scaled and colors reduced. Players cannot see one another's ships, yet they can still chat with each other - even between both versions of HullBreach Online. Due to the lack of useful button input, the entire game is touchscreen-controlled. Moving between locations and travelling through hyperspace are both achieved by on-screen button clicks, which are accompanied by appropriate animations of the ship and motion of the map cursor.

With the exception of space combat (which would be difficult with button clicks), everything that was present in HullBreach Online is also present in HullBreach Online Lite: Missions, mining, scanning, trading, ship upgrades, etc.

HullBreach Online Lite is nearing completion, so get ready to join the close to 5000 members now! In the meantime, you can create an account to play the full HullBreach Online, message members through Twiiter on your Wii or Nintendo DS/DSi, or visit the chatroom at http:/dsoperasdk.com.

Quick Update on Software Development

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WOS Trivia
I've been hard at work creating new questions for the game, making at least several per day. When that number reaches a few hundred, the game will be almost ready for release. The database and login are in place. The interface needs some finalizing, including leaderboards and member question submissions.

Terrain Mapper
I'm working on fixing some problems with the raycasting that results in improper elevations. Once that is finished, I will create a class in the Wii Opera SDK / HullBreach SDK for this. It will support full tile-based texture-mapping and height-mapping.

Mode 7 (Floor) Mapper
This is an accelerated version of the Terrain Mapper that mimics screen mode 7 of the SuperNES that became famous for perspective rendering of scanlines in games like F-Zero, Super Mario Kart, and countless others. Like the Terrain Mapper, it will support tile-based texture-mapping.

Wii Opera SDK Moved to Its Own Website

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For the past year, the Wii Opera SDK has been hosted on a subdomain of http://hullbreachonline.com (since it was primarily created for HullBreach Online). Since the SDK has matured to the point of being used in several other projects, it has now been moved to its own website. On that website, I am going to set up a blog for news on Wii game development, both in the Internet Channel and through official means. (The blog will not cover hacks and modifications to the console.) The Wiki and the Forum will still be shared with http://hullbreachonline.com. The new website for the SDK is easy to remember: http://wiioperasdk.com.

Project updates...

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Since I have not posted to this blog in a while, it may seem like my projects have sat dormant. Since that is far from the case, I felt that I should give an update on the status of a few projects:

HULLBREACH ONLINE
For the most part, HB has seen little more than bug fixes over the past two months. For what the game does, no technology supported by the Internet Channel will allow me to push the bounds further without considerably hurting the framerate. In the HB forums, several gamers have mentioned that they'd like to see a WiiWare version. Well, I'm already one step ahead of them. I've applied for developer status to Nintendo with a local software company. That was in late January, and warioworld.com says to expect a fee months to hear a response. I'm just playing the waiting game now.

WII OPERA SDK
For the past month, I've been dabbling in raytracing in both JavaScript and C++. Although raytracing itself is very slow (yet produces graphical results well beyond traditional rasterization methods), I am going to attempt to incorporate a hybrid engine into the SDK's flat shading functionality. I believe that I will be able to add realtime shadows to meshes. The possible speed is unknown but will obviously be slower than using just realtime flat shading. I have some other plans for the SDK in the pipeline as well. And of course I keep tweaking it for speed on a weekly basis.

Stay tuned for more upcoming news...

More Speed Boosts to Wii Opera SDK

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I've made several updates to the SDK that further speed up the graphics. Since each individual update was probably too small to mention, I haven't posted about them in the past month, but as a group, they have probably added about another 15%-30% to the SDK. (I didn't keep track.) This updates 3D2.js, 3Dfps.js, and draw.js.

Also, to keep the Wii Opera SDK lean, I've dropped support for bezier curves and a few other primitives that have little to do with game creation. The documentation has been updated to reflect the changes. If anyone needs those added back in, let me know, and I'll send you a special version of the SDK drawing class.

http://hullbreachonline.com/sdk

One more thing as well: These updates have been incorporated into the 3D Mesh Demo Opera Widget at http://widgets.opera.com/widget/9101/ .

Wii Opera SDK, HullBreach, Demos Accelerated

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The Wii Opera SDK has been tweaked to pull more speed from the 3D math and the drawing functions. Many of the demos for the SDK are now faster as well. As for HullBreach: Large amounts of code have been reordered, cleaned-up, and condensed, making the game about 15% faster than before! Enjoy the speed boosts.

HullBreach Christmas Updates

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Some players have been asking about the special Christmas "present" that was hinted on the homepage of http://hullbreachonline.com. I won't tell specifically what it is, but let's just say to check the in-game credits. :D

Also, NPCs are starting to populate the game world. They will mainly be in the form of stationary ships docked at locations. Due to the speed of the Wii's Internet Channel, I cannot create the advanced AI that I had hoped. Still, seeing a few extra ships while playing is a nice addition. Oh yeah, try hailing the NPCs.

Wii Opera SDK Demos on YouTube

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I've posted a few graphical demos of the Wii Opera SDK on YouTube at the following addresses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Il0EeRdGw - Wall texture-mapping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g0hlQ4q8Yc - Mode7 floor texturing-mapping test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeFO-vAMEzM - An old off-screen Starfox test

HullBreach Wiki Created

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HullBreachOnline.com has a new Wiki website that will eventually encompass all the documentation and shared knowledge relating to the Wii Opera SDK; featured first-, second-; and third-party software in the Wii Software Gallery; the HullBreach MMO RPG; and all related aspects of those. If you would like to take part in the wiki project, let me know.