Treadwell

Weekly Update 67

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s been… almost a year. Sorry.

I know “weekly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the title here, but sometimes life gets in the way and this blog ends up sitting quietly while everything else keeps moving. That’s been the case for the last while. I kept meaning to write, but the longer it went, the harder it felt to pick up the thread again.

The good news is the site is rebuilt now, and this time it’s using Hugo. I wanted something simpler to manage. I’d been feeling the weight of my old setup and I wanted a stack that was easier to maintain, easier to reason about, and less of a chore to keep running.

Communication in a Team

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I spoke with a friend recently who was a little frustrated after a one-on-one with his manager. The feedback he got was essentially that he needed to communicate more. That’s it. No specifics, no examples, just communicate more.

He came to me confused, and honestly, I get it. That’s a vague ask. If you’ve never been told how to communicate in a professional setting, the note lands flat. You’re left guessing what “more” even means.

Maui, Hawaii

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This was one of the best places I’ve ever visited. Not only was it beautiful, but it was very relaxing. I was there with my wife for our honeymoon in July 2024.

Where we stayed

We booked an Airbnb condo in Maalaea hosted by Viktoria. Solid place. The AC in the bedroom was out when we arrived, but they had it fixed by the second day with no fuss. No other issues at all.

Weekly Update 66

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Been a month. Honestly that’s fine.

GhostJam Games

So.. we’ve announced our release, been localizing the game, fighting with cert to publish on Steam, among other things.

The game is in a really good place. Some bugs keep popping up as they do, but we’re closing them quick.

I hired a new engineer to come in and help us firefight, we had some things we didn’t have the time for so needed to get some help. He’s kicking ass.

Steam Leaderboard Grouping

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So in Backseat Drivers we wanted to group players together (since the game is coop) on the leaderboard. Well this isn’t something that’s supported out of the box by Valve so I had to do some hacky stuff.

How?

So in the Steam API UploadLeaderboardScore it accepts a pScoreDetails (const int32*). Do you see where I’m going with this yet?

I take each player’s SteamID, split it into two int32 values (low/high), and store them in sequence: [0] = P1.low, [1] = P1.high, [2] = P2.low, [3] = P2.high

Weekly Update 65

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Oh boy. A week behind again. Sorry. Been super busy.

Honestly we’ve been just hard at work on Backseat Drivers. We’re pushing super hard on releasing before Q4.

I’ll have more to write about next week.

until next time

Weekly Update 64

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Once again I’m late as usual - sorry I’m super busy.

We’re prepping for the release of Backseat Drivers - no public date yet, but full steam ahead. Last week I spoke about some bizdev stuff and I can finally talk about it. We established a partnership with Foulball Hangover - the creators of Hydroneer. GhostJam received a development loan to fund our final stretch of development. More details of this on the GhostJam post.

Weekly Update 63

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Almost 2 weeks. Sorry.

I’ve been uber busy with GhostJam stuff. I finally rebuilt our entire CI (jenkins) pipeline to actually use the Groovy pipeline script instead of being batch files.

I made some bizdev decisions for GhostJam that are very good. Just waiting for the right time to announce it, but it’s soon.

I began working on localization of Backseat Drivers and it’s honestly very close to being complete. Well in the sense that it’s an initial pass on translations.

Weekly Update 62

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So the last almost 2 weeks I’ve been doing mostly bizdev for GhostJam and I’ve been working on some other things for GhostJam.

Nothing honestly to write about just yet, but exciting things are coming.

Last weekend the family and I went to a cave place thingy to explore the wilderness and a few caves. The kids had a blast playing in the creek. The weekend before that we went to the lake to swim with my mother - it was a nice time.

My Setup

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hi. I wrote a post years ago about the tools that I use (which this list has changed) so I thought it’s time to make a post about my current setup and tooling. I’ll keep this post updated with the newest setup that I have to avoid creating a new post for changes.

Workstation

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
GPU: EVGA RTX 3080 Ti FTW3
RAM: 64GB DDR5
Storage: Various nvme drives

Audio

Headphones: Shure SE215 or ATH-M50x
Microphone: Shure SM7B + Cloudlifter CL-1
Audio Interface: Focusrite Scarlett Solo
Speakers: Mackie CR3-XBT + Mackie CR8S-XBT

until next time

Using AI for Programming

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A hot topic as of recent years. It’s a topic that’s discussed by every person right now - especially in tech it seems.

Do I use AI?

100%. Yes. I don’t do the “vibe” coding shit though. I’ll outline some examples of what I’ve used AI for.

Optimization of database queries
Documentation of methods or a feature
Boilerplating - for example writing out a base template for html using.
Translations - I wrote a script to utilize the DeepL API to translate files that I input.

Vibe Coding

Oh shit I hate this. I’ll say I do love that more people are building things, but not understanding anything that the AI is doing isn’t cool. In a logical world people would learn code and use AI to help perfect an implementation. This is how I use AI.

Weekly Update 61

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Back again.

Over the past week I’ve been working on the new GhostJam website and even updating this site a bit more on the backend. There’s still work to do on this site as I built it in a day, but whatever.

I did some bizdev stuff last week for GhostJam that I can’t talk about just yet, but it’s pretty exciting. If this thing ends up coming to fruition then I’ll be very excited and can share the details then.

Weekly Update 60 - I'm alive

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Oh boy. It’s been years… almost 3. So much stuff has changed since I last posted.

This isn’t exactly a weekly update - we all know that I’ve been terrible at that in the past. At this point I should just rename this series to “annual update.”

Is this on? Can you hear me?

Phew. It is. Good.

I got married! I have 2 kids. I’ve worked at numerous companies since. I’ve also started my own company. We’re making some cool shit.

New Site

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Update: 7/26/2026….. again. Back to hugo and cloudflare workers.

Update: 7/7/2025… I did it again. lmao. The site is back in Django.

I did it again. I recreated my website. It’s not hosted by me anymore nor do I even have a backend. It’s using Hugo and GitHub Pages.

This allows me to write stuff without worrying about security or maintenance of a system/software.

Here’s the Python code I wrote to export blog posts over to the Hugo format from Django.

The Life of Technical Debt

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll be talking about technical debt in general, what to look out for before you fall into tech debt, and my experience with it.

What is technical debt?

So tech debt’s definition on Google is “Technical debt is a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.” That sums it up lol.

Unreal Dump

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

TEnumRange
- see \Runtime\Core\Public\Misc\EnumRange.h.
- for (const EMyEnum Val : TEnumRange<EMyEnum>())
- Required to use ENUM_RANGE_BY_COUNT, ENUM_RANGE_BY_FIRST_AND_LAST, or ENUM_RANGE_BY_VALUES
BlueprintAuthorityOnly, tbh some of these TIL.
- UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, BlueprintAuthorityOnly, Category = "MyCategory")
EditCondition, VisibleCondition, and EditConditionHides
- UPROPERTY(..., meta = (EditCondition="bToggled")) or UPROPERTY(..., meta = (EditCondition="MyEnum == MyEnum::None")) etc
FSimpleMulticastDelegate and FSimpleDelegate
- These are delegates that you can bind only in C++ and don’t support any args. If using these you don’t have to do the macro to define them as they’re already defined so it helps clean up your classes.
TArrayView

Weekly Update 59

Sun, 17 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

2 months. Yeah, it’s been a while. I spoke to an acquaintance yesterday and she brought up that I haven’t posted in 2 months so here’s a post just for you. 😀

What have I been up to? Well honestly so damn much. NMRiH2 is taking up most of my time.

My company. So I mentioned that I formed the LLC and began working on a project. Well, I filed for the trademark and my attorney recommended that I release a game sooner than later so I’m doing just that. I’ve started a TPS survival project (similar to my old FPSGame project) and it’s going to be free. I’m focusing on gameplay rather than art so it’s going to be gray boxed with the epic mannequin for a release. The release date is TBD, but likely in 2 months. I plan to launch the company website around that time also - which will feature a blog etc to keep up to date. Trademark stuff is super stressful since you pay a load of money and then have to wait a minimum of 6 months to know if you got the trademark.

Weekly Update 58

Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

f. It’s been over a month since I started the weekly updates again. So much for the name huh?

Give me a break, I’ve been really busy.

I’ve been not only busy with NMRiH2, but my own project. You know, the project that I worked on before getting hired by Lever Games - the project that I kept refactoring the inventory? Yeah, that one. I’ve been making really good progress every weekend. The inventory is just about complete.

Weekly Update 57

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Here we are almost 4 months into 2022 and I haven’t written a weekly update - how dare I?

So I’ve been super busy with work… and I haven’t wanted to write for a while. We’re closing in on our release date in October so we’re all working hard to complete stuff for the release.

I recently revived my old project (the one that I spoke about the inventory). Since working on NMRiH2 I’ve learned some new techniques so I decided to revive the project and apply the new techniques. The last time I worked on this project I was unemployed so we’ll see how far it goes this time - hell I might hire someone to help out.

I Built a NAS

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

So uh - yeah I built a nas.

I ended up deciding to build a NAS as OVH pissed me off with the throttling me when uploading. I’ve also wanted to build a NAS for a while.

Really the biggest thing that pushed me to pull the trigger was when I came across an amazing deal on eBay. For $430 I got the following:

SuperMicro X11SSH-TF
Micron 64GB DDR4 ECC Ram
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1245 v5 Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1240L v5
Samsung 960 Pro 512GB M.2
SuperMicro AOC-SLG3-2E4
4x Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
Some other misc stuff like cables, additional pci m.2 card, and m.2 enclosures for the AOC card.

The rest of the components are as follows:

How I Handle Backups

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The normal rule is 3-2-1 - 3 backups, 2 onsite, 1 offsite. However I do 2 offsite only. I may do a third offsite, but not sure just yet.

I use Scaleway’s C14 Cold Storage. I used OVH Archive, but the upload speeds were super slow.

In proxmox I edited the /etc/vzdump.conf and added script: /path/to/my/perl/script.pl at the bottom. When I run vzdump from the ui or proxmox kicks off a backup cron the script will get ran.

