Hi, I have some specs on my plans for a 2d game engine up on my web site. I haven''t started development yet. I''m looking for some feedback and resources. If I''ve missed anything or if there are better ways to do some things [please don''t post about using D3D though:]. Mainly I''m interested in information Anti-aliased primitives and sprites, RLE compressed sprites, Compiled sprites. As well any pointers for input routines in DX3, links to other sound engines or experiences with the listed ones, and any ideas for alternatives to tile-based maps (more like object-based). Thanks, Nathan. nathany.com

quote:Original post by Icarus
It''s really great that you plan everything out ahead of time. I rarely do this, and wish I did more often.

Heh. Sometimes I wish I spent less time planning and more time experimenting. Its difficult to know the best way to tackle something without just playing around with the code a bit. But I''m still planning ahead, and hoping that some more-experienced-than-I people on these forums will show me the path.

quote:Original post by aDasTRa
buddy, your first move should be to get dx 7, not 3!
I''m sorry, other than that i have nothing constructive to say...

Uhm. Yah. Actually I am using the DX 7a SDK and runtime under Windows 2000. I should probably tweak my text a bit... what I am planning is to write to the DirectX 3 interfaces.

NT gaming may not be that important now, and probably less important by the time I make a game... but if I''m writing all my own Blt routines and stuff, I don''t see much point in using/requiring the latest version of DirectX just to set up the screen.

Of course, when I take a closer look at the differences between input and sound, that may change my mind. Also, if there are some useful changes to DDraw in DX8, that would change my mind as well. I hear they are integrating D3D and DDraw more closely. If they would do a Blt routine that uses D3D (without me using D3D) for alpha blending, but also provide decent software emulation for it, I''m sure that would make everyone very happy. In fact, I think I will recommend that once DX8 beta1 is available and I get a chance to look at it.

Anyway... other comments? Esp. tips and URLs regarding RLE compressed Blts, I''m quite interested in that.

Nathan.


















nathany.com

quote:Original post by bogdanontanu
i will go for the DX3 version...it really rocks to play Starcraft on NT...

Actually I was just thinking. Since I''m not using DDraw for much (mostly my own custom routines) I could make a very small wrapper in a separate module. Targeting DX3 for now. But if I want to make a different little wrapper for DX7 or DX8, it would be pretty simple to do.

The one thing I don''t get, is how to support DX3 and 7 at the same time. I know you can detect which version, but how does that work now that they have:
#define DIRECTDRAW_VERSION 0x0300

quote:and...yeahh..i can help you nathany with some ASM routines...if i have time beacuse my own RTS is going up pretty soon....

Hey, cool... So what assembler are you using, btw? (MASM, TASM, NASM)

Thanks, Nathan.


nathany.com