New people!

This is me saying 'hi' to all new people! If you're reading this, please (create an account if you haven't already and) reply with your own word/phrase/SSN/whatever you want. :D
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Comments

  • edited September 2008
    Yes, good idea to have a post where newcomers can say hi and who they are (if they want). =)

    Hop, sticky sticky!
  • edited October 2008
    Hai. New person, looking at different engines.
  • edited October 2008
    Heya, did you have anything in mind that you wanted to build? Just random project? Details please. :D :D
  • edited October 2008
    Hi Mabmoro!

    Just wanted to add a simple thing: if you have any questions about orx features, feel free to ask in the forum. :)
  • edited October 2008
    Well, I have 2 ideas for games, one is a 2d fighter in the vein of Street Fighter, and the other is an 3d action RPG type game. I also have been juggling an isometric turn based strategy game similar to Final Fantasy Tactics.
  • edited October 2008
    Alright, sweet. My first (obvious) suggestion is to run through the tutorials and get used to how orx works. And yeah, if you have any questions, just ask. We'll be more than happy to help.

    Another thing, is that I've become too absorbed into the code like iarwain and don't see faults in it anymore. If you have any suggestions to make it better, post them!!! Iarwain is very good at implementing suggestions within an hour or two of you suggesting them. :P
  • edited October 2008
    M1SF17 wrote:
    Another thing, is that I've become too absorbed into the code like iarwain and don't see faults in it anymore. If you have any suggestions to make it better, post them!!! Iarwain is very good at implementing suggestions within an hour or two of you suggesting them. :P

    That's because everything's perfect now! ;) Just kidding of course. Any suggestion is really appreciated.

    The engine has improved a lot with suggestions from M1SF17 when he first arrived and had a fresh look on it.
    As for implementing them within a couple of hours, I'll try my best as long as it's not adding full 3D support or the like. :P
  • edited October 2008
    You should definitely still ask for full 3d support though. :P
  • edited October 2008
    I Want 3D support!

    kidding, i may need network before if i ever get into it!

    if motivated i'll get through some tutorials tonight and create my first (actually, second or third) object with this version =)

    btw hi everybody!
  • edited October 2008
    Networking is something that has been talked about.
    Timeline for it is looking pretty near to be honest.
    You'll have to get a more accurate response from iarwain though...
    Also, welcome. :D
  • edited October 2008
    Yes, true, network support is getting near. I was even thinking about it today.
    My next effort will be to try to make the GP2X version work correctly, then focus on Mac OS X / iPhone versions though. :)

    I'm not sure yet if after this I'll focus on network support or on scripting and package modules. Any suggestion about this?
  • edited October 2008
    +1 vote for network
  • edited October 2008
    +1 vote for network. :D

    Oops, duplicate.
  • edited October 2008
    I'm also more interested in network support than in package and scripting.

    Package was more to prevent end user from cheating when messing with the config files, but as of now those config files can be encrypted/decrypted on the fly, it gets less urgent.

    As for scripting, well, it may help to grow a community, but I'm not even sure. Network will definitely be a plus for some of the ideas I have. So I'll probably go for this! ;)
  • edited October 2008
    eheh gr8 =)

    curious about the backend you're gonna use for that btw.

    I'll be trying now to split my object from the bmp containing all the sprite, using the object tutorial as iarwain suggested me :)
  • edited October 2008
    Didn't give much thought right now (for the network API). I'll try to make something as easy to use as I can. :)

    I will first focus on iPhone and GP2X anyway. :)
  • edited March 2009
    hi!

    i'm rotor. i got 10 years worth of art and design experience under my belt. i'm looking to learn to program to program simple games, and i will be focussing in a circular scrolling shooter game similar to Gyruss for the NES. i did a fair bit of LUA scripting, but i'm no hardcore programmer, so this is going to be challenge for me.
  • edited March 2009
    Hi rotor!

    Welcome amonst us! :)

    I'm really looking forward to what you'll achieve with your shooter! If you need any help (regarding orx or C/C++ if you don't feel comfortable with these languages), please ask, I'd be happy to help! :)
    orx's lacking of a good doc (and wiki), so any question could be used for a later FAQ and wiki.

    Again, welcome here!
  • edited March 2009
    hi iarwain,

    thanks for the warm welcome! i'm also interested in what i will come up with, this is quite a steep learning curve i have to endure. quitting is always easy, but i am quite keen on getting something started at least.
  • edited June 2009
    hi folks!

    im new, and i wanna play with orx :-)

    greetz
  • edited June 2009
    Hi otty,

    Welcome amongst us! Hope that what you'll find here will suits your needs. :)
  • edited July 2009
    Hello! I'm new to ORX.

