coco-devel — Copter Commander development list

Re: [coco-devel] Copter Commander

[David M. <sv...@ya...>]

ian magill wrote:

>     Hey, this game looks great but i haven't been able to install it, 
> must you have a linux OS or is it possible with windows 2000? If so can 
> you tell me how? THANKS!


Its just for linux/unix at the moment.  Sorry for that.

[coco-devel] Copter Commander

[ian m. <ia...@nc...>]

    Hey, this game looks great but i haven't been able to install it, =
must you have a linux OS or is it possible with windows 2000? If so can =
you tell me how? THANKS!
    -Ian

[coco-devel] Re: Copter Commander and the Mac

[David M. <sv...@ya...>]

[coc...@li... added]

Joshua C Priluck wrote:

> Are your friends interested in working on a port? 


Nah, they're not programmers.

> How much of the code do
> you think is reusable I'm guessing a lot since linux is similar to the
> unix core of OS X.


Yes.  The main things would be
* create the main window and get events to it
* rewrite the three dialog boxes to use the Apple GUI, instead of gnome
* create an installer

They could be worked on independantly, so it might work well for a group 
project.  Right now the code has an internal division, called the "window 
api", that has to be implemented for the game to work.  There are already 
two implementations of the api, glx-window.c and gnome-window.c.  These guys 
define functions like coco_make_window(), coco_get_key_state(), and 
coco_handle_ui_events().  /Theoretically/ all you need to do to port is to 
write implementations of these functions.  Of course in the real world it 
always turns out that the API designer didn't perfectly anticipate every 
eventuality, and the API itself has to be adapted.  But that's the joy of 
porting, something I'm interested in doing right.

Also, you might be able to get coco running without any actual coding by 
installing an X server and gnome libraries on your system, then running a 
kind of x-in-aqua emulated thingy.  Its kinda cheating, though, since 
"customers" usually don't want to install 100 MB of software just for a game.

[coco-devel] coco [ #499186 ] tiff-compile doesn't compile

[David M. <sv...@ya...>]

put...@at... wrote:

> I used to play Armor Alley on an old mac laptop of mine 
> some years ago. I recently came across your game and 
> really wanted to try it but was unable to compile it. 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------
> # make
> cc -Wall -O3 -I/usr/include \
>   -o tiff-compile tiff-compile.c -L/usr/lib -ltiff
> tiff-compile.c: In function `coco_write_raster_source':
> tiff-compile.c:136: warning: implicit declaration of 
> function `exit'
> /usr/lib/libtiff.so: undefined reference to `log'
> /usr/lib/libtiff.so: undefined reference to `pow'
> /usr/lib/libtiff.so: undefined reference to `exp'
> collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
> make: *** [tiff-compile] Error 1
> ------------------------------------------------
> Any ideas?
> 
> Thanks!!!
> 
> 
> 

If you care, I've created a bug entry here:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=499186&group_id=22420&atid=375198
I checked in a change to cvs and marked it as fixed.  Hopefully it is. 
  Thanks again for reporting this.

--Dave

[coco-devel] glx-copter-commander

[Sinisa M. <si...@my...>]

Sorry to bother you ...

Please just tell me how to start server and client so that I can play
by myself or against my beloved wife.

Add those two lines to manual.txt, please.

MANY thanks in advance.

-- 
Regards,
   __  ___     ___ ____  __
  /  |/  /_ __/ __/ __ \/ /    Mr. Sinisa Milivojevic <si...@my...>
 / /|_/ / // /\ \/ /_/ / /__   MySQL AB, Fulltime Developer
/_/  /_/\_, /___/\___\_\___/   Larnaca, Cyprus
       <___/   www.mysql.com

[coco-devel] Copter Commander 1.7 released

[David M. <sv...@ya...>]

Copter Commander 1.7 has been released.  See the news page for
details.

