[Stealth]

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 02:14 AM, said:

[irrelevance]

Show of hands - how many people are dead-set on ignoring the fact that some of the code in E02 dates back to 1997 and that the whole thing, being a complete, "powerful", and generic game engine, meant for use by anyone, for practically anything, has been built roughly 97% from scratch, by one person, for free, in spare time?

I'd ask you to tell me, honestly, if I were to backtrack right now and retrofit E02 with 16:9 support, would any more people actually be making use of it than are attempting to right now, even in silent, but the only way you could prove your answer to me is to show me those people making use of E02 as-is. 16:9 support wouldn't have helped back in 2009 when the entire script system hinged entirely on using number values to identify Commands. It probably wouldn't even have helped once I had changed that so you could use alias names, because entering expressions was still a total hassle until I added keyword support a couple of releases back, and it was much more incomplete then than it is as of only about three days ago. I've heard from people who hated using the editor in 8x8 tile mode (ignoring the copy/paste feature) up until I added Stamps, again, only about two releases back. But I suppose a wide play area during gameplay is much more important than actually being able to develop the game, right?

You're seriously going to make blind assumptions about my motivation and start slinging insults at me? That's pretty awesome of you

[steveswede]

Stealth, on 17 November 2012 - 02:33 AM, said:

Show of hands - how many people are dead-set on ignoring the fact that some of the code in E02 dates back to 1997 and that the whole thing, being a complete, "powerful", and generic game engine, meant for use by anyone, for practically anything, has been built roughly 97% from scratch, by one person, for free, in spare time?

Well I come under didn't know rather than ignoring the fact that the engine was dating back to 97. Hearing that you've been working on it for 15 years is news to me.

Quote

I'd ask you to tell me, honestly, if I were to backtrack right now and retrofit E02 with 16:9 support, would any more people actually be making use of it than are attempting to right now, even in silent, but the only way you could prove your answer to me is to show me those people making use of E02 as-is. 16:9 support wouldn't have helped back in 2009 when the entire script system hinged entirely on using number values to identify Commands. It probably wouldn't even have helped once I had changed that so you could use alias names, because entering expressions was still a total hassle until I added keyword support a couple of releases back, and it was much more incomplete then than it is as of only about three days ago. I've heard from people who hated using the editor in 8x8 tile mode (ignoring the copy/paste feature) up until I added Stamps, again, only about two releases back. But I suppose a wide play area during gameplay is much more important than actually being able to develop the game, right?

The fact that you have been asked shows that some people want it and the fact that the move towards a dominance of 16:9 resolution shows that it's something "relevant" though my point was never about these things it was about showing that 16:9 can work in a 4:3 screen with a bit of magic and some compromise if redoing the classics.

Quote

You're seriously going to make blind assumptions about my motivation and start slinging insults at me? That's pretty awesome of you

Hey I'm not throwing insults at you personally am I. Since when does purist mean Stealth and if you're offended by the word silly then you need to look at the context closely. Don't get defensive because I say something that's not to your liking.

[Mercury]

What these entitled folks making feature requests need to realise is that widescreen / dynamic resolution support is one of the most obnoxious, headachey things in the world.

Stealth isn't your employee; scale it back a little, guys.

[Aerosol]

Stealth, on 17 November 2012 - 02:06 AM, said:

AerosolSP, on 17 November 2012 - 12:51 AM, said:

I'll say this much. As far as I know, every Android phone that supports 2.3 and up has a 16:9 screen. So if you get a hold of an Android phone, there's that to consider.

That's not exactly a real problem. The PSP has a screen resolution of 480x272, and I currently deal with that by centering the 320x224 screen in a black border. Conversely, I can say that, for example, the Wiz has a fixed resolution of 320x240, and therefore wouldn't be able to handle any widescreen "enhancement". 320x224 is thoroughly sufficient for the duration of developing the core engine and development tools, and as a base, guarantees greater compatibility

AerosolSP, on 17 November 2012 - 12:51 AM, said:

Actually, I'll say something else. There is an Android emulator. I don't mean to be pushy, but I don't see why you can't test and debug with that. Is there a problem with it?

