Re: [xmlvm-dev] Games with LibGDX on iPhone

[Panayotis K. <pan...@pa...>]

On 10 Σεπ 2011, at 4:27 π.μ., Tomás Lázaro wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I arrived at XMLVM because I would like to develop a Game Engine capable of producing Java games for desktop as well as Android and iOS and if possible more devices. I watched the youtube videos and now have a global understanding of how it works. 
> 
> I checked out the source code but wasn't able to compile the demos. First the ant process failed because a few files have capitalization problems that don't work on Linux, specifically *Xcode*.xml files in 'nbproject' folders. After I fixed those issues another issue came up, according to Ant a folder named 'Src' was not found for the 'xokoban' project. I was not able to fix that issue as renaming wouldn't change anything and couldn't find a reference on any of the build.xml files to 'Src' that I could fix to 'src'.

Hello.
First of all, welcome here!
Your idea sounds promising and I'd like to wish you good luck with your task :)

The case issues with build-* files should have beed fixed now.
If you still had problems, please report them because we might have left something.

Now about the Src reference, this is strange because there were never a "Src" (instead of "src) reference in the build scripts. Can you tell us the exact location? 


> I found a few examples like basic OpenGL that are already working so it should be viable to create a complete OpenGL 2.0 mapping to be used in games. Using LibGDX it is already possible to develop targeting Android and Desktop seamlessly for the library user. It is done with an abstraction over the platform as well as OpenGL encapsulated as "backends", there is even a backend that maps OpenGL to DirectX.
> 
> I think I need to work on two fronts: 'LibGDX iPhone backend' and 'OpenGL ES 2.0 for XMLVM'. Since I'm a totally green on the whole XMLVM I would really appreciate advice on how to proceed!


What you should do first is to implement in XMLVM all the advanced OpenGL features of iOS you will require.
Only iOS documented properties and methods should be defined there. No helper functions.

Then go to the native sources and "implement" (wrap practically) these methods to the actual native methods. I believe we can help you with this part.
Now XMLVM is in the process of migrating from Objective C to pure C. You might consider implementing your required OpenGL bindings using the C backend instead of Objective C.

When pure iOS OpenGL support is ready, then you can create the bindings between libGDX and XMLVM. I don't know how libGDX is organized, but I suspect there is a way to append these bindings to libGDX without breaking the other backends.

If you need native support for helper functions, then things get a bit tricky (and is actually a thing under development). Please finish all others and we'll discuss this topic.