www.jpct.net
jPCT - a 3d engine for Java => Projects => Topic started by: fireside on February 15, 2008, 06:03:43 pm
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I realize I'm just starting with jpct and it's a bit early, but I have to work on a project to keep my interest up. So, my project is a platform/puzzle game called Labyrinth Z. It stars a humanized mouse and will involve getting jumps right through timing and moving a lot of levers and switches for elevators and anything else I come up with as I go along.
(http://aycu11.webshots.com/image/45930/2000439876963900459_th.jpg) (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000439876963900459)
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So its kind of like a Lemmings game: moving the mouse through a maze world? sounds cool. ;)
Hey, do you use Vista?; or is that just a cover up to make XP look like Vista?
Jman
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Yeah, kind of a Lemmings with one character and lots of switches and elevators and things.
It's Vista. It looks nice, but it kind of sucks. It's buggier than an ant hill, and one gig of memory is just enough to tow it. It uses system resources like it can't get enough. I've never seen any system access the hard drive that much. It's like Christmas watching the hard drive light blink constantly. And get this, it takes the OS zip utility six minutes to unzip jpct. Luckily I found another one that's compatible that takes about a second.
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Sounds nice. Good luck with your project. About Vista: Me likes it! But 1GB is definitely not enough, 2GB are recommended. I'm running it with 4GB (3.4 usable under Vista32) on a 3Ghz Core2 Quad. It runs like a charm. I have a parallel XP installation, but i'm not using it except for some games. Personally, i really like Vista.
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I'm running it with 4GB (3.4 usable under Vista32) on a 3Ghz Core2 Quad. It runs like a charm. I have a parallel XP installation, but i'm not using it except for some games. Personally, i really like Vista.
I'll probably pick up some more memory in a bit. I had a computer failure and had to run down to Best Buy and grab something cheap. It does a lot of flaky stuff for me. I created a folder and dropped a file in it from an art program and it doesn't even show up in the Vista file manager. If I open the art program, there it is. I've gotten used to most of it, but I don't like steering my way around in the file manager. I think an OS should be more of a background deal that doesn't waste system resources so it just seems kind of corny to me. The windows are much more tastefully done than XP. They don't stab out your eye. But generally, I think it's kind of a Microsoft rip to get some extra money. One of the reasons I'm moving to Java is that I don't want to be tied to a platform and I want my files to be easily portable.
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What do you mean by "Don't stab out your eye"
Also, does Vists not work with almost all old hardware like I've heard?
Jman
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What do you mean by "Don't stab out your eye"
The colors aren't nearly as bright as Windows XP. It's a lot softer, nice shadow effects and transparency,also.
Also, does Vists not work with almost all old hardware like I've heard?
I'm not sure about old hardware. I have an older printer and I found a driver for it. It's really up to hardware manufacturers to supply drivers so it's not Microsoft's fault or anything. I've heard some complaints. Mostly it's that games tend to run slower than in XP, which tends to get people frustrated. I think it's mainly a memory thing. If you have enough memory, I think it's not going to be much problem. If I don't get at least another gig, I'm going to go crazy because I can tell it's a drag on Java also. This game I'm working on keeps running at different speeds. I'm sure I can put some kind of a timer on it, but it's the code from Hello World right now. If you get it, make sure you get at least 2 gigs of memory. But, you know, it takes Microsoft a while to get things right. Usually by about the 2nd or 3rd service pack it's working pretty good.
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But, you know, it takes Microsoft a while to get things right. Usually by about the 2nd or 3rd service pack it's working pretty good.
I would think that maybe after five years of development Microsoft would have it right. ??? I think that is how long since XP was released.
I still like XP, and when I buy a new computer I will probably use Linux.
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I still like XP, and when I buy a new computer I will probably use Linux.
I'd be using it right now, except I have a phone modem for an internet connection and winmodems are just better and faster than the external serial phone modems that work on linux. There are a few drivers that some people have come up with for winmodems but not very many. Maybe some day I'll afford high speed and then it won't be a problem. I like Ubuntu. I used it for about a year, and then I wanted some freebie sound software that Windows provided and went back to Windows. I could easily do without the sound software, now, but the modem is a problem. I didn't mind XP and it doesn't use nearly the resources, but I had a school license that expired. I think Vista will be OK once I get another gig of memory. An OS really isn't that important, especially with Java.
