.Blip

Thread to post updates and new feature notes when commiting changes..

March-04:

* Added a primitive renderig system (Primitive.cpp/h)
* Added Debug Menu system. Pretty extensible, flexable and easy to use (DebugMenu.cpp/h)
* Fixed a font crash caused by a memory allocation eventually fragmenting the xbox memory till it crashed (over a few hours).. Now font just does a single static allocate and shares it for all text render calls
* Added debug assert's and log util functions, also a dynamic string cache (Util.cpp/h)
* Added vector and matrix classes. Bulked them out with a few useful functions. (Vector3, Vector4, Matrix cpp/h)
* Fixed some bugs in the Primitive renderer
* Fixed a bug in the sprite renderer that had the same effect as the previous one i fixed in the font system
* Added an intelligent texture management system
* Added a cool texture browser feature in the debug menu. Displays image, filename, dimensions and reference count
* More debug menu improvements
* Fixed a bug in Player::Update() that caused player ships to dissapear after the controller was disconnected and reconnected.
* Added an Asteroid class
* Added a callstack manager
* Added a callstack profiler which can record performance information down to individual function's
* Added a timing management system. Gives access to a timer class, also allows for global timing management such as pausing game playback or slowing/speeding playback rate without affecting relative game timing charactistics
* Added debug menu options for new features
* Supported all current systems (except Input) on PC which now builds and runs
* Added a set of functions for generating random numbers in various ways (Util.h/cpp)
* Prefixed Primitive functions with 'MF' (Mount Fuji). Will Probably continue this tradition in future with second revisions of each system (there is always a second revision, after the flaw's are found and considered from the first revision through general usage)
* Fixed more debug menu bugs
* Font now uses platform independant MFPrimitive to render instead of dx8 vertex buffers
* Final touches to the debug menu. Scrolls nicely now and clips content within its frame..
* Added PC Input. Only reads joysticks currently, there is no interface for reading anything else in the engine yet (as it was primarily a console engine). Buttons are mapped to a typical PSX->USB adapter in a Playstation layout
* Added options to the debug menu to control the look and feel of the debug menu

April-04:

* Started writing a custom Heap manager
* Started writing a platform independant FileSystem module, intention to support compressed data archives
* Added the beginings of a Model/Animation exporter for 3DSMax, Unfortunately i cant finish this till i have a copy of .NET 2002 (Anybody?) cus the MAXSDK just sucks
* Added a dynamic array class (Array.h)
* Investigated the recent bad performance, found it was the Callstack Profiler. Fixed it up a great deal.
* Fixed a bug in the Vector3 CrossProduct function where it was returning invalid results.
* Finished FileSystem module for now (One day it will have compressed data archive support added)
* Added a .ini file parsing system (Will come in handy for material definition/config/etc)
* Finished off IniFile reader. Works well in all my tests.
* Started writing a Material manager. Reads 'Materials.ini' for a list of material definitions that can be instanced at runtime.
* Finished off Material manager. Will move systems that directly referenced Texture's over to Materials some time soon
* Started a Renderer interface (Manages Vertex/Pixel shaders etc..)
* Started writing some basic vertex shaders
* Major rework of PC window control. It now correctly resizes the framebuffer (not just a bilinear scale of the frame buffer to fit the window Wink), and supports fullscreen (Alt-Enter). Can change resolution at any time on the fly.
* Added View class which manages Projection and View matrices, render targets and Orthographic mode.
* Started writing model class. Not must use yet tho as the exporter wont work
* Designed intermediate model format (.F3D). Used as a robust intermediate format that is exported from Max that is later converted to a series of optimised platform specific model and animation files
* Fuji now supports 3D!
* Added a set of 3D geometrical primitives that can be useful for debugging (Shape.cpp/h)
* Bulked out the Matrix class. The majority of it is implemented and working now
* Some small changes to the View class
* Primitive renderer now read's the current view for camera/pojection matrices. previously the sprites (and anything else) were leaving the view in an unknown state
* Properly supported Widescreen on PC

04-05-04:

* Exporter is now working!
* Model class can now load models and render them in 3D
* ASE->F3D->MDL file converter works sweet

Fuji is coming to life!
This is a fairly major step.. Very soon we should be able to see some cool stuff being done with this engine.

Soon to come are model animation, and more powerful Material support.

