| New Forum :) |
[Jan. 15th, 2007|01:50 pm] |
Timminater has very generously offered hosting for the project and so I'm going to shift this blog over to his hosted site soon. I'll benefit from a new blog system, space to host files and a brand spanking new forum!
The forum is online now so get signed up and start posting! It'll be a great place to get everyones ideas, suggestions and feedback in one place without it getting buried in various comments.
Just follow the URL here: http://www.cncds.worldoffokkers.nl/forum/index.php |
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| A* Implemented |
[Jan. 11th, 2007|01:02 pm] |
I implemented the basic A* algorithm last night and it's working fine. Next I'm going to expand the test, neaten the code and create a batch of different heuristics. I want to put them all into a single demo so you can switch heuristic whenever you want, and then compare CPU cycles and the paths for each one. When I'm done with this I'll more than likely release it as the next game test.
To give you a clue where it's going I'm planning an offline terrain analysis tool that will identify features on the map such as choke points and good places to build bases (near resources etc.) to help out the AI. It will also create higher-level node maps to ease the path finding and do other cool stuff. |
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| Game Code & Path Finding |
[Jan. 10th, 2007|12:55 pm] |
Just thought I'd post what part of the game I'm working on right now... and it's the game! That's right I'm now starting to make headway into the actual game core, even though it's early days. The concepts of players (whether AI or human), armies, units, buildings, tech trees and more have been coded in. While I'm working on the game code I'm adding a VERY simplified rendering routine for it which basically involves coloured blocks. This will gradually be replaced by nice graphics as the game progresses. I still think the hardest part of this project will be to squeeze in all those nice graphics on the poor little DS, but it'll be a fun challenge.
I'm now starting work on the path finding, which is a very important part of an RTS. So far I think I'll go for the tried and tested A* technique with a heuristic friendly to a low memory/cpu environment. I'm looking at ways of sharing A* work between groups of units given the same destination to save CPU time and also ways of breaking up the task over consecutive frames.
This is the part of the project I've been really looking forward to, until now putting the framework in has largely been a pain, but actually writing the game is the fun part :) Oh and don't worry, I'm writing the code with network support in mind from day one. Though it won't be WiFi enabled for a good while yet I'm taking the first steps in that direction now. |
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| Third Test |
[Jan. 8th, 2007|04:04 pm] |
Hi everyone, I'm now ready for the third test! This one is bigger now I have some of the basics nailed. There are Five tests embedded in the ROM selectable from a front menu. Sorry but to launch each test you'll have to reload the ROM inbetween. Please try each one and let me know how you get on!
> > > TEST OVER! < < <
As before this link will only be up for a short time
Expected Results:
Test A : Should say 'Test A Completed Ok!'
Test B : You should see sin wave text and coloured boxes scrolling around. You can adjust rates with the debug menu 'Fun' options.
Test C : Should show a palette in a grid.
Test D : Should show a colourful pattern of tiles, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Cyan, Magenta, White, Dark Red, Dark Green and Dark Blue which then repeats. Some of the original menu is visible through some of the red tiles.
Test E : Should show a pattern of greenish tiles, but is likely to just freeze the DS right now. Sorry! Just wondering if it's the same for everyone.
Notes on using the debug menu:
The 'Select' button hides/shows the debug menu. 'B' goes up a menu or cancels a modification. 'A' enters a menu or begins to modify a value. When modifying the menu cursor changes to a '!'. Use up/down to change the value.
PC Executable:
I've also included the PC executable that runs with SDL. I'm sort of interested to know if this works on everyone's computers. Spacebar = SELECT, Z = B button, X = A button. |
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| Happy New Year! |
[Jan. 3rd, 2007|01:41 pm] |
Thanks for all the xmas messages, I hope you all had a great christmas and new years :)
There's a slight delay in the next ROM because my hard-drive has blown up! So I need a new one of those as well as a new homebrew cards.. great! Don't worry I've kept regular backups of the project so no work is lost.. thank god! Always remember to backup kids.