Re: [coco-devel] BattleMech artwork

[<sv...@ya...>]

Cool.  Check out the top-left and top-right images at:
  http://www.speakeasy.org/~morse/copter-commander/screenshots.html
for a picture of what the guy currently looks like.  

"Walker, Ian" <Ian...@DR...> wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> Can you let me know what sort of artwork you are looking for, and I'll see
> if I can help.
> 
> I would use the POV-RAY rendering software to create the images.

Nice.  

> I am guessing that you need the torso and legs in a variety of orientations,
> each orientation animated through a 5-frame walk cycle?  

Yup.  Currently the mech is 2 sprites, the torso and the legs.  They move
completely independently.  The torso is 24 images with the gun tilted at
various angles.  The legs 8 frames of walking, 4 of squatting, and one of
flying.  Ideally there'd be a mech with a grey paint scheme and a
olive-drab paint scheme.

> This would be pretty easy once the model was designed - if you have some
> concept art or an idea to (ahem) borrow, I could make a model from that,
> and then the animation would be simple.

I've always thought of something like in robotech.  A mech with jump jets
carrying a rifle.  The current art is a bit to organic looking if you ask
me, it doesn't look very robotic.

> Let me know.
> 
> Ian Walker

I can explain to you how to get the project from CVS, install your own
tiff images in place of the current ones, and rebuild the game using your
art.  Have you by any chance installed Copter Commander?  How much unix
background do you have?  Have you got a linux box?

Cheers,
Dave

[coco-devel] BattleMech artwork

[Walker, I. <Ian...@DR...>]

Hi there,

Can you let me know what sort of artwork you are looking for, and I'll see
if I can help.

I would use the POV-RAY rendering software to create the images.

I am guessing that you need the torso and legs in a variety of orientations,
each orientation animated through a 5-frame walk cycle?  This would be
pretty easy once the model was designed - if you have some concept art or an
idea to (ahem) borrow, I could make a model from that, and then the
animation would be simple.

Let me know.

Ian Walker


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[coco-devel] latching camera

[Dave M. <sv...@ya...>]

There is now what I call a "latching camera" for helicopters.

Traditionally the camera pans to look out in the direction you're flying
towards.  However, if you're /running away/ from something, this led to
the camera not showing you what you're running away from.  Making you want
to run even more.

Enter the "latching camera", that won't pan past midscreen if there's an
enemy in visual range behind you.  Once they go out of visual range, the
camera snaps back to the traditional position at 12 pixels/frame.

If there are enemies both in front and behind you, the latching camera
gives up and reverts to the traditional behavior.

[coco-devel] build procedure for redhat 6.2

[Dave M. <sv...@ya...>]

Hi Bay,

I happened to get access to a stock RedHat 6.2 machine, so I tried out
building copter commander.  At the end I had a playable game.  Here's what
I did to do it. 

(substitute your choice of directory for /home/dm)


First get copter-commander-1.0.tar.gz onto /tmp, from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=22420&release_id=26815,
then type these commands into a shell.

1 cd /tmp
2 tar -zxf copter-commander-1.0.tar.gz
3 cd copter-commander-1.0
4 emacs Makefile
  set COCO_INSTALL_DIRECTORY=/home/dm
  set COCO_SOUND=mute
5 make clean
6 make glx-copter-commander
7 touch copter-commander
8 make install
9 rm /home/dm/bin/copter-commander 

Steps 7 and 9 are to fool the installer into thinking the gui'ed version
built, when in fact we didn't.

After that, time to test it out:

1 /home/dm/bin/glx-copter-commander server &
2 /home/dm/bin/glx-copter-commander

A window should pop up after step 2.  Move key focus into that window.
Press p.  Count to 1.  Press space.  Count to 5.  You should be playing!

This doesn't cover sound.  And it doesn't cover getting the development
snapshot.  But if you can do this then the other steps are relatively
easy.

[coco-devel] RE: Some guy wants to use the Abuse artwork

[David M. <sv...@ya...>]

Bottom line: can use the artwork.

