World Machine Development Diary

Hey folks!

Now that WM2 is released to the public, what is next in line you might say?

Well, I have essentially 3 tasks that will be occupying me for the next few months:

1) Increasing exposure of WM2. Especially for me who is so close to the product, it seems like everyone who could possible have heard about WM already has; however this is far from the truth. I want to increase the attention that WM2 gets as a terrain solution in the various fields that folks have found a use for it.

If anyone reading this has some ideas on spreading the news about the WM2 release, please drop me a line at stephen@world-machine.com.

2) A number of bugs have been found since release, thankfully none that are complete showstoppers. Nonetheless I hope to have a first service pack available within a month or two that will fix any bugs found and perhaps expose several of the features that didn’t quite make it into the main release.

3) Release the PDK to its final state and make it publicly available. I hope that anyone interested in novel ways of editing terrain may become interested in using WM2 as a fast platform to create devices in.

To go along with these, your input would be a great help! Reporting bugs you find, or ideas for features you have, can help me improve the product. I also would love to see what people have been doing with WM2; post them on the forum thread for that purpose or email them to me.

As of an hour ago here, it’s now July 4th! Happy Independence Day to the Americans in the audience, and happy Release Day to everyone!

All those who pre-ordered WM2 have been sent their upgrade information. However the widescale release is still pending — waiting on website changes before it goes live as well. By the afternoon of the 4th (Pacific Time) however everything should be ready to roll.

We’re now standing at the end of several years of fairly intense development effort. When I go back and use WM 1.25, I suddenly remember how far things have come, as you all will soon see. And there’s so much more that could be added and improved! But that’s for another day. For this day and weekend, enjoy.

I’m down to just the final release prep tasks at this point!

I’m going to upload to the website Help section the WM2 User Guide  and Device Reference, if anyone wants to start looking through it.

Pre-orders I’m hoping to start fulfilling early July 3rd, so that you’ll receive your copy a day early. They will be processed in arrival order so be patient if it takes a while to get to yours! Everything at this point is a go for a July 4th release. I’m trying for a midnight release the night of the 3rd if everything goes well.

I’ve just updated the website for World Machine 2; more changes will happen in the coming days as we march towards release, but I wanted to get a fresh face on the site that was severely showing its age before.

I’ve also finalized the pricing model. The new price is higher, but I feel very fair as WM’s capabilities have grown by leaps and bounds. Existing users will recieve a 33% discount off the price of the software.

We’re exactly 2 weeks out from release, and final prep is on to make sure everything is in place for release. I’m very excited to see how the larger community will enjoy working with the abilities that WM 2 brings to the table.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve declared the official World Machine 2 release date for July 4th, 2008!

This is a firm date — there are just small touches left to finish up before then in terms of code, user’s guide, device reference, etc.

More details will be forthcoming once I update the website with the official declaration tommorow. But I wanted all of you who read this blog to get the news first.

It’s been a long road and I’m very glad to be reaching what will be the most significant milestone for World Machine ever, at the very least since its conception many years ago. Thank you all for your support, feedback, and encouragement, as even when I can’t reply individually I do read every comment made and appreciate it.

Hey folks,

There’s been lots of progress made since I posted here last. Bug fixing has been going along well — I’ve finished fixing and verifying several of the most important areas, specifically the tiled input and output and regular input and output systems.

There are essentially two main areas that I’m working on still for release. The major one  is the Layout view — a final pass to fix all of the issues and bugs curently still in it.

It’s easy for me to loose sight of how far World Machine 2.0 has come since the last publicly available version. My tentative plan is another two weeks of bugfixing, and then begin the final preparations for release — documentation, etc.

See you guys next time!

This last week and the next several are devoted purely to bugfixing. My goal is to have tamed nearly all quirks, and have all functionality at its full level, by the end of that period. At that point we’re very, very close to release. Just documentation and a few other things and then we’re ready to go.

In response to those of you who have been commenting here about the possibility of purchasing early, I definitely appreciate that people want WM 2 as soon as possible, and am gratified by it! It’s been a very long time in coming. However, I want to present the best possible product to the public upon release — that means no bizarre errors or bugs that leave you confused as to if you’ve done something wrong, or have done it right and its just not working yet.

We’re almost there everyone! It’s been a 26 mile marathon, and the last 8 miles have been truly grueling. But there’s 3/4 of a mile to the finish line. Time to run.

Hey folks,

just wanted to write a quick update: A while back I assembled a list of the three most critical things I could identify that needed fixing before WM 2 release. They were:

1. Fix the Layout/Explorer output seaming issues
2. Fix a couple important and replicable crash issues that have defied all bughunting attempts to date
3. Make a final pass on the Layout View UI to improve usability, workflow, and feedback.

There’s plenty more that could be done, but that’s the problem — drawing the line. Far better to release and continue to add features than to continually push the release backwards.

In any case, I’ve scratched off #1 from the list. This has been a longtime issue — in fact, dating back to Explorer view and v1.0!  It feels very good to get it fixed. My current workflow is to work on one of the Big 3 for at least half of each day, then any other things I want do modify/add for the other half.

Other very useful stuff has been done too (like a much needed reworking of the multiple viewport system, better Vista compatibility, etc.)

I just wanted to write a quick update to let folks know that work is still progressing. There are always setbacks during any development effort (and especially in solo-team situations), and the last week has seen a couple outside of my control.

I also have to ask for a bit more patience if you’ve emailed me in the last while — there’s quite a backlog to work through and many take a considerable amount of time to answer.  I’m trying to get to all support emails first.

Even if its not visible from the outside, things ARE progressing, and it won’t be terribly long before WM 2 will be released.

Most of the work necessarily falls into the polishing category at this point, but sometimes polishing includes fun functionality that really should have been in there to begin with. An example is bezier polygons. Up till now the poly tool was stuck being linear segments, which limited its usefulness somewhat. I’ve finally gotten around to extending the bezier ability to the polygon shape as well:

This is an example of the small but useful improvements still being made at this juncture. Of course, most time is still being invested in improving the UI and fixing the major remaining bugs.

Update: Almost forgot, of course I have to show a textured terrain result from the above as well.