• Recent Tutorials

  • Smart Contest 2013 Begins: Round 1 "Graphics"

    Optimale Systemer has begun it's big prize contests for all it's Smart Mobile Studio users. Some time ago it was announced that they will be running 4 contests this year each with their own theme. The winner of each round will win a tablet device for their entry. These will take place in February, May, August and November.

    Smart Mobile Studio is a suite of developer tools that allows your to generate JavaScript and HTML 5 based "apps" written in Object Pascal code. The first version was released just last year and can be purchased at Share-It for $399 USD or 328.15 EUR. The compiler has since proven to be quite versatile and capable of designing everything from web-based games to localized business apps.

    There is a free trial available at their website to see if it's something you want to use.





    So far only a few games have been made with the compiler and suite of tools, most notably from Eric Grange who created an entry into the PGD Challenge with his own competition entry called War Trail. You can check out his entry on the PGD Challenge Showcase website at www.PGDChallenge.com!

    More details about prizes and the how the competition will be ran by the end of January will be announced on the Optimale Systemer website. Keep an eye out for that as the February Round of these contests comes closer. The tablets they will offer up for prizes so far have been listed as: "iPad, iPad mini, Android based tablet, Windows tablet" and $750 USD Value.





    To check out further details about how to win yourself a brand new tablet or to try Smart Mobile Studio at www.SmartMobileStudio.com.


    News Sources: Optimale Systemer, Twitter
    Comments 55 Comments
    1. SilverWarior's Avatar
      SilverWarior -
      How big is your example? How much information needs to be dowloaded for it to run?
      I'm asking this since I'm currently at work now and I would like to try it on my laptop (work comuter has poor performance), but I conect to internet using Mobile phone as external modem.
    1. Dan's Avatar
      Dan -
      the whole thing is around 8mb (6mb for the music).
    1. SilverWarior's Avatar
      SilverWarior -
      After watching your demo a few times I belive I found some error.
      Down in the tunnel when you start placing ligths on both sides at the same time ony first two has torches beneath rest of them are ony fire particles.
    1. Dan's Avatar
      Dan -
      yes that is one of the many bugs that I didn't have the time to fix=)
    1. SilverWarior's Avatar
      SilverWarior -
      Well it still seams great. Also I love the music

      BTW If internet conection gets disconected music stops playing when it reaches the end of the song. But if there is internet connection the songs simply restarts from start.
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Quote Originally Posted by Dan View Post
      here is my final submission: http://gen2gdk.com/g2mp/demoscene0/
      didn't have enough time to implement all the effects that I wanted, but when do we ever have enough time
      Very cool. I reduced the browser window size to try to smoothen it out a bit, but movement was still a touch gittery. Could it be that I have a bunch of minimized windows open at the same time?

      Anyhow here is a few screenshots...


    1. Dan's Avatar
      Dan -
      WILL, this demo should really be run in chrome (I don't suppose there is a mac version of chrome?), all the other browsers just don't deliver the same performance. firefox seems to be desperately trying to catch up, but its garbage collector (which causes frequent hick ups) is extremely slow compared to chrome.

      SilverWarior, the music is streamed so I would expect it to stop if the internet connection is lost. btw the music is from the lost eden game (you can get it here: http://gen2gdk.com/files/LostEden.rar) and it is awesome.
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      Quote Originally Posted by Dan View Post
      here is my final submission: http://gen2gdk.com/g2mp/demoscene0/
      didn't have enough time to implement all the effects that I wanted, but when do we ever have enough time
      That is very very very uber-cool!! Kudos, I reckon that should win!