    I was looking for a long time for a 2-d engine that was both simple to use and cross platform and that I could interface with in a C like language (I prefer c++). ORX seems to hbe the perfect match.

    My plans are to make a complex strategy game. Most of the ideas are still in concept stage and I can only describve it as a mix of civilization and ceasar.

    Currently just getting familiar with the engine. Documentation can be somewhat lacking sometimes and thats causing me to make unexpected discoveries. Such as the engine using radians instead of degrees, perhaps this should be documented?

    Also drawing objects I noticed that 0,0 isn't the top right corner like I'm used to from a previous engine. It looks like there might be some way to change the way this coordinate system works, but I haven't found it yet.

    I'll be doing some familiarizing this weekend and then I hope to get started on some game prototypes.
  • edited July 2009
    Alastriona wrote:
    Hello! I'm new to ORX.

    Hi Alastriona and welcome amonst us!
    I was looking for a long time for a 2-d engine that was both simple to use and cross platform and that I could interface with in a C like language (I prefer c++). ORX seems to hbe the perfect match.

    I'm glad you found orx to your taste and I hope it'll meet your expectations!
    My plans are to make a complex strategy game. Most of the ideas are still in concept stage and I can only describve it as a mix of civilization and ceasar.

    That sounds ambitious and interesting. Hopefully you'll be able to prototype something fast using orx. If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to help.
    Currently just getting familiar with the engine. Documentation can be somewhat lacking sometimes and thats causing me to make unexpected discoveries. Such as the engine using radians instead of degrees, perhaps this should be documented?

    Yeah, documentation is a wreck. The doxygen doc is quite complete but is too low level generally and lack some details like for the unities used such as radians for angles.

    I'd love to have a wiki that would be a base for an extensive and higher level doc that the community would then extend. Someone suggested to use the tutorials for such a wiki base. I just need to find some time to put this wiki together now.
    I've already asked on twitter, but does someone know of a good wiki system I could install?
    Also drawing objects I noticed that 0,0 isn't the top right corner like I'm used to from a previous engine. It looks like there might be some way to change the way this coordinate system works, but I haven't found it yet.

    I wanted to move this part to the help request section, but didn't find out how to do it.

    Basically orx is different than libraries where you have to specify where you want your objects to be rendered on screen.
    This lower level calculation is made by the render plugin given all the informations it gathers on the objects, camera and viewports.

    If an object is at position (X, Y) and your camera is also at (X, Y) (I'm intentionnaly removing the Z component for the explanation), your object will appear in the center of your viewport (most of the time if you have a single viewport that occupies the whole screen, it's also the center of the screen).
    This behavior helps tracking objects with camera. If you set an object as a camera parent, the camera will be centered on this object.

    If you have only one static camera and a viewport that covers the entire screen, you can set its position at (CameraWidth/2, CameraHeight/2). This way the world coordinate (0, 0) will be mapped to the top left screen corner and the coordinate (CameraWidth, CameraHeight) will be the right screen corner).
    I'll be doing some familiarizing this weekend and then I hope to get started on some game prototypes.

    If you have any other questions, I'll try to reply as best as I can! :)

    Hope this helps!
  • edited July 2009
    Yeah, documentation is a wreck. The doxygen doc is quite complete but is too low level generally and lack some details like for the unities used such as radians for angles.

    Personally I was thinking of just changing the comments for orxObject_SetRotation from "Sets object rotation" to "Sets object rotation (in radians)". This should update it when you generate the doxygen docs. If you feel elaborate comments make your code too bloated, I think doxygen even has a way of loading comments from a seperate file.
    I'd love to have a wiki that would be a base for an extensive and higher level doc that the community would then extend. Someone suggested to use the tutorials for such a wiki base. I just need to find some time to put this wiki together now.
    I've already asked on twitter, but does someone know of a good wiki system I could install?

    A wiki is a good idea. The only one I know is MediaWiki. Which is the one Wikipedia uses. I remember setting it up once, don't think it required much knowledge of php and was easy to set up. You will need to read up about the way MediaWiki pages are formatted, but it shouldn't be a problem really.

    May I ask, are you hosting this site via a shared hosting company? Because they often offer control panels with easy setup for forums and wiki and such. That should simplify installtion to a few clicks.
    If an object is at position (X, Y) and your camera is also at (X, Y) (I'm intentionnaly removing the Z component for the explanation), your object will appear in the center of your viewport (most of the time if you have a single viewport that occupies the whole screen, it's also the center of the screen).
    This behavior helps tracking objects with camera. If you set an object as a camera parent, the camera will be centered on this object.

