[Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Just a note for those who are interested. I've updated the chopper patrol port to sfml, and reposted it at: http://www.thesiegelsnest.us/mac/chopper_patrol_sfml.zip I added panning (for the jet, though the sound probably needs replaced since the default one doesn't pan well) This was done by simply moving the listener back a little along the Z axis, which allows the sound to smoothly move from right to left or left to right without the jump from one side to the other you get if you leave the listener at it's default position. I've also modified the filenames in the load files section, so that there should now be no changes required to compile properly under case sensitive file systems like most linux variants have. Osx supports case sensitive file systems, but I never did like those, so I have mine set not to be case sensitive, so had overlooked this little problem in the initial release. Anyway, I hope this gives developers some ideas on how to make games cross-platform, so there's no more excuse for not making their games multi-os compatible. :) And, as I mentioned before, I'm perfectly willing to help any developers port their games to osx/sfml as desired/required. hth. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Hi Travis, Thanks. I'll give it a try. If given a choice I'd rather use SFML over SDL for OpenAL support alone. However, I've been playing with the latest SFML build for Linux here and the keyboard input is much better than SDL. The event handling for keyboard events is much more like what I am use to from DirectInput, and is very smooth and natural. With SDL it only accepts a single key pressed or key released event which means if you have to hold an arrow key down to walk, run, etc you have to use some sort of boolean flag to tell the application that the key is being held down or if it has been released. That's not too cool, but is an easy enough problem to solve with a little extra coding. With SFML though the way the event system is setup you can test if the key is being held down and take the proper action without having to take the extra step of writing a separate keyboard handler to determine if the key is being held down for a certain period of time. Smile. On 7/28/10, Travis Siegel wrote: > > On Jul 27, 2010, at 8:14 PM, Thomas Ward wrote: > > Hi travis, > Hmmm...That's what I was afraid of. Back during the winter when I was > thinking about a cross-platform engine I tried both SFML and SDL > extensively and was able to do what you did witht the sound objects by > using the sf::Sound::SetBuffer() function to reassign buffers. As you > pointed out it solves the problem of reassigning a sound object to a > new sound buffer, but it waistes a lot of memory in the process. Even > worse this kind of creating a buffer without the ability to destroy it > when you are done with it can lead to a major memory leak in your > program. > > I just asked on the sfml forums, and I'm guessing the developer of sfml > doesn't use english as his first language, (though he does speak it quite > well) my first attempt met with confusion, pointing me to the sounds instead > of their buffers. Further clarification lead to the answer you wanted. > Apparently, you can clear a buffer (if you want to use it later) simply by > assigning it an empty resource. > I.E. > buffer = SoundBuffer(); > This will reassign the buffer to null, thereby allowing the memory to be > used for other things. > If you allocate the buffer using new, you could also free it (permanently) > by using delete. > I didn't set mine up that way in the chopper patrol port, so teh new/delete > wouldn't work, but the reassigning buffers to empty values does seem to do > the trick though. > Hope this helps. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Hi Travis, Cool. I'd be interested to know what you find out on the SFML dev forums. SFML is a pretty decent API all things considered as it wraps OpenGL, OpenAL, and some other Mac and Linux higher end gaming libraries, but the way in which it was done I think certainly could be improved upon. So any information you find out about this would be helpful. As far as giving potential developers more than one option I think you and I are in full agreement on this. Although, you use Mac OS an I am using Linux we both want to see more games developed for those platforms, and to show potential game developers that there are reasonable alternatives to DirectX and Windows for gaming. As you pointed out Linux users have SDL installed by default, and there are libraries for just about any programming language you can think of including C, C++, C#, Java, Python, Perl, you name it. From what I've seen on the SFML web site it looks like they also are getting a lot of help supporting .Net, Python, etc as well. So these APIs are definitely are growing in terms of end user support, use by game developers, and best of all support more than one platform allowing you or I to create a game that can be recompiled on any platform with only miner changes here and there. So showing potential developers these different APIs, and how to use them is essential for growth of Mac and Linux accessible games. So I guess this weekend or so I'll sit down and create a simple game like Chopper Patrol, or something similar. I think the Chopper Patrol game itself is getting a bit old. Maybe I should create a game where you shoot down spaceships or something, but with the same game mechanics etc as Chopper Patrol. Although, we have all seen more than our share of Space Invader clones to last a lifetime. Smile. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
