gamedevlists-general — List for discussing general game development issues

[GD-General] Basic questions regarding networking games...

[Colin F. <cp...@ea...>]

2002 September 23rd
Monday

I have a few questions, but first I'll provide a hypothetical
context:


INTRODUCTION:
=============

  Let's say you have a small multiplayer game, and let's say
you want it to run on a LAN.  Let's say you start the server,
and later a client starts up, but the client doesn't know 
the IP of the server.

  Now let's say that the server has a preferred range of ports,
say: 32000, 32001, 32002, 32003, 32004.  (Only one available
port is actually used by the server, but the server will 
attempt to acquire a port from the range above, and clients
will know that a server could be running on one port within
this range.)

  The client can do a UDP broadcast on the subnet, say
192.168.1.255, to each of the ports in the preferred port range
of the server.

  The server can respond when it gets the client query.


QUESTIONS:
==========

  [A] For *Internet* games I assume service WWW sites like GameSpot,
etc, advertise the IP's and ports of game servers -- or you
can indicate the IP and port number of your server through
any other means (phone call, e-mail, chat, etc).

  QA1: Is this the dominant way to discover *Internet* games?



  [B] For Internet games the port(s) can be fairly arbitrary
(anything above 1024 and below 65536, right?), but for 
convenient "discovery" of servers on a LAN it might be nice
to have a few preferred port candidates to try -- instead
of broadcasting to all 64000 ports in a brute-force search.

  QB1:  How might one select "default" port ranges for the
convenience of LAN clients searching for servers?

  QB2:  Might a server on a LAN advertise itself periodically,
like once per second?...Perhaps only during the "join" phase of
a game (if players can't just jump in at any time)?
This sounds pointless when clients can essentially do
the queries as needed, but maybe when the server is on
a totally random port (but advertises itself on a known
port), it might make it easier for clients to discover
the server (just by listening on a known port for the
unsolicited broadcasts of the server).



  [C] Some applications have one "well-known" port for
initiating sessions and create ports for handling those
sessions.

  QC1: Sorry for my ignorance, but do you think it's okay
to have all clients send UDP to the same server port
for processing?  (So each UDP packet has a "Client ID"
to demultiplex the packets.)

  QC2: Even if all UDP traffic can go to a single server
port, do you think there might be some benefit to having
a seperate port that is strictly for joining the game?
(The "real" game might be some RANDOM port, but the
service for joining the game might be on the "well-known
port range".)

  QC3: To your knowledge, do many first-person shooter
deathmatch games just feature a single UDP port for
all game-related traffic?


I basically want to learn from the experience of others
regarding the basic mechanics of "discovering"
servers (Internet and LAN), choosing port(s), and 
choosing a total number of used ports for a single server.

--- Colin
cp...@ea...

RE: [GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[Matt N. <mat...@ni...>]

You might find the article "Distributing Object State for Networked =
Games Using Object Views" interesting:

http://www.gamasutra.com/resource_guide/20020916/lambright_01.htm

Matt.

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Re: [GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[brian h. <bri...@py...>]

> > Given that those three games did networking fairly significantly 
> > differently, I'd be hesitant to group them together.  Their only 
major 
> > commonality is that they're UDP based; delta compress; and are 
client-
> > server.  The implementation of reliable communication was altered 
> > drastically from Quake2->Quake3, and delta state compression was 
> > radically altered from QW to Q2.
> 
> OK. Do you have references to someone discussing this?

Unfortunately, no, you'd probably have to dig up documentation on the 
protocols from various mod sites and then diff between them manually.  
The information I have is based on recollections and discussions I've 
had, but it's not "secret" stuff by any means.

The Q2 source code is open source, so that's easy enough to sort out, 
but if this is about multiplayer gaming in general, then you probably 
don't want to get into such domain (or game) specific knowledge.
 
> I am aware of that. Although not in the detail I would like.

Well, here's the issue, I guess -- if there was a good single 
reference, you wouldn't have to lecture, you could just redirect them 
to a URL =)

-Hook

Re: [GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[Mads B. D. <ma...@ch...>]

On Sun, 22 Sep 2002, brian hook wrote:

> > OK - if someone else knows it I would like to hear about it. It does 
> not 
> > look particulary advanced from the index. 
> 
> As I said, with 90 minutes I don't think you'll have time to get into 
> advanced stuff.  And honestly, if you're just now learning this stuff, 

I am not - I am getting back to a subject I have been away from for a 
while :-).

