Mac OS X Port

Hello,
I've been looking through orx's code and it looks like a great engine. I was wondering about the Mac OS X port, how far are you? I'd really like to use orx on a mac - and I can help for the port if you'd like?

Thanks,
Max

Comments

  • edited November 2008
    Hi Maxime!

    Well, I have to admit Mac OS X port is still at an early stage as I currently don't have access to any mac hardware. :(
    I'm pretty comfident everything might work very fast if not at the first try. I just need access to a mac, or someone to do it, of course. ;)

    Sooo, your proposition sounds very appealing to me! Do you want to be our saviour??? If so, contact me by PM is my email address doesn't work. Redirections looks like they were completely screwed when my host moved his server. Hopefully everything'll go as it should soon.

    I'd love to see orx running on mac too, and I'm not (hopefully) the only one. :)
  • edited December 2008
    So, Max or Iarwin, how does that MacOs X port is going ? :)....
    (Yeap, i have Windows AND mac os but it would be so easier to have the Macos version for me :).

    thx and keep up the good work !!!
  • edited December 2008
    So, Kroust (yes, I too can forget a letter! :P), here's the situation:

    I sent a message to Max last week with no answer so I don't know about the latest achievements he did. Last time I heard of him, he compiled the core with no problem and no modification for Mac OS X.

    Since then, I bought a macbook (so as to port orx for Mac OS X *and* iPhone). I'm completely new to mac so I need to figure out how everything works.

    So far I had a headache with XCode (why puting such a complex and unintuitive IDE on a such simple and user friendly system???).
    However, using makefiles then codelite I got to compile orx core in dynamic and static version (for tests only).
    I then was able to compile plugins that have no external dependencies and was able to load them at runtime.

    Unfortunately, even if I think I'll have no issue at all with Box2D, SFML isn't up to date on Mac OS X (1.1 is available whereas orx uses the 1.3). Apparently, the next release (1.4, yes I studied maths :P) will also be released for Mac OS X which will solve a lot of troubles. As it should come out soon, I'll wait for it I think...

    During this time I'll fix a thing or two and prepare stuff for my vacations! :P

    I'll also post right away about the latest feature I added on orx last week (I took a day off to do so...)
  • edited January 2009
    Hi iarwain,

    I'm pretty excited about orx - I had a very similar idea myself and was thinking of implementing it till I found orx :). I was planning to use chipmunk + sdl + python for scripting. Do you mind if I ask why Box2D instead of chipmunk? I was also planning to develop an xml file format for games to make it easy to use.

    anyways I'm on a mac, so i can't wait for the port to try it out - let me know if I can be of assistance. I have a powerpc based mac. I tried compiling using the source code but it complained there were no rules for ppc architecture...

    thanks for your help :)
  • edited January 2009
    Hi Daved!

    Welcome amongst us!

    I'm glad to see someone interested by the projet, it always boost our motivation! :)

    So as for Box2D vs Chipmunk, I read a few forum threads to decide which one I wanted to try, and, from what I read, people experienced a few issues with chipmunk so I went for Box2D.
    But anyway, as it's only a plugin, it's easy to add one based on chipmunk (I almost did it but I lacked time). I also need to add joints for the Box2D one as requested last month.

    XML for config is a good call, but I wanted orx core to be independant from any external libraries so as to make it as most portable as possible. I went for a more straightforward scheme (.ini) that I upgraded with a couple of features (inclusions, inheritance, randomness, etc...). Finally, I really like the inheritance, it makes it pretty easy to use from what I experienced. :)

    I'm still working on the mac version, it crashed with latest SFML version, and I'm currently trying the latest release (1.4) to see if it fixed the crashes on linux and mac os X.
    I also began working on SDL/openGL plugins in the case SFML wouldn't work, but this takes also some times and my openGL experience is almost 10 years behind me! :(

    As for the PPC, well, I only have an intel based mac for a bit less than a month, so if you feel like you could help with this, it'd be greatly appreciated! :)

    I'm still struggling with xcode, btw, so any help with this would be great! ;)

    Last thing: did you try orx's tutorials or watched the code samples (drops, particle-test, ...)?

