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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / DBPro "essentials" in 2012?

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sayerbloke
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Posted: 4th Dec 2012 22:19
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Following on from my newbie post (http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=201901&b=7), I realise that whilst a lot of people still use DarkBasic, I'm quite late getting in to it. The forum has been very useful so far but of course some of the links and resources are now out of date.

Seeing as I am just starting out, it would be most helpful to know what people consider the latest / current set of "essentials", I.e. plugins, dlls, applications, etc. Looking back at old posts, I've seen that question asked a few times before over the years but not recently and things change, so an answer from today's users would be great

Just to show I've done some research myself (and possibly also demonstrating just how new to this I am, lol), I've seen regular mentions of Sparky's dll for collision handling... Still an essential one to get? I've seen "IanM's plugin" mentioned a couple of times as well. Any other must-have extra commands I should be aware of?

I've found links for Wings3d and Blender, both of which look pretty good, so I'll download those soon. I've also just seen a few mentions of Blitzterrain, so what's the general consensus on that, please? I've read that people find matrices too slow at runtime and using programs like that help with larger terrains. Any alternatives that people are using that I could look into at the same time?

Any other essentials that I'm missing?

Thanks in advance!
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Ramon156
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Joined: 13th Jul 2011
Location: Netherlands
Posted: 5th Dec 2012 09:35
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Sparkys DLL:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=114275&b=7

Matrix1:
http://www.matrix1.demon.co.uk/
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MrValentine
AGK Backer
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Joined: 5th Dec 2010
Playing: FFVII
Posted: 5th Dec 2012 10:39
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Advanced2D [A.K.A. A2D]

Have a search for it, see if you can find it, consider it a challenge

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Chris Tate
DBPro Master
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Location: London, England
Posted: 5th Dec 2012 22:12
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For 3D (I can only advise you on 3D usage); Blitz Terrain is a must have, no point in using the other alternatives, far superior; and there is a free version. Dynamix; uses the PhysX GPU or software controlled physics drivers; why re-invent the wheel by trying to create collision and character movement using hard code? Using the CPU? Use the ferrari. Also a free version is available.

Dark Shader if you are building something that needs to look AAA.

As mentioned above; Matrix1; why? Because fills in many grey areas in the vanilla DBPRO command libraries. Advance2D; fastest and most stable 2D drawing library.

Blender is extremely powerful; too powerful for beginners, it's not newbie friendly; it does not try to be. It's more than just a modelling program, its a mini operating system; yes, it has its own commandline, game engine and API system, which means it can do almost anything. You'd better look at my article about how to export from it before starting out with it. You will not be able to use your models in DBPRO unless you enable the feature.

3D World Studio is a must have for 3D level development; unless you prefer FPS Creator; you would be able to load FPSC levels in DBPRO. Mapscape is a free alternative to 3D World Studio, it has a displacement map facility, essential for sub-terrains and rough edges; 3DWS does not have that. Mapscape does not have 3DWS's terrain tool which is a little more sophisticated for large terrains; and does not have 3DWS's model browser, to see how models look before you place them; and supports more formats and has a Render to file feature. As you use both editors, you will notice that each of them has one or two features you'd wish where in a single editor. I tend to use them both; neither are as good as Valve Hammer, but they are pretty close.

Just take one step at a time and you'll pick things up.

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wattywatts
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Joined: 25th May 2009
Location: Michigan
Posted: 6th Dec 2012 06:01
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For poly modeling I use Anim8or (free) and for the rigging and animation I use Fragmotion ($15 or something). I use blender for certain things, like reducing poly counts when I get carried away, but I hate the interface. It isn't just not newbie friendly, it's convoluted.

http://mattsmith.carbonmade.com/
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sayerbloke
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Posted: 6th Dec 2012 07:14
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That's some fantastic answers. Thanks to all who have replied so far . Good to see the ones I'd already found out about are getting good responses, as well as finding out about a couple of new ones.

