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3D Graphics in Blades... in Blades of Exile
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Friday, November 19 2004 05:40 Profile Homepage #45
quote:
Originally written by ^_^:

Arenax fails at both mockery and thinking. Suggesting you to leave a forum DEDICATED TO A GAME YOU DISLIKE AND KEEP ON DISSING isn't whining.
I like BoE perfectly well. It was great for its time It's just that it's become rather worthless in comparison to BoA.

The idea that you're entitled to tell people what to do is hilarious.

(And for the record--I was referring to both pictures. TGM is a newbie, and he's also a whiner.)
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum Editor
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Friday, November 19 2004 05:37 Profile Homepage #10
quote:
Originally written by Walker, Texas Corpse:

[b]Um, wxWidgets doesn't force you to do ANYTHING with Gtk+. It doesn't even USE Gtk+ on your target platforms, so I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about.
The last version of it I checked out required GTK+ installed on even Win32 machines to work.

quote:
[qb]
I thought you said you were a Python man. Use wxPython; it's extremely mature.[/b]
I use Python for web scripting and a scripting language in the game I'm writing. I've never used it for standalone executable programs, and from the problems I had when I tried, I don't plan on it.

And I'm sure you just glossed over that I didn't care to spend weeks doing it, but hey.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Friday, November 19 2004 05:37 Profile Homepage #10
quote:
Originally written by Walker, Texas Corpse:

[b]Um, wxWidgets doesn't force you to do ANYTHING with Gtk+. It doesn't even USE Gtk+ on your target platforms, so I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about.
The last version of it I checked out required GTK+ installed on even Win32 machines to work.

quote:
[qb]
I thought you said you were a Python man. Use wxPython; it's extremely mature.[/b]
I use Python for web scripting and a scripting language in the game I'm writing. I've never used it for standalone executable programs, and from the problems I had when I tried, I don't plan on it.

And I'm sure you just glossed over that I didn't care to spend weeks doing it, but hey.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Thursday, November 18 2004 17:57 Profile Homepage #27
Go go pirate scum! :P
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum Editor
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Thursday, November 18 2004 17:54 Profile Homepage #6
Walker:

I don't use wxWidgets and a more portable language because of a few things.

1) Being forced to work directly with GTK blows hard.

2) I don't know how to do GUI programming in C/C++ and can't do something of this depth using Java in a reasonable amount of time. RAD has a purpose. (My knowledge of C/C++ is more or less limited to DirectX, OpenGL, and game logic.)

To do this in C++ would take me weeks. In any flavor of BASIC I can do it in under a day. The first version of AvDialogue took me seven hours, and I haven't spent more than ten adding new features and debugging.

3) I'm way more comfortable doing file access in BASIC languages, because I can do it faster and more reliably.

TM:

You "big-name" designers are less likely to use my tools, anyway. These are mostly for less seasoned designers.

And for everyone:

I've started working on it. The CallWizards idea is already gone, though if I ever port/finish AvScript it'll be there. This is going to be slow as hell to do, but I'm working on it.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Thursday, November 18 2004 17:54 Profile Homepage #6
Walker:

I don't use wxWidgets and a more portable language because of a few things.

1) Being forced to work directly with GTK blows hard.

2) I don't know how to do GUI programming in C/C++ and can't do something of this depth using Java in a reasonable amount of time. RAD has a purpose. (My knowledge of C/C++ is more or less limited to DirectX, OpenGL, and game logic.)

To do this in C++ would take me weeks. In any flavor of BASIC I can do it in under a day. The first version of AvDialogue took me seven hours, and I haven't spent more than ten adding new features and debugging.

3) I'm way more comfortable doing file access in BASIC languages, because I can do it faster and more reliably.

TM:

You "big-name" designers are less likely to use my tools, anyway. These are mostly for less seasoned designers.