> you may not be comfortable trying to distill a bunch of knowledge that 
> you're not intimately familiar with into such a reduced timeframe.

That is absolutely true. I will not be doing that, but I need to make sure 
I am not talking nonsense.

> 
> > sure that the stuff "I once knew" is not totally outdated today. (Are 
> > games doing anything particulary more advanced than 
> > QuakeWorld/Quake2/Quake3 today?)
> 
> Given that those three games did networking fairly significantly 
> differently, I'd be hesitant to group them together.  Their only major 
> commonality is that they're UDP based; delta compress; and are client-
> server.  The implementation of reliable communication was altered 
> drastically from Quake2->Quake3, and delta state compression was 
> radically altered from QW to Q2.

OK. Do you have references to someone discussing this?

> 
> However, I would submit that Quake3's networking model is probably a 
> pretty good reference for first person shooters.  But it probably would 
> not be the ideal model for a real-time strategy game or RPG.

I am aware of that. Although not in the detail I would like.

Thanks,

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               ma...@ch...
Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. "Don't bother us
with politics," respond those who don't want to learn.

        - Free software proponent, Richard M. Stallman

Re: [GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[brian h. <bri...@py...>]

> > That's awfully broad.  What do you mean by "approaches"?  As in 
overall 
> > architecture, specific communication protocols, compression and 
> > prediction methods, or something else or all of the above?  
> 
> All of the above with a weight on architecture.

I'm not the most qualified to speak on this, but here's some food for 
discussion/thought:

- pretty much everyone uses UDP.  TCP simply doesn't work over the net 
for real-time 3D graphics if you're trying to achieve low latency.

- compression is a necessity if you want to minimize bandwidth.  You 
can do a per-packet compression using something like LZW or arithmetic 
coding; you can also do application level delta-compression where you 
only send over the changed state.  And you can also do quantization.  
And, of course, you can do a mix of all of the above.

- encryption is a necessity if you're worried about hacking.  You can 
never trust the client.

- the most common architecture today as far as I know is client-
server.  It's possible some games continue to use peer-to-peer (I 
imagine this is like with RTS style games?), but as a rule client-
server is the model that is the de facto standard.

> Realtime mostly, but also, as discussed here recently, discussion on 
> combining offline and online gameplay.

Once again, this is awfully broad.  There are many genres of real-time 
games that have radically different requirements -- first person 
shooters; role-playing games; real-time strategy games; flight sims; 
etc.  The mix of hard updates and client side prediction will also 
drastically change depending on the game's genre.

> OK - if someone else knows it I would like to hear about it. It does 
not 
> look particulary advanced from the index. 

As I said, with 90 minutes I don't think you'll have time to get into 
advanced stuff.  And honestly, if you're just now learning this stuff, 
you may not be comfortable trying to distill a bunch of knowledge that 
you're not intimately familiar with into such a reduced timeframe.

> sure that the stuff "I once knew" is not totally outdated today. (Are 
> games doing anything particulary more advanced than 
> QuakeWorld/Quake2/Quake3 today?)

Given that those three games did networking fairly significantly 
differently, I'd be hesitant to group them together.  Their only major 
commonality is that they're UDP based; delta compress; and are client-
server.  The implementation of reliable communication was altered 
drastically from Quake2->Quake3, and delta state compression was 
radically altered from QW to Q2.

However, I would submit that Quake3's networking model is probably a 
pretty good reference for first person shooters.  But it probably would 
not be the ideal model for a real-time strategy game or RPG.
-Hook

Re: [GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[Mads B. D. <ma...@ch...>]

On Sun, 22 Sep 2002, brian hook wrote:

> > I am looking for information on approaches to networking games 
> 
> That's awfully broad.  What do you mean by "approaches"?  As in overall 
> architecture, specific communication protocols, compression and 
> prediction methods, or something else or all of the above?  

All of the above with a weight on architecture.

> It would be 
> tough to do a definitive survey on this.  Also, what types of games are 
> we talking about here?

Realtime mostly, but also, as discussed here recently, discussion on 
combining offline and online gameplay.