Well its been a long time. I've had a lot of work lately and haven't had a lot of spare time.. 2 Games about to hit the shelves, crunch time and all that..

Thanks go to Lewis for agreeing to take up the linux port and helping out with compiler incompatability.

24-07-04:

* Many VS.NET/GCC bugs and incompatabilities fixed (thanks Lewis)
* Started writing a Scene Graph which will maintain the world
* Stripped out the left over platform specific code that was lying around
* Many many miscelaneous changes I made in my dead time that i cant remember

23-30th - 9 - 04:

* Added animated texture support
* Added Ogg Vorbis support
* Made .Bix (Falling Bricks game)
* Fixed Ogg Vorbis on PC
* More bug fixes

1-6th - 10 - 04:

* Added music playback debugging features
* Added new Renderer module that manages render state settings
* Added PC Keyboard->Gamepad input mapping (While ScrollLock is turned on)
* Moved Sprites over to use Materials instead of directly managing Textures
* Did some work on the F3D format and got the exporter building again
* Added a few common collision tests to the collision manager

Some nice new changes.

24-03-05:

* Rewrote the input system. Much simpler interface and far less platform specific code.
* Fixed some clean up problems.
* Added a Texture::CreateFromRawData function.
* Added GamepadMapping.ini to PC builds. This is for automatically configuring controls so many gamepad adapters can map correctly in the PC build.
* Rewrote Texture interface
* Rewrote Material Interface
* Added Material reference counting.
* Changed the way textures are created procedurally or from raw data.. Much simpler management now.
* Fixed Texture management and reference counting
* More changes to PC Input. PC now recognises the button names of known gamepad types.
* Input system can enumerate input device and bytton names
* Keyboard->Gamepad input mapping now works when Scroll Lock is turned on

04-05-05:

* PC now supports multiple individual mouses
* InputTest updated to display stats for multiple mouses

Multiple mouses are implented using RawInput which reads the USB directly. This is not thoroughly tested so may behave differently than DirectInput.

If only one mouse is detected (avoid potential instability), or RawInput is not available (Requires WindowsXP), the system falls back to DirectInput instead.

Mouse 0 can choose to remain the collective system mouse if multiple mouses are available.

If multiple USB mouses are detected, and RawInput is enabled, any other mouses (Serial/PS2) will not be available due to RawInput and DirectInput conflicting, and generally not getting along...

Haven't posted for a while... heres a LOT of very major changes...

13-06-05:

* Complete rewrite of Renderer and Material systems and interface
* Custom material types can be created easilly, or even loaded from DLL's
* Added a new 'Standard' material which mimics the behaviour of the previous material system
* Added a new MFModel system
* New ConvertASE for new model format
* Rewrote View module with a nice new interface
* All new totally awesome filesystem!
* Mounting filesystems now works
* Flattening filesystems now works
* Mounted filesystems now have volume names for direct addressing
* Added an AppTemplate to the Sandpit app

Maahes:
* Added a StringCache
* Rewrote the Ini file reader to be far more powerful
* Added some CRC functions

'TheRock':
* Added a Pong game in Sandpit

Some awesome new stuff this month!

25-07-05:
* PSP is now supported by Fuji!
* VS 2005 Tool Files for the GCC compilers. These support the GCC cross compilers.
* Project for DevC++, an alternative GCC build environment.

All major systems are working on PSP. Still needs performance optimisation.

Hopefilly networking will come to Fuji in the next little while, and I'll probably add PS2 soon in light of the PSP stuff!

More huge across the board changes.

18-08-05:
* Archiver finished up.. Works real nice
* New archiver scripts added to projects
* Texture tool working nicely now with many many target formats supported
* Archiver can produce raw processed data, or a .zip file archive for convenience and space efficiency
* ZipFile filesystem added. Mounts a compressed .zip archive as a filesystem at runtime
* Vector3 and Vector4 removed in favour of new MFVector which has methods for both 2, 3 and 4d vectors. Less code, more managable, should allow for more optimisation and simplicity.
* Matrix replaced by MFMatrix, and all code changed over.
* PSP Texture swizzling added. Doubles PSP framerate!!
* Starting ethernet support. Writing a sockets layer currently.