Colocating My Server

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Colocating a server is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I just never have until now. Over the years I’ve had numerous machines that I could’ve easily colocated (several 1U machines), but it has been too expensive. JoesDatacenter has been around for a long time - even before I started my home lab, but it was a matter of shipping the server(s) or driving to Kansas City, MO. Driving is exactly what we did. Oh yeah, I decided to take my mom with me as a 3-day vacation - since she needed time away from our city also. During the trip, I was able to stop and meet one of our staff and I even gave him 4 of my old monitors (the 6 1080p monitors) as I wasn’t using them. The round trip cost me ~$700 and 3 days. I could’ve shipped the server for much cheaper, but I’d rather take it to the data center and have a mini-vacation - plus our staff member wouldn’t have got free monitors so I’m fine with the cost. I even stopped to visit with my brother and give him my old pc case (W200) and 2 monitors.

Weekly Update 56

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So uh hello. It’s been a while since I’ve written a post. I’ll start off with my new case… yes I made a mistake. I bought a new case the Enthoo Pro 2 and also built a small ITX system as a secondary workstation.

The case is awesome and I wish I would’ve got this instead of the W200 (it’s just way too big of a case).

I’ve been working long hours putting together NMRiH2 stuff and have started on dedicated server support - I think this was announced? We announced our release date which is awesome! I’m so excited.

Weekly Update 55 - New Monitors

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Update: March 22, 2022: Yeah no fucking clue what happened to that inventory. I don’t have it anymore…

It’s been a busy few weeks for me. I’ve finally completed phase 5 on NMRiH2 and began working on phase 6.

I bought new monitors this week, so instead of using 6 24" 1080p 60Hz monitors, I’m now using 4 27" 1440p 144Hz monitors. The change is awesome and I wish I would’ve upgraded a long time ago. I also bought new studio monitors (Mackie CR3-XBT) with a sub (Mackie CR8S-XBT). *Before you flip shit, I don’t use bottled water anymore; I bought a water cooler and only use that bottle to fill it.*I ordered 2 16oz water bottles from Nalgene also - they should be in soon.

Weekly Update 54

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I worked hard on NMRiH2 over the past 2 weeks trying to finish up Phase 5. I’ve merged most of the functionality into main this week so that’s awesome. I’m planning on having Phase 5 entirely completed and 1 pass polished by next Friday.

The initial design for my small hobby project is taking shape more. If the project actually becomes more than a document then I’ll end up open-sourcing bits of it.

Weekly Update 53

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This week I was very busy on NMRiH2 so I didn’t think about writing a post. I’ve mostly completed phase 5 so now I just have to go do a polish pass and it’s finished. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to be working on next, but I have been given some ideas as to what it’ll be.

I’m still designing the smaller tycoon game so I’m getting pretty excited about that. Yes I know I’ve jumped to a few projects over the past couple of years, but tbh the ones that I’ve dropped have been way too big for me to do alone. Let’s be honest here also, it’s not like that time was really wasted as I learned stuff. 🤷‍♂️

Weekly Update 52 - New Standing Desk

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Welp, I’ve written 52 of these posts now so that’s a year’s worth! I wish I would’ve stuck with it each week, but honestly, most of them would’ve been the same shit every week. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

This week I finished up phase 4 and started on phase 5. (I was stuck on a replication issue with GetOwner, but I ended up coming up with a different design for this system) Phase 5 is coming along well but will take I’m estimating a month.

Weekly Update 51 - Work and Steam/EOSBridge

Fri, 27 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well, it’s certainly been over a week since the last update - sorry about that. I’ve been really busy working on NMRiH2 and I’m making good progress. I’m very close to entering phase 5 which I estimate will take a month to finish. Phase 4 has taken longer than I had expected, but I’m very close.

I decided this week that I wouldn’t be working on SteamBridge or UDatabase for the time being as I don’t have the time. I also announced in my discord that I wasn’t going to be making EOSBridge as Epic is making its own plugin to implement EOS.

Weekly Update 50 - More Work and Building a New Desk

Fri, 06 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve continued working on a major feature in NMRiH2 and it’s coming together quite well. I’m very excited to be working with this team. I’m now on phase 4 of this feature.

I decided to also build a new desk so more on that soon. I bought some tools that I should’ve had for a long time - such as a drill, stud finder, and a laser level. I also bought 1000ft of cat6 even though at the time of writing this I just needed ~1ft of cable for a quick run. Oh well, it was only $130 for 1000ft.

Weekly Update 49 - New World, NMRiH2, and Future Company Systems

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The new job is going very well. I’m still working on a major feature that’s being implemented in 5 phases. I’m currently on phase 2 - about to move into phase 3. 😀

We use Mattermost for our dev chat so I decided to use that for my company also. I went ahead and configured Mattermost for my company so when I’m ready to use it I can.

I’m currently taking a look at Wiki JS to be the internal wiki software for my company in the future. Originally I wanted to use GitHub wiki, but I don’t want to pay for a Pro account for the organization. I plan to use the new GitHub Issues for the project management/bug tracking when it releases, but I might find something like Redmine to run.

Weekly Update 48 - New Exciting Job

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hey pal!

I started a new job working on No More Room in Hell 2 this Monday. I can’t exactly talk about what I’m working on just yet, but when the game releases I’ll be able to - it’s some very exciting systems that I’m sure will bring a ton of fun to the game. I’m very excited to be working with industry veterans so I can learn more stuff.

I haven’t worked on my game this week as I have a new job, but I plan to pick up development again very soon.

Weekly Update 47 - Refactor and Day Night Cycle

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Welp, it’s been 2 weeks since a “weekly update”.

I’ve been working on my game a ton more. I’ve almost finished the first pass of refactoring the weapon system. I plan to do a write-up about weapon systems and inventory systems in UE4/5 eventually when I have the free time.

I did a major refactor to the character class and separated it into multiple classes so my AI can use some of the cool features. I ripped out my day-night cycle system in favor of the Ultra Dynamic Sky plugin. I also finally fixed lootable actors (chests) as they’ve been broken for quite some time due to the major refactor of the inventory.

Weekly Update 46 - American Truck Simulator

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hello!

This week I’ve been working on the game again. I ripped out the old weapon system (wasn’t designed that well) and implemented the first new iteration. I haven’t spoken about the inventory system in some time so I figured why not bring it up again. I just have like 5 things to finish for the inventory such as item stacking or key binds (such as split a stack or move all items of a type). I’ve also been researching save systems so I can store game data in the database. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to do it, but it’s going to be in JSON.

How I Version Products in Unreal Engine

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

While waiting for this to be added to Unreal I came up with an alternative. This python script will update the version in your DefaultGame.ini.

 
import configparser

import sys

import argparse

def main(argv):

 parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

 parser.add_argument('Workspace', help='The path to the project that you\'re wanting to use!')

 parser.add_argument('NewVersion', help='The new version to set for the project.')

 args = parser.parse_args()

 config_file = args.Workspace + '/Config/DefaultGame.ini'

 config = configparser.ConfigParser()

 config.optionxform=str

 config.read(config_file)

 config['/Script/EngineSettings.GeneralProjectSettings']['ProjectVersion'] = args.NewVersion

 with open(config_file, 'w') as configfile:

 config.write(configfile)

if __name__ == "__main__":

 main(sys.argv[1:])

Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 30

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Previously I wrote about the same thing, but before 25. I only accomplished one of the things that I wanted to do so I think it’s time to change that.

I turn 26 next week. 🙁

PADI certified - I’ve always wanted to scuba dive.
Own a good amount of land and some rental properties.
Have a successful company ($1mm/y+) that employs >= 10 people. - I’d be ok with a successful company though.
Start a company to help indie game devs build games. - This backpacks on 3. as I would need money to make this happen.
Travel more, maybe to other states or countries. - I really don’t get out much, in fact, I’m considered anti-social by family, and friends - but I’m not… I just don’t care about going places much.
Allocate more time for family and friends. - I don’t spend as much time as I should with them and I know I’ll regret it when I’m older and they’re dead. 😢

Weekly Update 45 - Company Website

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

For the past week and a half, I’ve been working on building the foundation of what’s going to be the website for my future company. I’m planning to form this new company in the coming months and in turn, I’ll be deploying the website at that time. The website will function as a hub for all of the company projects which separates the projects by subdomain. This design will not only eliminate the need to register and pay for more domains, but it allows all projects to be under one roof to be able to maintain them easier. This concept is called multi-tenancy. Literally, each project will have its own set of pages such as a blog. I took inspiration from the way that Facepunch has its site set up along with Bethesda and many others. The site won’t be finished for some time and it’s not like I’ll be pushing it live before the company formation.

Weekly Update 44 - Fishing and Refactoring

Fri, 21 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Last weekend is the first time I went fishing for several years. I didn’t catch anything, but my mom went with me and she caught a bluegill. 😀 I’m going fishing again this weekend so maybe I’ll catch something.

This week I worked on cleaning up some systems in my game. I started on implementing lootable actors (aka chests) and it’s in and working. Once I finish up some smaller things then I’m going to start doing weekly goals, because right now I just work on anything and don’t exactly get much done.

Weekly Update 43 - Internet Outage

Fri, 14 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The week started off with no power for ~24 hours and no internet for ~48 hours. When the internet was restored Tuesday I just watched YouTube. I pretty much only watched YouTube all week.

I did work on a contract this week, it was something that took ~2 hours and I’ll be open-sourcing it soon as it’s not a major plugin under NDA.

until next time

Some Simple Optimizations in Unreal Engine

Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

When it boils down to it you should profile things before optimizing however, these things can be added without the need to profile.

TArray.Reserve(size)
- This will reserve memory for the array in advance. Do this before modifying an array to prevent allocations in a loop etc. When adding elements to a container in a loop, performances can be impacted because of multiple heap allocations to resize the container.
- Also, do this on temporary allocations. (if you allocate an array in a method and then return that array later or need to do something specific to the results)

 
 
 
// Adds N copies of a character to the end of an array.
void AppendCharacterCopies(char CharToCopy, int32 N, TArray<char>& Result)
{
 if (N > 0)
 {
 Result.Reserve(Result.Num() + N);
 for (int32 Index=0; Index < N; Index++)
 {
 Result.Add(CharToCopy);
 }
 }
}

void AppendCharacterCopies(char CharToCopy, int32 N)
{
 if (N > 0)
 {
 TArray<char> Result;
 Result.Reserve(N);
 for (int32 Index = 0; Index < N; Index++)
 {
 Result.Add(CharToCopy);
 }

 // do something with Result
 }
}

TArray.Emplace(type)

Weekly Update 42 - Reviving an Old Hobby and Skill System

Fri, 07 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last week, I’ve been working on adding the skill/talent system to my game. For the most part, it’s finished - I just have to finish up the early UI for it. After I finish up the skills I’ll likely be working on either more AI or I may work on the database plugin as I’ll start needing that soon. I don’t know, we’ll see what I end up working on next week. 🙂

Weekly Update 41 - Importing Blog Posts

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The last couple of weeks have been busy for me. I’ve been working on my project and I can say I’ve been making some good progress.