> There is another book out called "Developer's Guide to Multiplayer 
> Games" by Andrew Mulholland and Teijo Hakala:
> 
> http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?
> isbn=1556228686
> 
> It looked significantly more promising to me, but since I haven't 
> actually read it (and the price seems exhorbitant) I can't really 
> comment.

OK - if someone else knows it I would like to hear about it. It does not 
look particulary advanced from the index. 

> 
> All that aside, if it's a short lecture, you're probably not going to 
> have time to get into any detail, so the general survey stuff you might 
> find at Web sites may be good enough.

its 2*45 minutes, so, won't really get into detail, but I would like to be 
sure that the stuff "I once knew" is not totally outdated today. (Are 
games doing anything particulary more advanced than 
QuakeWorld/Quake2/Quake3 today?)

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               ma...@ch...
Saying you're trying to fix all the holes in IE is like saying you mean to
turn a sieve into a bowl.
            -- /. comment

Re: [GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[brian h. <bri...@py...>]

> I am looking for information on approaches to networking games 

That's awfully broad.  What do you mean by "approaches"?  As in overall 
architecture, specific communication protocols, compression and 
prediction methods, or something else or all of the above?  It would be 
tough to do a definitive survey on this.  Also, what types of games are 
we talking about here?

There are at least two trade books I've seen on the subject of 
networked games.  The first is "Multiplayer Game Programming" by Todd 
Barron.  I didn't like this book at all -- it doesn't discuss any form 
of networking that would be realistically used in a modern game today, 
and spends a significant amount of time on things unrelated to 
networking and multiplayer.

There is another book out called "Developer's Guide to Multiplayer 
Games" by Andrew Mulholland and Teijo Hakala:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?
isbn=1556228686

It looked significantly more promising to me, but since I haven't 
actually read it (and the price seems exhorbitant) I can't really 
comment.

All that aside, if it's a short lecture, you're probably not going to 
have time to get into any detail, so the general survey stuff you might 
find at Web sites may be good enough.

Brian

[GD-General] Information on approaches to networking games

[Mads B. D. <ma...@ch...>]

Hi there

I am looking for information on approaches to networking games suitable 
for lecturing over in a computer science class. I have been invited to do 
a "christmas lecture" -- that is, a lecture that is not really part of the 
stuff that students are supposed to know at exam, but is still relevant to 
the class, which is distributed systems.

My knowledge was reasonably current in 1998 (mostly Quake and RTS related
though). I suspect some new approaches may have surfaced since then. I 
would be very happy if someone knew of a good ressource for these matters. 
A recommandation of a good book of preceedings on the matter would be very 
welcome.

Thanks,

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               ma...@ch...
United States Patent 6,368,227:
A method of swing on a swing is disclosed, in which a user positioned on a
standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree
branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and
then the other. 
            -- This is not a joke - go look it up.

Re: [GD-General] free development tools

[Steve M. <st...@ys...>]

You could also look at the free compilers from Borland and Watcom.

http://www.borland.com/

http://www.openwatcom.com/


Steve


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Ignacio_Castaño <cas...@ya...>
Date:  Wed, 18 Sep 2002 18:23:24 +0200

>Thatcher Ulrich wrote:
>> Here's a very nice practical explanation of all of this from a game
>> programming perspective:
>>
>> http://spacejack.org/games/mingw/
>
>Nice introduction, thanks!
>
>
>Ignacio Castaño
>cas...@ya...
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________
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Re: [GD-General] free development tools

[<cas...@ya...>]

Thatcher Ulrich wrote:
> Here's a very nice practical explanation of all of this from a game
> programming perspective:
>
> http://spacejack.org/games/mingw/

Nice introduction, thanks!


Ignacio Castaño
cas...@ya...



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RE: [GD-General] free development tools

[Bryan M. <br...@st...>]

MinGW is simple to get working with DirectX and there are no libraries =
you
need to distribute with your exe.  Recommended!

