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Dark GDK / Is there a team working on this product or is it just Mike?

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Xiotex Studios
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Posted: 30th Jun 2005 19:24
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I can see a lot of potential in this product especially if you just want to mess around with game dev...

But it scares me that for a released product there seems to be some fundamental issues that aren't resolved - if it is just one person working on this then I can understand it...

Xiotex Studios
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Mike Johnson
TGC Developer
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Posted: 30th Jun 2005 19:41
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There is a team of two programmers working on the technology behind this ( Lee and myself ) and I handle updating the SDK amongst other things.

What are the main issues you see in the Dark Game SDK that need to be resolved?
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Xiotex Studios
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Posted: 30th Jun 2005 20:28
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The most essential one is documentation.

Bugs I can live with because over time they will be resolved as they crop up but without fantastic documentation projects are never really going to expose those bugs.

This is my first week with Dark SDK and so far the only resources I have to go on are this forum and some samples - the help file lists the functions but context has to be inferred from the name and placing of the functions. Personally I would like overviews of the key areas of the SDK and what those areas do.

I also have a problem in that havng used a lot of commercial engines (some in-house where I work and others third party such as Renderware) and while I am not expecting Dark SDK to be as far as long as those engines I can usually pick up those engines and be able to figure out what I need to be able to do under those engines.

As an example. In my AI routines I take the vector of an agent, normalise it then pump those values into the matrix of my 3D object. Now, I have been searching through the documentation of Dark SDK and I see a lot of matrix math functions but I seem to be missing (which may be my fault for not just spotting it..) a funtion that will allow me to apply a matrix to an object.

Now, this isn't a show stopper for me as far as the SDK is concerned but it does mean that rather than just jump in and create something as I am used to I have a bigger experimentation phase than I am used to...

Which is a pity because I see huge potential with this SDK..

Xiotex Studios
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Xiotex Studios
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Posted: 30th Jun 2005 20:29
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Oh, yeah.. say hi to Lee - we met at an ATI mojo day just outside of Godalming a couple of years back. I was representing 3D Labs at the time.. and Lee was showing the new effects framework he had built into Dark basic.

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shiny
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 02:39 Edited at: 1st Jul 2005 02:46
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I'm not to fond of dark sdk's very small dev team using their valuable time creating better documentation. I just want them to freeking fix the thing!!! Most of the commands are self explanatory. Searching the docs doesn't work properly at the moment (certain commands wont show up when you think they will) so sometimes its better to search the contents of the header files.

When the puzzle comp is over (I'm depriving myself of sleep at the moment to finnish in time) I plan on re-creating the entire documentation myself (provided the dev team hasn't started work on it allready). I'll hopefully add graphical demonstartions where necisary, example programs, color coding, better catogorization of large grounps (ie, basic3D), and of course fix all the errors (and boy there are allot).... we'll see how that goes though... If things don't start getting fixed soon I'm packing up and moving on to that behemoth of a 3D engine ogre (I NEED the graphical power!!!).

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Xiotex Studios
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 02:59
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Re-create away dude.

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Mike Johnson
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 03:21
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First of all about setting a matrix of an object -

#include "DBOData.h"

void SetWorldMatrix ( int iID, D3DXMATRIX matrix )
{
sObject* pObject = dbGetObject ( iID );

if ( pObject )
{
pObject->position.matWorld = matrix;
pObject->position.bCustomWorldMatrix = true;
}
}

The header file you need is included with the latest zip which you can download from your order history. From there the function gets a pointer to the specified object and you can modify all of its properties directly. In this case the world matrix is set and a flag is set to true so the SDK knows we want to control the matrix ourselves.

I realise that things like this are important and need to be explained but our initial aim is to get things up and running with the SDK and right now we have a foundation upon which we can build. I am working on completely revamped documentation including a whole collection of tutorials, technical details and much more information about how things work and what each function does. There will also be many more demos. If anyone wants to contribute to this then by all means send something to me mike@thegamecreators.com and I will include it.

Shiny - let me know what problems you have come across either by email or here on the forums. I am working my way through things on the forums but it will help if you can explain in as much detail all the things that you feel aren't right and I can get them sorted out.
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Troll Fiddler
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 04:35
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Hi Mike,

PLEASE, please, beg, beg - when you do the new docs will you explain each parameter for the functions (and ESPECIALLY their bounds) and what each possible value does. At the moment for nearly all the DG SDK and DBP commands you see things like two int arguments, but have no idea what different values do, or what useful range of values they can accept.

That would indeed make the commands almost self-explanatory once you had tracked down the right one. But still, finding the right one is not always easy, as the names are not always intuitive. For example why you set full screen exclusive mode by using a "dbSetWindowOff" command is beyond me. Well, I can see a tenuous link, but it's not the sort of thing you're likely to search for when looking for FSEx mode.

I'm with xiotex - the more docs and examples the better. But heaps of unexplained demo code is not much use even if it's commented. Comments rarely explain the "why" of things in enough detail for beginners.

All the best,

T.
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shiny
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 05:10
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I guess that because comments assume that one knows what a function does but needs to be reminded of why it is doing that there... still, i found the samples rather usefull for beggining.

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Xiotex Studios
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 19:21
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I agree the samples are good to begin with but for us impatient people I just want to get in there and start coding. I know what I need to do to achieve a certain technique I just need to know how to achieve it under Dark Game SDK.

And as for the matrix stuff - I knew it was there somewhere and it would appear that this SDK is deeper than my first glances have assumed - nice one!

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Troll Fiddler
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Posted: 1st Jul 2005 19:34
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Ooops! The power of online communications to be mis-interpreted yet again. I wasn't slagging the samples. It's just someone mentioned a lot more would be coming, so I wanted to say they should be well explained or else time might be better spent on small tutorials based on the code.

T.
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