I found my old WordPress blog so I brought over some posts from 2016-2017. I had some others but decided against bringing them over. I’m also pretty sure I had a blog full of posts before 2016 as I had the first Hello World in 2015. Oh well. 🤷‍♂️

Steam Party and UE4

Sun, 25 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In my Discord someone was asking about Steam parties so I thought that it was a good topic to write a guide on so here we are. Quite frankly this is something that someone should’ve made a guide on a long time ago.

Prerequisites

Steam plugin (SteamBridge, UWorks, SteamCore, etc)
Some C++ or BP knowledge
A brain and patience 😀

In this guide, I’m using my SteamBridge plugin, but you’re more than welcome to use any other Steam plugin that you already have. (The Steam API is the same across the board, but each plugin may implement it differently.)

Enter Technical Debt

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ll be talking about technical debt in general, what to look out for before you fall into tech debt, and my experience with it.

What is technical debt?

Useful Resources for Game Dev

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Over the years I’ve come across some really good resources so I figured why not dump them on here for other people to benefit from?

Some of this is really targeted at Unreal development, but you can really apply the knowledge to any engine. If you have any resources that you’d like to add to this list them please email me @ [email protected].

These lists aren’t ordered in any specific way.

Weekly Update 40

Fri, 09 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This week I worked on porting my inventory system to use another method for storage and replication. I’ve started writing a guide on building an inventory system so that should be out in a couple of weeks. I’ve been working on my inventory for so long now and I’ve got it to the point that I’m very happy with it. Unfortunately, it’s taken me a couple of months to get it just right.

Weekly Update 39

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I worked on my project this week and even started a new web project. More on the web project soon - just know it’s a useful web project.

I refactored and optimized my inventory system this week. Before it was using FString for ItemIDs and now it’s using uint16/int32 (for BP). I’ve also shrunk my structs that I replicate so I’m now replicating fewer data. I’m looking into better more optimized methods of replicating arrays so when I figure that out I’ll write about that next week.

Weekly Update 38

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Saturday was my last day on the VAIL VR team. This decision wasn’t made lightly and it wasn’t on bad terms. Albert and the VAIL team are amazing people, I wish VAIL and the team luck.

I also left the HodlGod team yesterday. Again not on bad terms, my contract was just up and I didn’t want to go to full time. 🙂

Now am unemployed. lmao

I’ve been working on my side project quite a bit and as I’ve said last week I’m finishing up the inventory system.

Weekly Update 37

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Well hey! It’s been a couple of weeks since my last weekly update and this post will be pretty juicy.

I got hired to work on porting stuff to C++ for the game HodlGod. After my trial period of 2 weeks, I may be hired full-time as the Senior Programmer. If I’m brought on full-time I’ll be leaving VAIL 🙁, but I’ll stick around as a consultant. Some news on VAIL is the StartEngine investment page has hit $700k. That’s so crazy! 😀

Weekly Update 36

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So this is delayed by a week since I was hit by a major ice/snow storm which caused a power and internet outage at my house/office.

The storm really sucked. I had to go to a neighbors house and stay for a week while the power company resolved the outages around the county. Really all I did last week was watch movies and hang out with my neighbors. (in this case it was my dad lol)

Weekly Update 35

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This week I started work on the weapon system for my side project and it’s coming along quite nicely. I played some Call of Duty: Cold War this week also as I have in the previous few weeks. I finished writing a guide for Steam also, but I’m waiting to publish it when I finish the async portion of SteamBridge as the guide doesn’t work 100%.

until next time

How To Change UE4 Class Templates

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So have you created a C++ class in UE4 and it creates the class like this? Do you just hate the extra comments or spacing that the template has? Same. 🙁

 
 
 
// Fill out your copyright notice in the Description page of Project Settings.

#pragma once

#include "CoreMinimal.h"
#include "GameFramework/Actor.h"
#include "MyActor.generated.h"

UCLASS()
class THINGGAME_API AMyActor : public AActor
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

public:
 // Sets default values for this actor's properties
 AMyActor();

protected:
 // Called when the game starts or when spawned
 virtual void BeginPlay() override;

public:
 // Called every frame
 virtual void Tick(float DeltaTime) override;

};

Well don’t worry, you’re in the right place to get it looking better.

Weekly Update 34

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This week went by pretty quickly. I really only worked on my own side project and played Call of Duty; Cold War. Yesterday Treyarch released a new zombies map and I must say it’s amazing. Hopefully they release more maps in the coming months.

until next time

Weekly Update 33

Fri, 29 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I worked on SteamBridge some this week. This work won’t be pushed into a release for a while so don’t get excited. 🙂 SteamBridge is also up to ~18.5k acquires. If only I charged $4.99. 😅

I started working on the async portion of SteamBridge and since I don’t fully understand it’s going to take some time to get working.

My friends Brandon and Dar grouped up with me on Saturday and played some Cold War zombies until my pc froze at round 87 and ended it for us. 😭

Weekly Update 32

Fri, 22 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So this week I worked on Linux support for Shifted and was unsuccessful at finding a working solution. The issue is the server is wanting to call methods in steamclient.so and we don’t want it to. I added some ifdefs to some of the code to exclude it from the server and that didn’t solve the issue. The task has now been pushed to someone else that is better suited to solving this as I’m not as familiar with the codebase anymore.

Tools I Use

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So I figured I’d list off things that I use for work since I often wonder what other people use.

Windows 10 (main OS for everything) and FreeBSD, CentOS, Ubuntu (servers)
Visual Studio - Main IDE for C++ and C#
VSCode - Main Editor for everything and Python
Fork - Git Client
Bitvise - SSH/SFTP Client
Affinity Photo - Photo Editor
Unreal Engine - Game Engine
PlasticSCM - Source Control Client
dnSpy- .Net Decompiler
MusicBee - Music Player
EmEditor - Large File Text Editor
Divvy - Window Management
ShareX - Screenshots (I also use Ctrl + Shift + S or Win + Shift + S)
Invoice Ninja - Invoicing software
Flyspray - Bugtracker/project planning software (personal projects)

Weekly Update 31

Fri, 15 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This week I worked the final hours on Midjungard. I also started working on Shifted again after a month-ish. On Shifted I started working on Linux support again. Apparently, in the past month, it broke again. 🤷

I moved all of my media on the site to my google cloud storage bucket and now everything is being served from files.trdwll.net instead of trdwll.com/media/. This will allow faster speeds when downloading any media and it’s cached very strictly.

Changes to My Workstation

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Currently, in my office, I have 3 desktop machines. 1 main workstation (the pc that I’m writing this from), 1 server, and 1 old workstation (that I talk about some here). A couple of months ago I saw a case on Amazon for $500 and … I finally decided to buy it. 😭 The decision to get this case wasn’t exactly necessary (no shit), but I really wanted to put 2 machines in 1 case… I just wish it was cheaper.

How to Fix VAX Suggestions

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So your suggestions from VAX aren’t updated or are wrong? Look no further!

Navigate to Extensions -> VAssistX -> Visual Assist Options

Then go to Performance and click Rebuild and Clear. (then reset your Visual Studio)

until next time

New Years Resolutions 2021

Sat, 09 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote one of these last year so I figured why not go ahead and write another one for 2021 to see if I actually follow through with them.

Stop using Facebook so much
Scuba Diving
Better Diet
Get better at my profession
Release a game

Facebook

Since the election in the US, I’ve stopped using Facebook. I check it once every few days to reply to a few people. I keep getting emails about friend suggestions. I think Facebook checks your last activity date and then starts to spam you with shit to try to get you back on the site. (not working on me 😀)

Weekly Update 30

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

First post of the year! Happy New Year everyone, I hope the holidays were good for you.

This week I worked more on Midjungard. In my weekly update 29, I said I was pretty much finished - that turned out to be false. We ran into some issues when deploying on Linux. It had to do with Apex and from what we understand is you need a gpu for Apex on Linux. They disabled Apex and there’s still some issues with running the server. The libraries aren’t being linked for some reason. It turns out that it was my fault - I was uploading to /root/, chowning the files to my tmpuser, and then running the server. The binary references to /root/. This doesn’t work since my tmpuser isn’t root. To fix this I had to upload to /home/tmpuser/ instead. 🤦 I feel so dumb. I also had to make sure my engine install and project weren’t on the same partition. (damn windows)✊

2020

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So 2020 has sure had its ups and downs as does every year, but 2020 is quite a special year for many reasons.

2020

The year started off well for me, I started work on Shifted and I even decided to get my drivers permit. In March I went back to work at the golf course which the guys there actually are the reason for getting my permit. Yeah, I could’ve done it and should’ve done it several years ago, but I’ve never really seen the point to get it.

Weekly Update 29

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

First off, Happy Christmas or Happy whatever you celebrate, if you do. I hope you have a great day today.

This week went by quite fast. I worked on Midjungard a little bit this week and played games. (I mainly had to wait for the lead to test some things before I could continue work.) Last Friday I bought the new Call of Duty (Cold War) and it’s really fun. I didn’t really enjoy Call of Duty Modern Warfare, but then again I’m a huge fan of Treyarch.

Weekly Update 28

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week was another week of work on SteamBridge and being lazy. Maybe next week I’ll have some tasks on Shifted.

I did manage to add 8 classes in SteamBridge since last week and the plugin is almost finished. I just need to lay down the foundation for async methods so I can then add the methods that I’ve skipped. Once that’s finished I’ll move on to the Web portion of the plugin and once I’m finished with SteamBridge I can move onto EOSBridge.