    Feel free to contact me directly if you're interested in participating to orx's mac version. :D
  • edited January 2009
    Ok, so SFML 1.4 is still crashing on linux. :( For now I reverted the SVN version of orx to SFML 1.3 (linux only).

    Windows version is using a patched SFML 1.4 (to avoid hanging when launching orx with a joystick plugged).

    I need to work on the xcode project to use SFML 1.4 and see if it works (so far I only used makefiles to compile on mac OS X because xcode is still some kind of black magic to me ;) ). I will probably finish that during the week (alternating with my work on SDL/openGL plugins to get out of SFML issues I've encountered lately).

    SDL/openGL plugins will also help the current version of orx on GP2X and iPhone (hopefully).
  • edited January 2009
    Hi,

    I've been battling to get orx compiling using xcode on ppc. I'm pretty new to xcode and bakefile so it's taking me ages...

    The first problem I ran into was the inline assembly stuff which prevented compilation - I fixed this temporarily by commenting out the line with __orxGCC__ in common.bkl. Long term I guess we'll have to have a flag for ppc processor?

    I've managed to compile the static library, but still can't get the dynamic library to compile. The linker is proving to be astoundingly unhelpful - the error is

    powerpc-apple-darwin8-gcc-4.0.1: ../../../lib/dynamic/liborx.dylib: No such file or directory

    but this is the file I'm trying to compile... I expect I'm missing something obvious. I'm also getting a lot of warnings about 'fastcall' attribute directive ignored - not sure what that's about.

    I had a quick look at the tutorials - the .ini files are cool, nice and simple. Is scripting implemented yet? It would be great if you were able to do everything with the configuration files and scripts.

    I really want to get it working so I can see it in action! Do you have any videos of demos running?
  • edited January 2009
    daved wrote:
    Hi,

    Hello!
    I've been battling to get orx compiling using xcode on ppc. I'm pretty new to xcode and bakefile so it's taking me ages...

    Sorry, I didn't warn you that the xcode project generated by bakefile is crap. As almost everything generated by bakefile, actually. I've dropped the visual studio projects file it was generating to make some manually. I'm currently doing the same with xcode: I started the project from scratch doing everything manually.
    The first problem I ran into was the inline assembly stuff which prevented compilation - I fixed this temporarily by commenting out the line with __orxGCC__ in common.bkl. Long term I guess we'll have to have a flag for ppc processor?

    I'm adding the flag tonight, it'll be on the svn by tomorrow. I'll also handle the case where assembly is used. I'll duplicate a section for definition where you'll be able to make changes for PPC (for the orxFASTCALL, for example).
    I've managed to compile the static library, but still can't get the dynamic library to compile. The linker is proving to be astoundingly unhelpful - the error is

    powerpc-apple-darwin8-gcc-4.0.1: ../../../lib/dynamic/liborx.dylib: No such file or directory

    but this is the file I'm trying to compile... I expect I'm missing something obvious. I'm also getting a lot of warnings about 'fastcall' attribute directive ignored - not sure what that's about.

    That's weird. There are no warnings/errors?
    I had a quick look at the tutorials - the .ini files are cool, nice and simple. Is scripting implemented yet? It would be great if you were able to do everything with the configuration files and scripts.

    Unfortunately, the scripting support is not finished. I wasn't the one working on it, so I can't say for sure how much work there's left for having a working support. When I'm done with the mac version, I'll try to give it a look.
    Although, I found that the ini/object allow so much stuff without writing a line of code, that it makes it almost bearable not to have scripting support yet. ;)
    I really want to get it working so I can see it in action! Do you have any videos of demos running?