Lots of awesome changes!... not that anyone cares anymore

13-11-05:

* Fixed up project files. All paths are relative now so fuji and projects can build from anywhere.
* Updated PC MFSockets. Working good now, tested a small HTTP client connecting to google.
* Updated ConvertASE to properly support multiple platform mesh chunks, and prepare for collada support.
* Added DAE, MD2 and MD3 source model support!
* Added a Null platform device, so new platforms, or platforms that dont support specific features can build with the Null device.
* Massive code clean up! This is in preparation for a doco system.
* Interface changes across the board. Much tighter and simpler in general.
* Cleaned up global headers. Sped up compile times heaps!
* Added MFHeap. Much cleaner than the old one
* Came up with a reasonable doco system (using dyxygen).
* Added Doco for some of the more 'complete' modules
* Added Fuji.chm (incomplete but this is an example of what to expect)

More HUGE changes across everything. Of note, i'm trying to get a user friendly documentation system happening which might help convince people to start writing a fuji based game.

11-12-05:

* DAE working nicely now. (Still no animation tho...)
* .me2 support added for loading old Manu Enging MEMD2 models.
* BMP image support.
* XBox updated with all the recent changes, builds again now.
* New callstack and debugging modules.
* Interface redesign mostly complete.
* Updated MFMath functions, added a new MFRand using the mersenne twister algorithm.
* Doco update.

I can load the models from the little RPG and plane games i made a while back into fuji now.. Maybe i'll do up a Fuji build of my old games

15-02-06:

Many many changes lately, i have been quiet but that doesnt mean i haven't been busy

* Added MFScript scripting interface. This is being used in the Caelestis Project
* Added a translation/localisation module
* PSP now builds with recent changes
* Cleaned up the Input code
* Native support for more gamepads on PC (including Xbox360)
* Fixed deadzone handling on all platforms
* Added QuadList support to the immediate renderer
* Added a new threading interface (MFThread)
* Added some more MFMath functions
* Added some new MFVector functions
* Added some new MFString functions
* Added some more collision foundation functions
* Added the new XInput support, so the XBox 360 gamepad is handled properly now and supports full hotswapping.

* Added a MFNetwork module which exposes some common network functionality
* Added remote gamepad support. Now the PSP, for example, can be used as a wireless gamepad over the WLAN.

An RPC service is planned based on the scripting module which would allow for the PSP screen to be controlled by an external system while it is being used as a remote gamepad (like the GBA->Cube connection)

10-05-06:

About time i gave a progress update..
Lots of changes..

- Added Logitech G15 keyboard LCD screen support to a new MFAuxillaryDisplay module.
- Added ConvertDlg, an app which converts a game translation spreadsheet into language specific ingame dialog files.
- Added Super Dual Box (PS2 gamepad adapter) support (Mostly)
- Added a screen space blitter.
- Added a command line parser.
- Added a cullmode paramater to standard material.
- Added zread & zwrite paramaters to standard material.
- Allowed MFHeap_Free() to gracefully free a NULL pointer.
- Added an MFMatrix 'Tween' function.
- Shifted MFScript to use a language called AngelScript.
- Added MIPS native calling convention code to AngelScript!
- Added preliminary PPC calling convention support to AngelScript.
- Added 16 bit targa support to ConvertTEX.
- Cleaned up the pointer list a little.
- Some updates to prepare for 64bit.
- Fixed spelling of Paramater to Parameter engine wide.
- Added loads of MFString functions. The CRT shouldnt be needed at all anymore for most basic string stuff.
- Added loads of primitive tests to MFCollision.
- Added a dynamic polygon soup to MFCollision.
- Added collision fields to MFCollision.
- ConvertASE can now generate collision template data from specifically designed models which can be used by MFCollision.
- Added MFCollision debug visualisation code.
- Made the structures to mount filesystems public.
- Fixed ASE file conversion (it was inside out).
- Fixed Collada collision mesh conversion. (it was just broken)
- Added support for triangle meshes in collada files.
- Fixed the Archivers extension handling code (which couldn't deal with mismatching case extensions).
- PSP now detects the current working directory.
- Added makefiles that can be used to build all platforms.
- Linux builds and runs! (Yes, Fuji now has linux support!)
- Gamecube now compiles! (Haven't got it running yet tho)
- Got PSP working with all recent changes.
- Got Linux working with all recent changes.
- Got XBox working with all recent changes.
- Updated all the doco with all the new additions.
- And lots of miscelaneous things i've forgotten.

Wow, i have done a lot of stuff lately..
More to come soon