    If you have only one static camera and a viewport that covers the entire screen, you can set its position at (CameraWidth/2, CameraHeight/2). This way the world coordinate (0, 0) will be mapped to the top left screen corner and the coordinate (CameraWidth, CameraHeight) will be the right screen corner).

    Thanks, I actually thought of the same thing a few hours after posting this question. Although your answer elaborates further on what I already suspected.
  • edited July 2009
    Alastriona wrote:
    Personally I was thinking of just changing the comments for orxObject_SetRotation from "Sets object rotation" to "Sets object rotation (in radians)". This should update it when you generate the doxygen docs. If you feel elaborate comments make your code too bloated, I think doxygen even has a way of loading comments from a seperate file.

    I'll update all comments related to angle later tonight. Feel free to sync the latest version from the svn repository. Also the svn repository contains a few corrections and additions to the latest release, such as the localization module (which is actually a convenience wrapper based on the config system).

    I'm all for comments and don't mind having them in the code. I was just thinking that the project would benefit from a more accessible high level documentation as some people will probably be reluctant to dive into the doxygen one (and I totally understand that!).
    A wiki is a good idea. The only one I know is MediaWiki. Which is the one Wikipedia uses. I remember setting it up once, don't think it required much knowledge of php and was easy to set up. You will need to read up about the way MediaWiki pages are formatted, but it shouldn't be a problem really.

    I have only a small knowledge of dokuwiki and knew mediawiki only by fame. I was first looking at some wiki I could integrate with joomla (mainly for authentication) with the minimal amount of work on my side as I already have trouble finding enough time to code and make additions code-wise. Furthermore I always had some grudge against web-based technologies when I have to deploy/install them (not as a user).

    I couldn't find any satisfying solution to integrate to joomla so I presume I'll install a separate wiki and merely add links between it and the main site.
    May I ask, are you hosting this site via a shared hosting company? Because they often offer control panels with easy setup for forums and wiki and such. That should simplify installtion to a few clicks.

    Unfortunately my host doesn't provide such facilities but everything else turned to be so good compared to all the former providers I had before that I don't plan on looking for another one. :)
    Thanks, I actually thought of the same thing a few hours after posting this question. Although your answer elaborates further on what I already suspected.

    I'm glad you figured it out by yourself and I hope it won't be too much of a bother for you. I got used pretty fast to it, even when it came to UI/HUD object positionning.

    On an unrelated note, I tried to reply to your first 2 posts directly by pm so as to make sure you wouldn't be blocked too long (I don't have possibility to post on the forum during my working day). Did you receive correctly the notifications?
  • edited September 2009
    Hi! New to Orx as well. I'm more a graphic artist than a coder and I've got quite some experience in game making, but I'm more used to Flash/Actionscript which I find quite simple as a language. I have a very minimal knowledge of c/c++ . Right now I find myself with plenty of free time, and I feel the urge to make a solid, "actual" game that won't be limited by Actionscript's poor performances. Orx seems to have all the features I was looking for - Portability, performance, relative easiness and a way to somewhat learn C/C++ - and I would really like to get comfortable with it.

    As of yet it hasn't exactly been a walk in the park. For example I had some trouble getting things to compile properly to start with, until I finally figured out I could just download VC++ express for free and follow the video tutorial from there. Haha. I'm now at tutorial 2 (clocks) and there is again something blocking my path: keyboard input doesn't seem to work (but I'll start another thread for that).

    At any rate, I can see the potential of Orx and I'm willing to give it al least a chance to show its real power =P. Iarwain seems quite involved in continuing Orx, and the general climate here on the forum is pretty nice too, so this sounds like something that would be worth contributing to. If I start working with Orx seriously I'll be more focussed on using it than improving it directly (which I... uh... wouldn't know how to do), but that means I could at least provide the community with tutorials/examples and advice regarding game logic, too.

    The kind of game I'm aiming at right now is some kind of 2d side scroller. I would say a simple one, but the objective is to actually make it awesome xD (through awesome visuals and a lot of efforts to make it slick). Sooo that soon-to-come "Scroller" game engine/editor is also very interresting in my book =D.
  • edited September 2009
    Hi Blarg,

    Welcome amongst us! =)

    I'm glad to see you're motivated by trying out orx. As you've seen, orx's only usable with C/C++ right now but in a couple of months C# and Python might also be available.

    Sorry about the settings with Visual Studio, the videos I made are pretty old now, I just need to find some time to make some clean articles on the wiki pages for different platformes/IDEs.

    If you think others might learn from your firsts steps with orx, and if you think orx might suits your needs and want to get more serious about using it, maybe you could contribute through the wiki at some point.