And for everyone:

I've started working on it. The CallWizards idea is already gone, though if I ever port/finish AvScript it'll be there. This is going to be slow as hell to do, but I'm working on it.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum Editor
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 16:43 Profile Homepage #0
Should I bite the bullet and start figuring out REALbasic in order to port AvScript and AvDialogue to Macintosh?

I'm asking for your votes, people. There are pros and cons to both decisions.

PROS
-Mac people can use them.
-Uh...Linux people can, too.

CONS
-I will have to rewrite virtually everything, in essence starting over at 0.1 BETA.
-The Windows version will suffer in functionality. I'm not going to run two separate projects; both platforms will get the same thing.
-The interface will become crap. I can't use tabbed controls in REALbasic, which are the basis of most of AvScript and AvDialogue's interface. So we'll have a bunch of smaller things crowded onto a single form.
-It'll involve a lot of time on my part and probably cost some money so I can buy the product and actually use it legally.

I know others have offered to port it, but I just don't let others mess with code my name could be attached to.

So, I'm asking you. Should I? My main problem is that the Windows version will become less useful, which means the people I'm primarily building these for (PC users) become screwed. I'll do what you guys choose, though.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
OK, folks, looks like I can port my tools to a Mac... in Blades of Avernum
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 16:43 Profile Homepage #0
Should I bite the bullet and start figuring out REALbasic in order to port AvScript and AvDialogue to Macintosh?

I'm asking for your votes, people. There are pros and cons to both decisions.

PROS
-Mac people can use them.
-Uh...Linux people can, too.

CONS
-I will have to rewrite virtually everything, in essence starting over at 0.1 BETA.
-The Windows version will suffer in functionality. I'm not going to run two separate projects; both platforms will get the same thing.
-The interface will become crap. I can't use tabbed controls in REALbasic, which are the basis of most of AvScript and AvDialogue's interface. So we'll have a bunch of smaller things crowded onto a single form.
-It'll involve a lot of time on my part and probably cost some money so I can buy the product and actually use it legally.

I know others have offered to port it, but I just don't let others mess with code my name could be attached to.

So, I'm asking you. Should I? My main problem is that the Windows version will become less useful, which means the people I'm primarily building these for (PC users) become screwed. I'll do what you guys choose, though.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
AvDialogue v0.8 BETA released (this is the good one, folks!) in Blades of Avernum Editor
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 16:39 Profile Homepage #3
Should work anywhere you toss it. There is a slight bug with loading files that I'm going to fix tonight and upload tomorrow.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
AvDialogue v0.8 BETA released (this is the good one, folks!) in Blades of Avernum
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 16:39 Profile Homepage #3
Should work anywhere you toss it. There is a slight bug with loading files that I'm going to fix tonight and upload tomorrow.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
One-PC Parties Rule in Nethergate
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 16:00 Profile Homepage #4
Mules help in Nethergate.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 15:46 Profile Homepage #19
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

Comparing DSL to cable depends on where you live. Over here DSL costs about $100 a month compared to $70 a month for cable, and DSL's slower. However, in some places it's the only option.
$50 a month in the towns surrounding mine, and I live in the backwoods. Cable modem service costs around $60, and that's with discounts for TV/phone.

That doesn't change the fact that DSL is still as viable an option and that it most definitely is not "overrated garbage."
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
3D Graphics in Blades... in Blades of Exile
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 15:31 Profile Homepage #38
quote:
Originally written by ^_^:

quote:
TGM:
BoE > BoA, actually.
quote:
Arenax:
TGM: Keep drinkin' that koolaid.
I'm not allowed to have a personal opinion? New members aren't required to COMPLETELY SCREW THEMSELVES UP here, you know. Just leave this Blades of EXILE forum, if the game, in your opinion, is sucky.
You're perfectly entitled to your opinion. But I am likewise entitled to my opinion of your opinion.

