nxPascal

[Carver413]

Thanks for sharing, I had a little trouble getting the demos to work. first the version of dglOpenGL you are using would not compile with lazarus/linux. I downloaded the newest version and that fixed that problem. second problem required me to add ReadOpenGLCore to the CreateGlWindow code. I only got about 60 - 120 fps guess my gfx card is too wimpy. I think that more demo's would be quite helpful in getting others to make use of your work.

[farcodev]

Have you a compiled demos archive too ?

[User137]

Have you a compiled demos archive too ?

Demos are still working (and i wish to add more of them in the future), but i don't include compiled executables in packages. Would you have an idea for additional demo?

Finally got myself coding again, and the result is new nxSound.pas
It is using Noeska OpenAL header, for which i'm not sure how to give proper credit to... It is compiling and running fine with Lazarus and Delphi, like other units.

It is simplified OOP approach, and its autocreating/destroying itself by just adding nxSound in uses list. Like OpenAL, this supports multiple buffers and sources with 3D positional sound. Buffers and sources are separately stored, essentially letting multiple sources use same buffer, the sound file.

This is a simple example that plays ding sound:

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  sound.AddSource('ding', sound.AddWAV('ding.wav'));
  if nxError<>'' then showmessage(nxError);
end;

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
  sound.source[0].Play;
end;

In other news GL UI is able to drag its windows with mouse...

I'll update the engine packages and download links if there is interest to.

[User137]

Added all file links again, this time i also added compiled demos, they include media files needed to run them. Both Lazarus and Delphi versions for source code.

Latest addition is framebuffer class of which 1 demo is about. A rotating cube which faces are showing the same screen of rotating cube which faces contain rotating cubes and... lol

What else.. hmm i forgot to make a demo about nxSound, but you can see brief example in above message, it is at that simple level.

The future:
- Researching more on OBJ file format i discovered that it not only supports triangles but loading must also be able to use polygons. This was a setback to my 3D model code which i have to reorganize fundamentally. Something along the lines of TPolyModel and TTriModel would be still for triangles only. For gaming use, vertexarrays etc all must be triangles. Internal code will convert polygon models into triangle models and use normal generation where needed.
(Knowing that i updated my old 3D editor for being able to load all OBJ models now, just nxEngine itself can't yet.)
- UIEditor: I still have plans to make the component editing more like designing forms is in Delphi. Meaning you could select many items, drag them or change multiple properties at the time. I'm also not pleased with the layout.
(- Possibly article of making simple program or game... make you know more about the engine )

edit: I still don't know how i'd add musics. Looked into OpenAL playing but didn't get anything working. Tips?

[Rodrigo Robles]

edit: I still don't know how i'd add musics. Looked into OpenAL playing but didn't get anything working. Tips?

OpenAL was designed to work with raw sound files like WAV. It doesn't have support for music files like MP3 or OGG. We should code the player... Fortunately Ivo Steinmann did this work for us. The project Mundo uses it. There is two units, ogg.pas and vorbis.pas, you can find it at http://gamemundo.svn.sourceforge.net...nk/src/client/

[cst_zf]

Can you tell me how to show fade-in and fade-out effect with nxPascal?

[code_glitch]

Hay all nxPascal contributors, a new post slipped the mod net while I was away... See above.

Can you tell me how to show fade-in and fade-out effect with nxPascal?

Cheers.

[User137]

I just got a weird theory to optimize texture memory... There are times when you just need textures that are not power of 2, for example odd 300x200 image. nxPascal can currently load that as either scaled to nearby size (256x256 in this case) or pixel-perfectly unaltered but fit in 512x256 "frame". However the "frame" will in this case waste alot of unused memory.

What i came up with (as just idea so far), is that i'd have 2 integer (word) variables per texture: XPart, YPart. The loader would calculate perfect fit for image that is divided in 1, 2 or 4 subtextures. That 300x200 would be divided in 2 parts to make as whole a 320x256 "frame", because the height cannot be split in 2:
256x256, 64x256

If i count memory saving for RGBA image:
300x200 originally as 512x256 "frame" needs 524288 bytes.
2 subtextures need 262144 + 65536 = 327680 bytes
which is 62.5% of memory that would normally be reserved.

Obviously this will need draw functions to adapt to subtextures but it shouldn't be problem. 3D model surface would be unable to use this well, but models should always use the scaling option anyway for repeatability.
Edit: Actually it is big problem if want to support patterned drawing... I'd propably disable/ignore patterns when this is used.

Also, i just got BASS musics working with Lazarus so that's what i'll be using. Need to make a class wrapper to it to ease the procedural DLL header unit.

[User137]

Decided to make another video. Combination of various features, first off background is 800x600 QuadTexture. Followed by 2 particle launchers at bottom corner, from which right side is a clone of left one. Mouse cursor drops snowflakes which have gravity applied to them. Then there are 3 trail effects also part of particle engine.

Top top it off, all of that is drawn only in framebuffer. There is a 50x50 grid of indexed GL_QUADS vertexarray, which acts as screen. This let me do a "collapse" effect at where blue trail is moving, basically the grid bends towards it like spacetime

Background music comes also from the application, by nxBass unit, that is some of BASS library simplified to OOP way of programming.
This is all there is to it in main program, and it can handle alot of formats:

  bassSound:=TBassEngine.Create(handle);
  if not bassSound.CheckErrors then begin
    bassSound.Add('music','data'+PathChar+'test.s3m').  Play;
  end;

Wireframe option is added to render settings. Unfortunately i can't upload engine sources yet because this broke my model demo that used placeholder particletype. 3D particle rendering isn't ready yet. But adding me to MSN or asking with private message always works and i can send anything.

Compiled demo added to attachments, let me know if there are any problems running it

[pitfiend]

Hi user137, I tried your stuff on Delphi 2007, it seems to work fine, just some fixes here and there (basicly because you use tpngobject and I have tpngimage, they are the same). The only demo that didn't compile, was the one that uses bass, something about a property channel that was not declared or something else. Didn't have enough time to trace the error' source or to fix it.