Hi!
I just saw your SDL web-page, and I really liked what I saw, although I
havn’t yet tried it out.
I am currently working on exactly the same, a plattform independent library
for developing games and demos, it’s name is even similar. My “SCL”-project
(Sanity Class Library) is, as the name says, a C++ library. It goes a but
further than your library, exspecially when it comes to handling bitmaps,
sound and 3d.
At the moment I am working on a professional game project (4 coder, 4 3d
artists, 2 level designer), and for this project I will have to use SCL in
it’s current form because we allmost finished it. My original plans were to
clean up the SCL source after the game and then start up an open source
project. But SDL is so close to what I do that I fear segmentation.
So I would like to join your efforts. I will have a very close look to your
library. What I can offer is much 3D knowledge. I have a good class library
for 3d math (3x1 and 3x3 vectors and matrices) and a 3d-Engine. I am
currently working on 3D acceleration, the main problem is texture memory
handling. I have good sound mixing routines for 8 bit and 16 bit samples.
Should be no problem putting this on top of SDL. Perhaps I can even get a
friend of mine making a modplayer running on top of it.
I wrote a gui class library. I used it, together with the 3d-engine, to
create some level editing tools. In fact, I spend more time in writing
tools than actually writing the game, and it is a very, very big plus if
the game works with the same library then the editor. When we edit a level,
we can just press F1 and start the game from the current position, and we
can even change the physical environment while the game is running. You see
why I think it is important to have a gui library on top of a game graphics
library?
A big problem is that I want a C++ class library, and SDL is a C library. I
assume that I can make an “allmost zero” overhead wrapper around SDL that
fit’s my needs, and that I can rewrite most of my classes to C and wrap
then back to C++ without loosing anything, too. Perhaps I simply port SCL
to SDL. Another problem is that we have to get at least Watcom OR Visual
Studio compiling SDL. Might be a big problem with assembler. Our Game is
for PC and Playstation, and future games might require a Playstation port.
Since I am official developer for Playstation, I am not allowed to talk
about Playstation development. I would have to make a port of SDL to
Playstation, but I would not be able to give it back to you. But I would
give a copy of it to everyone who can identify himself as an official
developer. All official Playstation documentation is under non-disclosure.
I think there is a problem with LGPL.
I want to know more about your project: Who is working on it? Who is using
it? What are you and others working on currently? What do you want to do
with SDL in future? How would YOU like to cooperate with me? Who are YOU,
what have you done so far? Have you written any games or demos? Were do you
live?
And who am I?
I am 27 years old and live in Hamburg, Germany. I have a degree in computer
science. I am currently working on my 4th commercial game, for the first
time as full time, leading programmer. The other titles were Energy Manager
(Atari ST,Rauser (awfull)), Mr. Nutz (Amiga, Ocean), Tunnel B1 (Saturn,
Ocean). I cannot tell you about my current project, but it’s a racing game
for PC and Playstation. I worked on driving physics, tools and system
programming (SCL). I started as a lamer on C64, switched to Amiga, wrote
lots of demos under the handle “Chaos of Sanity”, switched to PC and wrote
a demo that won the TP6 PC demo competition (alto knallo by FEB,
www.theparty.dk) using SCL, and now I am busy with game development. I also
help organising the biggest german demo scene event, the Symposium (850
people, http://ms.demo.org). I organise some smaller meetings for the north
german demo scene, the SCALA Meetings (40 people).
Dierk Ohlerich
@Dierk_Ohlerich
