Ping Game Framework

[powerpop]

I decided to put my game on the backburner and focus instead on creating a game framework from what I have so far done around tokamak and irrlicht. What I hope to offer first is a mix of:

- Irrlicht (graphics of course)
- Tokomak (physics)
- OpenAL (audio)

i am considering whether to rely solely on tokamaks collision code or to wire in Opcode (so i can support trimeshes) - i only want one collision engine if possible and irrlichts cant handle physics (yet)

so this will be a higher level game coding interface that will eventually include:

- graphics
- physics
- collision
- characters (player, non-player, networked player)
- an XML scene format
- integrated audio reactions (ambient, object, etc.)
- a time slicing framework (to better manage framerate and updating)
- a reactor framework (things that respond to events)
- directed graphs (finite state machines)
- networking code (probably using HawkNL)
- scripting integration (lua or simkin)
- setup screens (ala ICE hopefully!)

anything else i can think of that will give game designers an integrated solution - so post your wish list and ideas here

i am hoping for something as easy to use as blitz3d but opensource (probably LGPL or apache style) and game quality - and not in basic

[powerpop]

i should add what i am not doing - as far as i know - i could change my mind

- not making a flight sim engine or car sim engine
- not making it run with bsp trees (quake levels) unless there is an easy way to treat the bsp as a static mesh in the physics and collision code - i personally think that bsp levels are not the best option long term in games

thats all i can think of at the moment ...

[Guest]

i like the idea. it sounds very promising! ...i would prefer python scripting though!

[powerpop]

i love python but the language engine is so ... heavyweight - it tends to be an entire system in that it wants to be front and center - i like the lighter scripting engines for game dev - lua is probably the best one although i had good luck with simkin because of its xml friendliness - but i am open to others - on the ping.net site there will be a topic devoted to scripting and we will hash it out there!

[Gonosz]

Some ideas:
- for a networking engine, check out ICE (http://www.zeroc.com/ice.html), it's free, complete and has LOTS of features.
- recently I used AngelScript for scripting, it's free, C-like and took me about 10 minutes to learn (http://www.angelcode.com/angelscript/)

Gonosz

[buhatkj]

i had a really hard time deciphering the documentation, or lack thereof...
also i couldnt seem to figure out how to integrate it into my project correctly, it just sorta refused to link properly...
might be i just didnt give it enough effort, but i want something real easy to use and really well documented.
sai and i are both using tolua++, it basically does the work for you if you give it stripped headers...
-Ted

[AngelCode]

Hello everyone,

I'm the author of AngelScript and saw buhatkj's post about it being difficult to understand. What can I do to make it better for you? AngelScript is still very young and I'm constantly working on making it better and easier to use.

Please e-mail me and tell me what you would like to see in AngelScript and I'll see what I can do. My e-mail is andreas(at)angelcode.com. I'm not a regular at these forums so any replies here will most likely not be read.

An automatic binder tool for AngelScript is currently under work, but not by me and I can't say when it would be ready for public release.

Regards,
Andreas Jonsson
Author of AngelScript
www.AngelCode.com[/url]

[buhatkj]

i think what was missing from angelscript's docs that i wouldn need to use it effectively is a few things:

-some instructions on how to set up the build environment(in VC++6 or dev-c++ for example)
-a basic sort of "hello world" sample program using angelscript
-an extensive set of example of the different features in action, with full source code.

i did like the ideas behind angelscript, it sounded like a good wya to implement things, but i just couldnt figure out how to get started with it. i didnt know how to get it rolling. a sample app would really help.

also some doxygen style docs maybe that detail all the classes and their relationships to each other. part of what i love about irrlicht is the great docs and abundant examples. it makes it easy to pick up and start learning with it.
-Ted

[AngelCode]

There are several articles on the angelscript page, explaining how to set things up. There is also a complete sample program that shows how to load the dll, configure the engine, load and compile scripts as well as executing them. This is all for the latest version 1.6.0. The reference documentation that comes with the sdk shows all the interfaces (there are only 3), but it might not be as well structured as the doxygen generated documents.

I recognize that AngelScript is lacking in the form of tutorials and examples but I'm only one person and I prefer spending what little time I have on improving the actual library. Others are more than welcome to help out with tutorials and samples and even contributions to the library.

AngelScript is still very new, 11 months and a few days, but the community is growing everyday and many developers have expressed interest in helping out. It might be that AngelScript doesn't have enough resources for you today, but please don't dismiss it so quickly, check back every once in a while to see what is going on.

I've been releasing new versions about once per month, and now I'm also keeping a latest beta that is updated about once per week, even more often sometimes.

Your feedback is important to me, it is what drives me to make AngelScript better.

Regards,
Andreas

[buhatkj]

i hadnt looked at angelscript since about january, you have definitely made some vast improvement in the docs since then with this new version 1.6.0
i will certainly give it another look
-Ted

[stodge]

I would avoid HawkNL and look at enet or Raknet instead. I tried HawkNL a while ago, and thought it wasn't very reliable.

[powerpop]

if i am not mistaken i think raknet is built on top of hawkNL - so what does that say for the reliability of raknet as well? but the api looks great!

and angelscript looks interesting BUT personally i would rather my scripting language for a game NOT be C++ - languages with slightly simpler syntax would be better i think - simkin fits that description, so would javascript and lua - just a personal bias - also, i tend to want my scripting language to hold a model of game building that is not the same as the C++ api - that is what i will aim for in ping.net anyways - hopefully it will simplify game development for independents

[buhatkj]

well the GNE is built on haxknl, but im pretty sure raknet is a little different. the GNE is an attempt to recreate much of the funtionality of directplay, whereas haxknl is more low level.
-Ted