    Lately I had to stop working on the wiki as I wanted to advance on Scroll and writing on the wiki takes such a big amount of time. Btw, any feedback about the wiki would be welcome! =)

    As you're saying you'd like to make 2D side scroller, Scroll might be more helpful being a layer on top of orx. I actually just finished writing the basis tonight and it now needs some serious debugging. If you'd like to test some alpha build in a couple of days, please let me know as there are probably tons of details I didn't see.

    I'll now have a look to your input issues, let's meet in your other thread! =)
  • edited September 2009
    Alright, I'll keep that wiki in mind. Regarding setup instructions, I think the biggest problem is not the video tut itself (which I found quite reliable) but the fact that, for someone not familiar with compilers, there is almost no information on what software to use to get started. For example, it would be very helpful to mention that visual c++ express is available for free. I actually found about this in the forums of another game engine (HGE, which I also have an eye on), after unsuccesfully trying to apply instructions from the video to Dev C++ and CodeLite.

    As for Scroll, that should be interesting of course. I'll first try to get familiar with orx itself =P. What will Scroll add/help with ?

    By the way, I think I read somewhere that you live in Montréal? That's also my case (!) Et je parle aussi français.
  • edited September 2009
    Ah yes, that's totally true, I never spoke about which tools are needed to use for orx. I made the assumption that orx will be used at first only by coders, and I completely skipped that.
    It's good to have some external sights to avoid this kind of mistake. When I'll do the "setup" wiki pages I'll keep that in mind and tell where to find IDEs, etc...

    As for Scroll, well, it's a layer on top of orx that will let you have a lightweight editor adapted to your game. Ie, you'll be able to place all your objects, scale/rotate/tile them at will, use different layers, snap on a grid, and so on.
    The editor will let you load/save your maps, of course, but also let you play your game directly in it so you can easily tweak your levels.

    The good thing is that you'll have only one C++ class to extend to customize your game, and the editor will be embedded with your executable without you having to do anything for that.

    And yes, I'm currently living in Montreal, I figured you were also around here so I sent you a couple of private messages those last days, did you get them? =)

    Et je parle aussi français! ;)
  • edited September 2009
    Yup, I got these =) Ok I see what Scroll is about now. Sounds pretty nice.
  • edited September 2009
    iarwain wrote:
    As you've seen, orx's only usable with C/C++ right now but in a couple of months C# and Python might also be available.
    I'll take this opportunity to give an update on the current status on PyOrx (still not completely sure about the name :P). I think I am going to use Cython, rather than communicating directly with the Python API--that was a horrible experience. Holiday's over, so it'll be quite a few months before I have something to show. ;)
  • edited September 2009
    Robin wrote:
    I'll take this opportunity to give an update on the current status on PyOrx (still not completely sure about the name :P). I think I am going to use Cython, rather than communicating directly with the Python API--that was a horrible experience. Holiday's over, so it'll be quite a few months before I have something to show. ;)

    PyOrx sounds good to me! =) Didn't know about Cython, thanks for the link.
    See you in a coupe of months, then, glad you're still around! =)
  • fufu
    edited September 2009
    Hi there!

    I've just downloaded Orx today. Sounds very good. I'd like to make a kind of Worms-like game...
    This engine is very new but sounds perfect for me, and i'm glad to see that Orx 1.0 has just been released.

    Thanks to the authors!
  • edited September 2009
    Welcome amongst us, fu!

    Hope you'll like working with orx and if you have any questions or suggestions, just let us know! :)
  • edited October 2009
    Hi peoples!,
    I found Orx about 5 months ago, but only now have the time to actually try it out. Figured I'd officially say 'hi' :laugh:

    I'm looking at using my weekends to make myself a 'single-player simulation MMO'. Which basically means, 2d rpg style world, filled with AI controlled characters. The player changes the world by giving goals to the characters, rather than 'playing' the characters directly. Crazy, I know :laugh: lets see what I can manage!

    I'm a full-time game programmer, 'working for the man' though, so no promises I can make any pretty art. :blush:

    - Grey.
  • edited October 2009
    Hi Grey!

    Welcome aboard. :cheer:

    Single-player simulation MMO? That's an unusual concept! ;) If you need any help so as to get started, feel free to ask on the forum, I'm sure you'll find someone to answer. (If they didn't say hi yet, it's only because they're very very shy, that's all! :P)

    Btw, how did you find about orx? I haven't done a very good communication work so far, so my guess would be wikipedia, am I right?