Bryan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gam...@li...
> [mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of
> Ignacio Casta=F1o
> Sent: 18 September 2002 02:04
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Re: [GD-General] free development tools
>=20
>=20
> Well, it seems that you can use mingw headers and libraries=20
> under the cygwin
> environment and there are some headers for directx7, so this should =
be
> enough for my needs. Anyway, I'd still like to recieve advice=20
> from someone
> with experience in this field.
>=20
>=20
> Ignacio Casta=F1o
> cas...@ya...
>=20
>=20
> Ignacio Casta=F1o wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I've been doing all my win32 coding on a 'student' version of =
visual
> studio.
> > However, I want now to distribute one of my programs and=20
> I'm looking for a
> > free (or at least cheap) windows compiler. I've been trying=20
> cygwin's gcc,
> > but compiled programs require cygwin.dll, and building dynamic link
> > libraries seems to be really complex. Appart from that linking with
> DirectX
> > seems also to be a problem. I can probably work all those=20
> things out, but
> > before that, I would like to know which alternatives are=20
> out there (mingw,
> > lcc, etc) and which path would you recommend.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> >
> > Ignacio Casta=F1o
> > cas...@ya...
> >
> > _______________________________________________________________
> > Yahoo! Messenger
> > Nueva versi=F3n: Webcam, voz, y mucho m=E1s =A1Gratis!
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> >
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Re: [GD-General] free development tools

[Thatcher U. <tu...@tu...>]

Here's a very nice practical explanation of all of this from a game
programming perspective:

http://spacejack.org/games/mingw/

On Sep 18, 2002 at 03:03 +0200, Ignacio Casta?o wrote:
> Well, it seems that you can use mingw headers and libraries under the cygwin
> environment and there are some headers for directx7, so this should be
> enough for my needs. Anyway, I'd still like to recieve advice from someone
> with experience in this field.
> 
> 
> Ignacio Casta?o
> cas...@ya...
> 
> 
> Ignacio Casta?o wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I've been doing all my win32 coding on a 'student' version of visual
> studio.
> > However, I want now to distribute one of my programs and I'm looking for a
> > free (or at least cheap) windows compiler. I've been trying cygwin's gcc,
> > but compiled programs require cygwin.dll, and building dynamic link
> > libraries seems to be really complex. Appart from that linking with
> DirectX
> > seems also to be a problem. I can probably work all those things out, but
> > before that, I would like to know which alternatives are out there (mingw,
> > lcc, etc) and which path would you recommend.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> >
> > Ignacio Casta?o
> > cas...@ya...

-- 
Thatcher Ulrich
http://tulrich.com

Re: [GD-General] free development tools

[<cas...@ya...>]

Well, it seems that you can use mingw headers and libraries under the cygwin
environment and there are some headers for directx7, so this should be
enough for my needs. Anyway, I'd still like to recieve advice from someone
with experience in this field.


Ignacio Castaño
cas...@ya...


Ignacio Castaño wrote:
> Hi,
> I've been doing all my win32 coding on a 'student' version of visual
studio.
> However, I want now to distribute one of my programs and I'm looking for a
> free (or at least cheap) windows compiler. I've been trying cygwin's gcc,
> but compiled programs require cygwin.dll, and building dynamic link
> libraries seems to be really complex. Appart from that linking with
DirectX
> seems also to be a problem. I can probably work all those things out, but
> before that, I would like to know which alternatives are out there (mingw,
> lcc, etc) and which path would you recommend.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>
> Ignacio Castaño
> cas...@ya...
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Messenger
> Nueva versión: Webcam, voz, y mucho más ¡Gratis!
> Descárgalo ya desde http://messenger.yahoo.es
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.NET email is sponsored by: AMD - Your access to the experts
> on Hammer Technology! Open Source & Linux Developers, register now
> for the AMD Developer Symposium. Code: EX8664
> http://www.developwithamd.com/developerlab
> _______________________________________________
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> Archives:
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[GD-General] free development tools

[<cas...@ya...>]

Hi,
I've been doing all my win32 coding on a 'student' version of visual studio.
However, I want now to distribute one of my programs and I'm looking for a
free (or at least cheap) windows compiler. I've been trying cygwin's gcc,
but compiled programs require cygwin.dll, and building dynamic link
libraries seems to be really complex. Appart from that linking with DirectX
seems also to be a problem. I can probably work all those things out, but
before that, I would like to know which alternatives are out there (mingw,
lcc, etc) and which path would you recommend.

Thanks in advance,


Ignacio Castaño
cas...@ya...