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I tried out ubuntu for awhile, but the pc I was allowed to use it on was to slow to really use it for practical reasons. I did find this much faster distro called Puppy, but I don't use it. I would use Puppy,but just haven't figured out how to install the jdk and compile programs in it. I think I will learn how to do maybe this summer.
An OS really isn't that important, especially with Java.
That is nice about Java. I just there was some sort of Java executable file that could be generated form the compiler instead of this byte code. I think it would be nice if you could write generic java code, and then with the FREE jdk distribute a file that could be run way that the user is most used to starting native programs.
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I think it would be nice if you could write generic java code, and then with the FREE jdk distribute a file that could be run way that the user is most used to starting native programs
I agree. There's some installers around I think, I haven't checked that out, but I don't like all this classpath stuff. I've downloaded java jars that were supposed to be self executing and double clicked on them and nothing happens. It's irritating. If you don't know java, how are you supposed to know what to do with that? I don't mind a bat file in Windows. I haven't used it on other systems so I have no idea what they do. The byte code, though, is a very good idea. That way a 64 bit system can run it in 64 bit and a 32 can run it in 32 and other platforms can all read it. In c++, you would actually have to recompile the program on every one of those systems.
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You can use Excelsior Jet for native compilation (Windows only IIRC) but it costs money. You may also bundle the JRE with your application (the license permits that) and use it without installing it. That increases download size but people don't have to install the JRE anymore and your application runs "out of the box".
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I don't think a program really needs to bundle the runtime. I think it just needs to tell you what's wrong when it can't run. That hardly ever happens for me and java programs. I just get some java error I don't understand, or I just see the dos box flash for about a half second.
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Java still has a bad reputation among some people. If you want to distribute a game, it's better not to force people to download the JRE if they don't want to. I had three versions of Paradroidz (my R.I.P game project) (webstart, Jars only and Jars+JRE) and the version bundled with the JRE was the most popular by far.
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I think bundling the runtime is ok, if your game is large, and the user is expecting a long download time anyway.
I also think it would be nice if there was some kind of jre jar files. Instead bundling the entire jre, how about just the basic class files for running java apps, or maybe even better, just the class files your app needs?
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Sun's license currently doesn't permit to split the JRE distribution into smaller parts. Bundle it as a whole or let it be. Sadly, there is no inbetween.
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I think an installer would take care of most problems, but I better worry about having a game to install first.
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I think an installer would take care of most problems.
I agree. Java is a really great platform to build upon, and a free installer that worked on all plarforms in the native way would make Java almost perfect.
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There look like there are some around. I'm just not ready to check into them yet, though. Have you tried the Eclipse editor? That is the nicest editor I've ever used, the way it underlines mistakes and things. The search on it is kind of complicated, though.
As an update to this game. I've got most of the game mechanics worked out now with gravity, collision, and jumping. Although, there is more work to do and animations to add. It's roughed in anyway. Pretty soon I'll be playing around with puzzle ideas. I'm already getting some so I think this is going to be a fun project. From what I've used of it so far, I'm pretty happy with the animation system. It seems to allow quite a bit of control. One complaint I have is with ellipsoidal collision. It doesn't tell you what you collided with or that you collided at all, so I had to set up another collision to do that.
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There look like there are some around. I'm just not ready to check into them yet, though. Have you tried the Eclipse editor? That is the nicest editor I've ever used, the way it underlines mistakes and things. The search on it is kind of complicated, though.
I'm a little confused. ??? Isn't eclipse an editor, not a program that creates installers, or were you talking about something else?
Also, when you get your game done, are you going to distribute it? How?
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I kind of changed subjects too fast there.
There's one installer I saw that looks interesting that I haven't checked out.
http://www.installjammer.com/
And I was wondering if you had tried the Eclipse editor and what you thought about it.
Also, when you get your game done, are you going to distribute it? How?
I'll probably upload it on filefront, and then post some notices about it on some game sites.