As for the DS-X I think I was right in waiting for a bit because a few new options have been revealed. The R4DS and the new SuperCard DS for slot 1. Which is best? I was thinking of getting one from here: http://usbextremeshop.com/index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=00c3cfb854ae9756c1195c5031d9f20b
Any advice? |
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| Thanks Again |
[Dec. 21st, 2006|12:07 pm] |
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Thanks everyone for testing the last ROM, though as I really expected it didn't work. I'm going to get a much better ROM to test next that will do several tests in one and hopefully give much more useful results... well squeezing that in between all the xmas shopping and festive boozing ;) |
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| Second Test |
[Dec. 16th, 2006|11:28 am] |
Ok time for the second test! But don't get too excited about this one, I doubt very much it will work first time. This one should show a few test GUI screens like the one pictured below but it will probably just come up with two white screens. This will be the first proper test of the file system in use and also a different graphics mode (Mode 5). I've only ever tested this with Dualis so I can't be sure it'll work on the real thing.. but fingers crossed :)
>>> Test Over! <<<
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| Thank You! |
[Dec. 15th, 2006|12:17 am] |
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Thanks to everyone who has responded so far to the first 'dirty test'.. It seems the file system initialised for the majority of those who tested it which is good.. though sadly not everyone. I'll have to find out why, but in the mean time I'll proceed to the next step soon :) |
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| Dirty Test |
[Dec. 14th, 2006|03:10 pm] |
I've not ordered any new hardware yet as the new offering from the Super Card guys looks to be around the corner and I want to see if it's any good or not first. I've been wrestling this my current gear and it's driving me mad. I've still not found an effective work around, but after lot's of formatting, copying and recopying I can generally get the roms to work, but then the data is corrupted, very rarely do I get both rom and data ok at the same time.
It looks like I'm going to have to rely on you guys for now! I can't test my code on my hardware or emulator (crashes) so here we go, the first uploaded test, though it is complete arse ;p I'm interested to see here whether the fat system initialises and whether it can read from the other file in the zip. If successful hopefully the next test will be the GUI pages.... and then a map?
If it loads ok you should see a screen like below. When you hit the 'A' button the green block will advance a pixel to the right (just shows input works). If you press the 'SELECT' button the debug menu will appear. If it's working correctly the debug menu should look like the one in the screenshot.
Test Over!
(Updated link: Thanks Scorpei!)
Could people please download this rom and report on what happens? I'll have to take the link down after a little while to save bandwidth so be quick! |
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| Fubar'd Hardware :( |
[Dec. 8th, 2006|11:01 am] |
I finally got the game engine running on target hardware last night!! I was testing different builds of the game with each version of the fatlib I had to see which worked, though with the GUI system disabled and the game effectively cut out. All of them created two white screens on the DS which meant they failed.
I copied each build back onto my memory card to bring them to work so I can upload them and see if others get the same results, but I noticed something odd. I was copying other files over too and some of them seemed to be getting corrupted. What's more one of the rom files I copied over started to work which had failed before. This working rom file is a huge step forward, I'd never had it working on the DS hardware before.
I'm not entirely sure where the problem lies - either in the memory card or the card reader, but it seems something has been corrupting files and possibly for a long time, which led me to believe my roms didn't work on the DS when they probably did.
I think I'll get myself a little present this christmas and buy myself a replacement for my Super Card SD. I think I'll get one that let's me hook up straight to USB....any suggestions from people as to which one is best? |
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| Sorry! |
[Dec. 5th, 2006|03:12 pm] |
Like some of you have guessed my real job is taking up lots of time still, I'm working on the online code at work and we have another deadline coming up soon.. but I did start to work on the code again the other day and have still not managed to get over my problems with the fat system not initialising properly. I'm sure it's just a version mismatch of some kind. I need to get on the gbadev forums and check out what's going on and then hopefully I can carry on again.
The level editor was sort of put on hold until I got the main game going again so I could test the levels were being created properly.
Anyway some good news is that I have a month off over xmas so no doubt I'll be able to find plenty of time to work on this, and I'll also have the net again, so hoorah's all round :) |
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| On Hold.. |
[Nov. 14th, 2006|09:49 am] |
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Not dead, just on hold for a bit! Not much longer though... sorry guys and girls |
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| Email Down |
[Oct. 19th, 2006|12:49 pm] |
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It looks like my old website has gone offline, possibly permanently, and it's taken my old email addresses with it ;( I'm sorting out a new website now, but until then, just, um, leave comments here I guess ;p |
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| Still Crunching.. |
[Oct. 16th, 2006|12:52 pm] |
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Feeling the burn now! But the end IS in sight. I've managed to do some very minor work on the map editor and that is all. The project is still going, but has slowed right down because of little free time. Don't worry guys i'm going to see it through, I want to play C&C on the DS as much as the next guy ;D |
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| Crunch! |
[Oct. 9th, 2006|08:38 am] |
We've hit our final crunch time at work - and for those of you who are in the games industry you know what it can be like! So over the last few days I've had less free time and not felt as motivated to get home and do yet more coding lol. So progress has slowed down as of late, sorry fellas!
I did manage to get the latest version of libnds and libfat built (though I had to comment out a bunch of directory listing stuff in libfat) and I still have the same problem. So I'm going to need to get all the info I can that's relevant from home, bring it in and ask a few questions on the forums. It's such a pain in the ass not having the net at home - grrrr!
