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LP
12-03-2004, 12:41 AM
Greetings.
It's been a long time since I had chance to check the forums, but due to unexpected events that happened was unable to work on Asphyre anymore. Currently our team is temporaly separated, I'm finishing my IT professional career in my institute, doing server-side development (PHP + MS Access + MySQL) for sites like http://promocuerna.com and some client-side web applications (JavaScript) being busy approx. 12 hours a day. Hab, the other developer is having similar difficulties (and he is the developer of 3D part of Asphyre). We plan to continue working on Asphyre when this semester is over - that is, 5th of May, 2004.
For those who wanted to see some of the work we've actually FINISHED in Asphyre, I've uploaded a "random" collection of components / sources which are finished and will be part of Asphyre.
These components are located at:
http://cshine.f2o.org/dl/asphyre_part00.zip
We're going to finish our official web site at:
http://cshine.f2o.org
You may also want to check some PHP work I've been doing: :wink:
http://cshine.f2o.org/doom/message.php (yes, it's a very young version of message board for our site!)
And finally, Hab, the developer of Asphyre3D has a nice web page made in Flash at:
http://cshine.f2o.org/hab/welcome.html.

Sorry for the delay and thanks to those with patience and interest in Asphyre.

- Lifepower

Edit: fixed links and some errors...
Edit2: a short description of files in asphyre_part00.zip:
AsmGfx.pas - contains some routines of resizing bitmaps, etc.
AsphyreBmp.pas - derived from TBitmap, contains support for loading multiple graphics formats and some effects
AsphyreBmpEx.pas - allows to use fonts on TAsphyreBmp
BitmapFx.pas - some Bitmap effects made by Hab
CNetServ.pas - client/server TCP/IP connection suite
PaletteFx.exe - allows to create rainbow palettes
PlanetFx.pas - implements correct spherical mapping
VTDbUnit.pas - VTDb 2.0 unit
VTDTool.exe - utility to manage VTDb
WinConsoles.pas - implements console functions for Delphi apps

Most of the files listed above were used in creation of our TMDC Entry "Armageddon", which can be found here:
http://taat.fi/tmdc/demos/armageddon.zip

Stevie56
04-04-2004, 12:11 AM
Have you considered a career in double-glazing? Used cars? Selling the Eiffel Tower? Tower Bridge marketing?

As I said many months ago (and got shouted down by you for my pains):- promises of jam tomorrow butter no bread today.

Sneer if you feel you can, but I'm staying with DelphiX.

At least with that, I can deliver on my promises.

alien
07-04-2004, 03:30 PM
:oops: I was waiting more than one year for the next release of PowerDraw(Asphyre), but we get only promisses and now this.......
I know it's freeware and you update when you want but it's simly not fair to promise something you cannot keep....... :evil:

(Maybe it's a good a idea to check the Omega components :lol: )

LP
09-04-2004, 04:22 AM
First of all, we're not talking about "promises" (check freeware definition) but about *expectations*. Due to many requests I've tried to mention our situation and possible solutions we hope to make and at no time I've been dishonest about it. It's sad we didn't manage to make a public version of Asphyre yet, but it's even more sad that people start flaming us for this instead of offering at least any of the support, be it moral (just a word) or practical. The library was (and probably will) be free and as I see the idea of giving something for nothing is not good for everyone (like the previous two replies). Besides, even though outdated, PowerDraw3 pre release is still of good use to create a complete game.
Also, it's seemed to be (and from Alien's reply I can deduce it IS) some feel of "competition" between freeware libraries (and similar posts) - that's a non-sense. I think each developer of particular freeware library (in this case, I) doesn't care much how many "copies" (or "numbers") of library are being used since there's no direct income of it; of course, we're happy if someone uses our library and that's where motivation comes. That's why I would like to thank you a lot for keeping flaming us and/or Asphyre progress, maybe when PowerDraw/Asphyre developers are having very difficult time it's all you can do. :( ... to say the truth, after reading this I even started to think that PowerDraw will die eventually, if that's how you support us.

Cheers,
Lifepower

Harry Hunt
09-04-2004, 07:23 AM
I think what people need to understand is that none of us can afford to work on their projects full-time and that a lot of work goes into writing a game development kit, probably far more than you can imagine.
I'm having problems similar to Lifepower's with my project (xcess) right now. I made plans for something very big (an all new version), started working on it but then I had to write exams and couldn't work on it for a while. When I picked it up a few months later, I got an offer for a web developer freelance job that I couldn't refuse (you gotta do something to pay your bills). Of course I'd love to work on xcess, but I simply don't have the time.
So I understand Lifepower's position and I support him. It's only natural that his professional career is important to him and the fact that this leaves him with little time to work on PowerDraw is sad but understandable I think. I have great respect for his work and I think everybody should.

alien
09-04-2004, 02:58 PM
Hey Lifepower! I don't wanted to blame you. PowerDraw is very important for me. I am working on a directx game since one year (personal project) and I've developed an engine for my game using your PD3pre3 library. I have great respect for your work, but I am really interested if PowerDraw will be updated or not (please tell me YES).

If somebody is interested: My engine is similar to JabaGUI (i found this thing yesterday). Has mainform, forms, dialogs, common controls (image, label, editbox, listbox, combobox, pagecontrol, tabcontrol, memo, scrollbox.....) and other game related controls and a separate program to build the interface (without directx). All controls have tons of cool effects. In fact is 99% complete, but i have some stability and speed problems.

Na, ok. I have two important, low-level questions about the last PD release. I will open a new topic for these.

AND THANK YOU FOR GIVING US THIS WONDERFULL LIBRARY!

(and sorry for my shit english)

LP
11-04-2004, 03:58 AM
Well, thanks for good words, actually we ran into a problem similar to what Harry mentioned - we were going too far with the complexity of the library which slowed down everything and it was the time our local business were gone and being on final semester we were unable to work like we did before.
As I probably said somewhen, PowerDraw is actually a library made for our game development (which has been on hold for about a year) and as long as we develop games, library grows :wink:
Since it's pretty obvious we won't be able to work well on it this semester and we had plans on continuing working on our game project in the summer, it was logical for me to say that we're not going to upgrade the library until then (like the middle of May).
We were thinking complex things for the library to make it good enough to be sold but since we're more into game development, that's out of question, so now we'll try to make it simple and easy to use.
And to say the truth I've been impressed myself by other similar libraries, to mention some: Omega, GameVision and Xcess... I think it's been the source of my inspiration to continue developing PowerDraw (remembering those "dark" days when we had to keep with lone library of DelphiX...)

Anyway, I believe there's no point to continue with this thread until the news of next release, so this topic is now locked.

Cheers!
- Lifepower