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I was looking around for installers, and I ran across that one. It looks good for distributing on Window, Linux, and Unix, and I hope they will add support for Mac soon. I don't have a mac, just windows, but since I program in java, it would be nice to deploy the app for all the major platforms. I may use that for my project when I get it done. Also, I don't know if your game will be opensource, but if it is, I found this installer that is free for open source projects.
http://bitrock.com/products_installbuilder_opensource.html
And I was wondering if you had tried the Eclipse editor and what you thought about it.
No, I never used it;I just heard about it in a java robotics forum.
I've used JCreator, and Netbeans. JCreator is nice, NetBeans is a little slow, and the GUI builder isn't that great.
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Also, I don't know if your game will be opensource, but if it is, I found this installer that is free for open source projects.
Thanks for the link. I'm not sure if I'll go open source or not. Jpct isn't, so I don't know how all that works and don't really care that much. It will be free, and probably follow a license close to jpct so there aren't any problems. If you go open source, then your artwork is open source also and people just use it rather than making something of their own. I don't think modeling is that hard and there are free modelers around. So I'd rather see someone do their own work rather than just take someone else's and use it.
This is a latest screenshot of my game.
(http://aycu39.webshots.com/image/44678/2000042389885260796_th.jpg) (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000042389885260796)
I have an abstract gravity object class now. It's basic, but will improve. I'm using it on the box. I want to put something that checks position after a couple seconds and then changes it's status so it doesn't get checked any more if it hasn't moved.
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Hey,
Glad you are making progress with your game. I think I'll try it out when you get it done.
I don't mean to drag out the installer discussion, but I also found an installer called install4j.
http://www.download.com/Install4j/3000-2417_4-10208786.html?tag=lst-1
If you don't use windows, then you can't use this download, but maybe the download from the site is the same. Anyways, on the cnet site it says the limitations for the install4j is just nagware.
Jman
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It looks nice, but when you go to the site it says "free to try, 400 dollars to buy." I'll probably go with installjammer and hope they get their mac version done, or do something special for the mac. This mac guy I know says they just want a dmg file, but I think you need a mac to make one.
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Latest update for my game. The mouse pushes boxes now. There are some problems to work out, but it basically works pretty good.
(http://aycu22.webshots.com/image/45661/2003687649078819739_th.jpg) (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003687649078819739)
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This isn't for Lab Z, but I didn't want to take up another thread in the project section. Anyway, it's a leaf that I made in a paint program, then alpha textured onto a six face plane and made tree branches. After that I took an alpha snapshot of it and used it for a billboard on a 3d trunk. It's running in the Blender game engine right now, but eventually I want to make small adventure games with jpct.
(http://aycu28.webshots.com/image/51347/2000754911526843254_th.jpg) (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000754911526843254)
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This project is on hold for a while. Although I learned quite a bit, my code is a mess and I need to learn a little more about setting up a java project, etc. I will probably try to find a very simple game to start out with. I'm going through some NetBeans tutorials right now because I'm getting a little confused with Eclipse and it seems a little simpler.
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I've used both. I agree that Netbeans is a bit easier to configure. But after all, Eclipse seems more mature to me. And it runs faster. The Netbeans profiler is nice though. I've recently used it to reduce jPCT's object count.
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Hopefully I'll get it a little better with NetBeans. It's good to hear the profiler works that well. I have an idea for a simplified game that will use most of what I've done so far, as far as models and code go, but I'll have to rename it. I might start with software rendering and see how it works out because it might be easier to get it into an applet on a web page. I know the basics of the language, but the other stuff I really know nothing about.
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i used to use netbeans but knowadays i use eclipse and must admit that eclipse's refactoring is much more stable
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I might go back to Eclipse once I learn a little more about setting up projects, etc. It has so many plugins for different programs. Netbeans is nice, though. I remember looking at it a long time ago and it was horribly slow, now it's not bad at all.
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Well, I have a free site now that runs java applets.
http://fireside.myhosting247.com/
The next thing is to start reading up on them and then trying to rework my code using the software rendering for starters. I'm not going to rename the game, but it will mainly be a jumping game rather than a puzzle game. I'll probably get a basic game going and then post it there and post incremental updates.