Using GoAccess

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

**UPDATE: I recently changed from a crontab to using the websocket and it works great. This post was extremely useful when setting up the websocket. (also some nginx info around the web) **

 
goaccess /var/log/nginx/access.log -o /var/www/report.html --log-format=COMBINED --real-time-html --ws-url=wss://domain:443/ws --port 7890 --daemon

This year I built a middleware for Django to store data on visitors to websites. It would store things like the page they view, the site that referred them, and their IP address/country. This worked fine for the longest time, but it’s very redundant since I already have this information in my Nginx (HTTP server) logs and it was stored in my database for my website. I still have one model (table) that I store just to keep a copy of it in case I delete the logs from Nginx.

Weekly Update 27

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week went by really fast - then again my sleep schedule is really screwed up right now. I’m on NZ hours. 😞I really just relaxed this week and played games. A couple of friends and I played and beat Dying Light with all DLC in about 30 hours across 3 days.

I worked on SteamBridge a little bit and finished up Linux support (dedicated server) for Shifted.

until next time

Weekly Update 26

Fri, 04 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week I really only worked on SteamBridge and VSDiscordRP. I’ve played Jurassic World: Evolution and some Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint also. Both are great games btw.

It also snowed for the first time this year a few days ago. We didn’t get much and it didn’t even cover the roads, but we have snow. 😀 Next week I plan to work more on SteamBridge and get it more ready for production. I did start thinking about doing async stuff so if I end up doing that then it’s going to require a refactor of a good amount of stuff. Hopefully, it won’t be that bad, but we’ll see. The Facepunch.Steamworks is fully async so it would be nice to do it for UE4 also.

UE4 and Steam Rich Presence

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

NOTE: If you’re wanting a Steam wrapper for UE4 then check out SteamBridge. If you use SteamBridge it already has the code below so you won’t need to do any code portion of this guide.

So you’re wanting some cool Rich Presence for your game right?

Cool so here’s a quick guide on doing this in C++ in UE4. (don’t worry, the methods are exposed to BP)

Go to your projects Build.cs and add Steamworks. PrivateDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] { "Steamworks" });
Regenerate your project and open your solution. Add the following code to whatever class you want. I chose to do this in the GameInstance as it exists for the lifetime of the game.

 
 
 
UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "GameInstance")
void SetSteamRichPresence(const FString& Key, const FString& Value);

UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "GameInstance")
void ClearSteamRichPresence();

// At the time of writing this sdk version 150 is released, but UE4 only has 147. This doesn't matter, but just a note.
#include "ThirdParty/Steamworks/Steamv147/sdk/public/steam/steam_api.h"

void UCGameInstance::SetSteamRichPresence(const FString& Key, const FString& Value)
{
 SteamFriends()->SetRichPresence(TCHAR_TO_UTF8(*Key), TCHAR_TO_UTF8(*Value));
}
void UCGameInstance::ClearSteamRichPresence()
{
 SteamFriends()->ClearRichPresence();
}

Before you can go off and do what I did above you should know that you have to make a json file with the strings that can be set. Yeah, the messages have to be uploaded to Steam. 🙁

Weekly Update 25

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So this week I worked on setting up Linux dedicated server for Shifted. We had this working for a while, but as development progressed it eventually broke. I kept running into some issues with compiling (had to do with plugins and some other small things). I plan on writing a guide on doing Linux dedicated server eventually since my post about dedicated server was targeted for Windows.

I started writing the foundation for a few more guides that will be releasing early next year. I’m really excited about these next set of guides. I plan to work more on SteamBridge next week since I haven’t messed with it in about a week.

Using Other Types in UE4 BP

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

While building out SteamBridge I needed a way to access SteamID in BP which happens to be a uint64 so I’m not able to directly. Here’s the solution I came up with and I must say it’s not the most ideal solution as I mainly needed typedefs, but this works.

 
 
 
USTRUCT(BlueprintType)
struct FUint64
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 uint64 Value;

 operator uint64() const { return Value; }

 FUint64() : Value(0) {}
 FUint64(uint64 value) : Value(value) {}
};

USTRUCT(BlueprintType)
struct FMyCoolUint64Type : public FUint64 { GENERATED_BODY() using FUint64::FUint64; };

To avoid writing the same FUint64 struct for all of the types that just need to be a uint64 you can just derive your struct from it and add a using FUint64::FUint64; so we use it’s constructors.

Weekly Update 24

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week wasn’t busy at all. I worked on SteamBridge a little bit and I fixed Jenkins building a dedicated server for Shifted which took so damn long (in turn I updated my Jenkins and UE4 post with an example for dedicated server building). Work on the GameMode in Shifted was moved to another programmer on the team so I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to be working on next just yet.

UE4 and Vivox

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So you want a cross-platform and scalable voice chat? Great, let’s begin.

Prerequisites

A Vivox developer account (you need a v5 account so ask for a v5 account via email)
A Vivox app
A C++ UE4 project (or ability to add C++)
Patience

NOTE: Make sure you check this or like I said above email the support for a v5 account.

BeginPlay()

Cool once you have your app and credentials then proceed to step 1.

Useful Snippets for UE4 using VAX

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These require Visual Assist, but you might be able to set this up using the default stuff with Visual Studio.

Extensions -> VAssistX -> Code Generation and Refactoring -> Edit Refactoring Snippets…
Type: By Title then click thebutton.
Add the following options. Repeat the process for each of these.

 
 
 
Title: UFUNCTION Callable Macro
Shortcut: ufcall
UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$")

Title: UFUNCTION Const Callable Macro
Shortcut: ufcon
UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, BlueprintPure=false, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$")

Title: UFUNCTION Get Macro
Shortcut: ufget
UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$")

Title: UPROPERTY BlueprintAssignable Macro
Shortcut: upass
UPROPERTY(BlueprintAssignable, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$", meta = (DisplayName = "$SymbolName$"))

Title: UPROPERTY BlueprintReadOnly Macro
Shortcut: upread
UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$", meta = (DisplayName = "$SymbolName$"))

Title: UPROPERTY EditAnywhere Macro
Shortcut: upedit
UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite, EditAnywhere, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$", meta = (DisplayName = "$SymbolName$"))

Title: UPROPERTY EditDefaultsOnly Macro
Shortcut: updef
UPROPERTY(EditDefaultsOnly, Category = "$PROJECT_NAME$|$ClassName$", meta = (DisplayName = "$SymbolName$"))

Title: UPROPERTY Replicated Macro
Shortcut: uprep
UPROPERTY(Replicated)

Title: UENUM Macro
Shortcut: uenum
UENUM(BlueprintType)
enum class E$SymbolName$ : uint8
{
 None UMETA(DisplayName = "None"),
};

Title: USTRUCT Macro
Shortcut: ustruct
USTRUCT(BlueprintType)
struct F$SymbolName$
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 F$SymbolName$() {}
}

To use these you just type the shortcut in the editor and it should popup.

Weekly Update 23

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week I finished up the major refactor of the GameMode and GameState. Quick note, I used ShooterGame as a reference and it’s working quite well for us. I’ll eventually do a post on something similar, but unfortunately, I can’t just copy and paste the code from Shifted.

I somewhat handed off GM work to coworkers so I haven’t touched anymore of it since. Instead, I’ve been working on getting dedicated servers working with Steam.

Adding Text Chat to UE4 in C++

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Note, this is a C++ based example. However, it’s easily converted to BP.

If you want to just check out the code or skip the guide then you can download the project here.

There are a few things wrong with this setup such as no deletion of messages so you’ll keep a copy of them until you exit the game so you’re probably going to want to set up a timer to destroy them after x time.

Weekly Update 22

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s been a long time since I wrote a weekly update. I apologize for that, but I’ve had some shit going on ok.

So what have I been busy with? Fuck dude chill out for a second. Let’s take a quick breath and relax.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been hard at work on Shifted. You know the game that I talk about every single time I write one of these? Cool so starting last week I completely ripped out, redesigned, and rewrote the entire GameMode system. The system we had before well… we’ll just say it wasn’t ideal. Anyway so now that this major task is out of the way we’re able to manage the codebase and implement new gamemodes more easily. Another big thing for this is it’s all entirely in C++. Sure we lose the prototyping of gamemodes in BP, but at the end of the day, we can always create a gamemode in BP to prototype with.

Jenkins and UE4

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

NOTE: This guide assumes you already have a machine with Jenkins on it.

Prerequisites

Windows machine (or you can use a Windows agent)
UE4 and Jenkins installed
Patience

Create a new job as a freestyle project.
Choose “This project is parameterized.”
Add 1 choice parameter and 2 string parameters.
Fill in the content as follows.

 
 
 
==== Choice Parameter ====
== Name ==
BUILD_CONFIGURATION
== Choices ==
Development
Shipping
Test
DebugGame
== Description ==
Development = This configuration is equivalent to Release. Unreal Editor uses the Development configuration by default. Compiling your project using the Development configuration enables you to see code changes made to your project reflected in the editor.
Shipping = This is the configuration for optimal performance and shipping your game. This configuration strips out console commands, stats, and profiling tools.
Test = This configuration is the Shipping configuration, but with some console commands, stats, and profiling tools enabled.
DebugGame = This configuration builds the engine as optimized, but leaves the game code debuggable. This configuration is ideal for debugging only game modules.

==== String Parameter ====
== Name ==
ENGINE_PATH
== Default Value ==
C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.25\
== Description ==
The path for the engine install.

==== String Parameter ==
== Name ==
PROJECT_NAME
== Default Value ==
MyProject
== Description ==
This is the name of your project and the folder that it's in. (they need to match)

Set up your Source Control Management. We use PlasticSCM (requires you to install a plugin).
Check Poll SCM and put @hourly
Under Build add 3 Execute Windows batch command.

 
FOR /d /r . %%d IN (Intermediate) DO @IF EXIST "%%d" rd /s /q "%%d"
FOR /d /r . %%d IN (Binaries) DO @IF EXIST "%%d" rd /s /q "%%d"

@RD /S /Q "Build"
@RD /S /Q "Saved"
@RD /S /Q ".vs"
del "Shifted.sln" /s /f /q

===============================

"%ENGINE_PATH%Engine\Binaries\DotNET\UnrealBuildTool.exe" -projectfiles -project="%WORKSPACE%\%PROJECT_NAME%.uproject" -game -rocket -progress
"%ENGINE_PATH%Engine\Binaries\DotNET\UnrealBuildTool.exe" %PROJECT_NAME% %BUILD_CONFIGURATION% Win64 -project="%WORKSPACE%/%PROJECT_NAME%.uproject" -rocket -editorrecompile -progress -noubtmakefiles -NoHotReloadFromIDE -2019

===============================

"%ENGINE_PATH%Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat" BuildCookRun -project="%WORKSPACE%\%PROJECT_NAME%.uproject" -noP4 -platform=Win64 -clientconfig=%BUILD_CONFIGURATION% -cook -numcookerstospawn=8 -compressed -EncryptIniFiles -ForDistribution -allmaps -build -stage -pak -prereqs -package -archive -archivedirectory="%WORKSPACE%/Saved/Builds"

Done.

