Packaging Assets

Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Packaging Assets

Paulus(Posted 2008) [#1]
Hi

I am wondering about the reliability of Terapak to pack things like .md2 and .b3d files in one .exe. Any opinions from people who have used it, please?

Also, does anyone know of any software (preferably free!) that can pack .md2 and/or .b3d files into an .exe file using Delphi (D7). I know the basic image resources (.bmp and .ico) files can be included, but to include 3d assets is something I have searched countless forums for. Maybe my approach is wrong on this and I need to just encrypt my assets? Any good links? Again, any experts out there, please!

I wish to do some dual development in blitz3d and delphi (glscene) and compare blitz's dx7 with opengl.
The way I see it they both have strengths.

As a third point how extensible is Blitz3D? Can it access DX10 or 9c functionality? If so, any good links? OpenGL offers a new version every time a new graphics card comes out, though GLScene users rely on the libaries being updated (last update over 10 months ago).

Cheers


Gabriel(Posted 2008) [#2]
I am wondering about the reliability of Terapak to pack things like .md2 and .b3d files in one .exe. Any opinions from people who have used it, please?

How do you define reliable? To me, reliable means that does what it says it does 99.9% of the time, and in that case, it's definitely reliable. If, on the other hand, you're asking how secure it is, not at all. It dumps all the files temporarily to the hard drive, where anyone can access them.

Also, does anyone know of any software (preferably free!) that can pack .md2 and/or .b3d files into an .exe file using Delphi (D7). I

Molebox. It isn't free.

As a third point how extensible is Blitz3D?

Not very.

Can it access DX10 or 9c functionality?

Only if you throw away the 3d engine and use a completely different one. There are options, but they seem pretty limited compared to mainstream DX9 engines.


GfK(Posted 2008) [#3]
Molebox is OK but it has problems on Windows98.


Paulus(Posted 2008) [#4]
Thanks Gabriel/Gfk

Anyone out there doing any duel development?

Cheers


GfK(Posted 2008) [#5]
......doing any what?


GrahamK(Posted 2008) [#6]
Under delphi there are lots of ways of embedding media etc into the exe. Take a look at www.Torry.net for relevant components. They 'usually' consist of a component you drop onto a form, then add the files to them, and update your code to pull the data from a stream rather than an actual file (most things in the delphi world have a loadfromstream method as well as loadfromfile).

Glscene goes one better and implements file redirection to help with this, not entirely sure of the method as I hijacked it and put my own in (if you havn't guessed the stuff in my footer is written in delphi and uses GLscene as its core rendering engine).

I am a little confused about what you are trying to do, and the your facts are a little off too.. OpenGL doesn't need a new version every time a new graphics card comes out, and GLscene is actively developed, you just need to download the changes from SVN (full packaged versions are less common, but that's never caused me a problem).