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Remember that you are, unless you are using the new Applet-Plugin available for IE7 and Firefox3 in the Java6u10-pre-release, limited to 64mb of memory for an applet.
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I didn't know that, but 64 meg seems like it would be enough. I guess it will have to be for now anyway. ;D
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My first hello world applet.
http://fireside.myhosting247.com/
I appreciate everyone's help. This one loads a 3ds cube rather than creating one so I should be able to get started on Labyrinth Z rewrite.
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If someone gets a chance to try this, I'd appreciate it. I had one person tell me it didn't work on his computer, so I compiled back to version 1.2. It works on my computer.
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it does work on my win xp pro and ubuntu 8. both has java 6 installed
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Works fine on the EEEPC (some Linux, Java5).
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That sounds good enough then. It must have been too early of a version on his computer.
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(http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/6761/mousegamenh2.th.jpg) (http://img387.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mousegamenh2.jpg)
This is the revamped mouse game. It has a more horizontal play now. It's steered by the mouse. Movement spins the world. Left click makes him walk. Right Click makes him coil for a jump. Right release makes him jump depending on how deep he went into a coil, or squat or whatever. I have three platform sizes that will be different colors to help recognize how far away they are. It's pretty hard, so I'll probably have a number of mouse lives in one corner and probably cheese collected in the other corner. It's reasonably fast on my computer in software so I added an overhead light on the mouse.
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Adding lights isn't that expensive at all. The renderer does a lighting pass anyway. Just the light calculation itself will be slower the more lights there are. But not that much.
Apart from that, i'm glad that you finally managed to do the transition to an applet as you intended. Any chance that we can see a demo version soon?
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It shouldn't be too long for the demo. I just want to iron out the game play a little bit and add a few things.
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Well, the first level of Labyrinth Z is up on my free site:
http://fireside.myhosting247.com/
Give it a try if you have a little time and let me know what you think.
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The controls are very...strange IMHO. At least on the laptop's touchpad what i'm currently using. I'll give it a try with the mouse when i'm at home again.
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From what I heard, it doesn't work on a touch pad. I don't have one. You can bring the cursor back to center while the mouse is walking or jumping. I may put in a space bar that locks it so you can bring it back to center that way also. I could also put in arrow keys as an alternative, I don't know. There's a class called robot that lets you move the cursor, but it causes a security shut down. If you can think of a way that it will be easier using a touch pad, let me know. I don't really like keyboard controls. I'll probably put a meter bar over the mouse when he's coiling down because it's a little hard to judge that also.
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Nice job. It is better using a mouse than a touchpad. The one thing is the floating blocks disappear, which looks a little weird.
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The one thing is the floating blocks disappear, which looks a little weird.
I did that with fog setting, I think. Maybe I didn't need to, but with the jumping I wanted maximum speed in software rendering.
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interesting controls. you must allow multiple movements at the same time IMHO
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It's not really a game where you need to do multiple, at least yet, and it gives the player a way to move the cursor back to the center of the screen while the character is walking. It will be mainly a game where you think about how far to jump or maybe a puzzle or something. Once the character jumps, he just has to put up with the decision he made, can't adjust afterward. There isn't really much walking otherwise it would get annoying to have to stop and then turn, but mostly he'll just have to walk a very short way and then make an adjustment or something. The pace of the game will be slower than most jumping games. No enemies, just puzzles.
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Ah, mouse is much better. But like raft, i'm missing the option to execute two movements at a time. That doesn't interfere with the general slow pace of the game IMHO. It would just make moving around feel more natural. I finally managed to get the cheese, but it was a trail and error...i'm missing a kind of indication how long i have to press the button to make the correct jump. It's just wild guessing ATM.
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Hmm, well, I'll think about combined, but there just isn't much walking so I can't quite see why that would be important. I plan on having keyboard controls also. As long as the mouse is off screen, I can use up, down, left, and right to do the same thing and it should work for notebooks then. I've only used track pads a couple times and I don't see how anyone can do anything with them. I have added a tail animation, but not online yet, so the tail coils while the mouse is bending down to give further feedback to the player on when to jump. I really don't want to use a progress bar because it takes away the intuitiveness of it for me and makes it too academic. Thanks for the feedback. It really helps a lot. The animation and keyboard are for sure. I'll have to think about combined. I could do combined for the keyboard and not the mouse, also, I guess. I might drop the mouse control, also. Not sure just yet. I didn't think about the cursor going off screen and the problems that go with it.
