1. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lewis Townsend [mailto:Keroltarr at hotmail.com]
> Subject: The best grafix engine for my project
>
>
>
> Howdy folks,
>
> Ok, I have evaluated DirectE.
> It looks rather structurally restrictive.
> You gotta put stuff in specific procecures like init, display, etc.
> This is perfect for making graphics demos but I need to make a game;
> complete with gui shell etc. DE also has its own DLL file so
> I think it
> must be a wrapper of a wrapper. If I'm not mistaken, recent
> versions of
> Euphoria do not require this setup for DLLs any more.
>
> Really all I need is a 2D graphics engine. The project I'm working
> on is going to be a tile/sprite based game. It should look a
> little like
> Diablo(II), Arcanum, Fallout, etc. So I dont need Direct3D
> capability. I
> just need fast 2D blitting capabilities with all the
> trimmings (such as
> transparency, stretching, etc.).
>
> Question: does Win32Lib have this capability? I know it has some
> blitting routines. That would make doing the gui a lot easier but its
> got to be fast (blitting) as I'm going to do alot of transblitting to
> create 1 sprite. I'm using a compositing system where the arms, legs,
> torso, and head of a character are all separate images so I
> need plenty
> of speed.
Win32lib does have transparent blitting and stretching plus you can use the
API routines as well. It is NOT the fastest nor has anything like DirectX
capability. I have almost finished writing a little game demo for the next
release that uses animated sprites etc, and that runs very smoothly.
However, for serious animated games, you would be better getting something a
bit faster.
--
Derek
2. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Lewis Townsend wrote:
[snip]
> Really all I need is a 2D graphics engine. The project I'm working
> on is going to be a tile/sprite based game. It should look a little like
>
> Diablo(II), Arcanum, Fallout, etc. So I dont need Direct3D capability. I
>
> just need fast 2D blitting capabilities with all the trimmings (such as
> transparency, stretching, etc.).
Hi Lewis,
I'll plug my wrapper library :)
... euAllegro (I wrapper for Allegro - http://alleg.sourceforge.net)
with added libraries for:
* Pixel Perfect Collision Detection (PPCol),
* MOD playback (JGMOD),
* MP3 playback (ALMP3), and
* Tile Library (Mappy)
I haven't done anything with euAllegro for quiet some time but I
imagine it's still stable. It would be pretty easy to download the
most recent Allegro sources and recompile the whole thing to bring
it up to date.
The full sources and binary libs (DLL's) can be downloaded from
http://rays-web.com .
NOTE: I no longer maintain any of my Euphoria libs and would be happy
for anyone to take over maintenance / enhancements.
I'll help anyone interested where I can.
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
3. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Ray Smith wrote:
> I'll plug my wrapper library :)
> ... euAllegro (I wrapper for Allegro -
I also forgot to mention Allegro sits on top of DirectX on Windows and
is cross platform portable across many OS's ... including Linux and
FreeBSD (the only other 2 any Euphoria programmer would be interested
in)
I only got euAllegro to work with Windows but it wouldn't be difficult
to get the others to work.
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
4. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
That's the second vote I've heard for EuAllegro.
The reason I passed over it in my initial scan for gfx libs is because
its a wrapper of a wrapper. Allegro wraps DX and EuAllegro wraps
Allegro. But since it's obviously so popular I'll check into it.
LewyT
PS BTW CK if you used EuAllegro for a prototype what did you use for the
end product?
5. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Lewis Townsend wrote:
> That's the second vote I've heard for EuAllegro.
> The reason I passed over it in my initial scan for gfx libs is because
> its a wrapper of a wrapper. Allegro wraps DX and EuAllegro wraps
> Allegro. But since it's obviously so popular I'll check into it.
I think putting the words "euAllegro" and "popular" in the same sentance
is probably a little dangerous ;)
Saying that I don't think there are many people around making games in
Euphoria anymore.
The wrapper on a wrapper thing shouldn't worry anyone these days.
Mostly it would just mean 3 simple calls instead of 1 (if you
accessed DirectX directly!)
The Euphoria wrapper is very thin ... just enough to call C libs ...
and the Allegro wrapper is very thin on top of DirectX.
There are alot of other things Allegro provides separate from DirectX
which gives it added value.
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
6. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ray Smith [mailto:smithr at ix.net.au]
> Subject: RE: The best grafix engine for my project
>
>
>
> Lewis Townsend wrote:
> > That's the second vote I've heard for EuAllegro.
> > The reason I passed over it in my initial scan for gfx libs
> is because
> > its a wrapper of a wrapper. Allegro wraps DX and EuAllegro wraps
> > Allegro. But since it's obviously so popular I'll check into it.