      My submission was utter crap as I had little time to work on it, and just couldn't figure out for ages how to do the main effect I wanted in SMS. I only figured it out at the last minute, and was very tired from my new job and the shift work

      Here's mine:
      http://theprobegame.com/downloads/retroballs/index.html
    1. Dan's Avatar
      Dan -
      nice 3d effect. is that some kind of canvas trick or are you doing a proper software rasterizing? I initially wanted to make a software rasterizer for this contest but then realized that if I didn't get sufficient performance then I would have wasted all that time for nothing.
    1. laggyluk's Avatar
      laggyluk -
      impressive! runs really smooth on fullscreen with a glitch every couple of seconds
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      @Dan: Thanks! I converted an image of the original Amiga boing ball from 32 colours down to 16 colours and did software palette cycling. I redrew the balls after a palette update into a hidden canvas, combining a pre-calculated shading effect array with the pixels, and then draw that canvas to the screen.
      I wanted to add lots of other stuff like music, backgrounds, scrolling fonts, etc. but just ran out of time after all my hassles I had figuring out the graphics side of the balls, and being tired.

      @laggyluk: are you talking about my submision?
    1. laggyluk's Avatar
      laggyluk -
      Quote Originally Posted by paul_nicholls View Post
      @laggyluk: are you talking about my submision?
      actually yours and Dan's. both seem to glitch now and then.
      maybe it's my graphics card
    1. Dan's Avatar
      Dan -
      laggyluk, which browser are you using?
    1. laggyluk's Avatar
      laggyluk -
      chrome & intel hd3000
    1. Dan's Avatar
      Dan -
      that is weird. chrome should run very smoothly. every few seconds lag is most likely the garbage collector kicking in, so your video hardware is probably not at fault here.
    1. phibermon's Avatar
      phibermon -
      Yeah, jerks a lot on mine too, Firefox i7960, GTX460, I believe google made extra effort with WebGL and DOM events in Chrome to try and keep webGL smooth, however it's a problem that's inheriant to all browsers, all browser 'game loops' are very hacky because they are relying on events that offer no guarantee of being executed at a consistent rate and that will never change due to the sandboxing nature of browsers, if it were possible to totally take over the main loop then it's also possible for any malicious code to totally lock the browser.
    1. Cybermonkey's Avatar
      Cybermonkey -
      Yes I got the same glitch. Running the demo in fullscreen with chromium 20.0.1132.57 (64 bit Linux) on a six core with 8 GB of RAM and a Radeon HD 7770. I don't think it's because of the hardware ...
    1. pstudio's Avatar
      pstudio -
      It looks really good Dan, and you're submission must with no doubt be a favourite to win the contest (of course I've only seen three of the submissions I also dig the music. It has an Enigma vibe to it, and I really like Enigma.
      I like yours as well Paul. The instantly recognizable Amiga ball. A good retro demo much a like my own submission

      So I've made a demo as well. Inspired by the retro scene but obviously far from the quality the scene can produce. I haven't published it anywhere, so you'll have to download it if you wish to see it.
      http://dl.dropbox.com/u/920760/GraphicsDemo.zip
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      Quote Originally Posted by pstudio View Post
      It looks really good Dan, and you're submission must with no doubt be a favourite to win the contest (of course I've only seen three of the submissions I also dig the music. It has an Enigma vibe to it, and I really like Enigma.
      I like yours as well Paul. The instantly recognizable Amiga ball. A good retro demo much a like my own submission

      So I've made a demo as well. Inspired by the retro scene but obviously far from the quality the scene can produce. I haven't published it anywhere, so you'll have to download it if you wish to see it.
      http://dl.dropbox.com/u/920760/GraphicsDemo.zip
      I agree about Dan's demo

      Thanks pstudio for the kind words...pity I ran out of time, I would have had retro fonts, and lots of other stuff too, and the balls were going to bounce in and out of the background too (z plane)
    1. SilverWarior's Avatar
      SilverWarior -
      Quote Originally Posted by Dan View Post
      SilverWarior, the music is streamed so I would expect it to stop if the internet connection is lost.
      Is it also chached maybe? Becouse for the first time it took about three demo lops before whole song has been dowloaded (poor speads when using mobile phone as modem) but after it played without problems up until I disconected from internet and song reached the end.