Yes, there is. The emulator is fifty times slower than molassas, does nothing for me in terms of multitouch, and actually does not otherwise cover the full range of features of a real device. For instance, if you look hard enough, you'll find that the emulator does not support OpenGL ES 2, although that's what they push for you to use. There are things that run on devices that will not run on the emulator, including, and you'll see you don't give me enough credit, some of my own tests

In any case, an emulator is never sufficient for real platform testing, because it is not the same environment. My ability to properly build and maintain any platform version of E02 hinges entirely on whether or not I personally own that platform, so you'll have to wait until I do

All fair points. I had thought that the emulator was updated to not be slower than molasses and lacking any proper access to the features of a real device. That aside, what kind of device would you want to test on? An Android phone running 2.3 can be had for very cheap. I'd send one your way myself if I had a game I was done with and wanted to make it available on Android.

[winterhell]

Yes they recently added hardware GPU acceleration, and even more recent intel atom x86 Android image in the Android SDK. So yeah, now its not 50 times slower but just 2-5 times.

[Stealth]

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

Well I come under didn't know rather than ignoring the fact that the engine was dating back to 97. Hearing that you've been working on it for 15 years is news to me.

I made a few other points, but that is the leading one, yeah. It's not something I've felt especially inclined to allocate time to at the expense of other considerations

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

The fact that you have been asked shows that some people want it and the fact that the move towards a dominance of 16:9 resolution shows that it's something "relevant" though my point was never about these things it was about showing that 16:9 can work in a 4:3 screen with a bit of magic and some compromise if redoing the classics.

Actually, to be quite blunt, the thing it shows the most is that by and large, people are sheep. Current dominance and actual benefits notwithstanding (I am not arguing either thing), if it weren't that people were just flocking to what's new and shiney, they would be more receptive to logical explanation as to why I haven't done it yet, and the fact that I didn't say that I would never ever do it. I don't see how this is so offensive that I get dismissive post edits and walls of text about how I'm somehow doing it wrong; it seems pretty unreasonable to me

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

Hey I'm not throwing insults at you personally am I. Since when does purist mean Stealth and if you're offended by the word silly then you need to look at the context closely. Don't get defensive because I say something that's not to your liking.

And don't drop flat-out lies. In terms of context, you can't possibly know any less well than I do that a phrase like "only purists care about shit like that" is in any context, and especially in the context of your own post, stated offensively. In fact, you knew it so well that you picked it right out in response to me calling you on it. If you meant no offense, wouldn't you have no idea what I was talking about, or at least express what you thought it was in a more unsure manner?

Mercury, on 17 November 2012 - 03:04 AM, said:

What these entitled folks making feature requests need to realise is that widescreen / dynamic resolution support is one of the most obnoxious, headachey things in the world.

Stealth isn't your employee; scale it back a little, guys.

Hi, thanks :P

AerosolSP, on 17 November 2012 - 03:05 AM, said:

[...] That aside, what kind of device would you want to test on?[...]

It's been a little while since I've looked. Naturally, I don't necessarily want anything absolute top-of-the-line, since I want to target most people might own, but I know there's a point when too low is too low in this case. To be less vague, I had at one point been looking at the Droid X, until I found out most of those apparently weren't manufactured properly. Some disclosure, though- for the immediate future, I'm not sure I'll have much time to work on creating the port if I did have one. I will be making efforts to support more platforms, though

winterhell, on 17 November 2012 - 03:42 AM, said:

Yes they recently added hardware GPU acceleration, and even more recent intel atom x86 Android image in the Android SDK. So yeah, now its not 50 times slower but just 2-5 times.

I'd have to check that out, but I know it's still dependent on how frequently you can afford to upgrade your PC :P

[steveswede]

Stealth, on 17 November 2012 - 04:28 AM, said:

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

Hey I'm not throwing insults at you personally am I. Since when does purist mean Stealth and if you're offended by the word silly then you need to look at the context closely. Don't get defensive because I say something that's not to your liking.