I made a Jenkins CI monitor

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Now that we have Jenkins running for Shifted I wanted to have the stats displayed easily. I set up a grafana dashboard in a vm on my server and hooked up Jenkins to it.

I got this idea from the Sea of Thieves talk (Automated Testing at Scale in Sea of Thieves) by Jessica Baker. (specifically the timestamp (1504)).

This probably isn’t the most ideal way to do this, but it works. For this build, I just used one of my old Raspberry Pi’s (the 3B) and I picked up a 5" screen from ELECROW. I installed Raspbian, connected to Wifi, and then opened the grafana dashboard via Chromium. (then full-screened and used Kiosk mode in grafana)

New Server and New Network

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE 12/26/2020: I’ve changed the drives in the server to be 2x 3TB (raid 1) and 2x 1TB (raid 1).

I recently set up CI (Jenkins) for Shifted and I thought why not have a machine that I can use as a server for various things such as Jenkins? A few years ago I had a full-fledged homelab that contained 6 1U servers (3 Supermicro and 3 Dell). I used only 1-2 of these servers and the rest - well, collected dust. I ran ESXi, pfsense, and a ton of other random things. I got into network security and let’s skip a year. I didn’t use them that much so I started shutting them down. I moved to more consumer-grade networking gear and again lets fast forward to the present time.

Weekly Update 21

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a few weeks since my last weekly update and it’s for a good reason. The past few weeks I’ve been very busy working on Shifted. We’re currently preparing the game to show to various investors so everything needs to be perfect. My work should continue to be crazy for the next few weeks and then it should slow down some. Hopefully, we’ll have something to share with the public very soon.

Visual Studio Settings

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I also did a post on the extensions that I use.

Shortcuts

Some of these are default in Visual Studio and some others aren’t.

Collapse all code (Ctrl + M + O)
Uncollapse all code (Ctrl + M + L)
Rename method (Ctrl + R + R) - set using Visual Assist
Change method signature (Ctrl + R + E) - set using Visual Assist
Encapsulate member (Ctrl + E + E) - set using Visual Assist
Set block to inactive (if 0) (Shift + 3) - set using Visual Assist
Move lines (Alt + Up or Alt + Down)
Multi-select lines (Alt + Shift + Up or Alt + Shift + Down)

Feedback via Discord in UE4

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You can just download the class here if you’re lazy. mbpfl.h and mbpfl.cpp

Create a BlueprintFunctionLibrary class in C++ and add these includes and defines.

 C++
 
 
#if PLATFORM_WINDOWS
#include "Windows/WindowsPlatformMisc.h"
#elif PLATFORM_LINUX
#include "Linux/LinuxPlatformMisc.h"
#elif PLATFORM_MAC
#include "Mac/MacPlatformMisc.h"
#endif

#include "GameFramework/GameUserSettings.h"

#define BUG_REPORT_WEBHOOK_URL "YOURWEBHOOKURLHERE"
#define MYGAME_VERSION "v1.0-pre-alpha"
#define DEFAULT_ICON_URL "https://www.google.com/images/branding/googlelogo/1x/googlelogo_color_272x92dp.png"

Add the following enums and structs to the header.

 C++
 
 
UENUM(BlueprintType)
enum class EBugReportCategory : uint8
{
 Map,
 Weapon,
 Other
};

UENUM(BlueprintType)
enum class EBugReportPriority : uint8
{
 Crash,
 High,
 Med,
 Low
};

USTRUCT()
struct FDiscordMessageField
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 UPROPERTY()
 FString name;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString value;
 UPROPERTY()
 bool binline;
};

USTRUCT()
struct FDiscordMessageEmbedAuthor
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 UPROPERTY()
 FString name;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString url;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString icon_url;

 FDiscordMessageEmbedAuthor() : url("https://trdwll.com"), icon_url(DEFAULT_ICON_URL) {}
};

USTRUCT()
struct FDiscordMessageEmbedFooter
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 UPROPERTY()
 FString text;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString icon_url;

 FDiscordMessageEmbedFooter() : icon_url(DEFAULT_ICON_URL) {}
};

USTRUCT()
struct FDiscordMessageEmbed
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 UPROPERTY()
 FString title;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString description;
 UPROPERTY()
 uint32 color;
 UPROPERTY()
 TArray<FDiscordMessageField> fields;
 UPROPERTY()
 FDiscordMessageEmbedAuthor author;
 UPROPERTY()
 FDiscordMessageEmbedFooter footer;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString timestamp;

 FDiscordMessageEmbed() : color(720640), timestamp(FDateTime::Now().ToIso8601()) {}

 uint32 GetColor(const EBugReportPriority Priority)
 {
 switch (Priority)
 {
 case EBugReportPriority::Crash: return 16711680;
 case EBugReportPriority::High: return 12389388;
 case EBugReportPriority::Med: return 16742912;
 default:
 case EBugReportPriority::Low: return 720640;
 }
 }
};

USTRUCT()
struct FDiscordMessage
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 UPROPERTY()
 FString username;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString avatar_url;
 UPROPERTY()
 FString content;
 UPROPERTY()
 TArray<FDiscordMessageEmbed> embeds;

 FDiscordMessage() : avatar_url(DEFAULT_ICON_URL) {}
};

USTRUCT(BlueprintType)
struct FBugReportUserData
{
 GENERATED_BODY()

 UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite)
 FString Author;
 UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite)
 FVector Location;
 UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite)
 FString MapName;
 UPROPERTY(BlueprintReadWrite)
 FString Message;
};

Add the following to your header file.

 C++
 
 
 // Thanks to Rama for this method
 // GetEnumValueAsString<EEnumType>("EEnumType", Value);
 template<typename TEnum>
 static FString GetEnumValueAsString(const FString& Name, TEnum Value)
 {
 const UEnum* enumPtr = FindObject<UEnum>(ANY_PACKAGE, *Name, true);
 if (!enumPtr)
 {
 return FString("Invalid");
 }
 return enumPtr->GetNameByValue((int64)Value).ToString();
 }

 UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "Discord")
 static void SubmitBugReport(const EBugReportCategory Category, const EBugReportPriority Priority, const FBugReportUserData& AuthorData, FString& ReportID, bool bIncludeSpecs = true);

 /**
 * Gets the number of RAM on the system
 */
 UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure)
 static FORCEINLINE int32 GetTotalRAM()
 {
 const FPlatformMemoryConstants& MemoryConstants = FPlatformMemory::GetConstants();
 return MemoryConstants.TotalPhysicalGB;
 }

 UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure)
 static FString GetGameResolution() { return *FString::Printf(TEXT("%dx%d"), UGameUserSettings::GetGameUserSettings()->GetScreenResolution().X, UGameUserSettings::GetGameUserSettings()->GetScreenResolution().Y); }

 /**
 * Gets the CPU Brand Name information.
 */
 UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure)
 static FString GetCPUBrandName()
 {
#if PLATFORM_WINDOWS
 return FWindowsPlatformMisc::GetCPUBrand();
#elif PLATFORM_LINUX
 return FLinuxPlatformMisc::GetCPUBrand();
#elif PLATFORM_MAC
 return FMacPlatformMisc::GetCPUBrand();
#endif
 }

 /**
 * Gets the CPU Vendor Name information.
 */
 UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure)
 static FString GetCPUVendorName()
 {
#if PLATFORM_WINDOWS
 return FWindowsPlatformMisc::GetCPUVendor();
#elif PLATFORM_LINUX
 return FLinuxPlatformMisc::GetCPUVendor();
#elif PLATFORM_MAC
 return FMacPlatformMisc::GetCPUVendor();
#endif
 }

 /**
 * Gets the GPU Brand Name information.
 */
 UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure)
 static FString GetGPUBrandName()
 {
#if PLATFORM_WINDOWS
 return FWindowsPlatformMisc::GetPrimaryGPUBrand();
#elif PLATFORM_LINUX
 return FLinuxPlatformMisc::GetPrimaryGPUBrand();
#elif PLATFORM_MAC
 return FMacPlatformMisc::GetPrimaryGPUBrand();
#endif
 }

 /**
 * Gets the GPU Driver information.
 */
 UFUNCTION(BlueprintPure)
 static FORCEINLINE FString GetGPUDriverInfo() { return GRHIAdapterUserDriverVersion; }

Using Google Cloud Storage for Screenshots

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For a while, I used vgy.me for hosting my screenshots, and while I didn’t have any issues with it until recently. It never really occurred to me that I should host my own. A few days ago I started having 404 and 500 errors with vgy.me so I said that’s enough and I began research on the top cloud providers (Google, AWS, and Azure). I settled on Google Cloud Platform hence this post.

New House, New Office, and New Workstation

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The delay in this post is because I wanted to finish decorating etc before posting. - I hope you understand. 😉

New House

So last month on July 4th, 2020 I moved into a new house. The reason behind this is that our landlords had decided to sell the house that we lived in since I was a kid. (~14 years we lived there) No worries, we moved out before the place sold so we wouldn’t have to worry about it later. In fact, our new house is quite nice.

Weekly Update 20

Sat, 12 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So I missed the weekly update by a day… So?

This week I worked on Shifted and did mainly steam and vivox things. Other than that I didn’t really do anything else.

until next time

Weekly Update 19

Fri, 04 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Welp time to get back into the groove of writing these things. (I hope)

So this week I’ve been very busy doing stuff with Steam and doing a major refactor to the project. I even got around to setting up the VR machine (my old desktop) so I can properly test Shifted now. I believe we’re going to have some exciting news in the coming weeks, but not 100% sure just yet. I’m really excited to get this game out the door and into the hands of players.

