Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development I know what you mean and no, not really. Most common tasks in Visual Studio 2013 are painful if you are blind. That said, if youre doing it by editing the library path, thats what you end up doing with the command line build systems anyway. I left VS for command line build systems because it gets rid of all the tabbing, but nothing gets rid of the complexity. The two steps--editing libpath and adding it to the linker--are conceptually the same.On a sidenote, if you are going into .net C# land, look at XNA. It is no longe ractively developed, but its there and it will probably meet most of your audio needs. it also provides a lot of structural stuff and tutorials on using said stuff, so you may find it helpful. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196301#p196301 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development I know what you mean and no, not really. Most common tasks in Visual Studio 2013 are painful if you are blind. That said, if youre doing it by editing the library path, thats what you end up doing with the command line build systems anyway. I left VS for command line build systems because it gets rid of all the tabbing, but nothing gets rid of the complexity. The two steps--editing libpath and adding it to the linker--are conceptually the same.On a sidenote, if you are going into .net C# land, look at XNA. It is no longer actively developed, but its there and it will probably meet most of your audio needs. It also provides a lot of structural stuff and tutorials on using said stuff, so you may find it helpful. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=196301#p196301 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development @Dentin: how much will your steam platform charge for usage? Id assume that its some percent of sales. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195564#p195564 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development Right now, Im looking at 25-30% of gross. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195602#p195602 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development Ah, now I see why you want HRTF, just wanted to make sure you arent unnecessarily shooting too far on your first attempt.Though I wonder if the 3D audio in BGT did not use a low pass filter for stuff behind you.Just adding that is probably enough to easily distinguish behind from in front in lieu of using actual HRTF.Regarding sound libraries available for C++ or C#.In general those libraries are created in C or C++ with C FFI.Which means that in C# you have to make a wrapper around them, or find an existing one, usually other people have already wrapped them and provide their wrappers free and open source.And C++ needs no wrapper so has one less layer of indirectionAs an example Im currently using OpenTK to wrap OpenALSoft and NLibsndfile to wrap Libsndfile.They were both freely available with source code so I didnt need to write them.I noticed that sometimes OpenTK would fail to initialize the sound devic e, so I found the snippet of OpenTK code that could fail and changed it to retry a few times if it failed.Not sure why it failed, but retrying a few times consistently initializes it correctly.This problem may also have existed in C++, Im not sure.NLibsndfile had wrapped 95% of the libsndfile methods.Then I realized I needed to use the C callback functions to provide my own file parsing functions, so I had to add the wrappers to NLibsndfile because it was missing those.And there was another minor bug in NLibsndfile where it thought 0 was a bad parameter to a function, but the Libsndfile documentation said 0 was valid and had meaning.So I commented out the 2 lines that checked for a 0 and threw an exception.So most sound libraries are available in both C++ and C#, but sometimes you need to tweak the C# wrappers a bit.So Id call this a slight pro for C++, but only slight.The only other audio libraries Ive used in C# are DirectSound and DirectShow through the Managed DirectX dlls.Tactical Battle still uses DirectShow.I know less about the screen reader libraries.I expect most of them have C APIs, and know that Craig Brett made a C# wrapper for one of them.Hope that helps. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195459#p195459 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development The service model is intended to be similar to that of steam. Theres a master controller which runs all the time and talks to the server as well as to any games youre playing. Games get permissions from the master controller and can verify those permissions via the web. Games will also be able to store unlock state on the server, so if someone unlocks a secret level it stays unlocked if the player logs in on a different machine. Well also handle the purchasing and financials. Our goal is to provide a distribution service that takes care of the distribution, protection, and financial issues so game developers can actually spend their time making games.-dentinAlter Aeon MUDhttp://www.alteraeon.com URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195462#p195462 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development BGT uses pitch bending for behind. One can adjust the magnitude of the bending so its more noticeable.I also have a custom version of the sound_positioning and sound_pool scripts that allows a volume decrease as well.IIRC, The default behind pitch decrease is half a percent. Id go for something a little bigger, but not ridiculously so. I tend to go for ~4%, but that might be a bit much and 1-3% is probably plenty.Low pass is in principal possible with BGT, but itd be hard to implement practically. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195511#p195511 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