    Oh and programmer art rulez! :D
  • edited October 2009
    Truth be told, I couldn't tell you how I found Orx, it was many months ago that I did. I keep a huge list of development related resources, which I am constantly expanding when I find anything new, this was amongst my list of 'should look at' engines :laugh: .

    As for my 'unusual concept', in a sense that's the point :cheer: . I enjoy world-manipulation games, sim city etc, and I enjoy RPGs with their character advancement and interesting worlds to explore. I think combining the two can work well with a bit of effort.

    Of course, I could be utterly wrong, but that's what prototypes are for! :laugh:

    No comment on the programmer art though haha.
  • edited October 2009
    Hehe, no problem. I was just curious to see if someone actually landed here after my few attempts on communication on forums such as Tigsource or GameDev ones. :D

    I'm looking forward to see the prototype you'll be doing, unusual concepts can turn out in interesting prototypes. Hope orx will be helpful for you with this task. :)
    If at some point you need any web space to store stuff you've made with orx that you'd like to show, let me know. For now on only Blarg has a private space but I'm willing to provide any orx users with one if they need it.
  • edited October 2009
    Never heard of Tigsource, but GameDev may well have been where I came from, I spend much to long browsing that site sometimes! :lol:

    As for webspace, if the need comes up, i'll be sure to ask. Thanks in advance!

    *edit* --wow-- can't believe I've never found Tigsource before now! yet another site to spend my days on haha
  • edited October 2009
    Hi Grey !

    That sounds like a nice concept to me as well. And I agree, tigsource is pretty awesome. I too have ignored it for too long. As for orx I had a very good experience with it yet, I hope it suits your needs. You might want to check out my project thread while you make your first steps, altough a lot of the problems I encountered have been debugged by iarwain on the fly : )
  • edited October 2009
    Hi Blarg!

    I did take a look at your thread, interestingly it's that thread, your cool little game-in-progress, and iarwain's quick responses that gave me the push to say 'hi'.

    I've been discussing my idea with a friend of mine, and he's helped me come up with a clearer explanation of what it is.

    His words: "Simcity crossed with The Sims".

    This does a good job of describing the basic concept... World-building is the game-goal, but it's done on a control level roughly between sim-city's "you're in charge, do what you want" and the sim's "manipulate your people so they do what you want", while not being either.

    haha now that I think on it, that's probably just more confusing :lol:
  • edited October 2009
    I'm really interested to see that coming. =)

    As for the support, I'll try to stay as reactive as possible, but as a baby is about to arrive in my little family, don't expect fixes on day-0 too much. ;)

    And concerning Tigsource, it's a great resource site as is http://www.indiegames.com/blog , if you don't already know this one.
  • edited October 2009
    Two new resources for my list in one day, very nice!

    As for zero-day expectations, I have to find some problems before I can start expecting fixes haha!
  • edited November 2009
    iarwain wrote:
    I now have a question for you: would you mind telling us for how long you've been looking into orx, what do you like/dislike about and any other feedback you'd have? User feedbacks is precious and I'm afraid we don't get enough of them.

    So here it goes. :)

    I was looking for a gfx library supporting accelerated 2D graphics. Went through pretty much everything on the list that has native C/C++ support, downloaded it and tested provided samples, looked at the code, etc. I decided ORX is what I need for several reasons.

    1. No scripting language - no python/ruby/fancy_new_lang lockdown
    2. No XML (I'm a strong believer that INIs are easier to edit/understand than XMLs are for so called avg person)
    3. Accelerated 2D with little fluff (e.g. no support for 3D models)
    4. Pretty good samples
    5. Documentation that makes sense and is easy to follow.
    6. Native C bindings instead of C++ classes
    7. Shader support (well, as it turned out - kinda ;])
    8. Code (lib/inc) organized in a way that allowed me to build standalone EXE using ORX in about a minute. (we'll see how easy/hard it is to hack ORX code itself, but based on my experience so far I'm hoping it will be fun too)

    At this point I don't care about animation, physics or audio. It's nice they are there but what's even better is that they don't get in the way at all. I wanted something basic to play around with, not another 800 pound gorilla I have to learn for hours to get a Hello World-quality results. INI based configuration is fun to play with and encouraged me to stick to ORX.

    Now to the negatives. :)
    1. Per object shaders don't work and that's what I was hoping for the most. The good news is - no other sane library supports that. But that's no excuse. :P
    2. I understand why it's good to have multi-platform support, but right now I don't really see any point in maintaining two separate display drivers (SDL/SFML). ORX would IMO benefit from less, well tested code paths. Audio files and images can be easily converted nowadays, there's no need in doing everything for everyone.
    3. I was hoping ORX has its own display implementation (not depending on SDL/SFML) and not knowing the truth was one of the reasons I kept playing with it. I would love to see display implemented without external dependencies.