So take a nice good look at that picture and see who it really refers to.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
3D BOA Editor (Windows) in Blades of Avernum Editor
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 15:19 Profile Homepage #9
quote:
Originally written by KernelKnowledge12:

Why not just get the maker of the Mac 3D Editor to port his own/Jeff's code using a free cross-platform class library?
Because Jeff's code, to be very frank, sucks. I've looked at the Mac 3D code, and I find it wholly unportable. Graphics are handled entirely differently and the mechanism for putting them on the screen is weird on a Mac.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
3D BOA Editor (Windows) in Blades of Avernum
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 15:19 Profile Homepage #9
quote:
Originally written by KernelKnowledge12:

Why not just get the maker of the Mac 3D Editor to port his own/Jeff's code using a free cross-platform class library?
Because Jeff's code, to be very frank, sucks. I've looked at the Mac 3D code, and I find it wholly unportable. Graphics are handled entirely differently and the mechanism for putting them on the screen is weird on a Mac.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 15:18 Profile Homepage #17
quote:
Originally written by Buttered Crispy Toast:

Ugg, lets think a moment. I know eventually, I will have to buy a cable modem. What is the best service balancing between cheap and reliability?
I have no desire to have cable tv. I do not want cable tv, even if I have a cable modem.
I can't understand this one, but hey, if you don't want it, don't get it.

quote:

Understanding enough about DSL to realize that I want a phone on my phone line not two lines, or one line with DSL. DSL is overrated garbage.
I offer a complete "wrong!" to this one. DSL is as fast as or faster than cable (a friend of mine has a 512K line for less than I would pay for cable modem service if I didn't have phone/TV) and is far more reliable. I'd get it if it was in my area.

When you've learned what you're talking about, do please return. :D
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 04:12 Profile Homepage #13
quote:
Originally written by Buttered Crispy Toast:

I think I would rather have a computer in the future. Overcloaking and all those other things sound kind of dangerous. My computer is pretty strong right now. After looking at different download managers, the main advantage is the ability to restart an interrupted download at a later time. Restarting downloads is a pain.
That would be nice...if they worked correctly. Most don't restart downloads well; Mozilla/Firefox's built in one is an exception.

quote:

As far as increasing speed without buying cable, I think a faster chip, more ram, regular defrag and scandisk, a good cooling fan will all speed up your computer small amounts. [/qb]
On the Internet? A negligible amount. It'd help in FPS games and the like, but your ping times will still suck.

quote:

As far as settings are concerned-- an internet accelerator helps a bit, but not much.
An internet accelerator helps not at all. Look around for benchmarks; you'll see what I mean. They sap resources and provide no benefits.

quote:

I am not touching the config files-- I think I could really mess up the computer.
First bright thing you've said...

quote:

I think I might try Firefox because it sounds more reliable plus it has a built in download manager.
Second bright thing you've said.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Geneforge display in Geneforge Series
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 04:09 Profile Homepage #2
Dual monitors at--

Drool.

Like Kel says, it's probably not possible. I'm almost certain it's not on Windows, for a number of technical reasons surrounding the fact that JV's Win32 code is done with a meat ax. On a Mac--hell, I wouldn't know. :D
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Geneforge display in Geneforge 2
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 04:09 Profile Homepage #2
Dual monitors at--

Drool.

Like Kel says, it's probably not possible. I'm almost certain it's not on Windows, for a number of technical reasons surrounding the fact that JV's Win32 code is done with a meat ax. On a Mac--hell, I wouldn't know. :D
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Speeding up your computer without buying a cable modem. in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 04:06 Profile Homepage #11
Pyro...he's talking mostly about speeding up his internet access, it seems.

Anyway, you won't speed up your computer with "internet optimizers" or any of that other junk. Many, if not most, contain spyware. And download accelerators are hell on servers. Don't use them. (On my server, I've started IP blocking connections that use accelerators.)

All-cable service is almost always cheaper than the alternative. My family pays about $100 a month for cable phone, TV, and internet access. This is with the full cable package, a number of calls from here to the West Coast each month, and a cable connection that averages about 512K.

If you're sitting on 56K and asking how to make it faster, you're asking a question that won't exactly be answered. It's probably best to bite the bullet and get a broadband connection.