_______________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger
Nueva versión: Webcam, voz, y mucho más ¡Gratis! 
Descárgalo ya desde http://messenger.yahoo.es

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Javier A. <ja...@py...>]

Tom Nuydens <t.n...@vr...> wrote:


> You all know that Adobe fixed the TGA problem two months ago, right?

They simply reverted back to PS6 behaviour, how's that for an.upgrade? They
didn't fix anything, they just kept it broken (but broken the way we're used
to). No need to pay for an upgrade that doesn't fix my issues.

  Javier Arevalo
  Pyro Studios

RE: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Tom N. <t.n...@vr...>]

You all know that Adobe fixed the TGA problem two months ago, right? Get
the update here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=39&platform=W
indows

Cheers,

-- Tom



> -----Original Message-----
> From: gam...@li... 
> [mailto:gam...@li...] On 
> Behalf Of phi...@pl...
> Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 19:46
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Re: [GD-General] Level Editing
> 
> 
> 
> > Adobe: "Why don't people report these things during betatest?"
> > Developer: "Perhaps you need better betatesters. Want me to 
> sign up?"
> > Adobe: "No, we have enough people already"
> > Developer: "Ok I get it"
> 
> Sounds like Adobe need to recognize that a significant, and 
> growing, part of their market is in game development. You 
> used to get the same attitude from the 3d modelling 
> companies, who seemed to thing their customers were all in 
> post production.
> 
> Cheers,
> Phil
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[<phi...@pl...>]

> Adobe: "Why don't people report these things during betatest?"
> Developer: "Perhaps you need better betatesters. Want me to sign up?"
> Adobe: "No, we have enough people already"
> Developer: "Ok I get it"

Sounds like Adobe need to recognize that a significant, and growing, part
of their market is in game development. You used to get the same attitude
from the 3d modelling companies, who seemed to thing their customers were
all in post production.

Cheers,
Phil

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Javier A. <ja...@py...>]

Niklas Hansson <ni...@ma...> wrote:

>> I guess it doesn't count, but after the recent Photoshop 7's
>> braindead monkeying around with TGA's alpha channel (and their

> About the photoshop filter I hope you are aware that all you need to
> do is copy the .tga  plugin file from Photoshop 6.0(or whatever the
> latest verision was) into 7.0 and It will work as exspected. Our
> Artists solved this without even involving us programmers so first
> time I heard about it was on this list.

Yeah that was the official "fix" proposed by the Adobe relations people once
they were done pointing out how wrong we game developers were for misusing
the TGA alpha channel. A simple checkbox / option to specify how you want
TGAs to work would have been enough but they quickly rejected it for
"internal architecture reasons" (!!!!). Just give me the TGA plugin source
code like Discreet does and I'll fix it myself, but no they won't disclose
their "intellectual property" (TGA loading code?) either.

The thing is, I expect new versions of tools to provide interesting new
features or at least improve the existing ones. It makes no sense to pay for
a new version when new features add nothing to you, and the only thing you
miss in your current version is made worse (or just equally wrong) by the
upgrade.

Or maybe they'll rebate a few $ to people who buy PS7 and then are forced to
downgrade a portion of it? What about fresh new copies of PS7 for our new
artists, does the license allow us to copy a portion of another version?
Hope you see what I mean, there are tons of ways to fix this problem, but
The Real Fix would be for Adobe people to listen to and care about its
users. There was this little gem of an exchange in the forums:

[Names witheld (sp?)]
Adobe: "Why don't people report these things during betatest?"
Developer: "Perhaps you need better betatesters. Want me to sign up?"
Adobe: "No, we have enough people already"
Developer: "Ok I get it"

I think "braindead" is definitely applicable.

  Javier Arevalo
  Pyro Studios

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Niklas H. <ni...@ma...>]

About the photoshop filter I hope you are aware that all you need to do
is copy the .tga  plugin file from Photoshop 6.0(or whatever the latest
verision was) into 7.0 and It will work as exspected. Our Artists solved
this without even involving us programmers so first time I heard about
it was on this list.

