PLAYNIAX 2D FRAMEWORK (IGNITION) FOR BLITZMAX
BlitzMax Forums/BlitzMax Beginners Area/PLAYNIAX 2D FRAMEWORK (IGNITION) FOR BLITZMAX
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| Hi all, When will it be available? Thanks in advance |
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| It might be faster to get an answer if you via their website contact form found here: http://www.playniax.com/contact/ |
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| As far as I know there are plans for a possible release in the next few months. |
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| I tried it, but the "send" button is useless no matter I used firefox or ie :( |
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| I sent email to the owner asking him to fix the contact page. |
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| The target date for the Playniax framework is the 7th of oktober. I hope I can make it. Thanx, ImaginaryHuman for telling me the email button is not working. I'm on it. |
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| Well, it's finally there. Version 1.0 is out! |
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| I think it would be much easier to manage as a Module, rather than having to "include" the files you need. But that's probably just me. |
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| So I tried the demo... the gravity zone game has a few issues There was some alignment problems with the crystal structure above the two ships... like they didn't really fit together.. there was a distinctive 4 lines where the pieces intersect. The missiles were too slow (not faster than the ship that shot them) and would constantly over-correct its direction so it would turn back and forth as it sought out its target. In certain circumstances you would fire a missile and it would do a 270 degree turn to face its target instead of turning the correct direction that would have only been say 45 degrees. Lastly, for some reason the game would gradually slow down as I played it. I went to re-charge my coffee when I was playing and when I returned it was crawling really bad. The stuff above is expected since its only a demo, but the game shouldn't slow down with time. Cheers |
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| The send button on the page still doesn't work and there is no description on the site about the features offered by the framework. Hopefully some more detailed information will surface shortly. Cheers Mark |
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| Yes, Playniax. We really need to see the Documentation. Now you know why comments in the source code are so important, eh? (just messing with you) What Skully said reminded be of turning off the GC collector and not MemFreeing the memory, which isn't good. |
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| I think it would be much easier to manage as a Module, rather than having to "include" the files you need. Because of issues with module-based projects in the past, you will find that some people will avoid purchasing module based products. Source file includes will always be preferred by many. |
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| Source file includes will always be preferred by many Well, assuming it was shipped as a module with source, I can't see what the problem would be. Having to put 4 or more separate include lines at the top of my program to use certain functionality is not very professional, if you ask me. But then, I'm not much of a games writer, so I guess I don't know. |
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| Brucey: It has nothing to do with writing games, it has to do with actually being able to use the product in the future ;) |
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| Indeed. So you are saying someone would prefer to include lots of different files rather than use a single Import line? And there was me thinking that modules were actually easier to use, and were self-documenting. I personally wouldn't pay for a non-modularised add-on library. As a professional programmer, I have certain expectations when I'm paying for something. Perhaps mine are too high? :-p Anyway, congrats to Playniax for releasing a game framework. :-) |
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| I think GaryV is talking about wanting the source so that he can fix bugs when the developer quits developing... but like you said, if the source is included in the module then... |
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| Skully has it nailed. Mods are not always future-proof. In the early days, every new release of BM was breaking existing mods. You were left waiting until the person recompiled the mods for the new version of BM. I won't name names, but there was a great packing product that the developer gave up on and the same developer later threw a fit and dropped his GUI product (which was THE third-party GUI at the time). Since both were strictly mods, the users were SOL. There was a lot of rewriting going on back then removing code for dead products that would no longer work with current versions of BM. It could have easily been solved if it was source instead of/in addition to being just a mod. People could have continued with no problems and made any necessary modifications in the future. Since Grey had to pull his framework, we do need a good framework to replace it. I still can't find any info on PLAYNIAX's, but I do look forward to any forthcoming info on it. |
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| What did the framework consist of? |
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| Grey's? http://www.greyaliengames.com/framework.php |
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| It could have easily been solved if it was source instead of/in addition to being just a mod Ah. I see now. You think of a module as a binary-only affair? Which explains your argument, and my confusion as to the issues with having something in "module" form. And in that respect, I also wouldn't be so keen on having a binary-only module. |
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| Wow, already starting discussions. I hope I can mellow down some criticism. Brucey, thanks for the congratulations. I had more complaints about our contact form on our website. It think it works ok but you have to fill in every field and enough character. My 'webmaster' told me it’s a security thing. I will have a look at it again. Maybe there are some issues with some browsers. You can also directly send an email to : framework@... for further questions. Keep in mind it’s just the first release. |
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| But to get it clear: Playniax today consist of source file includes? So all source is available for registered customers? |
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| Yes |
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| as far as mod or inludes go, why don't you just have both like simon does with minib3d and leave it to the end user to decide whether to set it up for mod use or includes use. |
