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digitalmars.D.announce - PixelPerfectEngine v0.11.0-alpha release

reply solidstate1991 <laszloszeremi outlook.com> writes:
https://github.com/ZILtoid1991/pixelperfectengine/releases/tag/v0.11.0-alpha

Two major changes are:

1) Implementation of the M2 format. Due to the lack of any proper 
MIDI2.0 formats, I decided to implement my own, and also added 
some additional function which allows it to be used for adaptive 
soundtracks via scripting. Sometimes I call it a "Turing-complete 
MIDI file" as a joke. Some functions are missing, such as most of 
the macros that would allow it to function as a de-facto 
high-level scripting language, with a syntax similar to Lua, 
alongside with a lot of assembly-like instructions.

2) Removal of the Lua scripting engine. It had hard-to-debug 
errors, issues I resolved previously reappearing even though the 
fix were still in place, etc. It'll be replaced with something 
better, likely a VM that will allow it to execute scripts written 
in various languages. I'd prefer to use a preexiting VM, with 
QScript's VM being a potential candidate, especially since I have 
other things to work on. M2 technically has a VM, and reusing the 
experiences with it would be useful for implementing my own, but 
I have limited time and other more important features to 
implement.

The final 0.11.0 version will have:
* A better file dialog (a major headache inducing bug were 
already fixed).
* Resizable windows.
* Resampling to higher sample rates.
* Better path handling (currently it's very fragile, and tries to 
look for assets in whatever folder the user runs the engine from).
* Logging.
* I'll try to replace SDL with my own solution, iota. It already 
has some preliminary x11 support, legacy Windows IO works, but 
it's really hard to look up stuff, and many instead suggest 
people to use either some bloated libraries that feature stuff 
even the C standard library has, and/or has a very legacy-style 
input/output handling (DirectInput and not rarely DirectAudio use 
instead of their more modern counterparts, etc). SDL has a lot of 
issues with documentation, bloat, etc.
* I'll also try to finally get the file compression for assets 
working. I created the format DataPak, with has some tricks to 
both speed up and lower the size compared to other solutions, by 
using the dictionary compression mode of ZStandard (requires the 
use of uncompressed bitmaps: compressing PNGs would be really 
slow and ineffective, since they're already compressed with the 
older ZLib algorithm).
Jan 20
parent Hipreme <msnmancini hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 21 January 2024 at 01:24:22 UTC, solidstate1991 wrote:

 https://github.com/ZILtoid1991/pixelperfectengine/releases/tag/v0.11.0-alpha

 Two major changes are:

 1) Implementation of the M2 format. Due to the lack of any 
 proper MIDI2.0 formats, I decided to implement my own, and also 
 added some additional function which allows it to be used for 
 adaptive soundtracks via scripting. Sometimes I call it a 
 "Turing-complete MIDI file" as a joke. Some functions are 
 missing, such as most of the macros that would allow it to 
 function as a de-facto high-level scripting language, with a 
 syntax similar to Lua, alongside with a lot of assembly-like 
 instructions.

 2) Removal of the Lua scripting engine. It had hard-to-debug 
 errors, issues I resolved previously reappearing even though 
 the fix were still in place, etc. It'll be replaced with 
 something better, likely a VM that will allow it to execute 
 scripts written in various languages. I'd prefer to use a 
 preexiting VM, with QScript's VM being a potential candidate, 
 especially since I have other things to work on. M2 technically 
 has a VM, and reusing the experiences with it would be useful 
 for implementing my own, but I have limited time and other more 
 important features to implement.

 The final 0.11.0 version will have:
 * A better file dialog (a major headache inducing bug were 
 already fixed).
 * Resizable windows.
 * Resampling to higher sample rates.
 * Better path handling (currently it's very fragile, and tries 
 to look for assets in whatever folder the user runs the engine 
 from).
 * Logging.
 * I'll try to replace SDL with my own solution, iota. It 
 already has some preliminary x11 support, legacy Windows IO 
 works, but it's really hard to look up stuff, and many instead 
 suggest people to use either some bloated libraries that 
 feature stuff even the C standard library has, and/or has a 
 very legacy-style input/output handling (DirectInput and not 
 rarely DirectAudio use instead of their more modern 
 counterparts, etc). SDL has a lot of issues with documentation, 
 bloat, etc.
 * I'll also try to finally get the file compression for assets 
 working. I created the format DataPak, with has some tricks to 
 both speed up and lower the size compared to other solutions, 
 by using the dictionary compression mode of ZStandard (requires 
 the use of uncompressed bitmaps: compressing PNGs would be 
 really slow and ineffective, since they're already compressed 
 with the older ZLib algorithm).



Congratulations for the alpha release!
It is quite funny to understand that most game programmers starts 
using D because of SDL compatibility ,which is very common and 
they want to learn a language while still feeling security (no 
one uses D on jobs, but people uses SDL, so I can reuse 
experience in SDL for jobs), but, past some point, people just 
starts dropping SDL since its difficulty to build on all 
platforms, its bugs, inconsistencies, bloat and that it is in C 
while you're developing in D, thus requiring a C compiler, which 
will get pretty annoying (hello C for windows).

That apart, it would be really cool if we had a lightweight 
solution, completely in D with only bindings to what make sense 
(win32, x11, UWP, Android) and other things, like I've been doing 
in my engine
Jan 21