[TriLUG] Game graphics engines..

[Robby Dermody]

Tanner,

We were basically looking at a 16/24/32-bit color 2D isometric tiling
engine. The programmer who was doing the graphics-related work put a basic
one together in Java (character movement, tiling, some basic effects), as we
were looking to code the client in Java. I don't remember the exact
performance figures, but I remember getting quite acceptable performance on
my Celeron 450 at the time under Linux, but it wasn't up to snuff on a
slower machine he had...a P200 or something I believe. Much much more would
need to be added in, like alpha blending, any run-time resource file
manipulation (like any resource decompression, dealing with loading/bltting
large sprite animations, etc), possibly run-time tile "isometricization"
(rotation/scaling into an isometric viewpoint), the networking protocol
stack, maybe directional sound down the road, and who knows else, so we
decided to take a look at C++. He's moved back up to Canda now, but was
working as a Java developer in RTP (at IBM I think) and did Java
graphics/game stuff in his spare time, and his opinion at the time was to
move to C++ for it. I think he tried a variety of SDKs under Linux and the
Sun SDK under Windows. I'll admit, our decision was pretty biased as I have
a bunch of C code that I wanted to share between the server and the client,
and I largely relied on his expertise in the area since I was the server
coder. And, as I said, this was around two years ago, when Java on Linux
wasn't nearly advanced as it is today and the native-code compilers were
rather immature (if they were around at all, I can't remember)...

I think most of the old Java code is on the CVS's attic at:
http://www.avalonent.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/avalon/Attic/client/source/

SDL in C++ seems to be working pretty well from what little code I have
built around it currently (working on the client now). I didn't want to
write my own OO isometric engine if I could avoid it...I'd learn alot and it
looks interesting, but there is SO much other stuff that needs to be coded,
so I found a pretty good looking one called Kyra:
http://www.grinninglizard.com/kyra/

It's under the GPL, the code looks nice, and the guy who develops it has
game industry experience and is very nice and supportive to new features.
The demo is kind of cheesy :) but demonstrates the nice features it has. It
is also being actively developed.

That's awesome that you were a VR programmer. I sure wish VR caught on more.
The hype machine kind of ran it out of steam though it seems. I tried a
fully immersive VR demo at an art and science museum years ago and it was
quite cool.

The CVS is at: http://www.avalonent.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/avalon/
I'm currently the only one actively working at the code now...Getting the
client framework to build on windows now.

Robby

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tanner Lovelace" <lovelace at wayfarer.org>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 3:05 PM
Subject: [TriLUG] Game graphics engines..


> On Mon, 2002-07-01 at 14:38, Robby Dermody wrote:
>
> > And to answer your first question. It was a game graphics engine (so yes
I
> > think I am justified). I had a developer prototype one, and we decided
that
> > the performance wasn't up to what we wanted (in that the engine would
need
> > to get more advanced, sound support, networking, etc would need to be
> > added). Keep in mind that this was 1 1/2 to 2 or so years ago, so Linux
java
> > compilers and the JDK itself were not nearly as mature as they are now,
if
> > they were existent in the first place. This fact was only one of the
ones
> > that made me decide to go with C++ and SDL (www.libsdl.org) for the
client
> > side of this game project. The other major factor was that the server is
in
> > C and having the client in C++ would allow more code-reuse between the
two.
> > Now you could reply and we could argue back and forth like two pedants,
but
> > the fact remains that MY decision was made for MY project and I'm happy
with
> > it....you may choose to use Java, that's great, but the fact remains
that it
> > just wasn't "there" when I decided. So nyah :)
>
> Hi Robby,
>
> Just out of curiosity, could you tell a little more about your
> "game graphics engine"?  What were you trying to do?  Were
> you using scenegraphs or something else?  Were you also adding
> in networking, physics, effects, etc....
>
> Tanner Lovelace, former virtual reality programmer
> --
> Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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