On Jul 27, 2010, at 8:14 PM, Thomas Ward wrote: Hi travis, Hmmm...That's what I was afraid of. Back during the winter when I was thinking about a cross-platform engine I tried both SFML and SDL extensively and was able to do what you did witht the sound objects by using the sf::Sound::SetBuffer() function to reassign buffers. As you pointed out it solves the problem of reassigning a sound object to a new sound buffer, but it waistes a lot of memory in the process. Even worse this kind of creating a buffer without the ability to destroy it when you are done with it can lead to a major memory leak in your program. I just asked on the sfml forums, and I'm guessing the developer of sfml doesn't use english as his first language, (though he does speak it quite well) my first attempt met with confusion, pointing me to the sounds instead of their buffers. Further clarification lead to the answer you wanted. Apparently, you can clear a buffer (if you want to use it later) simply by assigning it an empty resource. I.E. buffer = SoundBuffer(); This will reassign the buffer to null, thereby allowing the memory to be used for other things. If you allocate the buffer using new, you could also free it (permanently) by using delete. I didn't set mine up that way in the chopper patrol port, so teh new/delete wouldn't work, but the reassigning buffers to empty values does seem to do the trick though. Hope this helps. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
On Jul 27, 2010, at 8:14 PM, Thomas Ward wrote: If you wouldn't mind I'd be happy to create a Chopper Patrol clone written in C++ using SDL rather than SFML. As SDL is cross-platform too I think it would demonstrate both our aims but give potential cross-platform developers another option or alternative to SFML with some useful source code. What do you think? Actually, I think this would be an excellent idea, by all means, give potential developers as many options as possible. Show them there's more than one way to build cross-platform games that takes nothing away from their initial development process. Also, point out that although sdl comes preinstalled on a lot of linux boxes, sfml comes preinstalled on osx, so both options are definitely worth checking out. I agree with your assessment about sfml, and a lot of folks feel that way, but after all, the S in sfml does stand for simple, so it's understandable that some things may not be doable. I will raise the question on the sfml-dev forums though, and see if anyone has any suggestions on how to handle multiple buffer reassigning with buffer freeing. It's possible it can be done with some non-public functions. I've not scanned all the sfml code, so it's possible such a thing does exist, but just isn't in the oficial documentation. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Hi travis, Hmmm...That's what I was afraid of. Back during the winter when I was thinking about a cross-platform engine I tried both SFML and SDL extensively and was able to do what you did witht the sound objects by using the sf::Sound::SetBuffer() function to reassign buffers. As you pointed out it solves the problem of reassigning a sound object to a new sound buffer, but it waistes a lot of memory in the process. Even worse this kind of creating a buffer without the ability to destroy it when you are done with it can lead to a major memory leak in your program. That's the primary reason why I have stayed clear of SFML. It doesn't necessarily use best code practices in doing some of the things it does. For that reason I am strongly looking at using SDL instead for my cross-platform games. With SDL Mixer, for example, all of the sound chunks are pointers. If you do something like Mix_Chunk* g_pSound = NULL; you have a global pointer here that remains in memory until you free it with delete. To initialize this pointer simply do something like Mix_LoadChunk(1, &g_pSound, "Sound/Some_File.wav"); which does three things. It initializes the pointer, asigns Some_File.wav to it, and the pointer is asigned to the first audio channel in the mixer. To free that pointer up use Mix_FreeChunk(&g_pSound); g_pSound = NULL; which frees up any memory used by that pointer and resets its state back to null. If you then want to use another sound with that same pointer simply use Mix_LoadChunk() again to reinitialize the pointer with some new sound data. This to me seams a lot more memory safe and much better way of handling audio than the way SFML does it. If you wouldn't mind I'd be happy to create a Chopper Patrol clone written in C++ using SDL rather than SFML. As SDL is cross-platform too I think it would demonstrate both our aims but give potential cross-platform developers another option or alternative to SFML with some useful source code. What do you think? Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
While I can't find anything in sfml that allows actual buffer destruction, you
can reassign buffers. I just tried this, and it worked perfectly.