>
> I think putting the words "euAllegro" and "popular" in the
> same sentance
> is probably a little dangerous ;)
> Saying that I don't think there are many people around making
> games in
> Euphoria anymore.
If by "games" you mean ones with extensive graphic animations, I'd say you a
correct. However, if the term "game" is expanded to include other forms of
computer games then you may not be so correct. I'm just putting the
finishing touches to a text-based RPG system that consists of a 'compiler'
and 'runtime' engine for Role Playing Games that use text as the primary
display for users, rather than animated graphics.
Actually the game system is finished and I'm 20-30% finished a demo game for
it. It'll be sent to RDS in either three days or in 24 days (got some
vacation time coming up).
--
Derek
7. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Derek Parnell wrote:
> If by "games" you mean ones with extensive graphic animations, I'd say
> you a
> correct.
No, just games in general. There are a couple of people around doing
some good stuff ... but considering the user base covers the whole
world there isn't alot going on.
> However, if the term "game" is expanded to include other forms of
> computer games then you may not be so correct. I'm just putting the
> finishing touches to a text-based RPG system that consists of a
> 'compiler'
> and 'runtime' engine for Role Playing Games that use text as the primary
> display for users, rather than animated graphics.
I have to say Derek, you are always full of surprises :)
> Actually the game system is finished and I'm 20-30% finished a demo game
> for
> it. It'll be sent to RDS in either three days or in 24 days (got some
> vacation time coming up).
I'm on vacation after tomorrow as well. I have some non Euphoria
projects in the works though.
You might consider a visit to the national Linux convention in
Adelaide next week.
http://linux.conf.au
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
8. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Hi Lewis,
FWIW, I've also been quietly working on a wrapper for Allegro that I try
to keep up-to-date with latest WIP's released at
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/
I've taken a different approach than Ray in that I don't integrate other
libs into a single DLL in an effort to keep it simple. This way people
can update their Allegro DLL with a precompiled release instead of
having to recompile everything. The disadvantage, of course, is that it
can't do everything that Ray's does because it lacks other helper libs
that I haven't wrapped separately (but could do if that functionality is
needed).
It's not in the Eu archives because it's incomplete but done enough to
write games. Let me know if you'd like to take a look.
Otherwise, another lib to consider that I haven't done much with is
libSDL. I believe Mark Akita has a wrapper in the archives; search for
"Simple Direct Media Layer".
-- Brian
Lewis Townsend wrote:
>
>
> That's the second vote I've heard for EuAllegro.
> The reason I passed over it in my initial scan for gfx libs is because
> its a wrapper of a wrapper. Allegro wraps DX and EuAllegro wraps
> Allegro. But since it's obviously so popular I'll check into it.
>
> LewyT
9. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Brian Broker wrote:
> I've taken a different approach than Ray in that I don't integrate other
>
> libs into a single DLL in an effort to keep it simple. This way people
> can update their Allegro DLL with a precompiled release instead of
> having to recompile everything.
Hi Brian,
The latest euAllegro release I did (a long time ago now ;) )
included seperate includes / DLL's for each of the add on libs.
Now anyone can just download the latest allegro dll and plug it into
euAllegro.
I put a fair amount of effort into doing this to make it moduler so
it would make it easier for others to hack.
For example (syntax and names are probably wrong since it's a couple
of years since I looked at it) but ...
you start a program with somthing like
include euallegro.ew
include jgmod.ew
include ppcol.ew
If you only include euallegro.ew then allegro is the only thing
included and you don't even have to distribute the non allegro dll's
or includes.
Regards,
Ray Smith
http://rays-web.com
10. RE: The best grafix engine for my project
Hi Ray,
I guess I failed to notice the pre-release 0.21 since the 0.1 beta I
looked at long ago. I'll have to check it out and maybe merge with my
wrapper that I haven't done much with lately.
-- Brian
Ray Smith wrote:
>
>
> Brian Broker wrote:
> > I've taken a different approach than Ray in that I don't integrate other
> >
> >
> > libs into a single DLL in an effort to keep it simple. This way people
> > can update their Allegro DLL with a precompiled release instead of
> > having to recompile everything.
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> The latest euAllegro release I did (a long time ago now ;) )
> included seperate includes / DLL's for each of the add on libs.
>
> Now anyone can just download the latest allegro dll and plug it into
> euAllegro.
>
> I put a fair amount of effort into doing this to make it moduler so
> it would make it easier for others to hack.
>
> For example (syntax and names are probably wrong since it's a couple
> of years since I looked at it) but ...
>
> you start a program with somthing like
>
> include euallegro.ew
> include jgmod.ew
> include ppcol.ew
>
>
> If you only include euallegro.ew then allegro is the only thing
> included and you don't even have to distribute the non allegro dll's
> or includes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ray Smith
> http://rays-web.com
>
