Prequengine progress!!

[xesf]

I decide to create this thread to put the engine progress. May be useful to keep track on the project.

I manage to fix and add few things:
- Fixed screen image delay.
- Fixed skip screen image key.
- Fixed CPU usage (50% to 2% +/-).
- Create the keyboard handle.
- Manage to create the main menu (working without Text yet).
- Main menu working with Fire Effetcs and user can browse throw the buttons.
- Added play theme music while in main menu.
- Added support to play MP3 tracks instead of CD Tracks. (This will allow us to reduce a lot the disk space - 85% of the CD tracks space +/-)
- Created sourceforge account for the project so we can have the version revisions. (http://sourceforge.net/projects/prequengine)
- Images fade in and out like original game with options to turn it into a cross fade (fade to another image).
- Open and Play FLA movies.
- FLA in fullscreen like in the original game. (I just notice it is a bit stretch, but its the way they use the fla movies resolution 320x200 instead of 320x240). Made option to turn the stretch off and make the movies play in wide more.
- FLA movies playing with samples. (not yet working directly from HQR file)
- FLA movies with fade in and fade out frames like original

Tested but not done:
- Play FLA samples from HQR and not from single files (need an HQR lib rewrite)

Next step:
- Play midis from intro logo and FLA movie (yeah, FLA also use midi musics while playing samples)
- Movies Support at 640x480 (AVI and other extensions if possible)
- Add text support and include it in main menu.
- Create all the other menus
- Start making the actual game engine

[xesf]

I made the first SVN port here: http://prequengine.svn.sourceforge.n...c/prequengine/

[Darkflame]

good good.

[xesf]

There still some things to fix for Unix, some warnings and a problem allocating memory for fla movies. Probably will need to make a intermediare filereader with a small buffer to read te content. Windows port is without problems right now.

[TransDiv]

Nice Project

You also can compile with MINGW in the WinXP enviroment using this makefile :

all: prequengine

CC=gcc
SDL_LIBS = -lSDLmain -lSDL -lSDL_mixer
OBJS=dialogues.o resources.o movies.o sdlengine.o hqrdepack.o images.o sound.o music.o menuoptions.o menu.o main.o
LIBS= -mwindows -lmingw32 $(SDL_LIBS)

prequengine: $(OBJS)
$(CC) -o $@ $(OBJS) $(LIBS)

.c.o:
$(CC) -c $< -o $@

clean:
@del $(OBJS)
@del prequengine.exe
@del *.bak
@del stderr.txt
@del stdout.txt


I use the mingw compiler that comes embedded in DevCpp 4.0 ; I only need to setup the compiler location in the PATH enviroment variable : "C:\Dev-Cpp\bin" and use make -fMakefile2 in a console window that opens in the source directory.

Libs : SDL v1.2.11 & SDL_Mixer v1.2.8

Greats
TransDiv

[xesf]

Hey TransDiv,
I already have mingw isntalled in my winXP, but never tryied yet to create the makefile for it. Many thanks for this makefile, it will help me alot. As soon as possible I'll try it and give you some feedback about it.
Btw, you can help this project if you have skills in C programming http://lbaprequel.xesf.net for more informations
Many thanks again for this help,
Alex

[TransDiv]

Thanks but my level of C is too low for that and my knowledge of C++ is more theoretical than practice. Anyway I'am relearning C++ & SDL for a little personal project of mine and maybe in a near future can help in the project; Not like a main coder but in a secondary position.

Greats
Transdiv

[xesf]

Okay, no problem. Just let me a note by e-mail or PM when you will be ready to do something. All help is welcome at this stage.

[xesf]

I manage to load and display grids, fast and with few memory usage. Still have a little memory leak I didn't find yet, but its a minor thing. Anyway, I need to comment all the code and improve it a little to went for the next step.

[Lupin]

Good job man !

[xesf]

A little update since this past month:
- Make disappearing celling grids;
- Scene change with crossfade and like original fade in/out;
- Celling grids with crossfade only;
- Make Options, Advanced and Volume menus;
- Volume menus are working and updating the volume values;
- Put in-game options menu while pressing F6;
- Scenes loading routines (still need to make script processing);
- Play scene musics;
- Apply Hero coordinates to center the engine camera.
- Draw sprite actors (still need to draw grids over sprites)
- and a lot non-visible code;

As debug:
- Change camera position in scene;
- Change scene&grid;
- Change celling grid
- Show/Hide zone areas;
- and a bunch of print out text;


---


Here's some of the last results:

An image of a secret chamber most of you probably never enter in it




First steps on drawing sprite actors

[Torch]

Can't wait for Prequel... anyway, am I the only one seeing red crosses...

[Kobold]

No you're not. I don't see any images at all.

[xesf]

Sorry, those image were in a private forum.

Can you see them now?!

[Torch]

Yes, I can now. It's looking great (never knew about that room, but LBA2 is my speciality), but I'm sure you've noticed the sprites are overlapping the bricks... or at least the mesh fence in the second screenie is...

[xesf]

Yep, they are, its something I need to fix in the next step.

[RobG]

Great job Alex. Looking good.

[Lupin]

Yeah, that's cool man ! Keep going !

[Armageddon]

i wish i could be part of the prequel team.

[Torch]

Originally Posted by the lone warior

i wish i could be part of the prequel team.

Ask 'em and tell 'em what you're good at then!

[Warwick]

Well the price of using C is the risk of all the memory leaks and stacks, and the fact that it's very hard to trace em down without the use of a third-party software-debugger..

<3 Ollydbg

[xesf]

Yes, it is, but also make us do this engine faster since its based on twin-e.

[Warwick]

Nothing like old stuff, seriously.

[xesf]

I like old stuffs a lot

[Randebile]

can i join the Prequel team?

i am good on drawing