Mirlix

Happy xmas to all of you. It was a bit quite around here, but this will change now after i took the last few days free time to push the engine  development. At the moment im working on the input system using ois. I also getting used to premake and love it more and more,it saves so much time.  Im also have to add some basic functions like timer and newFrame events, this will probaly happen the next days. And then the first big step will be ogre. im hoping to build it into the build system, but for this i have to create a premake.lua for ogre and all dependencies, dont know how much work it is, knowing premake, it wont be muc :). An after OGRE the prototype is waiting, but this wont happend this year.

I used the chance and asked in a chatroom if someone wanted to test my system on linux und i found someone willing to test it . There where some bugs in my code g++ found but visual studio ignored them, but after fixing them he was able to compile the whole framework with premake as I indeed it, but its good to know i works in the really world too, so often it doesnt.

I have to get my one linux test system running as soon a possible, i think this will happen after i finished my civilservice in march. Dont know how to get an mac system, i dont want to buy an mac, but i can try to get it running on my intel pc, its worth a try.

Today i was able to bind some function of my ComponentSystem for Lua, so now my ComponentSystem can be controlled using lua. This is quite nice for my work on an editor. the file generated by the editor will be pure lua, making it flexible for the developer, i hope.

Binding was really esay using the interface provided by lua, i made a premake buildfile for lua, so someone you downloads my ComponentSystem can use one buildsystem to build all dependencies and the system itself. Dont know if i can continoue this way when it gets to big libs like OGRE, but it would be nice and make cross platform support as easy as possible for the cost of some compiletime.

Yesterday i was able to finish my work on ParameterMaps allowing me to start with the editor. ParameterMaps are maps using a string as key and boost::any as value and are used to modify Component behavior. This will be used in the editor to make it as easy as possible to create games. The Componenent 3dModel will have anparameter modelfile and the editor user can store the filename in it. im sure you know how editors work . Im thinking about binding lua to the component system und make it possible to use it in the editor fpr dynamic value generation and scritping support. but this will take some time, first a static editor will be fine to further test my system. hope i will have some screens before new year.

I tried premake as an build toll this week and im instantly love it. With some sort lines i getting an functional vs2005 project file and i can add files in my source directory without the need to change the build file. when  i have some time i have to test the make file for linux, but i think it will work fine.

After getting a working buildfile, i continued  documenting my project and the core system will be finished in the next days. Im started planning an editor for the object system and changed some bits int the component manager to make it as easy as possible to integrate the editor, so after finishing the core system the editor is next on my list besides an game prototype .

But i think the editor will need some time before anyone can work with it and it just a fact that my component engine havent any components at the moment, so even if there was an editor, it would be useless.