questions on audiogame development
questions on audiogame development My vacation will be starting soon, and I was seriously considering developing a simple audiogame to put some of the concepts that I learnt in a programming module to practice, and it stops me from getting too rusty over the break. The idea that I had in mind would require full 3d sound though so Ill probably need to use HRTF. Ive been learning C for a few months and have grown pretty comfortable with it. Im trying to decide what language I should use to write the game in. I dont think I want to use BGT, and I see that c++ and c# are both based off C, so I hope that my prior C knowledge would allow me to pick either up. Those are probably the 2 languages that im inclined to try, but Im not sure how to decide between them. From what Ive heard, C++ is faster but more difficult to use than c# though im not sure how much that will matter for an audiogame. I think programmes in C# are also easier to reverse engineer.If I decide not to use BGT, Ill also have to figure out which libraries to choose. What are the best libraries available for screen reader support and HRTF audio?Finally, if I do decide to make commercial titles, how should the issue of software piracy be handled? I know i could use obfuscators to hopefully make life miserable for anyone attempt reverse engineering, but ill also have to think of a suitable licensing system. If I make it multiplayer, then having game progress tied to user accounts would service. For single player games, how much would people mind if the game required at least periodic access to the internet? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195309#p195309 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development Victorious, I and a few others have been working on a system for handling commercial titles, and may be able to help you out once you get far enough along. We currently have both C and BGT interfaces. It does require network access for most of its authorization, as theres not really any other way to have solid piracy protection.Frankly, in this day and age, theres really no excuse to not have network access. Sure, outages happen, and weve been setting things up to allow for a temporary offline mode - but Im convinced that the vast majority of people demanding offline versions are either confused or want a standalone version that can be cracked.-dentinAlter Aeon MUDhttp://www.alteraeon.com URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195347#p195347 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development It wont be ready for your holiday, but I have begun looking into how to get Libaudioverse out to testers and the like. Other than my work, the only other thing Im aware of is OpenALSoft-I will not repeat my rants about that here. Coding your own HRTF is doable, but youll need a dose of math and some knowledge about how to safely read/write custom binary file formats.Id not be worried about reverse engineering, but in truth anything thats not C/C++ can be. C#, Python, java, Angelscript, Lua, probably _javascript_, all of these can be decompiled with about the same amount of effort. On account that cracking your C/C++ version is also quite possible and using C/C++ will probably add weeks to your development time at minimum, its not worth it in my opinion. C# is not a bad language, but you will be missing a debugger unless you use Visual Studios IDE; this may or may not be a killing blow to you, depending on your development style. Regardless, a garbage collector is kind of a killer feature.@dentin:I kind of disagree. First, a lot of blind people are in 3rd world countries with really slow or worse internet connections. Second, even on a university campus with great internet, I still find myself offline quite a lot. Its not as common as you think to always be online, especially among this community-and if you only target the first world countries, youll be missing half of an already tiny market.Id be interested in how youre doing this in such a way that an equally capable programmer couldnt crack it once for all games, but then again Im not sure youd want to tell me that, especially in this public setting... URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195350#p195350 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development @Victorious, you mentioned needing full 3D sound, and that meaning you need HRTF.Just to clarify, there are many 3D audio libraries that do provide 3D positioning of sound via panning, volume, and low pass filters for things behind you, but do not include HRTF.And Ive even seen Aprone and CAE Jones discussing the algorithms they use to set panning and volume adjustment to avoid the need for a separate 3D audio library at all.So Im just saying that HRTF makes it sound better, and is a nice to have, but for your first 3D game it is not a requirement.Swamp is a good example of a successful game doing 3D audio without HRTF or environmental reverb.My opinion on the performance of C++ versus C# is that it is negligible for audio games.I also think C#, (and other high level languages), are considerably easier