if (!buffer1.LoadFromFile("sound/background.wav"))
printf("error is: %d\n",EXIT_SUCCESS);
sf::Sound Background(buffer1);
Background.Play();
getchar();
if (!buffer2.LoadFromFile("sound/helicopter.wav"))
printf("error is: %d\n",EXIT_SUCCESS);
sf::Sound Helicopter(buffer2);
Background.SetBuffer(buffer2);
Background.Play();
getchar();
exit(0);
While this doesn't actually destroy the contents of the buffer, it does allow
you to reassign what sounds the call to any particular sound.play function will
play.
It won't help with memory usage I'm afraid, but it will solve your problem with
needing to change sounds on the fly w/o modifying the code being called to play
the sounds.
Failing that, there is a function (for internal use only) that is used to reset
buffers. I've not looked at the source for it, but it's possible you could use
that one if you needed to actually delete the buffers in question.
Hope this helps.
---
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Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Hi Travis,
I've just downloaded and read your C++ port of Chopper Patrol, and I'm
left with some questions. Unfortunately, like alot of other sample
SFML games I've seen everything is all wrapped up in the main
function, and all of the sounds in this case are static. That is you
never have to unload all of the game sounds, and load a lot of new
ones when the next level loads as is the case in games like Mysteries
of the Ancients.
For example, in Mysteries of the Ancients when you select pistol from
the inventory menu or select 1 on the keyboard all of the weapon sound
buffers are destroyed and then are recreated on the fly with all the
sounds for the pistol. The Same happens regardless if you select the
pistol, magnum, shotgun, whatever. That way I only have to worry about
SecondaryBuffers like g_fire, g_empty, g_draw, and g_holster which are
loaded and unloaded depending on which sound is needed at the current
time. With SFML I have not been able to find a way to do this.
To clarify things some. Let's assume we have an SFML audio buffer like
sf::Buffer g_fire;
which is global. Now, at some point in my game I am going to load the
sound of the pistol into the global buffer like
g_fire.LoadFromFile("Sounds/Fire_Pistol.wav");
which loads our pistol sound into our global sound buffer. However,
let's assume some one wants to switch to the magnum. In DirectX I can
simply close the buffer like
g_fire->Close();
g_fire = NULL;
that closes the buffer and resets the pointer to NULL. Which I think
is the problem here. In DirectX SecondaryBuffers are pointers not
objects so are never destroyed until you delete them. They allow you
to close the SecondaryBuffer but you still can use the g_fire pointer
to load a new file into the SecondaryBuffer without losing control of
the global SecondaryBuffer object. How on earth can you do something
like this in SFML?
Basically, what I am looking for is a way to close an SFML buffer equal to doing
g_fire->Close();
that doesn't destroy the actual buffer. That is if I did something like
g_fire.Close();
g_fire.LoadFromFile("some_file.wav");
it should work, but doesn't. I haven't been able to find anything that
remotely works like that in SFML. Any help?