So without being able to work on the main game I've been working on the map editor. It's coming along nicely. I really hope that my first release isn't just the map editor though 0.0 |
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| Bad Libs |
[Oct. 2nd, 2006|11:17 am] |
Sorry folks, no real progress here. I got Sonic Rush and DragonBall Z for my DS, really like the DBZ game, and I've been playing that lot's and sort of neglected the project a little ;p But that's not the main reason.
I downloaded the latest stable releases of the libs from sourceforge, but found my game started to instantly crash Dualis. Looking at the logs I think it was an undefined call to the ARM9 processor. By a process of elimination I narrowed it down to the initialise function for the file system. I tried to downgrade my libraries with no luck :(
I could carry on developing with the SDL port, but I'm at a point where I really need to make my DS changes first, and I can't with this problem. I had another go at grabbing the files from the sourceforge CVS and tried another program, the great TortoiseCVS. WinCVS is lame. I have been able to check out the files I wanted, and maybe later tonight I'll be able to get up and running again.
BTW Sorry about delays in replying to emails, I'm having some problems with my mail account ;( |
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| Couple of Links |
[Sep. 27th, 2006|02:16 pm] |
Just thought I'd post a couple of good links.
Jaeden Amero's has been working on a DS Manual that looks very good indeed. It's complete with source code and is a PDF document. He's also got some nice looking DS projects of his own and a very good links page to all sorts of DS homebrew sites.
http://www.patatersoft.info/nintendods.html
Secondly I noticed an update on Chris Double's website. He has the tutorials that I first used when I started coding for the DS. It looks like he'll have some new tutorials coming along soon, which is great news :) Check out his site here:
http://www.double.co.nz/nintendo_ds/ |
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| Quick Update |
[Sep. 27th, 2006|10:41 am] |
You can now enter a map and return to the main menu over and over again.. yay! I've also changed the graphics system so it's easier to tell it if you're drawing to the primary screen or the secondary screen. This sounds really minor but has a big effect on my GUI system. Still got some design desicions on how it will span two screen nicely to make.
And now for a minor rant: using WinCVS is such a pain! I've connected to the sourceforge CVS but I still don't know how to get a copy of the source code. I've tried to check out a module and failed miserably. Why is it so unfriendly? I'm sure once you've gone through the whole process once it's easy but right now it's just annoying lol. I might give it another shot later, but for now I just downloaded all the latest libs I could find under the Files section. If anyone fancies going on the CVS, getting the latest version, zipping up the files and emailing them to me you'd be a total legend :) |
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| Graphic Modes and FS Woes |
[Sep. 25th, 2006|11:26 am] |
Got annoyed the other night working on the game, seemed to spend ages not getting anywhere! My main goal was to just change the graphics mode I use to mode 5 2D.
I'd moved the output folder of the project so it doesn't sit in the same folder as the source code. It's cleaner and lets me see what the final game folder will be like. There's also a lot less files in there, which should HELP the file system. Instead it's back to its old tricks. One of the first files it accesses inside a subfolder is loaded and read fine, but from then on it seems unable to read any data in a folder. It's fine with the root, but not a subdirectory. It means the maps aren't loading right now because the tiles and maps are in subdirectories. It's doing my head in!
I still haven't downloaded the latest library files because it's all hidden away on a CVS, and I've not had to use WinCVS before. It's a total ball ache but I'm hoping someone at work can give me a hand... grumble grumble just give me a ZIP to download lol. I'm not sure when r20 devkitpro is out, but I can't wait.
Anyway it turns out I got the change in graphics mode working almost straight away, but when it didn't display properly (due to the map not being loaded correctly) I spent ages looking for a bug in the graphics and not the file system, costing me lot's of time. D'oh! I've got some playing to do still with the graphics to get an in-game HUD working propely over the tilemap but I don't think it's far away.
Playing with the graphics has pointed out though that my SDL graphics core could do with a lot more work to make it useful. It's current approach to emulating the DS is ok but not great for debugging. This is something I'll do after I release the first beta though to not 'waste' too much time ;)
In other news I just want to point out that this really isn't a port of C&C on to the DS because I'm not updating the original source code to work on another platform - because I don't have the original C&C souce code ;p This is a totally new code base written from scratch. I'm just being picky really pointing that out ;)
It does mean that people can't see the source code and get an idea on how to port a game, but they can see the source code and see how to write games for the DS. The code is actually pretty generic in most places, and I don't mind at all if people decide to lift the code for their own stuff. Of course they might not like my C++ singleton 'hell' but that's the way it's written so ha!
Anyway, yes I will be releasing the source code for the game.. but not for a little while! I'd like to get most of the systems cemented first and clean the code a little. Gotta make it presentable ;p |
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