Ok, things are moving along. Learning a bit here and there, got everything compiled, now for a flood of questions from me. Instead of creating new threads, I figure I will just put them all here.

Questions

1) Where is the list/description of all the tutorials ? I think I saw this early on somewhere...

2) At wiki/world there is this

Quote:Area Data

An area can contain the following data (Game::Area::Data, Edit::Area::Data) :

* terrain (mesh and phys)
* objects
* paths
* grass
* custom data (available for clients with professional license only)

Can the developer explain to me exactly what capabilities I am lacking ? Does this mean I can't extend the world editor, but can subclass game items in code ? Will save/load work (like in the RPG 2 source) ?

I'm trying to understand what limitations I will come across as I proceed. Thanks in advance.

1) If there is a list/description of all tutorials, I am unaware of it. Just browse EsenthelEngineSDK/Tutorials/Source folder for all the tutorials. The names pretty much describe what they are for.

(01-23-2011 04:00 PM)devdude Wrote:  Does this mean I can't extend the world editor, but can subclass game items in code ? Will save/load work (like in the RPG 2 source) ?

Yes, and yes.

Modify the .enum.h files inside the Data/Enum folder to create custom object types. The next time you open up Editor, they will be available. Then, you can assign these to any object and load it into the game through code.

Loading a custom object is done the same way as any other object, you just, for example, replace OBJ_ITEM with OBJ_CUSTOM and use your custom class you created instead of one provided by the SDK (CustomItem instead of Game::Item, for example). The tutorial, EsenthelEngineSDK\Tutorials\Source\Advanced\4 - Demos, Game Basics\Game Basics\02 - World.cpp, can help you out with that.

Saving/loading is possible with these custom objects, but anything extra that you add to their classes that needs to be saved or loaded, will have to be coded in by overriding the save/load methods. This is fairly easy to do. The save/load methods in this tutorial, EsenthelEngineSDK\Tutorials\Source\Advanced\4 - Demos, Game Basics\Game Basics\09 - Extending Game Object Class.cpp, will show you how to do that.

Thanks, I do appreciate the pointers. A little post like this can save me a ton of work. I'm at an early stage and just want to make sure I am not going to come up across some big wall that I have to make a hideous hack for. Part of the reason I am using this is to port my game to an ipad if i ever finish it, so I'd prefer to avoid hacks and see if I can use the engine like it is meant with the memory management features.

Basically I was going to try to generate a world dynamically for each game instance, but realized that is just too much work. With the world editor, I suppose I'm just going to make one large world and then randomly place the characters on it. The orientation will be fixed, more like a RTS game, so I figured I'll randomly rotate the camera 90 degrees to throw off people a bit more too. This game will have harvestable items, like most RTS games. I saw someone post in another thread how they did this... need to dig that up, but it looks so far that esenthel has been a good choice for me. No real complaints except sparse documentation. That and I wish the wiki was open, so people could add some FAQs etc. Having links to the thread about spawning a windows console and being able to use cout etc would be a big help to those getting started.

Next thing I'm working on is trying to wrap my head around what size of world I need... and try to import some models. Its neat, haven't been this excited about coding anything in years.

(01-24-2011 01:13 PM)devdude Wrote:  Basically I was going to try to generate a world dynamically for each game instance, but realized that is just too much work.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what exactly you want to do.

(01-24-2011 01:13 PM)devdude Wrote:  No real complaints except sparse documentation.

I don't think so. Most tutorials have comments about they work or just easy enough to figure out without any. The wiki contains lots of information on how to use the tools, good programming practices, etc. The forums contain a good amount of information too, if yah know how to find it. People on the forums are also willing to help you out with almost any question as well.

(01-24-2011 01:13 PM)devdude Wrote:  That and I wish the wiki was open, so people could add some FAQs etc.

It is. There is a User Section at the bottom of the Wiki under the Miscellaneous header. Here's a link: http://www.esenthel.com/wiki/index.php?t...er_Section

It's only updated with tutorials that people have created only. Questions that are asked here within the forums usually just stay on the forums. There have been talks of adding a bunch of answered questions to the Wiki, but someone has to take the initiative to start adding them.

The tutorial approach is pretty effective, but the other day I was wanting to know what a mouse function returned. The headers don't really say much. Now I can print stuff out to the console though, so we're starting to move along...

The terrain I want to randomly generate needs to be realistic. Randomly generating it while neat and adding to replayability, it is one of those features that would take up way too much time. I also know I can make a lot better landscape with the editor. By landscape, I want little farms, houses, roads etc. Doing that algorithmically sounds fantastic but I think I'd be adding months to release time.

Is there any kind of standard in 3d models in reference to scale etc ? I'm now trying to wrap my head around game size and figure out a scale etc. I want to be able to use meters and so forth in my game, and would like it to work out elegantly. Like I could take a piece of graph paper and make a playing area, but I have no idea how to translate that into the appropriate sized world in a world editor. Anyone have any advice ?

I think i read somewhere that the unit Esenthel uses is in meters. You can try converting the default character model to an obj and importing that in 3ds max or whatever modeling tool you like to use, and see how big it is in there.

Hmm when i think about random terrain generation i think of Minecraft I think there was a topic around here about random terrain generation.. Found it, http://www.esenthel.com/community/showth...om+terrain

Hmm. L3DT is a neat thing in the above link. It will generate landscape heightmaps for me and other files which I don't know if they are needed just yet. Doesn't do rivers, but thinking about it I can either add them myself (take advantage of cool water effects) or leave them out. I don't want boats and they'd screw up path finding etc, so I don't lose too much. I think I'll still skip out generating landscape algorithmically in the game. Those games always have a cookie cutter feel. Better to have a nice map with some neat areas .. I am thinking I may store what areas of the map have been played and avoid them. Easy to do and makes a lot better experience I think.

Today I got where I wanted to be. Generating 9 Players and having the game engine update them. I click and my little gang goes wherever. Wow, there is a little green guy attacking them. I d'idn't know about this little guy, he just killed one of my gang. How horrible :( I don't really understand the code, but I'm pretty impressed how easy it is.