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| Ah. I see now. You think of a module as a binary-only affair? Which explains your argument, and my confusion as to the issues with having something in "module" form. And in that respect, I also wouldn't be so keen on having a binary-only module. This is the same thing I realized when doing my ifsoGUI. Just releasing the mod causes a lot of issues for the end user. I didn't realize it at first, but now the source comes with the mod. If you do not release the source, you have to handle the compiling for all of the different platforms, which I didn't realize at first. And your documentation has to be a LOT better if you do not release the source, since the end user needs to know about all of the constants and stuff of that nature. I realized that releasing the source was by far the easiest solution, rather than dealing with all of those other issues. |
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| About modules vs includes, I'm going to do both. This way the programmer decides. |
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| Did anyone buy this framework? What is your comments for the first version? |
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| I would be interested to know what other people think as well if they have purchased the framework. Cheers Mark |
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| You guys, no one is going to have an article written on Give it a few weeks. |
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| A short description of the features Most of these features work together in the so called ‘engine mode’, a 2D display system that uses the 7 base types. The engine takes care of the playfields, sprite layers, sprites and GUI objects. Most graphical objects like sprites and GUI objects are ‘attached’ to a playfield and can be scaled up or down in ‘real time’ by changing a single variable. This can be very useful if you want your game to run on lower resolutions or scale it to widescreen resolutions. Besides scaling it also supports a single zooming variable for zooming all objects real time so the two don’t get mixed up. A playfield is the window to a virtual 'world' and by moving it's (virtual) camera you can 'look around'. The playfield system supports split screen technology. Both horizontal and vertically. The gravity zone game demo shows of this feature and we recently added a zooming effect to the game play. The sprite system is very powerful. Sprites can be ‘attached’ to sprite layers and the layers can have there own relative speed to he playfield camera. This enables you to create the illusion of depth (parallax scrolling). The sprite system also contains a unique collision ‘monitoring’ and scoring system. A sprite map editor is on it’s way. The screen mode selector and the standardized game interface show of the GUI system. The special effects generator and the sound library will be expanded over time. Documentation Documentation is something we know is very important. Especially if you want other people to feel confidant with your product. This is not an easy task but we keep improving the docs and expanding the source code examples. At this point we even feel it is the ‘weak’ point of the framework. Keep in mind that we are doing the best we can in this area and you can always send an email regarding problems or questions about the framework. |
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| Thanks for that Playniax, sounds really good. The docs and examples are a must though, Sprite Candy has an excellent website and demo which convinced me and many others straight away. Your FrameWork sounds great but lots of the cool features that it contains seem hidden at the moment which is a shame. Good luck with the product, I will gladly buy it once it is a little more user accessible. I was going to be one of your first customers but the lack of a detailed manual has put me off for the moment. Still, it is nothing that cannot be fixed. Looking forward to future updates, please keep us posted. Jason. |
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| Thanks Jason (QuickSilva). You are right. Bad documentation can be the ‘achilles heel’ for a product like this. This is our next focus. We understand that people are care full and they should. No worries here. We prefer happy and satisfied customers over ones who feel ripped off. |
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| Is there: Tile map engine with collision support between sprites/tiles? Does the tile map support slope handling? Bitmap font handling support? Automatic widescreen, normal, support? |
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| There is not a tile engine in the traditional way. Instead of tiles you can use sprites. This has advantages and disadvantages. Depending on how big your virtual world is and how big your tiles are there comes a moment that traditional tile methods are better. However I’m working on a ‘tilemap-to-spritemap engine’ that offers the best of both worlds. I believe it’s better and faster. Also high priority for me right now is the spritemap editor. It’s half way done now. For the widescreen it’s not auto (yet) but what I like to call widescreen ready. The playfields who handle much of the sprite and gui displaying have two variables called ‘ScaleX’ and ScaleY. You can use them to set the correct aspect ratio. You just need to calculate it to the preferred resolution. More support for this will be added later. It's a high priority for us cause we want it in our Defenstar game. They framework contains simple support for bitmap fonts but it’s not part of the engine mode yet. Version 1.1 is coming soon and one of the improvements is the core files can be installed as a blitzmax module. Please download a demo first from our website if you are interested in buying the framework and study the examples and docs. |
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| I'm not sure how you could do a TileMap system using sprites?... how would you handle terrain destruction and collision? Having to check every Tile-sprite with every player/enemy sprite would crawl things to a near halt wouldn't they? especially if the map had any kind of size to it. MGE, By slope handling are you talking about sprite sliding? just curious |
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| There are ways about it. Personally I don't like the idea of sprites for a tilemap... But, you could store them in an array, and that would allow direct access to the tiles in a coordinate-grid. Thus checking for collisions or whatever wouldn't be much worst than an array of tile values. (It's really the same thing...) The only difference would be the overhead of each sprite... |
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| I have to agree with Brucey on the point of mods... GaryV's issue with them has nothing to do with the fact that they are modules. there are plenty of advantages with mods but really none for includes... on Gary's point though, if the author is willing to supply an include then all that means is he is supplying the source which would be no different than supplying the mod as source. |
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| I just bought this. Will let you guys know how I get on. And yeah all the source is included with lots of examples. Some cool stuff in this. |
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| Personally I don't like the idea of sprites for a tilemap... Well, in its simplest for TileMax uses sprites for tiles I suppose... each tile image is drawn using a quad in Max2D... but there is more to a tile than just that! |