    Overall I'm very hapy with ORX and plan on using it.I need per object shaders to work so I'm going to focus on implementing that feature. INI based configuration is too cool to drop ORX and start using something else. :)

    Cheers!
  • edited November 2009
    Ryan wrote:
    So here it goes. :)

    Thanks for taking the time to give such detailed feedback, it's useful for me to know on what I should/shouldn't focus! :)
    I was looking for a gfx library supporting accelerated 2D graphics. Went through pretty much everything on the list that has native C/C++ support, downloaded it and tested provided samples, looked at the code, etc. I decided ORX is what I need for several reasons.

    1. No scripting language - no python/ruby/fancy_new_lang lockdown
    2. No XML (I'm a strong believer that INIs are easier to edit/understand than XMLs are for so called avg person)
    3. Accelerated 2D with little fluff (e.g. no support for 3D models)
    4. Pretty good samples
    5. Documentation that makes sense and is easy to follow.
    6. Native C bindings instead of C++ classes
    7. Shader support (well, as it turned out - kinda ;])
    8. Code (lib/inc) organized in a way that allowed me to build standalone EXE using ORX in about a minute. (we'll see how easy/hard it is to hack ORX code itself, but based on my experience so far I'm hoping it will be fun too)

    Points 1, 2, 3 and 6 are usually turn downs for people who decide not to use orx. I'm glad it's the exact opposite for you! =) As for the INI, I thought I was the only one left alive in the world one with this preference. ;)
    At this point I don't care about animation, physics or audio. It's nice they are there but what's even better is that they don't get in the way at all. I wanted something basic to play around with, not another 800 pound gorilla I have to learn for hours to get a Hello World-quality results. INI based configuration is fun to play with and encouraged me to stick to ORX.

    My goal is to provide as many important features as I can for a 2D game engine but keeping the whole thing modular so that people can use only what they need. I have to admit since the config system was added, it made things even more easy. So easy I don't know why I haven't done it before, actually.
    Now to the negatives. :)

    Good, that's exactly what I need to improve stuff. :)
    1. Per object shaders don't work and that's what I was hoping for the most. The good news is - no other sane library supports that. But that's no excuse. :P

    Yep, hopefully this will be sorted out soon, a way or another. :)
    2. I understand why it's good to have multi-platform support, but right now I don't really see any point in maintaining two separate display drivers (SDL/SFML). ORX would IMO benefit from less, well tested code paths. Audio files and images can be easily converted nowadays, there's no need in doing everything for everyone.

    Actually my goal is to support officially one set of plugin per platform. At first I went with SDL but without OpenGL which turned out to be painfully slow when you manipulate bitmaps. I then discovered SFML who helped me having fully working plugins with acceleration and the features I needed in a reasonable amount of time (haven't written any OpenGL code in about 10 years now, so I'm not exactly up-to-date on my knowledge of the library and didn't want to write less-than-average code). Now, the way to go is definitely SDL/OpenGL for me (on mac/linux/windows at least, as iPhone might end up with a totally different set of plugins), and I will support less and less SFML plugins when I'm done.
    However, the idea behind orx was that the orx-project.org team would mainly take care of the core and that, in term, the plugins would be maintained by a community. It's still something I want to achieve but the community is far to small to do this right now. But it's ok, I'm a patient man. ;)
    3. I was hoping ORX has its own display implementation (not depending on SDL/SFML) and not knowing the truth was one of the reasons I kept playing with it. I would love to see display implemented without external dependencies.

    Only the low level functions are deferred to external libraries (like blitting a bitmap). The rendering logic is homemade, in a plugin without any external dependency. The plugin architecture also allows to easily add 3D support if someone feels the need to, without having to change much of orx's internals as orx's core mostly handles abstract data.

    I'd like orx to be as easy to use as possible, and with a reduced developper team of 1 for the core as for the last 2 years, I have to prioritize and make compromises. In the end I want also to use orx, not only to develop it, as I plan to make a living out of indie games done with it. That's my escape plan from the mainstream industry before it turns out I've been working there for 10 years. And this milestone is drawing near... :)
    Overall I'm very hapy with ORX and plan on using it.I need per object shaders to work so I'm going to focus on implementing that feature. INI based configuration is too cool to drop ORX and start using something else. :)

    Cheers!