And don't drop flat-out lies. In terms of context, you can't possibly know any less well than I do that a phrase like "only purists care about shit like that" is in any context, and especially in the context of your own post, stated offensively. In fact, you knew it so well that you picked it right out in response to me calling you on it. If you meant no offense, wouldn't you have no idea what I was talking about, or at least express what you thought it was in a more unsure manner?

Well do you consider yourself as a purist? I can tell you that I've never considered you a purist so I ain't lying there.

Example:

Quote

You could say it's not the pure way to play Sonic (here's me saying that you are taking into mind pleasing the purists) but this is only going to be an issue if you are going to do the original classics as they are and only the purists care about shit like that(and here's me clearly separating purists from you)

And how did I guess that it was the purist comment, well I have conflicting opinion on what purists want. Purists request bugs and restrictions to be applied and even staple moves to be removed because nostalgia is more important than evolution which I see as a restriction to the Sonic series and I've always spoke out how backward it is to do that. If I saw you as a purist I wouldn't have gone into detail about how to deal with multiple screen resolutions without sacrificing dropping the 4:3 aspect or locking resolutions, I would have been short and blunt and said something like your purist attitude is restricting the potential of your engine or what's the point of this engine if all it's going to do is emulate what old tech can do, I don't see the point.

Anyway lets leave at that shall we. You said that I was lying, I'm telling you I'm not and if you can't accept that at face value then it's your prerogative. No point me repeating myself if your mind is set.

[Stealth]

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 05:30 AM, said:

Well do you consider yourself as a purist? [...]

Well, considering the entire post was an argument directed specifically against the Sonic 1 boss arena thing I mentioned only as a singular example to illustrate one sort of issue that could possibly arise, I really don't think it was much of a stretch to get the impression that that's what you were saying. That's all I have to say about that

steveswede, on 17 November 2012 - 05:30 AM, said:

If I saw you as a purist I wouldn't have gone into detail about how to deal with multiple screen resolutions without sacrificing dropping the 4:3 aspect or locking resolutions

Actually, I don't recall any details about dealing with it from a technical perspective, more just the implication that I should "deal with" 4:3 being "obsolete" and people being "sick of playing games with massive boarders at the side just because the purists want their precious single screen boss arena at 4:3 in a classic Sonic title that is nothing more than 5% of the game". I'll keep that and the other nice little tidbits you've thrown in throughout our correspondence in mind, though, for when I port E02 to a system for which no language is available other than whining. It'll come in handy

[Tets]

In my limited experience programming, I've learned that multiple resolution support can be, and often is, a pain in the ass. Especially if you're working with code that is over a decade old. It's a can of worms that I'm not surprised Stealth wants to just leave alone. While I agree that widescreen would be a great addition to E02, the impression I'm getting is that it wouldn't be worth it considering all the incompatibilities that would suddenly arise. I'm not against it being the developer's responsibility to make their game play nicely with all resolution options, but that's only one part of the equation, so to speak.

Not much else to say. It's always great to see E02 still being updated. Ogg Vorbis playback is a very cool addition, and I see it also allows for looping.

[MalcomX]

Well, I for one am glad to see this being updated. For some reason, I see this version being a lot easier to fiddle around with. I've been nitpicking around in it, and I'm actually getting the hang of using it, and the scripting isn't too hard to understand. I will probably be porting my game over to this engine once I learn it a little more. Great job on this it is absolutely amazing!

[Mr Lange]

I don't give a shit about widescreen and none of you should care about it. Focus on the development features, that is what really needs work right now.

[Falk]

Welp, didn't mean for this thread to balloon out this way*, which is why I ~very carefully picked my words~, I.e. 'in general and not specific to E02'.

There's just so much misinformation going around regarding resolution/aspect ratios (for example drawing at 16:10 and then cropping horizontally/vertically for 4:3/16:9, *cough*) that I just felt the need to put in my own two cents based on what the current standards are as far as aspect ratios go. Like I also said in that same post, obviously E02 has very different goals.