---
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Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Hi there, As a Linux user, I can confirm that this game compiles with minimal changes to the source code. It appears to run properly. One thing to note is that the names used for header files are case-sensitive under Linux, so they required tweaking. Other than that, it seems to run as designed. Now to understand the code... Best, Zack. On Tue, 27 Jul 2010, Travis Siegel wrote: Hello folks. I've taken the chopper patrol game from bscgames and ported it to C++. It uses the sfml libraries, and since they exist for linux, mac osx, and windows, I think this probably qualifies as the first truly cross-platform accessible game for the blind not written in java or python, or some other scripting type language. You can find both the intel-based mac binary as well as the source (with lots of comments) at: http://www.thesiegelsnest.us/mac/chopper_patrol_sfml.zip I certainly hope other developers will take a look, and realize how simple it is to write cross-platform games. And, it took no additional effort to make it so, so no additional development time as is often the complaint. Enjoy, and of course, feel free to contact me if anyone has additional questions. The osx binary that is included may or may not work on your system, it depends on where your sfml libs are. I made no attempt to make it work on other systems, except my own, but I will put up an mp3 of the game being played later on, so folks can see how it plays. Let me state that I've never played the original version of the game for windows, so this port is strictly based on the readme.txt file and the vb source code. All of which is explained in the comments of the program. (yes, the C++ source is included) I'm not great at formatting code, so it's probably not up to most folks standards of pretty code, but it works, so there you go It could use improvements in a couple places too, but this was more a proof of concept than anything else, so I suppose the code will have to speak for itself, bad coding practices and all. The primary intent of this port was to prove it's not hard (in fact, rather easy) to write cross-platform games with nothing but sfml and a c++ compiler. I do not have access to a linux box, so haven't tested it on that platform, and my windows machines don't have compilers on them at the moment, so that's not tested either, but sfml code *should* compile with few (if any) changes on the other platforms. Again, enjoy, and I hope this kicks off a great many cross-platform games for us all. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
do you have this as windows to or can you make it such? At 11:17 p.m. 27/07/2010, you wrote: Hello folks. I've taken the chopper patrol game from bscgames and ported it to C++. It uses the sfml libraries, and since they exist for linux, mac osx, and windows, I think this probably qualifies as the first truly cross-platform accessible game for the blind not written in java or python, or some other scripting type language. You can find both the intel-based mac binary as well as the source (with lots of comments) at: http://www.thesiegelsnest.us/mac/chopper_patrol_sfml.zip I certainly hope other developers will take a look, and realize how simple it is to write cross-platform games. And, it took no additional effort to make it so, so no additional development time as is often the complaint. Enjoy, and of course, feel free to contact me if anyone has additional questions. The osx binary that is included may or may not work on your system, it depends on where your sfml libs are. I made no attempt to make it work on other systems, except my own, but I will put up an mp3 of the game being played later on, so folks can see how it plays. Let me state that I've never played the original version of the game for windows, so this port is strictly based on the readme.txt file and the vb source code. All of which is explained in the comments of the program. (yes, the C++ source is included) I'm not great at formatting code, so it's probably not up to most folks standards of pretty code, but it works, so there you go It could use improvements in a couple places too, but this was more a proof of concept than anything else, so I suppose the code will have to speak for itself, bad coding practices and all. The primary intent of this port was to prove it's not hard (in fact, rather easy) to write cross-platform games with nothing but sfml and a c++ compiler. I do not have access to a linux box, so haven't tested it on that platform, and my windows machines don't have compilers on them at the moment, so that's not tested either, but sfml code *should* compile with few (if any) changes on the other platforms. Again, enjoy, and I hope this kicks off a great many cross-platform games for us all. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] sfml and cross-platform game
Hello folks. I've taken the chopper patrol game from bscgames and ported it to C++. It uses the sfml libraries, and since they exist for linux, mac osx, and windows, I think this probably qualifies as the first truly cross-platform accessible game for the blind not written in java or python, or some other scripting type language. You can find both the intel-based mac binary as well as the source (with lots of comments) at: http://www.thesiegelsnest.us/mac/chopper_patrol_sfml.zip I certainly hope other developers will take a look, and realize how simple it is to write cross-platform games. And, it took no additional effort to make it so, so no additional development time as is often the complaint. Enjoy, and of course, feel free to contact me if anyone has additional questions. The osx binary that is included may or may not work on your system, it depends on where your sfml libs are. I made no attempt to make it work on other systems, except my own, but I will put up an mp3 of the game being played later on, so folks can see how it plays. Let me state that I've never played the original version of the game for windows, so this port is strictly based on the readme.txt file and the vb source code. All of which is explained in the comments of the program. (yes, the C++ source is included) I'm not great at formatting code, so it's probably not up to most folks standards of pretty code, but it works, so there you go It could use improvements in a couple places too, but this was more a proof of concept than anything else, so I suppose the code will have to speak for itself, bad coding practices and all. The primary intent of this port was to prove it's not hard (in fact, rather easy) to write cross-platform games with nothing but sfml and a c++ compiler. I do not have access to a linux box, so haven't tested it on that platform, and my windows machines don't have compilers on them at the moment, so that's not tested either, but sfml code *should* compile with few (if any) changes on the other platforms. Again, enjoy, and I hope this kicks off a great many cross-platform games for us all. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