    I'm really happy to see that and see your motivation. If at some point you discover that orx is lacking features or anything that will get you less motivated about the project, please let me know as it might be fixed whereas if you don't say anything I won't be able to help. Of course, this works for all orx users. :D
  • edited November 2009
    iarwain wrote:
    Points 1, 2, 3 and 6 are usually turn downs for people who decide not to use orx. I'm glad it's the exact opposite for you! =) As for the INI, I thought I was the only one left alive in the world one with this preference. ;)
    You're not. In fact I used to work with people who simply hate XML. It's great in theory and there are cases where it makes sense. But the moment people started storing binary data in XML it was evident that hype is clouding ppls judgement. XML is easy to reverse engineer, but for someone who's only proficient with word processor, INIs are much easier to grasp. Extensions to INI ORX uses are easy to understand yet pretty powerful at the same time. I like it. For me that's the number one reason why I don't want to switch.

    3D models should be an easy to add plugin if people feel like it's needed in the future. Scripting language is unnecessary since building ORX based code is super easy and all of the core functionality one would like to tweak can be exposed in INI. Perhaps the importance of INIs should be stressed more? I for one started by looking at the code and only when I realized there isn't any for some of the samples, I started looking at the config files.
    Only the low level functions are deferred to external libraries (like blitting a bitmap). The rendering logic is homemade, in a plugin without any external dependency.
    I know. I looked at the 37 functions that display plugins have to implement and that's why I think it's possible for me (as in: I don't have to spend my whole life on it) to implement it in pure OGL*) without any dep on SDL/SFML.

    *) I'd rather do it in DX, but if I'm going to code something, community would probably benefit more from OGL implementation
    I'd like orx to be as easy to use as possible, and with a reduced developper team of 1 for the core as for the last 2 years, I have to prioritize and make compromises. In the end I want also to use orx, not only to develop it, as I plan to make a living out of indie games done with it. That's my escape plan from the mainstream industry before it turns out I've been working there for 10 years. And this milestone is drawing near... :)
    Better do it sooner than later. Indie is getting dangerously mainstream these days. ;)
    I'm really happy to see that and see your motivation. If at some point you discover that orx is lacking features or anything that will get you less motivated about the project, please let me know as it might be fixed whereas if you don't say anything I won't be able to help. Of course, this works for all orx users. :D
    I'm trying to convince a bunch of friends to create a pretty simple 2D game using ORX. I have an idea for a pretty neat technology that would make this game stand out in terms of graphics, but I need per object shaders to prototype it. So yeah, back to cleaning up my place and then some more coding. :)

    Cheers!
  • edited November 2009
    Ryan wrote:
    You're not. In fact I used to work with people who simply hate XML. It's great in theory and there are cases where it makes sense. But the moment people started storing binary data in XML it was evident that hype is clouding ppls judgement. XML is easy to reverse engineer, but for someone who's only proficient with word processor, INIs are much easier to grasp. Extensions to INI ORX uses are easy to understand yet pretty powerful at the same time. I like it. For me that's the number one reason why I don't want to switch.

    I totally agree with the XML considerations. As for orx's take on INI, I'm glad you appreciate it. The more I play with it every day, the more tricks I find to make my life better. And by that means less work, shorter amount of dev/debug time to get what I want on screen.
    3D models should be an easy to add plugin if people feel like it's needed in the future. Scripting language is unnecessary since building ORX based code is super easy and all of the core functionality one would like to tweak can be exposed in INI. Perhaps the importance of INIs should be stressed more? I for one started by looking at the code and only when I realized there isn't any for some of the samples, I started looking at the config files.

    That's what I try to emphasize on when I'm talking of the data-driven side of the engine. However I probably should give small examples to explain it better. I've been wanting to post on some game development forum, but seen the close-to-zero answers I got last time I did such a thing (1 or 2 years ago), I'm not sure it's worth the amount of time.
    I know. I looked at the 37 functions that display plugins have to implement and that's why I think it's possible for me (as in: I don't have to spend my whole life on it) to implement it in pure OGL*) without any dep on SDL/SFML.
    *) I'd rather do it in DX, but if I'm going to code something, community would probably benefit more from OGL implementation

    Some functions are only to be used for low-end architecture such as GBA and DS, so don't bother with all of them (especially the colorkey stuff, etc). As for OGL, it'd be much appreciated as I could in turn benefit from it for the iPhone display plugin, and so would the community. :)
    Better do it sooner than later. Indie is getting dangerously mainstream these days. ;)
    So true! I've been wanting to do that since 2002 though. ^^ But lately working on a 200+ team *really* makes me want to do it ASAP.
    I'm trying to convince a bunch of friends to create a pretty simple 2D game using ORX. I have an idea for a pretty neat technology that would make this game stand out in terms of graphics, but I need per object shaders to prototype it. So yeah, back to cleaning up my place and then some more coding. :)
    That'd be nice! If you need any help/examples for convincing them, let me know! ;)

    Cheers!
  • edited November 2009
    Greetings to the ORX forum users.

