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Re: [Chicken-hackers] Ogre 3D engine


From: Brandon J. Van Every
Subject: Re: [Chicken-hackers] Ogre 3D engine
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 10:52:13 -0800
User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (Windows/20061207)

minh thu wrote:
2007/2/26, Brandon J. Van Every <address@hidden>:
Using an extant 3D engine for game development means getting
your hands dirty with C++ in any practical industrial sense.

I agree you have to use what's best, even if it means not the best language.

About the Chicken/C++ interface, don't you think you might better have
a good idea of your software architecture then see if C++ interfacing
is so important?

I mean I think it's possible that, once correctly abstracted, your C++
code could provide a C interface quite naturally.

Sure, but that's about writing my game. I've designed how I want to do my planetary geometry. Now I have to figure out how to render it in Ogre. This is not brainy design work. This is gruntwork, reading APIs and banging it out until my architecture actually exists. I don't want to tie myself deeply to Ogre if I can avoid it, as it's a "new girlfriend" and who knows how it'll really go. Also, as you say, separation could allow for more Chicken code munging.

But the point is, before anyone can do anything with an extant 3D engine, such as yourself, first one must learn the engine. You can talk about doing a 3D engine "from scratch" in nearly pure Chicken, but it ain't gonna go anywhere. The manpower to do it ain't there. Nor is the industrial relevance; there are too many game technologies tied up in the C++ universe. Might as well admit that one is pursuing a toy, rather than a serious industrial product.

Also, one needs a driving problem. I hope someone can think of a reason why Chicken would be a value add to a 3D engine such as Ogre. Other than "I'd rather use Chicken," which from an industrial standpoint, simply doesn't count as a good argument.

The leading open source 3D engines don't need scripting languages. They've already got 'em. Either Python, Ruby, Lua, or <shudder> they've rolled their own. So one question to be answered is, "What can you do in your scripting language, that I can't do in mine?"

If I could say, "I can talk directly to C++. I don't need the monstrosity known as SWIG," that would be a value add.

If I could say, "Mine is fast, yours is slow," that would be a value add.

I don't know what continuations actually buy for game event control. It's something I will contemplate. I fear it'll be a gratuitously different way to do things, rather than a genuinely useful or profitable way to do things.

Any other suggestions?

I'm trying to remember why the Stormfront Studios guys blew off Lua. Something about it being slow or hard to debug. I asked whether what was true when they made that decision, was still true today. Time passes in open source land and technologies improve.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every





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