/Niklas Hansson

Javier Arevalo wrote:
> 
> phi...@pl... wrote:
> 
> > Or indeed, any other tools that people
> > are writing plug-ins for.
> 
> I guess it doesn't count, but after the recent Photoshop 7's braindead
> monkeying around with TGA's alpha channel (and their terribly unhelpful
> developer relations - almost worse than not having one at all, their
> standard response to any question is "you are wrong"), I decided to write a
> Photoshop plugin myself, either a transparency filter or a TGA file format.
> Simple thing...
> 
> I was horrified at what I saw after installing the SDK. What a terrible
> mess. Projects linked to sourcesafe databases, wrong file headers included
> on PC, samples that Just Don't Work... 3DS4 IPAS programming seemed like a
> blessing in comparison. I mean, it _can_ be done, but it was not going to be
> the couple-hour hack such a simple thing should have been. In the end I
> talked with my lead artist and we figured out a Photoshop action to help us
> with the whole alpha / transparency mess. They're sticking with Photoshop 6
> as well, Adobe's not getting upgrade money from us this year.
> 
> Sorry I had to get out of my chest. :)
> 
>   Javier Arevalo
>   Pyro Studios
> 
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-- 
/Niklas Hansson    
Lead Software Engineer
Massive Entertainment AB

Re: [GD-General] [GD General] Windows in .NET :(

[Mickael P. <gd...@dr...>]

Looks like you're going to have some uninitialized variables in the WNDCLASS
(btw there is a WNDCLASSEX)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Collins" <jo...@mu...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 7:51 PM
Subject: [GD-General] [GD General] Windows in .NET :(


> Hi all,
> 
> I just stupidly upgraded to Visual C++ .NET from VC6. And so of course 
> my windows code doesn't
> work with it for some lame reason.
> 
> This code worked
> PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR pfd;
>     WNDCLASS wc;
>     // register window class
>     wc.style = CS_OWNDC;
>     wc.cbClsExtra = 0;
>     wc.cbWndExtra = 0;
>     wc.hInstance = ctx->HInst;
>     wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)GetStockObject( BLACK_BRUSH );
>     wc.lpszMenuName = NULL;
>     wc.lpszClassName = ctx->AppName;
>     DWORD so;
>     if (!RegisterClass( &wc ))
>         so = GetLastError();
> 
> and now I get an error 87 - bad parameter
> 
> Anyone "upgrade" and have similar problems?
> 
> On a side note, I have previously tried to get the mousewheel working in 
> my code. But
> I get a compile error when I try to use WM_MOUSEWHEEL - undefined
> 
> There seems to be some magic defines you need to set to get this to 
> compile... Something to do with
> #define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0400
> #define _WIN32_WINDOWS 0x500
> 
> but it doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps there is more magic in the 
> ordering or something.
> 
> Anyway, any help would be sweet.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Joe
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This sf.net email is sponsored by: OSDN - Tired of that same old
> cell phone?  Get a new here for FREE!
> https://www.inphonic.com/r.asp?r=sourceforge1&refcode1=vs3390
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> Archives:
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> 

[GD-General] [GD General] Windows in .NET :(

[Joe C. <jo...@mu...>]

Hi all,

I just stupidly upgraded to Visual C++ .NET from VC6. And so of course 
my windows code doesn't
work with it for some lame reason.

This code worked
PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR pfd;
    WNDCLASS wc;
    // register window class
    wc.style = CS_OWNDC;
    wc.cbClsExtra = 0;
    wc.cbWndExtra = 0;
    wc.hInstance = ctx->HInst;
    wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)GetStockObject( BLACK_BRUSH );
    wc.lpszMenuName = NULL;
    wc.lpszClassName = ctx->AppName;
    DWORD so;
    if (!RegisterClass( &wc ))
        so = GetLastError();

and now I get an error 87 - bad parameter

Anyone "upgrade" and have similar problems?

On a side note, I have previously tried to get the mousewheel working in 
my code. But
I get a compile error when I try to use WM_MOUSEWHEEL - undefined

There seems to be some magic defines you need to set to get this to 
compile... Something to do with
#define _WIN32_WINNT 0x0400
#define _WIN32_WINDOWS 0x500

but it doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps there is more magic in the 
ordering or something.

Anyway, any help would be sweet.