As for turning off your virus protection: BAD idea. Norton, at least, screens websites that try to autodownload things and keeps them from screwing with your computer. I don't know about the others.

Regarding Firefox: I can't really say I agree here. I use Mozilla, but have issues with Firefox--and I like Mozilla's mail client, composer, and that sort of thing. I suppose if you can stand a slightly wonky user interface, Firefox is fine, but Mozilla has a lot of features Firefox lacks.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Tell me if you like programming. . . in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 04:00 Profile Homepage #24
quote:
Originally written by Walker, Texas Corpse:

Java also does not work for client-side manipulation of HTML. Javascript's ability to manipulate forms is enough alone to make it useful.
Something which I have no need for. If I have forms, I use CGI--because there's little that you can put in a form that I need to modify client-side.

quote:

Java/ECMAscript is a fine scripting language for a variety of purposes; for an example of how useful it can be, I point to the Mozilla applications, all of which are based on XUL and Javascript.
If you want to get into scripting languages, go for it; I'm a Python boy. Another reason why JavaScript makes me feel icky--its syntax and structure is even more loose and on-the-fly than Python.

quote:

I couldn't tell you whether Java is easier to code; I don't use it. I can tell you that it has significant penetration on the server side and decent penetration on the client.
No arguments there. Heck, I use Java for client-side stuff myself. (OpenOffice, anyone?)

quote:

Stroustrup? Wouldn't ol' Bjarne be just a tad biased towards the language he created? Which survey was this, anyway? I think it's likely that the definition of "commercial application" excludes something like contracted works or server-side applications, both of which are major sectors of the software market.
I'm trying to find a link to it; I can't for the life of me find the thing in his news archives. You probably aren't wrong in saying that it likely excludes contracted work and that sort of thing, however.

quote:

In addition, why do you claim that commercial software is what matters? According to Netcraft, a non-commercial web server (Apache httpd) is used for over 67% of all websites. That's a pretty commanding statistic. Many of these websites, including 12 Fortune 100 companies, use an operating system, GNU/Linux, which is developed and distributed in a mixed commercial/non-commercial fashion.[/qb]
Last I checked, Apache was considered semi-commercial (there are ways for companies to make money off it), in the same way Linux is, for example, commercialized by RedHat.

quote:

In fact, non-commercial and semi-commercial software commands a significant portion of the market. To dismiss it is a foolish and short-sighted choice.
Hey, I use it--I didn't say it wasn't significant. It's simply not where the money lies, and where the money lies is where people look. I'm not saying that is necessarily right--it's just true. It's been slowly changing, but not always in the right way. People like the Redhat folks are trying to commercialize it, which brings it into a grey area.

quote:

By the way, why are you gluing C and C++ together? They're different languages, and share surprisingly little in terms of domain and skills involved.
Common convention. I've never thought they are all that different in domain/skills (but then again, I grew up a structured programmer and use OOP as sparingly as possible--my brain just doesn't work that way).

quote:

Oh, and finally, server roundtrips will always be a high-latency operation as compared to local processing, even when we're all on OC-48s connecting our 15GHz workstations directly to Internet2.
As it stands, my cable modem (which has a variable rate, anywhere from 128K to about 768K on low-usage days) can ping to most servers at under 100ms and can download most web pages in well under a second. That sort of latency is negligible.

Besides, didn't I say that 56K users are fast becoming a non-factor? :P
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
3D Graphics in Blades... in Blades of Exile
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 03:48 Profile Homepage #36
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

The challenge comes in doing things that seem as if they can't be done, or doing things that can be done in a new way. For example, alchemy in BoE kind of sucks, because potions can be bought and most of their effects can be duplicated with spells anyway.

In designing my soon-to-be-released scenario, I wanted the player to be forced to use alchemy, and so found a way to make it useful and indeed necessary. Creator also created a scenario (Areni) based around alchemy, and implemented it in a completely different way.

