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Hi

I've just seen there is 91% off Dark Game Studio which looks like a good opportunity to get Dark AI and Dark Lights so I can edit the FPSC source code.

I would like to use FPSC v118 as my starting point. Please can someone confirm which Google Code source revision I need to use for that? It looks like r269?

Do I use the DBPro v7.5 upgrade extras to compile the v118 source code or do I need to use any other files for this to compile correctly?
http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2000&page=upgrade7-5

If there are any extra files I need to use for compiling the v118 source code which are not included in the DBPro v7.5 upgrade extras please confirm which ones.

Also can I use the DBPro v7.5 update or do I need to use the latst DBPro U77 RC7 update?

Thanks

Yes, r269 is the "start" of v1.18.

To compile, you will need the "Extras" that come with DBP. Specifically, the last "extras" archive is from 7.5. Inside, there are some .dll files you need to place in your DBP compiler. Then I would upgrade DBP to U77, since it fixed the issue with DBP apps running on Windows 7. We've been using U77 with no issues.

I do not know if there is anything else you might need. I seem to recall that there were a few file changes in different revisions. I work in v1.17 so my compiler may be setup different from those that work in v1.18+. The best people to check with on compile issues would be s4real, Scene Commander, or Zombie Killer.

Thanks Blackfox

Do you know which source code revision is V118 final? its difficult to tell from the change notes on there.

Its crazy to think Dark Lights and Dark AI usually cost £47 but you can get both of them and 10 other products for £34 in the studio bonanza pack.

I agree. Fortunately, I kept notes in the archive of source files on my drive R450 starts the "tweaks" for v1.19. I actually started my v1.19 archive at R459 and my v1.18 archive ends at R425. From R425-450 there was nothing there I needed hence not having it included. Besides, I used v1.18 as my reference to port water into my v1.17 then took apart the code and fixed the issues.

Also note that R434 onward required DBP U77...





We bought the Dark Game Studio Bonanza ourselves... well worth the price and allowed us to look at the source. Over the last year, we have finally rewritten the entire v1.17 source from start to finish, removing the stuff that was either useless or not needed, and recoding the areas that could use some work. The only reason we picked v1.17 ourselves is because in v1.18 the GUI X9 feature was added which, IMO, was useless. Half the time it worked, half the time not. The documentation on it was poor, and it was spread throughout the entire source. At least in v1.17 very little had to actually come out.

I will suggest to you that if you are modding the source, be aware that the engine still has issues with certain "core" things, like copying media into the build. Seems that media does get missed and you may need to revisit how the engine handles the build process. We had to rebuild that section to suit our needs entirely and seems that now all media we use finally gets copied into the build.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the info on the builds thats really useful.

I was going to start with v118 as I thought that was quite stable but I agree the GUI features are something I've never used or heard people talking about so probably best to get rid of anything which doesn't work properly.

There are some features in later builds like the SETPOSTEFFECT=X which Bond1 added that I'm going to add in a more stable build of FPSC and then add a few of my own features.

Its a shame the source got a bit out of control towards the end and if Dark AI is broken in v120 theres no point in using that. Also gives me a good excuse to dig into the code myself.

Removing the GUI X9 will take time- it is "everywhere". You most likely will remove it and have to test various things to ensure you did not break anything.



Adding features is the easy part. We added the "setposteffect" feature along with the "video texture" feature and they work great. I expanded on both of these to allow me some flexibility. While some of the shaders for the "post effect" requires some coding to be "hard-coded" into the source, we managed to modify it so we can add what we need when we need it. If I use Dark Shader to make a full screen shader, I can add it to my "post effect" library without having to add code to the source. We've added other features from revisions released- taken them and either modifying or expanding to make the work easier. We have also made our own features to be used (inventory, mini-maps just to name a few). So far no issues (knock on wood).



I could not tell you what the issues may be. I did test v1.20 a few times to test media we made, but other than that we remained in v1.17. I actually have been working on either expanding the Dark AI myself for what we want, or look at something different. I do know that collision seems different in each version (v1.17-1.20). While some have had collision issues, we have had none.

Just be prepared to spend some days/nights looking at your source wondering "why did that not work?" or "what did I miss?". I suggest walking away to give your mind a break. My wife will attest to the number of times I've gone to bed and suddenly in the early morning it hits me what I did wrong. Make lots of backups as well.

Blackfox seems to have everything covered here you do need to use u7.7 for v1.18 as the build structure was changed a lot and would cause issues plus it wouldn't work in windows 7 sp1 or windows 8 in 7.5.


SETPOSTEFFECT is the start of the full screen shaders being added to the source.


I would start with the version of fpsc that didn't have the gui stuff in if you want it removed if you remove it you have to make sure everything will work as gui changes a lot of stuff to strings so you will have some major timing issues once removed unless they changed back before gui was added.Oce again as blackfox said very time consuming.


ALl the best in your modding and if you have a problem you more than welcome to email.

best s4real