Thanks,

-Joe

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Mads B. D. <ma...@ch...>]

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Mickael Pointier wrote:

> >> And of course, I was totaly unable to find any tutorial, clear
> >> explanation, or source sample on the web :(
> >
> > If you ever try the Gimp, you will find lots of that, including
> > source to all the plugins and filters.
> 
> The Gimp is compatible with PhotoShop pluggins ?

Oh no, I am afraid not. The gimp is the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. It
is available from www.gimp.org. It is a very mature program and has lots
of features, but some people apparently needs very specific PhotoShop
features. Often proper (patented) support for CMYK color separation is
mentioned. Gimp lacks this (due to the patent issues). But, if you use
Photoshop mostly as a vehicle for game related art, I would think the Gimp
would suffice. Plugins are mostly written in C, but you can also write (at
least scripts) in lisp and perl.

AFAIK there is a Windows version and also a special "movie" version. The 
last edition has been featured in some online magazines in relation to the 
DreamWorks (and others) studios use of it.

Sorry if I mislead you, that was not my intention.

If you want to check out the gimp, be sure to check out the Gimp book for 
an introduction to its advanced usage.

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               ma...@ch...
The IETF has an interesting enough life as is getting the "too simple" 
protocols to work sanely, hardware/software providers and sysadmins have a hard
time understanding, implementing and exploiting the "too simple" stuff today.
I.e., imagine MS-mess but on Internet scale, not just desktop-scale. If you
can. ... Scary. Real scary. Halloween stuff, definitely.
                                        - Dr. Horst H. von Brand

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Mickael P. <mpo...@ed...>]

>> And of course, I was totaly unable to find any tutorial, clear
>> explanation, or source sample on the web :(
>
> If you ever try the Gimp, you will find lots of that, including
> source to all the plugins and filters.

The Gimp is compatible with PhotoShop pluggins ?

I was not aware of this. Perhaps it would be easier to develop pluggins for
PhotoShop if I take a look at the Gimp SDK then. I suppose I can find this
on Source Forge ?

    Mickael Pointier

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Mads B. D. <ma...@ch...>]

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Mickael Pointier wrote:

> And of course, I was totaly unable to find any tutorial, clear explanation,
> or source sample on the web :(

If you ever try the Gimp, you will find lots of that, including source to 
all the plugins and filters.

Mads

-- 
Mads Bondo Dydensborg.                               ma...@ch...
64 GB PAE mode works just fine on my 8GB RAM, 8-way Xeon box [..]
                      
                                 - Ingo Molnar, Linux Kernel List, 1999-11-03

Re: [GD-General] Level Editing

[Mickael P. <mpo...@ed...>]

>> Or indeed, any other tools that people
>> are writing plug-ins for.
>
> I guess it doesn't count, but after the recent Photoshop 7's braindead
> monkeying around with TGA's alpha channel (and their terribly
> unhelpful developer relations - almost worse than not having one at
> all, their standard response to any question is "you are wrong"), I
> decided to write a Photoshop plugin myself, either a transparency
> filter or a TGA file format. Simple thing...
>
> I was horrified at what I saw after installing the SDK. What a
> terrible mess. Projects linked to sourcesafe databases, wrong file
> headers included on PC, samples that Just Don't Work... 3DS4 IPAS
> programming seemed like a blessing in comparison. I mean, it _can_ be
> done, but it was not going to be the couple-hour hack such a simple
> thing should have been. In the end I talked with my lead artist and
> we figured out a Photoshop action to help us with the whole alpha /
> transparency mess. They're sticking with Photoshop 6 as well, Adobe's
> not getting upgrade money from us this year.
>
> Sorry I had to get out of my chest. :)

I can understand it.

Last year I needed to make a small plugg'in for PhotoShop (or PaintShopPro,
this does not matter) that could perform a simple filtering action on a
picture currently loaded, and I made the same constatation. Compared to MAX
SDK, the adobe is SDK is _crap_. The documentation is bad, most of the code
of the samples is about endianness problems that can arise when you want to
make a pluggin that work on Mac versions of PhotoShop, the examples
themselves are just examples not tied to the real world. In Max SDK at least
you have a DXF export plugging that can be used for real. In PS SDK, all you
have is a "simple format" export that of course does not handle half of the
quarter of the things you have to consider when you have to create a pluggin
for this program.

And of course, I was totaly unable to find any tutorial, clear explanation,
or source sample on the web :(

    Mickael Pointier