Basically, the fun is in making things do things they were never really meant to do. It's a little like those guys who proved Minesweeper was Turing complete by implementing Boolean logic gates in it.
This is the mindset that really doesn't make sense to me. You'd rather use tools that are, more or less, garbage (I mean more the BoE editor and less the game itself), to do "stuff that seem as if they can't be done," when you can just do them in something that is effective.

...Why? The "challenge" doesn't make sense; doing something well is a challenge I can see, but when you can do something far better using a system that isn't all that different, calling that a challenge seems rather quixotic instead.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
3D BOA Editor (Windows) in Blades of Avernum Editor
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 03:44 Profile Homepage #6
I doubt I'm going to even look at it for a few months at the least. I don't see a personal need for it, and I write tools that I will actually use. I can design just fine in 2D; a 3D editor is unnecessary for me.

AvScript and AvDialogue are more important tools than a 3D editor.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
3D BOA Editor (Windows) in Blades of Avernum
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Wednesday, November 17 2004 03:44 Profile Homepage #6
I doubt I'm going to even look at it for a few months at the least. I don't see a personal need for it, and I write tools that I will actually use. I can design just fine in 2D; a 3D editor is unnecessary for me.

AvScript and AvDialogue are more important tools than a 3D editor.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00
Tell me if you like programming. . . in General
Arenax
Shock Trooper
Member # 5181
 written Tuesday, November 16 2004 16:12 Profile Homepage #21
quote:
Originally written by Walker, Texas Corpse:

quote:
Originally written by Arenax:

Perhaps more separate, but definitely less valuable. C and C++ account for somewhere around 80% of all commercial applications--which are the ones that matter. JavaScript is largely used by l33t h4xx0rz who want to hide their link locations.

(Yes, I know, there are many valid uses of JavaScript. But I haven't found one I can either do without or do better in something else.)
C and C++ may account for that many commercial end-user, client-side applications, but their representation on heavy servers (where Java rules) and web servers (where PHP/Python/Perl do) is rather slim; there are many, many domains in which ease of coding and maintenance is preferred to raw speed.
Over 80% of all commercial applications are written in C or C++ (figures from 1st qtr. 2003). There is no "end-user, client-side" qualifier in that statement. Stroustroup's own site proclaimed that number, and I'd be inclined to believe him.

As for "ease of coding"--you call Java easier to code than C/C++? I want to know where to get your special brownie ingredients, 'cause that boggles the mind.

quote:
[/qb]
In addition, what would you do client-side scripting on HTML documents with if not with Javascript? It's the only such language that is near-universally supported -- and believe me, if you're doing real web application programming, Javascript is a real boon, unless you WANT to do a POST for every single local state change.[/QB]
I use Java for nearly everything, because I long ago stopped caring about 56Kers and less--and I generally don't have a need for client-side scripting anyway; most of my stuff is server-side.

quote:

Once again, I am in total agreement.

Barring PHP (which doesn't work on most free hosting spots), there is no way to make a site dynamic except with Javascript. Some people like static html better, but consider this: Every page you load is about 5-10 KB. If the pictures are reloaded as well, it quickly goes to 50-100k. If you have a slow connection (or for that matter a meager traffic allowance from your provider), you want to cut down on your transfer. And each time a site is modified via Javascript rather than reload, you save a few seconds and kB.

Plus, the site becomes very clumsy to handle, since you will probably have to repeat modifications on several identical sites (unless you use an html coder, but that's not programming, is it?)

Edit: Why is it only now that I get what that name means? Walker... Texas... I'm slow on occasion. [Razz]
1) Don't cater to the lowest denominator. People with 28.8k and 56k modems are becoming the exception rather than the norm.

2) Let me see if I understand your logic. Because PHP isn't supported on free sites...Javascript is better? That makes no sense.

3) Java beats the tar out of Javascript and, though more difficult to use, has the advantage of being useful in more than a scant few respects.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Thursday, November 11 2004 08:00

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