The carver has landed

carver413 · Post by **carver413** » Sat Jun 19, 2010 6:43 am

well I don't remember how I got here but I managed to find my way back so I guess that's a good thing. I'm very impress with Ecere I haven't been this excited since my days with Amiga E. it was a sad day when I finally had to part with my amiga. I have played around with many languages in my day but there was always something about c and c++ that made me want to puke. it is buy far the ugliest language I have ever seen and when you start adding in all the layers of #ifdef it really becomes quite unreadable. I have mostly stuck to delphi over the years as it was much easier on the eye's. latey I've been tring to piece together a game engine but it keeps going back to the same thing c++ or python the to languages I hate the most. I suppose I could stick with delphi but it is old and I am to poor to keep up with them anymore. so now I'm toying with the Idea of writing my own on Ecere. this would not be a rendering engine but a game engine and more specifically a rpg engine to use with blender. I like modeling in blender and would love to see them come to life. modding in oblivion was fun but there was only limited things that could be done. anyway I would like to know if there is anyway to change the working directory of Ecere. I installed it on my G: drive and it insists on making me work in the depths of my C: drive. clear down in the Application Data folder. what up with that ?
keep up the great work, I'll be watching you
thanks Rob

Post by **jerome** » Sat Jun 19, 2010 7:44 pm

Hi there Rob.

I'm glad you could find your way back here!

That Application Data thing is just the default working directory because that's where the Installer installed the SDK samples, because since Windows Vista by default programs can't write easily under the Program Files directory.

You can set up the working directory for the IDE in your IDE shortcut settings, but the Ecere IDE will default to the last place where you opened or created a project...
So just create a new project where you'd like your projects to be, close it, and open it up from the IDE again and you should be no longer taken to the abysses of your Application Data folder.

Welcome to Ecere, and enjoy your time with us!
We look forward to assist you in getting your game engine going.

By the way, right now Ecere supports mainly the .3ds files, so try exporting your models to .3ds files and bring them to life in the engine! There are a few samples showing how to do this under that Application Data\Ecere SDK\Samples\3D

(If you keep opening those, that might be why you're taken back there when you create a new project... In this case feel free to move all those samples to where you'd like your projects to be)

Cheers!

Jerome

carver413 · Post by **carver413** » Sun Jun 20, 2010 3:51 am

well thanks for the very warm welcome I got it figured out now as long as I don't put it in a programs file directory on any drive all works well. I'm going to try to port some of my delphi stuff over an see how that goes before I get too serious about the game engine. that should help me learn the difference between the two languages . after that my main focus will be on will be on animations ai and the stuff that really makes up an rpg. while most people would worry about the rendering part first they usually give up by the time they get past that because the engine has gotten so large and unmanageable able that even the simplest changes can take an hour to compile. besides I have I lot to learn about rendering and just diving into it would probably would not fare well. I would also like to be able to pull meshes directly from a blend file and skip the whole export process it seems to make since to use blender to store many meshes and just pull them in as need. looks like I'm going to be busy for a while. when I get things going I'll set up work in progress thread. it would be nice to maybe get some more people interest in Ecere it's such a well though out piece of work right down to the built in document er. something we programmer's often forget and many game engines have bit the dust do to lack of good documentation. thanks again Rob

Post by **jerome** » Mon Jun 21, 2010 11:21 am

Porting your Delphi code over to Ecere seems like a good idea to get you started. Having a clear, attainable goal which you can achieve in a relatively short time frame when diving into something new is the best way to assimilate the knowledge and build up the skills.

Leaving the rendering for later is also a good idea, although getting something basic showing up on the screen at some point just to test out the gameplay will be useful I think.

I dare to hope however that you will never come to a point where compiling will be such a crawl, no matter how big your project get, as long as you have some kind of modular structure.

I'm not very familiar with Blender, but although the 3DS format is the only one with built in support in the SDK so far, you certainly can base yourself on its implementation to support new formats such as any other format that Blender saves or exports to, as long as you have access to the specifications. You might want to contribute that to Ecere if you get that going!

It would *definitely* be nice to get some more interested people in Ecere. It's great software. It's still missing a lot of features and improvements we would like to add to it, but it can already do quite a lot, and quite well too.

As for the documentation, it's actually quite lacking at the moment. The Documentor is there, which provides an overview of the API, but you might notice there is limited documentation filled in the blanks. But I hope some day soon we can indeed set a good standard for documentation.