to learn and use than C++.Programs written in C# are definitely easier to reverse engineer than those written in C or C++.I guess you have to weigh the importance of this along with the other pros and cons of both languages.For me, and admittedly I focus on free games, it is not very important as compared with other factors.If you charge for an online game then the reverse engineering aspect matters less as online content and user accounts become most of your protection.And as Camlorn said, writing it in C/C++ does not stop people from cracking it. It just raises the difficulty level for doing so.And only one person needs the expertise and motivation to crack it, then they can just share the crack.I use C# in Visual Studio 2010.The debugger is not accessible, but I can still use it because I used it when I had more vision and I am familiar with the hot keys and some extra steps I need to do to get the information I want from the watch window.That said, I actually dont use the debugger and instead rely on logging, which can be nicer when debuggi ng a game that is trying to run at 60 frames a second and you want to get useful information, but not stop the game from running.And despite some of visual studios annoyances I actually love features like go to definition, auto complete, rename symbol, find all references, extract method, go to file and line for this error, collapse/expand method bodies, etc.I heard Microsoft recently released Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition, which is like the Professional edition, but free.I havent tested its accessibility though.All this is just my 2 cents.Obviously you should make the decision about which language to use.And even though I have a preference, I really believe that you can write great software in pretty much any language. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195363#p195363 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development @dentin: Id be interested to hear more about the licencing system as well.@camlorn: Id rather use an existing library if at all possible, because I want to focus primarily on the actual audio game rather than being caught up by these details for a first project.@Ian: Based on my experience using the 3d audio functions in BGT, I had a fair amount of difficulty determining if an item was ahead or behind me, which was why I wanted HRTF. Also, the HRTF demos sound awesome. From what I gather, the pros for c++ are faster code execution (which isnt really that important for my purpose) and making it harder to reverse engineer. For c#, faster development time and ease of use.What audio/screen reader output libraries are available for the various languages? Thatll probably help me decide which to choose. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195399#p195399 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
Re: questions on audiogame development
Re: questions on audiogame development no no no. Im not saying that you should make one, just that it can be done in about a day assuming all the other parts exist and you know what youre doing. Theres a lot more to a good audio experience that takes longer, i.e. reverb, and of course all the other parts have to be there. The irony is that, if you know the trig to compute the parameters, the part that applies the effect itself is about 15 lines. Its all the stupid framework and support code that gets in the way.The problem is, at the moment, thats the easiest way to get it in my opinion. OpenAL actually graduated to tortuous today when I found yet another shortcoming in it, and distributing OpenAL and managing to get a consistent experience is next to impossible without instructing users to edit an ini. Long and short of it is-no, you dont want HRTF for your first game. You can get away without even lowpass. if youve never done a game or medium to large programming project of 2000 lines or more yet, dont bother and just use the most basic thing you can find. URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195401#p195401 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
questions on audiogame development
questions on audiogame development My vacation will be starting soon, and I was seriously considering developing a simple audiogame to put some of the concepts that I learnt in a programming module to practice, and it stops me from getting too rusty over the break. The idea that I had in mind would require full 3d sound though so Ill probably need to use HRTF. Ive been learning C for a few months and have grown pretty comfortable with it. Im trying to decide what language I should use to write the game in. I dont think I want to use BGT, and I see that c++ and c# are both based off C, so I hope that my prior C knowledge would allow me to pick either up. Those are probably the 2 languages that im inclined to try, but Im not sure how to decide between them. From what Ive heard, C++ is faster but more difficult to use than c# though im not sure how much that will matter for an audiogame. I think programmes in C# are also easier to reverse engineer.If I decide not to use BGT, Ill also have to figure out which libraries to choose. What are the best libraries available for screen reader support and HRTF audio? URL: http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?pid=195309#p195309 ___ Audiogames-reflector mailing list Audiogames-reflector@sabahattin-gucukoglu.com https://sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/audiogames-reflector