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I've introduced a tail animation to give extra feedback for deciding when to jump.
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I did some new textures and a start up choice for keyboard or mouse controls. The keyboard controls have combined motion except for the jump, which really wouldn't work out. Hopefully it will solve the track pad problem. The arrow keys are used for keyboard. After this I'll hopefully just be working on more levels and puzzles.
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i was looking for a key to cancel the jump after crouch. forward key (up arrow) do cancel the jump but results in forward movement which is not stopable
for your information
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Keyboard controls are much better IMHO. One funny thing: You can walk while being in mid air which makes you jump much longer. When walking in the air, i can reach platforms that are unreachable otherwise. I'm not sure if this is intentionally... ;)
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No, not intentional. Thanks for finding it. The game is supposed to be hard. No adjustments after the jump.
Thanks for your's too raft. It's a little new so still working out bugs. I don't plan to put a cancel in either, but may change my mind. I wish for a cancel sometimes, but I plan to make it more or more critical to choose the right timing as levels increase.
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As a small update, nothing to see yet, I wrote a little positioner program for elements like moving objects and switches. I looked at a couple editors, but in the end decided to write something, since my needs are pretty basic. The problem with almost all add-ons is the documentation is nearly non-existent and the author just assumes you will understand the thing. Also, you're never sure if it's going to get abandoned or not. Although, I have to admit I didn't try very hard. I just see a lot of windows and panic. For some reason, I can't quite match up coordinates from Blender to jPct. Since it will be mainly a large 3ds level with extra's added, it shouldn't be a big deal to load them into the positioner and get the translation coordinates that way. I can later have it write a config file that gets loaded into the game program. Rather than write extended classes for world objects, I'm going to try using the addObject method and see how it works. It seems like it would be all I need.
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yeah, that's a common problem. we all need that kind of level/object editor and write something simple that can help us. later we need more capability and write some more. at the end all remain proprietary or if shared poorly documented. if all that effort went into a single project we would have a good level/object editor. similar problem in gl gui frameworks. what a shame
have you tried todd's level editor (http://www.jpct.net/forum2/index.php/topic,838.0.html) ? it seemed promising to me. i do not do any development in karga anymore but will certainly give it a try if i return back
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I looked at it a little. The code was old and showed some errors, I think. I don't think it's being updated. I think writing my own level editor is a good way to learn a little more, anyway. I think mainly for tools, I'd like to see Paul stay on with the sound library. I'm not sure about level editors. The ones for Ogre aren't all that good either from what I've heard people on the forums say. I think for an independent project, you have to go a little further and make it an actual game making editor or it's pretty hard to plug it into another project.
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My level editor is Notepad. But i guess that doesn't work for all kinds of games... ;D
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I've never tried anything like that. Do you just write down the sizes of things or what?
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No, i'm using a 2D ASCII-representation of my level and expand it to 3d when loading it.
But i guess it doesn't fit very well in your case, because you have different height levels.
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Can you post a little example of it? I'd like to see that.
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Sure. It looks like this: http://www.jpct.net/download/tmp/level1.map (http://www.jpct.net/download/tmp/level1.map)
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It's small. Very efficient. I may think toward moving into some kind of direction like that eventually, when I actually know where I'm going with the game. It's kind of trial and error right now. I think one interesting thing a person could do is come up with a set of rules and do a random generated level. It would have to start with a grid design, of course, and that might be tough if I change height much.
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No, i'm using a 2D ASCII-representation of my level and expand it to 3d when loading it.
But i guess it doesn't fit very well in your case, because you have different height levels.
You could do it with two seperate ASCII files (the second being a "height map"). I would create the main map first, then make a copy of it to work with as a template for your height map. I did something similar to this in a 2D game I wrote which used a basic grid map with 3 height levels per square. In that case, I used 3 ASCII files (since I was creating layer maps, not height maps), but something similar might work for you.