As I said in my introduction post, I'm used to programming, been doing it for years, but *games* programming is something I'm only really starting to pick up so anything related to graphics is new to me. 3D models particularly I only know the very basics so suspect I would struggle with Blender right now by the sounds of it. Still, I can work towards it . Right now, my idea of, say, a tree would be to use the internal DBPro command of create cylinder for the trunk, colour it brown, then create cone for the top, colour it green and call it a fir tree, lol. Well, I might use texture object rather than colour, but you get the idea! The games, projects and "proof of concept" stuff I've been doing so far has all been rather light on graphical work.

Anyway, this post was another step towards creating more advanced and ambitious stuff, so thanks for the help to those who reply .
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sayerbloke
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Posted: 19th Dec 2012 06:56
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This question is somewhat related to all the above, so I'll add it in here, rather than clutter the boards just for this...

I've downloaded most of the things mentioned above and started playing around with them. I've been making some pretty decent progress with Wings3D, working through tutorials and making some things of my own freehand, etc. I'm no artist, but I'm pleased with how some of them are appearing .

Anyway, my question is what is the best format to use when exporting the model? I'm guessing it'll be *.x or *.3ds (I've tried both and they both appear in-game just fine), but here in 2012 which is the one that most people are using for their objects/models? Alternatively, if it's worth exporting in one format and then converting to a different one, what would you recommend, please? I've seen mention of *.DBO a fair bit, though Wings3D doesn't support that as format so I'd need to convert them myself.

Also, is it better to make the model the correct size or to make it bigger or smaller and then scale it in-game when loading it, please? Obviously it's more lines of code doing it that way, but thought I'd ask incase there are advantages to doing it that way!

Thanks
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pictionaryjr
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Posted: 19th Dec 2012 17:41 Edited at: 30th Dec 2012 07:45
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Here's are some links to everything above and a little more.

Modelling
3D World Studio
Anim8or
fragMOTION
Blender
MapScape
Wings 3D
Valve Hammer(Don't trust me on this link b/c I have never used it)

Plugins
Plugins List
Blitz Terrain

Shaders
Dark Shader
Evolved Post Processing
Evolved Refraction/Reflection
Evolved Bump Mapping
Evolved Shadowing
Evolved Lighting

Speed Increasers
Dark Occlusion
Dark Imposters

Physics
Box 2D
Dynamix
Newton Game Dynamics WRAPPER

Multiplayer
Mike Net

Flow Chart Creators
EDraw Max

I use EDraw to create work flows and my plans of attack when programming. It helps me get my thoughts organized. Some might find this funny but its a huge help to me and I recommend learning how to use blender. Use Anim8or if in a rush, but learn blender, because it ends up being a huge help when you start getting the basics down.

Edit:
DBO Stands for Dark Basic Object
It's DBP's native object format. Even after you load a .x or .3ds into DBP it converts the object to DBO. Basically just sets it up in a manner for DBP to use it.
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29 games
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Posted: 20th Dec 2012 01:01
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Quote: "is it better to make the model the correct size or to make it bigger or smaller and then scale it in-game when loading it"


I would say make everything the correct size as I've had problems using sparky's with scaled objects. It works fine with static object but as soon as you start animating things it sparky's doesn't seem to work properly.

Also, you'll find issues when using trying to use sparkys collision if you use PLAY OBJECT or LOOP OBJECT for playing an object's animation so it's better to increment the animation frame manually so this would look something like:




Also, I've encountered speed issues with animation where it can be too fast or too slow depending on the screen refresh rate so you would have to wrap your animation code in some sort of timer and then set the animation_speed# variable to get the desired result (note that each animated object will require it's own animation_speed# variable).

Also, number 2, the SC_setObject command can slow things down if there are lots of objects so I don't tend to update the object's collision data every loop of the program. But these are all things you need to play around with.
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Maindric
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Posted: 21st Dec 2012 07:50
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http://www.edrawsoft.com/EDrawMax.php

@pictionaryjr

Is that what you meant by EDraw Max?
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pictionaryjr
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Posted: 30th Dec 2012 03:15
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Yes Maindric that's what I meant. I must have Pasted the wrong link but I've fixed it now. Thank you for pointing that out
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