----- Forwarded message from Jonathan Clark <jc...@ji...> -----

From: "Jonathan Clark" <jc...@ji...>
Subject: RE: Some guy wants to use the Abuse artwork
To: <sv...@ya...>
Cc: "Justin Cassidy" <mes...@do...>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 13:14:37 -0700
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)
X-Apparently-To: sv...@ya... via web13408.mail.yahoo.com; 30 May 2001 13:13:47 -0700 (PDT)
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The artwork from Abuse is Public Domain (meaning no restrictions) - so you are free to use it however you like.  As far as I know there is no such thing as "GPL" for artwork.

If you make something cool be sure to post about it at abuse2.com.

Good luck,

Jonathan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Justin Cassidy [mailto:mes...@do...]
> Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2001 11:58 AM
> To: jc...@jo...
> Subject: FWD: Some guy wants to use the Abuse artwork
> 
> 
> I suppose you would be the best person to ask.
> 
> Justin
> 
> >===== Original Message From sv...@ya... =====
> Hi,
> 
>   I hope you're hte current Abuse maintainer.
> 
>   I'm working on a game, and I'd like to use some of the artwork from
> Abuse.  In particular some subimages from
> http://abuse2.com/characters.gif.  The game is GPL, and so is Abuse, so
> there should be no problem, right?.  However, if those images are
> copyrighted, I need to know the copyright holder(s), so I can credit them.
> 
> --Dave
> 
> http://www.speakeasy.org/~morse/copter-commander

----- End forwarded message -----

[coco-devel] Re: Copter-Commander AL query

[David M. <dm-...@bo...>]

Garin Hiebert <ga...@tu...> wrote:
> David:
> 
> I took a look at Copter-Commander today, and have a few comments regarding 
> your request for help on problems with the OpenAL code.
> 
> The audio seems to be running better on my machine than on some that you 
> mention -- it's a 550MHz Athlon with a Geforce 2 for video and an SB Live for 
> audio.  I get 10-12 fps continuously when running the game.  Running either 
> esd or OpenAL audio, the game sounds pretty much the same, although it 
> appears that you're playing around with the audio positioning differently 
> with AL -- I didn't do enough testing to make sure on that.
> 
> When it comes to performance of the AL audio, one thing comes to mind which 
> may help out.  I note that whenever any audio is played, an un-used source is 
> being found, then the buffer for that effect is attached, then the source 
> played.  For instance, when the machine gun on a copter is being shot, a new 
> source is being used for each shot from the gun, which is requiring a lot of 
> searching through the available sources, attaching of buffers, and "play" 
> calls.
> 
> A couple of ways come to mind for reducing the number of AL calls.  The 
> simplest -- for this game -- would be to allocate one source for each sound 
> effect you might want to play.  It seems that you probably have few enough 
> effects that this would work.  Then there wouldn't be any searching for 
> sources or buffer attachment required when you want to play an effect.
> 
> If there aren't enough sources available or if you just want a more flexible 
> audio engine, then you probably want to at least re-work the engine so that 
> it will use single sources for as long as possible rather than continuously 
> churning through new sources while repeating a single effect.  Along these 
> lines, I'd be tempted to reserve some sources for popular effects such as the 
> weapons, and then do more sophisticated management of sources for 
> intermittent effects such as people yelling.

I tried your suggestion.  It works very well!  

I keep a couple of dedicated "bullet", "rocket hit", and "bomb hit"
sources, eliminating the alSourcei(AL_BUFFER) for these frequent sounds.
That completely eliminates the problem.

I added a "project thank you" for you here:
http://www.speakeasy.org/~morse/copter-commander/thanks.html

[coco-devel] fwd garinh Re: Copter-Commander AL query

[David M. <dm-...@bo...>]

More in the same thread...
----- Forwarded message from Garin Hiebert <ga...@tu...> -----

From: Garin Hiebert <ga...@tu...>
Subject: Re: Copter-Commander AL query
To: David Morse <dm-...@bo...>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 19:11:34 +0000
X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.1.99]
Reply-To: ga...@tu...
In-Reply-To: <200...@or...>


> Your system sounds like it might be 2x faster than my fastest, a K6 450.
> On my system, the most taxing operation is to fire lots of rockets ('c')
> so they all hit the ground at the same time.  That locks me up good n
> tight for a few frames.  You?