--EDIT-- BTW, I haven't actually run your game yet, so disregard if my suggestion was irrelevant ;D
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The second level is up for labyrinth Z. It introduces a switch and an unlevel jump.
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I added a jump animation, but it's only on level 2 so far.
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I've tried level 2 on my EEEPC's default Linux installation. It had some problems with the keys...they simply didn't work. Apart from that, it worked fine and fast enough on this 630Mhz Celeron single core machine. I'm still having problems to determine when to jump, but i have no idea on how to improve this either. Mind you if i add Labyrinth Z to the "Projects" page?
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Mind you if i add Labyrinth Z to the "Projects" page?
No, that'd be great. I don't know what to say about the keys. I used vk whatever it is so it's java's fault,then. Eee pc is pretty new so maybe they will work it out in the future. The jumping just takes practice. I made the small blocks slightly larger. I can go out and come back a fair amount of times, but sometimes I don't make it, so it's about right for me. I find I need to look at the whole animation, not just the tail, to do it.
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The tail is ok for me as an indicator for comparing jump widths. It's just that, when trying it first for a platform, i have no feeling which width is required to land safely. I have that feeling when throwing grenades in a shooter but not here. Maybe a kind of color schema would work or something that gives additional depth information like trees or bushes on the platforms that don't change its size. That would make it easier to tell if a platform is far away and larger or near by and small.
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That would make it easier to tell if a platform is far away and larger or near by and small.
The whole idea there, is that all the platforms are exactly the same thickness, but differ in size. I'm not sure they really are exactly the same right now because I'm still working things out, but that's the intention. Since you can always see the edge of a platform, eventually your eye will become trained to it. Starting out, you really have to do the trial and error, thing. There's no way around that, but it's part of the fun of it all for me. There's really no punishment for failure aside from you have to go back to the start after the third miss. It keeps track of you're last jump point so you can make adjustment. The levels start out fairly easy, if you've played the 1st one recently, and then will advance. This one is probably about there aside from there will be more different height jumps. After that, I plan to do switch type puzzles with moving platforms and whatnot with some pretty hard jumps once in a while. There are so many games where the character just builds up experience, but it's fake. I like games where I actually get better at doing things.
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No, that'd be great.
Fine, i've added it to the projects page.
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Great thanks. I need all the publicity I can get.;D I've gotten a few compliments about it. I need more levels. Working on a few more game elements to add to make it more interesting.
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I need all the publicity I can get.;D
Then you should optimize your html-code a little. Give each page a <head> with a <title>-tag to please google. Google loves the title-tag. Just write something like "free online puzzle game in java - Labyrinth Z"...Don't put the game name first, because google prefers the first few words over the rest.
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OK thanks. I'll give that a try.
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Well, my free site has been down for about 3 days and so has the entire hosting site, so I'm a little worried. :'(
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Obviously...maybe a paid hosting would be better and more reliable. Plus you'll get rid of the dubious links at the bottom that were only one step away from "enlarge you d**k here".
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I know someone that is using orgfree and is having pretty good luck with it so I might try that first. I have a limited budget. Ads are all right, I hope they weren't in that bad of taste. :o I have Firefox so it might be blocking some of them.
I might check out some pay sites also.
Turns out this person was using a free forums site that wouldn't work for me.
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Try looking on here, has all the free ones: http://www.clickherefree.com/
Including ones without ads. There are some good ones like huge diskspace, no ads and mysql/php which are free.
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I'm going with a pay for site. It was pretty reasonable if I signed up for 3 years and came with a domain name, so I can actually be fireside7games.com. It has unlimited traffic for all the great games I'll be writing with jpct. ;D Probably won't be up for a few days.
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That's a good decision IMHO. Let us know, when the domain goes live so that i can change the links in the projects section.
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Here's the new link for Labyrinth Z:
http://fireside7games.com/labz/labz_index.html
That's a good decision IMHO.
I think so too. I get a little too frugal sometimes. I may add advertising if I get some traffic, but it will be my choice and I have a nice reliable site with my own domain name. It might be just a hobby, but I do it a lot.