Vietnam - country side

So the tuesday morning we all piled into a minivan and headed out to 'The Coconut Grove' a small hamlet a few hours west of Saigon. On the way we stopped off at the Cu Chi Tunnels. We also picked up some snake wine at the tunnels after having consumed it the previous night.- They place snakes and other animals into vats with alcohol, disgusting but the result is not too bad. Much nicer than tequila.

Cu Chi Tunnels.

Dinner on the street.

Snake wine.


















We stayed that night at Nhung's grandmas place (a small cafe in the hamlet) and the next morning we were treated to a variety of activities. Including hunter - gathering for the boys (Cam and I should now be able to survive on an island with only coconut palms), bicycle riding for the girls and an offerring for everyone. We bumped into the town drunk on the way to Uncle Coconuts place and he joined us for some drinking and merriment. We later dubbed him Mr Moonshine and noted his attention for Claire (he repeatedly said "Number 1"). We later discovered that number 1 is a brand of condom over here so that has confused us even further. Anyway, the offering, including a chicken turned inside out was in the hope of a prosperous harvest for a new piece of land that Uncle Coconut had recently purchased. Of course the offerring also included shots of some of grandma's moonshine which soon made short work of Anje.

Mr Moonshine.












With a sad farewell (of sorts) we left the hamlet and headed back to Saigon with a short stop at some mountain (cant remember the name). It is strange cos it pops up out of nowhere. We caught the chairlift part way to the top and joined others in praying for lost souls at a pagoda. The cart/bobsled ride on the way down was closed that day. I was extremely dissapointed. So it was chairlift for the way back down. :(

Mountain Chairlift.












We proceeded to do some quick shopping in Ho Chi Minh and then started our series of early morning starts on our Mekong Delta cruise on the thursday. Considering this is meant to be a holiday we have had way too many early starts. Today took the cake with a 4:30 wake up to see the non-existant sunrise at Ankar Wat, but more on that later.

Cambodes - No time

So I was gonna write a whole lot more, considering I have only covered 3 days out of about 13 but I have been in this cafe with a slow connection for 2 hours and the fact that they have been playing the same shit cambodian song for the whole time is getting to me. So here are some random pics, work out what they are and hopefully ill be more thorough with the rest of it when we have more time in Laos.

Vietnam - Saigon

Well, after a long plane ride and 3 movies for me later we arrived at vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) airport - For the record, dont bother watching John Tucker must die, its a shocker!! We braved the large amount of people waiting in immigration to get in, somehow ended up at the back of the queue and after waiting a fair while we all made it into vietnam. No cavity searches either!! First setback came at the baggage carousel. Our backpacks werent there. Speaking to our first proper Vietnam contact (and he gets mad props for how good he was) revealed that our baggage only made it to Bangkok. The lady in melbourne fobbed us off and told us it was going all the way thru. Anyway he worked some magic and so it was on the next plane and would be dropped off at our guesthouse later on in the arvo (we got in around 11).

So we were picked up by Shane (Anje's cousin), his wife Nhung (sp?) and their son Sam at the airport. Weaving our way through our first encounter with crazy traffic and we arrived at what shall be dubbed the backpacker district of Saigon and our place called the Yellow House. Reasonably clean with shower and beds etc... Oh and free breakfast!!!!

Claire and I out the front of our first nights accomodation

Few things about Vietnam...

The people will go out of their way to make you happy. Almost feel like royalty. Traffic is crazy. Supposedly the city of 8 million contains 3 million motor bikes. I believe there is more than one for every person. Crossing the road is hell. Took as a little while to get used too. Tips we received were to close your eyes and then walk but you just have to make sure you dont rapidly change direction and you are safe. The traffic expects you to move in one direction and will swerve behind you if you are in their way. We got that down. See below for early attempts. Telephone lines look like they dont actually do repairs but rather just add a new line if there is anything wrong with an existing line. Kind of looks like Telstra to me. :D

After wandering aimlessly for a while we were takin our for dinner by Shane to a restaurant in the markets. It amazed me how quickly a hardware store that took up most of the footpath and some of the street could turn into a restaurant at night.

Next night we visited shanes place. Humble house for someone who earns a very decent wage but that seems to be the norm in Vietnam. Eat and sleep on the floor of the family room and then a kitchen and bathroom. Also ate out that night (monday I think) at a very nice restaurant on the footpath and drank snake wine. Interesting spirit that is left to brew in vats with snakes and other assorted animals.

The next day we all piled into a van and headed out to Nhung's grandma's place. What would be considered a hamlet, a few hours drive from Saigon.

Stupid thing wont let me add more images so ill create a new post with other ones in it...

downForce

It is now no longer known as my driving game but rather "downForce". Catchy huh?? I was making good progress on it on the weekend, had a semi swanking menu system which included rotating vehicle models but me effort on the actual game mechanics last night proved very futile. The stupid camera wont track behind the vehicle!!! Not just that but I cant get the stupid camera to move fullstop!! Camera movement was working fine in my modelviewer (I will make that available soonish) but now it just doesnt want to do what I want. Still trying to figure out the best way to do my physics and collision system. I have a pretty good idea I just have to work out how to implement it. Im also uncertain as to whether my ideas for better performance are actually necessary as there seems to be no noticeable drop in framerate despite loading all 3 vehicle models at the same time. Then again they are not exactly poly heavy models. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I load a decent size track with a fair amount of detail.

Anyway Im probably not making any sense but I have to have some kind of driving game done by the 30th October (yes I dont have much time). Im doing a kind of Wipeout clone and hopefully it'll turn out alright.



So the ship/vehicle looks a bit dodgy, I know. I havent textured it yet and I just needed to whip something up quickly for testing. If I had enough time I wouldnt mind implementing bumpmapping in the game and then trying to add a bump map to the model. Now that would be nice.

I figure I be a hermit for the next two weeks and if I can complete physics/collisions and general game mechanics this week. Then next week I can look at shadows, particles, 2D bitmapped fonts, overlays and other nice looking stuff. Plus some time to polish it up nicely. Oh and I guess I gotta make a track and some textures at some point too.

If only I had another 2 weeks annual leave available. :(

Also thought I might mention that currently textured models wont work in windows. Same goes for the modelviewer. They work in Linux tho!!!

GTR2 and Steering Wheels

Was playing a bit of GTR2 over the weekend (highly recommended) and realised that the humble keyboard does not do this game justice. It does not help when you are coming out of a corner in a lamborghini and you pretty much have your foot flat to the floor (stupid digital keys). Without all the driving aids included in the game it is a guaranteed spin. Hence my need for analog controls.
Now there is a new controller out, the Logitech G25. Looks awesome with a price tag to match -$500. So that begs the question, how hard would it be to make a cool steering wheel, pedals and gearbox combo out of the real parts and maybe a cheap gaming controller. And while we are it, lets throw in a seat and a bit of metal piping for the full experience.
Oh, why do I have to work? I wanna go home now and get all this happening in front of my projector!!!