Essentially it's pretty much in the same ballpark as having directional stereo sounds as a feature - it didn't exist in the original implementation, yet is an option to pretty up a retro experience while remaining true to it.

*edit: especially not in the 'oh let's dig out S2HD all over again' way.

This post has been edited by Falk: 17 November 2012 - 09:09 PM

[BlazeHedgehog]

Boo, saw this on the Wii Homebrew Browser and thought "man that is cool that I can just download everything on my Wii like this" but I guess it doesn't even work anymore because the version of E02 is too old to play the game data it downloads.

Edit: Oh wait, there's a way to update it! Maybe that should be made clearer, I dunno. And/or the latest version sent to the Homebrew Browser guys for hosting.

Edit 2: Aw, the Wii version doesn't have this update :P

This post has been edited by BlazeHedgehog: 17 November 2012 - 10:17 PM

[Stealth]

Sorry, man, but-

BlazeHedgehog, on 17 November 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

Edit: Oh wait, there's a way to update it! Maybe that should be made clearer, I dunno.

The main menu says very clearly "New E02 version available" when the updates check isn't bypassed and you're running an old version

BlazeHedgehog, on 17 November 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

And/or the latest version sent to the Homebrew Browser guys for hosting.

I happen to have forgotten this time, but they don't update every day even if I had remembered, and they've even ignored at least one on a previous occasion (note that the version they have doesn't even have the option to skip the updates test - that's not due to me not trying), and you technically should have been covered by the in-program update system. tangentially- the Homebrew Browser isn't entirely reliable if you have another way to update your program (such as E02's in-program download system), because HBB checks for an unequal date, and not a later date, meaning that if you were to update your local E02 before HBB caught up, HBB would erroneously report that it has an update

BlazeHedgehog, on 17 November 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

Edit 2: Aw, the Wii version doesn't have this update :P

It does, but what you seem to have run into is, in fact, another downloads system error, similar to the one I found due to sonicblur's report. Among the multitude of things I had to do to make this release before I became unable to do so for a long period of time, I appear to have forgotten to update the file download listings for the update system downloads. If you're getting the same error I just did (a missing alias), that's a very clear indication that something is wrong, in contrast to "the wii version [not having] this update", and that's what you should have reported

I've just fixed it, but it unfortunately won't do you or anyone else who's already done the in-program update much immediate good. You'd have three options- wait for the Homebrew Browser people to catch up and update from there, delete E02 (which, if not done manually, would delete all downloaded games too), re-download the old Homebrew Browser version, and then perform the in-program update again, or perform a manual install from the manual download package, which never had an error

-----

One thing I'd like to note is that, given the number of people that generally view these updates, I'm somewhat disturbed by how long it takes error reports to come in, and how improperly they're given, on top of that. I'm wondering just how many people are actually downloading these things, finding an error that can easily be remedied, and just dismissing the whole thing rather than making reports so that they or at least someone else can get a hold of a working version. I am grateful to those who actually do take the time to make reports

-----

Finally, while I'm here, I'd also like to go ahead and say that I'm very happy to see people that are expressing genuine interest in developing with E02. If you need any help, remember that I also have a forum and an IRC channel, both listed in the starting post for this thread. I'll be glad to help whenever I can

-----
Edit: Apparently the board didn't accept the download link I tried to insert
Edit2: Upon further inspection, the Wii version keymap file for the Sonic example was being overwritten by a different file when downloaded from the in-program interface. I've fixed that issue as well, and re-downloading should take care of it. Alternatively, you can modify the existing key map from the interface, but using this method, you'll only be allowed one controller at a time per player as opposed to the three allowed by the proper keymap file. You may also edit it manually to enable two- or three-controller-per-player support, of course

This post has been edited by Stealth: 18 November 2012 - 12:16 AM

[Aerosol]

I don't understand the clamoring for widescreen. I can't even stand to play Sonic games in widescreen!