    I am an indie game developer who has been using the FlatRedBall game engine for the last few years (I recently finished a game with the FRB engine) and am considering moving to a different game engine.
    Although I am very pleased with the FRB engine the need for MacOS support has started this search for a new engine.

    My next game will be a 2.5d side-scroller. (I'd like the characters to be 2d, the game play 2d, but have the background and the terrain be 3d (boxes, pyramids etc.) or more speifically speaking have a 3d effect).

    I read a bit about ORX in the wiki but I have a few questions which I'd like to ask.

    Here goes:
    1. To create a game for several platforms (specifically Windows, Mac, Linux & IPhone) can I use the same source code or do I need to rewrite the code with a different plugin for each targeted OS?
    2. What is the meaning of "no 3d rendering"? Does this mean that you can only place sprites at a 90 degrees angle from the camera? I suppose not but I didn't quite understand.
    3. Does the engine use directx? Can it? (For several reasons I prefer using directx graphics over OpenGL)
    4. How can I use the engine with C++ code (it is easier for me)
    5. Have any 2.5d games used the ORX engine?

    Thanks in advance, I look forward to creating games with this engine.
    Ogga
  • edited November 2009
    Ogga wrote:
    Greetings to the ORX forum users.

    Hi Ogga, and welcome amongst us!
    I am an indie game developer who has been using the FlatRedBall game engine for the last few years (I recently finished a game with the FRB engine) and am considering moving to a different game engine.
    Although I am very pleased with the FRB engine the need for MacOS support has started this search for a new engine.

    I didn't know the FlatRedBall engine before today so I went to have a quick glimpse to it. Congrats also for the release of Cubism and best of luck for the sells!
    My next game will be a 2.5d side-scroller. (I'd like the characters to be 2d, the game play 2d, but have the background and the terrain be 3d (boxes, pyramids etc.) or more speifically speaking have a 3d effect).

    Well, as you'll see later in my reply, 3D effects are easily done whereas real 3D isn't supported yet.
    I read a bit about ORX in the wiki but I have a few questions which I'd like to ask.

    Here goes:
    1. To create a game for several platforms (specifically Windows, Mac, Linux & IPhone) can I use the same source code or do I need to rewrite the code with a different plugin for each targeted OS?

    Yes, the same source code will be used on different platforms. However you'll probably have to tweak a couple of things (such as the display resolution, the main function prototype or even inputs depending on which platform you are). That being said almost everything will be accessed through orx's API and 99% of the code will be the same for all the platforms.
    2. What is the meaning of "no 3d rendering"? Does this mean that you can only place sprites at a 90 degrees angle from the camera? I suppose not but I didn't quite understand.

    Yes, that's it. Orx's world is in 3D, but unfortunately the current available rendering/display plugins are only 2D.
    Adding 3D support would be pretty easy but it requires writing new plugins for display and rendering.
    That being said, you can display 3D objects/FXs by using the fragment (pixel) shaders.
    3. Does the engine use directx? Can it? (For several reasons I prefer using directx graphics over OpenGL)

    The only available display plugins (the SFML-based one + the SDL/OpenGL one I'm currently working on) are based on OpenGL and work on linux/windows/mac OS X. The iPhone plugin that will be done in a couple of weeks will also be based on OpenGL.
    However, it's totally doable to write a DirectX display plugin for windows. I'll probably have to do it if I want to support XNA at some point. Till then, unless someone contributes for one, there are none, sorry.
    4. How can I use the engine with C++ code (it is easier for me)

    Very easily by writing your C++ code and calling orx's C code natively. There are two examples in the tutorial (#10 & #11). In a couple of days I'll also release Scroll which is a level-based game engine written in C++ on top of orx.
    5. Have any 2.5d games used the ORX engine?

    Full games? Not that I'm aware of. Some prototypes have been released (either by me or by community members) and I'm working on private prototypes with different persons that will hopefully lead to full released game in the future.
    Thanks in advance, I look forward to creating games with this engine.
    Ogga

    You're welcome. I'm afraid orx doesn't exactly suits your needs (OpenGL-based + 3D through shaders only), but if you choose to work with this engine, be assured that you'll get as much help as possible as you might already have guessed if you read some threads in the forum.

    Best,

    iarwain
  • edited November 2009
    I forgot to mention it, but if by 3D effect you're looking mainly for differential scrolling (with no limit in the number of planes), orx's render plugin handles this natively using the depth of objects.
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