I Quit My Day Job and Now I'm a Fulltime Gamedev

Sun, 23 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few months, I’ve started hating the golf course job more and more - to the point that I would call off and not care about the repercussions. I’m happy to say that I left that job as of Sunday, August 23, 2020. The job was amazing in the beginning, but as time passed I slowly started to dislike it. This job laid off staff during the winter (since you can’t exactly mow grass in the cold (you actually can lol)). I’ve always known that I didn’t want to have a long career in golf course maintenance so here I am. My body can’t take 90*F+ with humidity or standing/walking for hours any longer. My feet are always killing me and coming home with migraines from the heat isn’t fun either. The job is great, but not for everyone and my time was always limited from day one.

Weekly Update 18

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been failing to write one of these for a while so I figured I’d go ahead and write one this week.

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on Shifted VR more and I’m really happy with the work. I can’t go into exact details on stuff that I’ve been working on other than I reimplemented Vivox in C++, implemented Steam Parties, and a Dynamic Spawning System.

I have some really exciting news coming very soon so get ready for that.

Weekly Update 17

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Well it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these so I think it’s time to start again.

This week I’ve been implementing Vivox again in Shifted. This time I’ve been putting it into C++ and I also used the actual SDK instead of a third party plugin from before. I’ve made some great progress on this recently and I’m about finished with it. I’ll be moving onto some other tasks after this one so maybe next week I’ll be writing about them some.

Why I use Hungarian Notation with C++

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So Hungarian Notation is an old(er) formatting for code. I don’t fully use it, but I mainly use m_ for members so I know if they’re a member of said class and s_ so I know the member is static.

A lot of people disagree with this formatting, but I use it just for cleanliness. Honestly, I don’t really have another reason for this, it’s just what I like. I like being able to read code and know where a member is from.

Why I've been AFK

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So the past few weekly updates I’ve posted that I haven’t done anything and that’s 100% true. In fact, I skipped last week’s weekly update since I didn’t do anything last week either and I felt it was pointless to post that the same thing again.

Over the past month, I’ve been so lazy that I haven’t even written any code. I opened Beanstalk, read through some code, and closed Visual Studio. I lost all motivation last month and I’m planning on working on an existing contract starting Monday (July 6, 2020) which will be a good amount of C++ that I’ll get to write. I’m going to write up a weekly update this week, but it might not be on Friday.

Weekly Update 16

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

And another week full of nothing interesting. I plan on working on my engine Beanstalk Engine this weekend, but I am moving very soon so I need to start packing stuff again.

until next time

Weekly Update 15

Fri, 12 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

And another week full of nothing interesting.

until next time

Weekly Update 14

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Another week with nothing done. I’ve been very busy this week at my day job to the point where I zone out when I get home. I’ve been training 2 new guys also so that’s kinda cool I guess.

until next time

Weekly Update 13

Fri, 29 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week at my day job we did sod work (yesterday). Other than that I really didn’t do anything else. I did work on some stuff that I’ll be writing about soon so…

until next time

Weekly Update 12

Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Another week full of nothing. It’s been raining a ton here so my day job has been nothing other than tree work.

I did start on some small systems that I’m going to write up guides on doing them so prepare for that if you will.

until next time

Open Source All of the Things

Tue, 19 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

After reading Tom Preston-Werner’s post (Open Source (Almost) Everything) it got me thinking that I should write about this topic also.

I’m a huge fan of open-source software. I know I haven’t released a ton of software or even contributed to much, but it was a new years resolution this year to do both of those things. I agree with open-sourcing most of your software as a company, but not your bread and butter.

Weekly Update 11

Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Well, this week was very uneventful - at home etc at least. I was very busy this week at my day job so there’s that. I did play Sea of Thieves quite a bit this week and I can say that it’s very fun still.

until next time

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Wed, 13 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been writing code for 10 years - I started in 2009/2010. The first language that I picked up with Visual Basic and then about 2 weeks later I switched to C# as I liked the syntax of C# more. I then eventually moved into PHP, C++, and other languages. Over these years I’ve worked on a ton of software - most private, but I’ve still grown my skills over time.

Weekly Update 10

Fri, 08 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Not much happened this week. I worked on VaRest by ufna a small amount (2 PRs) and that’s about it. I’ve played Sea of Thieves for a few hours this week also.

until next time

Choosing a License for Your Open Source Project

Mon, 04 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There are soo many licenses for open source projects and it can be confusing to choose which one you should go with. There’s 2 sites that I use when deciding on a license or if I just want to read about said license - tldrlegal and choosealicense.

I usually choose either MIT or BSD 3-clause for most of my projects. Both of these licenses allow the end-user or anyone to do whatever they want with the code as long as they provide attribution.

Weekly Update 9

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend I worked on HordeMode some and I’m actually quite proud of the work that I did. It wasn’t much, but I hadn’t touched that project in quite some time so I’m proud that I finally did.

I plan to work on HordeMode more this weekend if Satisfactory doesn’t pull me in more. Oh yeah, I bought Satisfactory Sunday and I’ve been playing it non-stop.

I know I haven’t really written much stuff recently and I do apologize for that, but my day job has been exhausting. All I do when I get home is just watch videos. I do plan on writing up some good posts in the near future so stay tuned. 😁

Weekly Update 8

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend I decided to open source an inventory system that I was working on a while back. It’s available here. Instead of telling you what I did every single day of the week at my day job which tbh is getting annoying to try and remember what I did - I’m going to just write larger events that go on at my day job.

This week we mainly worked on cutting and laying sod on a new teebox.

A Firearm Hobby

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Since I was a child I’ve been around firearms and I’ve always been taught the right ways of handling firearms. Not only that, but I’ve been taught the responsibility of using and owning them.

A couple of years ago my dad gifted me his first AR-15 for Christmas and that really sparked my interest in firearms more. Last year I decided I wanted to conceal carry for various reasons, but the main reason was that all of these shootings happening and I wanted to be protected. I ended up purchasing a brand new Glock 43 which is 6+1 and for anyone that’s been shooting you know 6+1 isn’t much, so I went a bought 2 Taran Tactical +3 base pads for my mags. This gives me 9+1 and 9 extra in my second mag. Then I ended up purchasing both my Remington 700 and Savage .22 the same day and I love them all.

Weekly Update 7

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Monday and Tuesday I picked up sticks (there was a high wind storm over the weekend) at my day job and Wednesday I pumped out bunkers (again holding water due to the storm) and then started raking the bunkers. Thursday I finished raking the bunkers with an hour of overtime and today I mowed collars again. I then worked on cleaning up 8 fairway (has mud on it due to water running over it during construction/heavy rains since).

Building an Image Hosting Website

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I developed and operated an image hosting website called imglnx.com (image links/lynx) for just over a year (Dec 5, 2016-Mar 3, 2018). The domain changed ownership to a trusted friend on Nov 20, 2018, and I have no idea if that friend will recreate imglnx.

I created imglnx (archive) for a very simple reason, to create an image host that focused on free, fast, secure, and simple image hosting with a focus on privacy. Not only did I operate imglnx, but I also operated my own DNS servers. The entire service was based outside of the USA (excluding the domain - was registered at Namecheap).

Weekly Update 6

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week wasn’t that eventful. I ran a weedeater all week at my day job, but today I learned something new. I got to run a collar mower for the first time and it was pretty easy. I’m glad that I’m learning new things at my day job.

Over last weekend I pushed some updates to HordeMode which was very exciting. I plan to work on it more this weekend, but we’ll see.

How to Setup Your Own VPN

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With security and privacy being a major thing nowadays I figured I’d write up a short guide on how to set up your own VPN.

For this guide I used Vultr (affiliate link) since I had some credit left with them and only needed a VPS for an hour max. The main thing with this is you’re going to want at least a 1Gbps connection on your VPS, 1GB ram, and no less than 1 core. The VPS cost me $0.02 for the hour that I had it online.

Logging in UE4

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Macros that I use for logging/printing.

Use them via PRINT("MyStringToPrint"); or LOG("MyStringToLog"); or LOG("MyStringToLog %f", 3.0f); etc.

 C++
 
 
#if 1
#include "Engine/Engine.h"
#include "DrawDebugHelpers.h"

#define GETSTR(text, ...) *FString::Printf(TEXT(text), ##__VA_ARGS__)

#define PRINT(color, text, ...) if (GEngine) GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 10.f, color, CUR_CLASS_LINE + ": " + GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define PRINT_S(text, ...) if (GEngine) GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 10.f, FColor::Yellow, CUR_CLASS_LINE + ": [SUCCESS] " + GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define PRINT_E(text, ...) if (GEngine) GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 10.f, FColor::Red, CUR_CLASS_LINE + ": [ERROR] " + GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define PRINT_W(text, ...) if (GEngine) GEngine->AddOnScreenDebugMessage(-1, 10.f, FColor::Orange, CUR_CLASS_LINE + ": [WARNING] " + GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define LOG(text, ...) UE_LOG(LogTemp, Log, TEXT("%s: %s"), *CUR_CLASS, GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define LOG_S(text, ...) UE_LOG(LogTemp, Log, TEXT("%s: [SUCCESS] %s"), *CUR_CLASS, GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define LOG_W(text, ...) UE_LOG(LogTemp, Warning, TEXT("%s: [WARNING] %s"), *CUR_CLASS, GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define LOG_E(text, ...) UE_LOG(LogTemp, Error, TEXT("%s: [ERROR] %s"), *CUR_CLASS, GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))
#define LOG_D(text, ...) UE_LOG(LogTemp, Display, TEXT("%s: [WARNING] %s"), *CUR_CLASS, GETSTR(text, ##__VA_ARGS__))

#define PRINT_LOG(color, text, ...) PRINT(color, text, ##__VA_ARGS__); LOG(text, ##__VA_ARGS__);
#define PRINT_LOG_S(text, ...) PRINT_S(text, ##__VA_ARGS__); LOG_S(text, ##__VA_ARGS__);
#define PRINT_LOG_W(text, ...) PRINT_W(text, ##__VA_ARGS__); LOG_W(text, ##__VA_ARGS__);
#define PRINT_LOG_E(text, ...) PRINT_E(text, ##__VA_ARGS__); LOG_E(text, ##__VA_ARGS__);

/** Current Class Name + Function Name where this is called! */
#define CUR_CLASS_FUNC (FString(__FUNCTION__))

/** Current Class where this is called! */
#define CUR_CLASS (FString(__FUNCTION__).Left(FString(__FUNCTION__).Find(TEXT(":"))) )

/** Current Function Name where this is called! */
#define CUR_FUNC (FString(__FUNCTION__).Right(FString(__FUNCTION__).Len() - FString(__FUNCTION__).Find(TEXT("::")) - 2 ))

/** Current Line Number in the code where this is called! */
#define CUR_LINE (FString::FromInt(__LINE__))

/** Current Class and Line Number where this is called! */
#define CUR_CLASS_LINE (CUR_CLASS + "(" + CUR_LINE + ")")

/** Current Function Signature where this is called! */
#define CUR_FUNCSIG (FString(__FUNCSIG__))
#else
#define PRINT(color, text)
#define PRINT_S(text)
#define PRINT_E(text)
#define LOG(text, ...)
#define LOG_S(text, ...)
#define LOG_W(text, ...)
#define LOG_E(text, ...)
#define LOG_D(text, ...)
#define PRINT_LOG_S(text)
#define PRINT_LOG_W(text)
#define PRINT_LOG_E(text)
#endif

Weekly Update 5

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Oh jeez. This week at my day job I worked on drainage. We put in 4 4" corrugated pipe in 4 rows (separated by probably 15’). The process went like this. The ditches had fallen in some so we had to get in them (they were very soupy) and dig out the excess material on the bottom to make them flat with a small grade so the water would flow freely. We then put in pea gravel as a base, the pipe, more pea gravel, and then finally dirt.