    Yes, actually there are very simple video where I show how config files work. You'll find them in the tutorial section (tutorial 0 has links to the video).

    I also plan on making video from various tests/projects based on orx (drops, particles, game prototypes) but it takes time so it might not be before a couple of weeks. Also, the .ini system has improved a lot since the tutorial video, with lists management, for example.

    I'd like to compile a video of a lot of different projects/tests using orx to show what it can really do and how simple it is compared to other engines. If you have any ideas of test that could look impressive, tell me. I'm lacking of imagination right now, so I only made the particle test to compare with an engine called stk.
  • edited January 2009
    Ok I got the svn version. I tried your xcode project but with no success (perhaps because you have a later version of xcode? or because I have os x 10.4?) - in the end I got it to compile by creating my own xcode project. All seems well so far, I just need to download, compile and link in the external libs.

    I watched all the tutorial videos, they're pretty cool, once I realised I could watch them in full screen... They would benefit a lot from sound, if you could describe what you're doing in a voice-over that would be brilliant.

    A video of creating a simple game with physics would be pretty cool.
  • edited January 2009
    Ah my bad, I created it with XCode 3.1.2 that would explain this.

    Do you mind sending me your xcode project so that I can update the svn with it?

    As for the external libs, you'll find them pre-compiled in the /extern folder. Except for SFML 1.4 which I'm still testing. I'll try to upload it tonight also.
    You can't use the original Box2D one as I made some changes to it so it will only work correctly with the one you'll find in /extern.

    Don't add SDL-based subprojects yet as they're not fully functional (I'm still working on them).

    I didn't find how to define __orxPPC__ only for PPC architecture, in XCode. Were you more lucky than me?

    As for the video, I'd like to add voice over to it, but with my terrible accent when I speak English, I'm afraid no one would understand it. I'll try to lure my girlfriend to help me with this (she's american). ;) I need to record a new video as the config system is more powerful now.

    Thanks for your help! :)
  • edited January 2009
    Hi!

    I've got a fully working version (and bug-free so far) for Mac OS X 10.5/Intel. :woohoo:

    I remade the xcode project file asking to use by default the 10.4 SDK and xcode 2.4 project file compatibility.

    I also added all plugins (SFML + demo) and everything runs correctly in debug and release. Maybe you can try again this xcode project file on your computer, Daved?

    I still haven't found the way to define preprocessor flags depending on the architecture (intel/PPC) though. :(

    Tell me if this helped as I'd like to see orx running on PPC/10.4! :D

    I plan a release of orx 1.0 soon, including all packages for the 3 main platforms (win, linux, mac) + readmes.

    If anyone wants to help with this, please tell me as it begins to be hard to maintain everything by myself! :/
  • edited February 2009
    Hello all!

    As for the Mac OS X port, everything's working correctly on MacOS X 10.5/intel.

    Daved told me the universal binaries I build from my mac are also working on his (MacOS X 10.4/powerPC) but that he couldn't use the xcode project file I did for the plugins.

    Hopefully this is also fixed, and Daoud will confirm it (otherwise I foresee some other headaches in my future! :unsure:).

    There's one last thing not working on 10.4/ppc: the sound with SFML plugin does weird things. Apparently this issue is in SFML itself, and I tried a work around recently for Daved to test. If this isn't working, I have no clue how to fix it, except writing a new sound plugin directly based on openAL probably. Hopefully things will go fine! :)

    For people wanting to try orx on their mac, you can use the subversion version (from the sourceforge page, there are explanations on how it works). You'll find pre-compiled tutorials for the mac in the /tutorial fodler.

    I'll package a new release for orx that will contain the mac version along with some new stuff (generic input system, list handling in config files, convex mesh as physics body shapes, ...) as soon as Daved can confirm things are fine on 10.4/ppc.

    Thanks for your patience, all! :)
  • edited February 2009
    cool, can't wait to try it :)
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