Dolphin and TrueVision: A Quick Test
Before I had settled on Smalltalk, I had been checking out TrueVision 3D, which is an SDK for 3d game development, because of its strong feature set and the fact that it supports C#. Now that I'm going with Dolphin I was wondering how well it might work with TV3D.
So, I downloaded v6.2 (which you can try for free as long as you don't mind a watermark in the lower right corner of your windows) and gave it a shot. Still being a newbie to Dolphin and Smalltalk as well as TV3D I expected to fumble around for a bit, but, my initial 'Hello World' test worked! Dolphin's wizards were able to set-up Smalltalk classes corresponding to the various functions in the TV3D API, and after spending some time learning how to pass things like window handles and such I was able to create a window and have TV3D render some text to it.
It may not sound like much, but I was happy to get things working relatively quickly given my being a novice in all tools involved. So, I think I'll dive a little deeper and try some more complicated examples over the next few days.
So, I downloaded v6.2 (which you can try for free as long as you don't mind a watermark in the lower right corner of your windows) and gave it a shot. Still being a newbie to Dolphin and Smalltalk as well as TV3D I expected to fumble around for a bit, but, my initial 'Hello World' test worked! Dolphin's wizards were able to set-up Smalltalk classes corresponding to the various functions in the TV3D API, and after spending some time learning how to pass things like window handles and such I was able to create a window and have TV3D render some text to it.
It may not sound like much, but I was happy to get things working relatively quickly given my being a novice in all tools involved. So, I think I'll dive a little deeper and try some more complicated examples over the next few days.
posted by Eddie at
8:47 AM
4 Comments:
Excellent choices. Dolphin is my favourite Smalltalk dialect (despite being limited to Windows). Like you, I experimented with TV3D. I stopped using it, not because I was unhappy with the SDK, but because I realized that developing a 3D game was too much work for my feeble brain. ;-)
I've created Dolphin bindings for Torque 2D. That was a lot harder than I had expected, but it works pretty well now. The engine is designed to run as a standalone executable that calls out to script -- so modifying it to be a DLL callable from Dolphin meant going against the grain. Also, it's a bit perverse to interface a cross-platform engine with a Windows-only Smalltalk. I learned a lot in the process, and I like Torque 2D, but if I had to do it over again, I would probably choose a game engine that is easier to interface with -- such as DXGame or IGE.
Links:
http://www.garagegames.com/products/62
http://www.dxgame.com/
http://www.saurusgames.com/developers/ige/
By
Anonymous, at 12:45 PM
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the comment! I'm not sure I'll have it in me to handle a 3d game either, but it'll be fun to try! :-)
I still have some learning on Smalltalk, MVP and handling events in Dolphin, etc. before I really get going on any game development. (Oh yeah, and I need to come up with a game idea too....)
-Eddie
By
Eddie, at 6:16 PM
I'm glad you got TV3D working with Smalltalk with little to no problems. I am interested in hearing more about various issues that you come across while learning TV3D + Smalltalk, so keep blogging... =)
DS
By
Anonymous, at 3:50 PM
Darqshadow, thanks for the post! I have been sidetracked recently from this effort, but am looking forward to picking up the pace soon...
When not playing other people's games (FEAR on the PC, God of War on the PS2, and Morrowind on the PC as well in anticipation of Oblivion's upcoming release) I've been learning Lightwave.
This blog should be coming to life again in the next week or so.
-Eddie
By
Eddie, at 6:30 PM
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