Using const in C++

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So what is const? Const means constant… Why should you use const? You should use const when you don’t need to edit the value etc.

I’m by no means an expert, but if I made a typo feel free to reach out.

 C++
 
 
class Example
{
public:

 Example() {}

 // const on the end means you "promise" that the method won't edit any values in the class Example (can get around this by marking a variable mutable)
 int GetA() const { return m_A; }

 // If you're going to return a pointer you can add const before and after the * just like below (ugly)
 const int* const GetB() const { return m_B; }

private:
 int m_A;
 int* m_B;
};

int main()
{
 // const before a * means you can't modify the contents of the pointer
 // const after a * means you can't modify the pointer
 // const before and after adds both above

 int VALUE = 1337;

 int* a = new int(1);
 const int* b = new int(50);
 int* const c = new int(100);
 const int* const d = new int(8000);

 // You can also do int const* instead of const int* which means the same thing as they're before the *

 std::cout << "A: " << *a << std::endl;
 std::cout << "B: " << *b << std::endl;
 std::cout << "C: " << *c << std::endl;
 std::cout << "D: " << *d << std::endl;

 *a = 2; // We can set the value
 // *b = 10; // We can't set the value of b since const is before the *
 b = &VALUE; // We can set the pointer
 *c = 25; // We can set the value
 // c = &a; // We can't set the pointer to something else

 // We can't do anything to d as we specify const before and after the * (there are ways around stuff like this though)
 // *d = 80;
 // d = &CONST_VALUE;

 std::cout << "A: " << *a << std::endl;
 std::cout << "B: " << *b << std::endl;
 std::cout << "C: " << *c << std::endl;
 std::cout << "D: " << *d << std::endl;

 std::cin.get();
}

Visual Studio Extensions That I Use

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These are the extensions that I have in my Visual Studio install.

Visual Assist
Visual Studio IntelliCode
Live Share
VSColorOutput
Indent Guides
Trailing Whitespace Visualizer
Entrian Source Search
Entrian Inline Watch
Open Command Line
Markdown Editor

until next time

Weekly Update 4

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week went by fast. I didn’t really do much this week. I wrote some code for Shifted, I worked on this website, and I wasn’t crazy busy at my day job this week. Maybe next week will be more eventful.

until next time

How I Got Into Programming

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I began writing code back in early 2010. I got into programming so I could make mods for a game that you may have heard of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Sure mods ruined that game and several others, but it not only helped teach me code - it also gave me an outlet as a teenager. Instead of being out doing mischievous things I would stay inside and write code. This code from back then wasn’t good at all, but it was fun.

Why I Switched from CentOS to FreeBSD

Sat, 21 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Simply put… software versions. I got tired of messing with compiling Python from source and all of that shit. I feel like FreeBSD is also faster when doing updates etc.

I used CentOS as my main OS for servers for several years and it pains me to say, but I love FreeBSD and I wish I made the switch a while back. I don’t hate CentOS, but it’s not going to be the OS that I choose when deploying stuff (unless I don’t have a choice or I can’t choose FreeBSD).

Weekly Update 3

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This week was crazy busy at my day job. We did aerification on Monday and the rest of the week was work revolving around that as it had rained etc.

Yesterday I test drove a truck that I’m currently looking at and I love it. We also cut down a couple of trees at work yesterday so that was fun. This week I haven’t worked on Shifted or really anything else other than my day job stuff. Getting back into the groove of my day job is exhausting, but rewarding. Finally today, it was raining this morning so we didn’t do much today at work. I mainly sanded rust off of some machinery to prep it for primer and paint.

How I Take Screenshots

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Depending on what the screenshot is for will determine how I take the screenshot. If I’m sharing the screenshot via Discord etc then I’ll just use vgy.me by using ShareX. If I’m sharing via this site then I’ll just use the snipping tool that’s built into windows.

A note on ShareX, it’s crazy bloated with tools that shouldn’t be in the application - but it works just fine. In fact, I built a tool a few years ago called CaptureThat (I doubt it still works lol), because ShareX is just bloated with stuff that I didn’t use. One great thing about ShareX is it supports a TON of sites to upload your screenshot to and it also supports recording video.

Base64 in UE4

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

While I was looking for projects to contribute to on GitHub I remembered VaRest was on GitHub. I headed over to VaRest’s repo and was looking at issues. I found the issue and so I went on my way of finding a solution.

My solution for encoding was to convert the input string to utf8 and then encode. My solution for decoding was practically the same, I convert the string to a tchar from utf8, decode, and then output the result. Pretty easy right? Yeah no this solution took me about an hour and I had to get some assistance from an acquaintance, because the encoding was adding extra chars on the end and some other random issues.

Weekly Update 2

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So this week again wasn’t really productive. Starting on Monday I attended my aunt’s funeral. Tuesday was a great day - I started back at my day job. The rest of the week was just day job stuff while I get back into the routine. Wednesday I received my Oculus Rift so that’s very exciting - I’m very excited to work more on Shifted (a VR game that I’m contracting on).

My Favorite TV Shows

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wrote a post like this several years ago on my old blog and unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of it and it would probably be outdated by now anyway.

Here are my favorite shows in alphabetical order.

Chernobyl
Chicago Fire
Chicago Med
Chicago PD
Designated Survivor
Justified
LivePD & Cops
Mr. Robot
Rescue Me
SEAL Team (CBS)
Silicon Valley
Sons of Anarchy
Suits
Yellowstone

I’m sure there are a ton that I’m forgetting, but whatever.

Weekly Update 1

Fri, 06 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Since one of my new year’s resolutions was to blog more (which I have already beat lol) I figured why not write an update post every week on what I did that week. I got the idea from Troy Hunt except I’m not doing a video. Yes, I’m aware the week starts on Sundays, but I’m writing these posts every Friday so deal with it.

So what did I do this week? Well, I wasn’t crazy productive this week, but here we go.

Using Interfaces in UE4

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Interfaces are an amazing thing that’s in programming. An interface describes the behavior or capabilities of a C++ class without committing to a particular implementation of that class. Meaning any class that extends an interface has to implement the methods of that interface. You can also add more than 1 interface to a class and an abstract class you can’t. More on this later. The simplest way to explain what an interface is would be it’s a class with no implementation.

UE4 and GameLift

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I recently got hired by a company that had me implement GameLift into their UE4 project. Since there’s not much useful information out there on this in my opinion I figured I’d write up a guide on using it.

Prerequisites for either platform

Dedicated Server support in your UE4 project

Building the GameLiftServerSDK for Windows

Prerequisites

Visual Studio
cmake (When installing make sure to enable the add to PATH setting)

Growing Your Skills as a Software Engineer

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past ~6 years I’ve been friends with a great programmer - someone that has taught me stuff over the years and I still learn stuff from him. I’ve grown to ask him for help when I’m stuck rather than dig deep on an issue and this is certainly a BAD thing to do. I’ve recently realized that I do it too often and while I still do my own research it’s still bad. If I ever want to grow my skills I need to figure things out on my own - I’m basically spoiled. I’m certainly a better programmer than when I first started, but I can’t stop thinking that maybe if I didn’t ask for help as often my skills would be better.

Version Control

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I hear stories about people not using a Version Control System (“VCS”) and how they are having an issue with new code, lost all of their work, or just don’t use one at all. I remember back in 2014 (I believe) I joined a team that was working on an FPS game. I quickly found out that they were using Google Drive as a VCS. lol wut? This happened again last year in 2019 when I joined a team that was working on a survival game - they were also using Google Drive. The team behind the survival game switched to Git after I had joined, but even Git isn’t the best for a UE4 project.

Accessing Your GameLift Instance

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Prerequisites

AWS CLI
A GameLift fleet already created
Patience

This guide is assuming you’re on Windows as your main OS, but if you’re using Linux then the commands will be the same for AWS, but the system commands like changing the ssh key permission for Linux would be chmod 400 gameliftkey.pem.

Windows

Open Command Prompt (cmd) and type in aws gamelift describe-instances --fleet-id <your-fleet-id>. Replace with your actual fleet id which you can find here.
Now in cmd run aws gamelift get-instance-access --fleet-id <your-fleet-id> --instance-id <your-instance-id>. Again replace the contents in with the details from the command above.
Excellent, now you can log into your instance. Open Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) on Windows (Windows key and type in RDP). Log in with the details from the command above.
To access your game go to C:\Game.

Choosing Workstation Specs

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

An updated version of my workstation is listed on this post.

I used to get asked often about pc specs for various things and I’ve spec’d out some systems for some friends over the years. Recently I was speaking with someone on Discord and I asked what they think that I should write about on my blog - you know useful stuff. So here’s one idea from them.

When building a workstation or a pc the first thing you need to figure out is what you’re going to be doing with it specifically. This is an important thing to think about because it could save you some money and even a headache down the line.

Installing a UE4 Plugin Into Your Project

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is a very easy thing to do so don’t worry.