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| Just got the 1.1 update which you can now use as a module. This is perfect. Thanks, Planiax. :) |
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| Your welcome. |
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| Could you please list some of the functions of the common code part of the framework? Is it similar to the Grey Alien framework with icon setting and also is a timing method included as standard? A list of all of the things that you get when you buy the framework would also be very helpful in helping me to decide whether to buy a copy. Jason. |
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| Agreed with QuickSilva. :) |
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| The Grey Alien framework has a intimidating list of features I must say. It's a shame I never had a copy. For our framework, it's just at version 1.1. We have a lot of things we want to integrate. If you feel your not certain about it, wait for future versions. For the people who bought already, thank you! You will get updates as soon as they are there. |
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| Still waiting on that playable demo of Defenstar ;-) |
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| I have been looking for that demo too after seeing the "Check out the demo" on the front page of this site... Jason. |
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| We just released version (v1.3) of the framework and a new demo including documentation on our website. New in version 1.3: - Default graphics driver for windows is DirectX 9. - Added virtual resolution support. - New better example of the screen mode selector with aspect ratio. - Added sprite rotating system. - Added the DrawImage_ (), DrawLine_ (), DrawRect_ () DrawText_ and Overlay () methods to the 'iTPlayfield' type. Visit our website for more information: www.playniax.com |
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| Cool, will check it out now. Jason. |
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| This is interesting framework and I might buy it |
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| @Amon: I have tried to send you an update of the framework but your email bounced. Everything ok? |
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| I bought the Ignition framework yesterday. Seems what I need so far, but... Cleaning up the source of Gravity Zone (eg. using multiple files, proper source code formatting) would make it a lot easier to understand. ;-) |
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| Any news? |
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| @qim: Yes, sorry for that. The gravity zone source code is a littlebit 'messy'. Have to keep organized. The thing is, Gravity Zone was not really meant as example just to 'show off'. I hope the rest is clear enough. |
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| Version 1.4 out now! - Added a credit box to the 'iTinterface_Playfield' type. This allows the 'About' data to scroll. - Expanded the screen mode selector with sliders. - Added 2 functions to common code.bmx: iDrawRectVGradient () and iLoadMultipleImage (). - Added the TrailSmall (), TrailMedium (), TrailBig () to the iTParticle type. - A lot of work 'under the hood' in preparation of the future timing system. - Minor bug fixes. |
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| Cool, man ;-) |
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| Version 1.5 OUT NOW! - Added timing system to the engine mode and examples (fixed rate logic, delta timing, tweening). - Expanded the screen mode selector. - Added the BlastWaveSmall (), BlastWaveMedium (), BlastWaveBig () to the iTParticle type. - Added sounds. - Bug fixes. |
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| Minor update version 1.6 out now... It contains some improved GUI keyboard support and examples. |
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| Looks cool. When a workable tile system is in place i'll buy it. |
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| Is anyone using this for a game yet (except for Playniax themself of course ;-) )? I am. I ported my not yet finished game from plain BlitzMax to Ignition over the weekend and everything looks nice so far. The docs needs to be worked on, though. |
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| Playniax, save yourself a lot of trouble and use LyX to write the docs. It will let you output to HTML, CHM, PDF, and OpenDocument. Because you can't really "go back from" (convert) HTML or PDF (PDF especially as it's an archival format and has a very fixed, non-fluid layout compared to HTML). You don't need to know anything about LaTeX except that /hspace <value><unit of measurement> is the only way to insert specific amounts of horizontal space. |
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| The bigger question is, is anyone useing ANY of the frameworks offered up here recently? Is there a market for these? |
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| The bigger question is, is anyone useing ANY of the frameworks offered up here recently? Is there a market for these? Yours was looking very good until you abandoned it. GA's isn't sold anymore. I have not tried Playniax's, as it does not support Linux. Matibee's Framework looks very nice, but the freeware version does not apply to Linux, you have to pay to get the Linux version. Unfortunately, if you are only interested in Linux, you can't try before you buy (regardless of whether you develop freeware or not). |
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| Thats weird... why would they do that? Hmm... mind you I don't have linux or Mac to compile mine on either.. hmmmm ;) |
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| @thehand: I will have a look at it thnx. I'm putting priority on the docs anyway. When it comes to Linux, the framework had some problems with it but it's fixable. Something with case sensitive paths if I remember correctly. It's caused the game interface to 'crash' but I will fix it. |
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| _Skully: It is odd isn't it? BM supports multiple platforms, and most users release for multiple platforms. It would seem that framework developers are only shooting themselves in the foot when they choose to not support all BM users and instead focus on an even smaller demographic. I can understand the Mac support due to expenses, but Linux is free, CDs can be shipped for free, CDs often function as live cds, instead of dual booting, you can use the excellent virtual box, and there is always andLinux which actually integrates Linux into Windows. |
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| Hi Playniax, How is your progress of the framework and games? |
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| Hey Sammy, progress is good. Defenstar almost finished. LOOKING AND SOUNDING AWSOME! Framework is undergoing massive improvement. Hopefully new update end of july, beginning of august! |
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| Great! |
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| When people download your PLAYNIAX 2D FRAMEWORK DEMO from your website isnt working as need to be fixed :) |
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| Yes, one the links was broken, thanks! |
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