I'll have to try that out.  I'm not very good at the game yet....

> I suspect AL is spawning a thread to do its audio voodoo.  It always has
> enough CPU to make the result sound good.  But (again, on my machines) it
> looks like the game engine thread is starving, or at least dropping
> frames.  This is strange, because the engine actually is very cheap, it
> can run at 60 fps on a machine with hardware GL.

We're both going to learn from this experience, then (I did the MacOS 
version, which is definately very different from the Linux version).  I 
suspect that there will be a way to reduce the problem dramatically, and that 
it will be a matter of reducing the amount of AL activity associated with 
high-intensity moments.  Playing additional sources will of course impact the 
performance, but it shouldn't be that bad.  I think that it will be a matter 
of reducing other activities -- looking for a free source, playing many 
sources with the same effect rather than looping a single one, ...

Garin

----- End forwarded message -----

[coco-devel] fwd from garinh: Copter-Commander AL query

[David M. <dm-...@bo...>]

Forwarded for archiving...

----- Forwarded message from Garin Hiebert <ga...@tu...> -----

From: Garin Hiebert <ga...@tu...>
Subject: Copter-Commander AL query
To: dm-...@bo...
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:41:39 +0000
X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.1.99]
Reply-To: ga...@tu...

David:

I took a look at Copter-Commander today, and have a few comments regarding 
your request for help on problems with the OpenAL code.

The audio seems to be running better on my machine than on some that you 
mention -- it's a 550MHz Athlon with a Geforce 2 for video and an SB Live for 
audio.  I get 10-12 fps continuously when running the game.  Running either 
esd or OpenAL audio, the game sounds pretty much the same, although it 
appears that you're playing around with the audio positioning differently 
with AL -- I didn't do enough testing to make sure on that.

When it comes to performance of the AL audio, one thing comes to mind which 
may help out.  I note that whenever any audio is played, an un-used source is 
being found, then the buffer for that effect is attached, then the source 
played.  For instance, when the machine gun on a copter is being shot, a new 
source is being used for each shot from the gun, which is requiring a lot of 
searching through the available sources, attaching of buffers, and "play" 
calls.

A couple of ways come to mind for reducing the number of AL calls.  The 
simplest -- for this game -- would be to allocate one source for each sound 
effect you might want to play.  It seems that you probably have few enough 
effects that this would work.  Then there wouldn't be any searching for 
sources or buffer attachment required when you want to play an effect.

If there aren't enough sources available or if you just want a more flexible 
audio engine, then you probably want to at least re-work the engine so that 
it will use single sources for as long as possible rather than continuously 
churning through new sources while repeating a single effect.  Along these 
lines, I'd be tempted to reserve some sources for popular effects such as the 
weapons, and then do more sophisticated management of sources for 
intermittent effects such as people yelling.

I look forward to playing this game more -- as I said earlier I really loved 
Rescue Raiders...

Garin

----- End forwarded message -----

[coco-devel] Hello

[Dave M. <sv...@ya...>]

This is the coco-devel list.
It is for two purposes:

1) people needing to get in touch with coco developers about compile
   problems etc.
2) developer to developer chatter.

Have Fun,
Dave

[coco-devel] introducing coco-devel

[Dave M. <sv...@ya...>]

This is the Copter Commander Developer Mailing List.  
Its for two purposes:

1) "the vision thing" among developers
2) email interface for users seeking developer consultation

Enjoy!
David


PS: I'm going to forward some back messages that predate the creation of
the list, but should be archived.

PPS: copter-commander-devel <at> bomberlan.net is now an alias to this
list.