If the plugin is downloaded from the Marketplace then go into your Engine install directory (mine is C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.24\Engine\Plugins\Marketplace). If it’s download elsewhere then just go to step 2.
Copy the plugin folder that you’re wanting to add to your project into your project/Plugins directory

That’s literally all that you need to do. Just open your project and done.

Securing Your Game Studio Brand

Mon, 10 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So you want to use a team name or whatever and verify that it’s not taken? Great, then continue reading.

Before we get started I have to say that I’m not an attorney and that you should speak with yours or even if you don’t have one go speak with one anyway. They do consultations for free! mind = blown

This guide is structured for US teams/businesses but can be applied to anywhere by using the trademark/business search for said country.

Secure Password Storage

Fri, 07 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Once upon a time, I used a text document with all of my passwords and I stored this on a USB flashdrive. Before you ask - no I didn’t keep it plugged in.

For several years now I’ve been using KeePass and VeraCrypt. I have a flash drive that I used VeraCrypt on and I store KeePass on it. I only mount my flash drive when I actually need a password or an ssh key etc. I don’t keep it decrypted either - once I’m finished I encrypt/unmount it.

Debugging the Speed of Websites

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When developing a website one main concern should be is performance. Here are a few tools to help you debug what could be causing speed issues. (load times)

These sites are basically the same thing, but it’s always a good idea to use different references when debugging.

Using these sites I was able to speed up this site by a good amount. At the time of writing this I could still strip out some of my css from bootstrap that it’s being used, but I think it’s ok enough.

Packaging Your UE4 Plugin

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I got asked yesterday how to package UE4 plugins for distribution. It’s honestly very simple to do.

Go to Edit -> Plugins and scroll down to Project/Other.
On the plugin that you want to package select Package.
Then just choose a folder to package to. If you get any compile/build errors then fix them and press Package again.

Easy as 1, 2, 3. 😁

UPDATE: I posted about Jenkins and UE4 and I have a command at the bottom for building plugins.

Days Gone

Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So I just completed the story and all I can say is wow. Overall the game is great.

Loading Times

Holy shit the loading times are bad. I assume it’s not the game, but the PS4 Pro.

I mean yeah, ~48 seconds isn’t that bad - especially when compared to GTAV. I’m mostly being a baby. 😄 The main menu is well designed though, I really do like it.

Level Design

Ohhhhhhhhhhh wow. Bend did an amazing job on the level. I mean seriously, they made a truly beautiful game. Here are some screenshots, but I’m sure you get what I’m talking about. (click on them to get the full resolution images)

Adding a Day/Night Cycle in UE4 in C++

Mon, 27 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE: This method shouldn’t be used anymore. Epic released an atmosphere plugin that replaces the skybox that was used in this guide. To get it working with that it just requires some small changes and I’ll eventually update the post.

This code was apart of an old project of mine that never went anywhere so I figured I’d add it to an example project and release for free. Everyone could use a day/night cycle that’s networked right?

Server Providers

Fri, 24 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I get asked about providers or who I use or even when I see people using an expensive provider for what they get. So this post will talk about what providers I’ve used.

Notable providers that I’ve used.

OVH

One of the best providers I’ve used and I’ll always go back to them. They’re crazy cheap for what they offer and they’re just great. The way they do their networking is weird for consumers especially if you want to do ESXi etc and have multiple machines. My friend Jack found out that doing Ubuntu etc and then KVM machines are easier.

Setting up a UE4 Project for Dedicated Server

Mon, 20 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ready to build your game’s dedicated server? Whoa there buddy. We have some work to do before you can.

Before you start down the road of following this guide make sure you have ~130GB free storage for the engine.

Download UnrealEngine from GitHub. If you don’t have access to this then go and follow this guide. You can either download the zip (release) or do a git clone.
Go into the directory where you downloaded the engine and run Setup.bat.
Run GenerateProjectFiles.bat and then open UE4.sln.
Select Development Editor, Win64, and UE4 then press Local Windows Debugger (or Debug -> Start Debugging or Build -> Build Solution). This will take a while (~40 minutes) so just let it do its thing.
After it’s completed the project selector will show up (if you had no errors) and then you can just close the editor and Visual Studio.
Go to your project and right click your uproject (Switch Unreal Engine version) then select the Source build.
Create a Server and Client target.cs file. The Client.Target.cs file will look similar to: (download example ExampleProjectClient.Target.cs)

 
 
 
using UnrealBuildTool;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class ExampleProjectClientTarget : TargetRules
{
 public ExampleProjectClientTarget(TargetInfo Target) : base(Target)
 {
 Type = TargetType.Client;
 DefaultBuildSettings = BuildSettingsVersion.V2;
 ExtraModuleNames.Add("ExampleProject");
 }
}

The Server.Target.cs file will look similar to: (download example ExampleProjectServer.Target.cs)

Using Unreal Frontend to Package Your Project

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So you’re wanting to use UF to package your projects like a pro? You’re in the right place then. 😃

UF makes it easier to build for different platforms with different settings (such as Development or Shipping) with just the click of a button.

Go to your engine install folder and find UnrealFrontend.exe. (Mine is C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.24\Engine\Binaries\Win64)
Create a shortcut and put on your desktop or wherever.
Open UnrealFrontend and click the bottom right + sign under Custom Launch Profiles.
Customize settings for your game. These are some settings that I use when packaging.
Click the back button at the top.
Press the build button.
The default directory will be Project/Saved/StagedBuilds.

Cross-Compiling for Linux on Windows for UE4

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There’s really not much information on this so I figured I’d write about it to help other people and help myself if I forget how. lol

This guide is written for 4.24, but should work for other versions. Or at the very least will be very similar for other versions.

Download and install the clang toolchain.
Add the settings to your DefaultEngine.ini.

[/Script/LinuxTargetPlatform.LinuxTargetSettings]
TargetArchitecture=X86_64UnknownLinuxGnu

There are 3 options for this. X86_64UnknownLinuxGnu, ArmUnknownLinuxGnueabihf, or AArch64UnknownLinuxGnueabi 3. Go into the launcher and download the Linux platform. (if you have source build then ignore this step) Click the down arrow on the right then make sure Linux is selected. 4. Package your project however you do whether it be via Editor (File -> Package Project) or Unreal Frontend.

New Years Resolutions 2020

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So every year people decide what they’re going to try and do in the new year and usually it’s stuff like go to the gym more or eat healthier. While those are mine every year also we all don’t stick to it and fall back into old habits.

This year I have some NYR that I really hope I can make some of them happen.

Release a video game
Maybe join the military
Lose some weight, ~30lbs
Contribute to more Open Source Software
Release more software
Become more successful than previous years
Blog more than I ever have

Most of these are very doable, however, I’m the one that’s in the way of not succeeding. I really do hope that 2020 is my year to finally succeed in things that are important to me. Now let’s talk about each resolution.

Installing Python 3 on CentOS 7

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

CentOS 7 ships with 2.7.5 and that’s not the best when you’re wanting to use Python 3.x so I’m going to teach you how to install 3.x.

This will work for any python version so you don’t have to use 3.7.5 like I did here. You can go and use the latest instead.

Run python -V and see what it says. If it’s not 3.x then continue to step 2.
Run whereis python, if you don’t see any python3.x binaries then continue to step 3.
Run as root/sudo yum groupinstall -y "Development Tools" then run yum install gcc openssl-devel bzip2-devel libffi-devel -y
Jump on over to the Python download page and find the link for the Gzipped source tarball. For this guide we’re going to be installing 3.7.5.
Run wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.5/Python-3.7.5.tgz or upload the source to the machine.
Once the source is on the machine then run tar -xvzf Python-3.7.5.tgz.
Run cd Python-3.7.5/ and then run ./configure --enable-optimizations
Now that you’ve configured the build for Python you can build and install it by doing make altinstall. This process will take some time so let it run. You don’t want to do make install, because this will mess with Python 2 which is required by most of the components of CentOS 7.
Python 3.x should be installed now so now you can do python3.x -V (in this guide should be python3.7 -V)

Why I Hate Blueprint in UE4

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Hate isn’t the best word to describe my feelings towards Blueprint (“BP”). Let’s go ahead and change that to strongly dislike or just dislike.

So I dislike using BP for a few reasons and the main one is performance. Yes, I’m aware you can use nativization to speed it up, but C++ would still be faster in the long run. I’m a programmer, I don’t feel like a programmer when I write BP and I find networking easier in C++. I also find C++ much cleaner and easier to understand (even if the code isn’t documented). I guess that’s like most programmers, we find code easy to understand. /shrug

Datacenter Dream

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For the past few years, I’ve had the dream or rather idea to build and run a datacenter.

I know, this isn’t logical when there are tons of providers out there that offer relatively affordable solutions. So why would I want to open one? Honestly, I have no clue. lmao

I believe you could open a datacenter with only a few hundred thousand dollars. For example, land in my area is rather cheap - while you couldn’t probably buy good commercial land with $300k you could buy a house and use it as an office. Then you’d need to get some internet from different providers (in my area good luck) and some servers.

Django Review

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Now that imglnx is released I can finally talk about Django since I’ve used it in a proper project now.

Docs

Django’s documentation is some of the best that I’ve ever seen while doing software development. They go in great detail and even have some quick tutorials.

Security

Out of the box Django adds protection for multiple things. I remember the days of writing PHP and using PDO - but then even having to write a simple wrapper to handle sanitation before even sending to my PDO query. With Django you don’t have to do that at all. Just allow anything in the DB and make sure you don’t mark stuff safe in your template.

Hello world!

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Welp, finally decided to get around to installing WordPress. I’m not really the blogging type nor do I ‘love’ WordPress. Anyways, I’ll be dumping whatever I feel like here so feel free to read and comment on it.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m Russ Treadwell, a self-taught programmer and the studio head at GhostJam Games. Over the past decade I’ve specialized in Unreal Engine, multiplayer architecture, and high-performance back-end infrastructure - shipping everything from rapid gameplay prototypes to deep engine customizations.

At GhostJam Games I direct business development and high-level technical strategy while staying hands-on with code architecture and implementation. You can spot my fingerprints on titles like No More Room in Hell 2 and VAIL VR.

Now

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Last updated: July 2026.

Writing weekly notes on engineering and small-company life.
Reading more, scrolling less. Still working on it.

This page is in the spirit of nownownow.com - a snapshot of the present, not the past.

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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000