Marmalade Job Post – Playalla Need Word Game Developer

Hi Everyone,

Another job posting has come across my desk recently so here it is. A new start-up called Playalla is seeking a  C/C++ Marmalade SDK developer for a short term contract (around 3 months) to help them finish their word games. Playalla already have a prototype of their game up and running based on match-3 game play. Ideally they are looking for a developer that has previous experience with creating word games. The work can be carried out remotely so is ideal for a freelance game developer.

If you are interested then please send a few details about yuorself, your experience (games released etc..) to Wissam at wissamharoun@hotmail.com

Mat

Marmalade Job Post – BeInToo Need A Developer

Hi Everyone.

The guys over at http://www.beintoo.com/ that developed the awesome BeInToo gamification and rewarding technology are looking for a capable Marmalade SDK developer that can use the EDK to bring their SDK over to Marmalade. If you know your way around the EDK and know enough about the Android / iPhone SDK’s then you should probably get in touch.

The work can be carried out remotely and does not have to be done on-site which is great for freelance developers.

You can take a quick look at the RESTful API to see what the SDK is all about http://documentation.beintoo.com/

Good luck

Mat

 

Game Engines Review

I came across a cool web sit the other day that shows many of the different game engine solutions for mobile platforms at http://mobilegameengines.com. The list itself is very comprehensive and includes information relating to the engines as well as reviews from actual engine users.

If you have a spare 5-10 mins please consider leaving a review for the IwGame Engine at http://mobilegameengines.com/iphone/engines/40-iwgame-engine

And possibly also a review for the Marmalade SDK at http://mobilegameengines.com/iphone/engines/11-marmalade

A BIG thank you to anyone that gets the time to leave a review

Puzzle Friends FREE for iOS Just Released

IwGame powered Puzzle Friends has just been released on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This product shows many of the latest IwGame features running in a commercial product on iOS, including in-app purchasing, Facebook posting and dynamic content. It also includes Scoreloop leaderboards which will be integrated into IwGame soon as an extension.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/puzzle-friends/id513683800?ls=1&mt=8

Its FREE so grab a copy now and check it out. Please consider leaving a nice review if you like the game :)

 

IwGame Engine Update – XML Schema for XOML Now Available

Ok, so we’ve heard back from a few of you and its apparent that XOML can be a little difficult to work with especially as it had no intellisense to help create well formed XOML. In the interests of making XOML much easier to write we have created an XML Schema that you can use to validate your XOML and provide intellisense support. Please note that the schema has only been tested in Visual Studio 2010. If you have problems with it in any other IDE then please let us know.

The XML Schema for XOML can be downloaded from http://www.drmop.com/XOML.xsd

Updated versions of the Schema will also be included with the IwGame Engine from v0.35 onwards

To use the Schema in Visual Studio 2010, open your XOML file, right click somewhere on the page and select properties then go to the properties windows. Click in the Schemas box then click the small file selector to the right (this will open up all of the available XML schemas). If XOML.xsd is not already in the list then click the Add button which pops up the file select dialog. Select XOML.xsd and open it, this will place it in the XML schemas list. Now click in the Use column next to XOML.xsd and select “Use this schema” then click OK. Your document should now be validated against the XOML schema and you should have intellisense / auto-complete etc..

Note that there are a few restrictions, for example, the schema does not include support for custom actor / scene names or support for FromTemplate parameters. if you are XSD savvy enough to figure out how to add that support then please let us know (I personally have only spent one day working with XSD which was today so I’m still a little wet behind the ears). For the meantime, you may want to edit the XOML.xsd schema file and add them yourself. A quick and easy way to get the schema to recognise your custom named scenes is to edit XOML.xsd, go to the bottom of the file and you will see a group called TopLevel. Copy and paste the line that defines Scene and change the word Scene to the name of your own scene class, e.g:

<xs:element name=”Scene” type=”SceneType” />

<xs:element name=”MenuScene” type=”SceneType” />

To add a custom actor create a copy the ActorImage tag and rename the copy to your custom class name, e.g.:

<xs:element name=”ActorImage” type=”ActorImageType” />

<xs:element name=”FrogActor” type=”ActorImageType” />

For actors, you will also need to copy the same line to the ActorGroup (situated just below the TopLevel group)

Please note that this will not take into account your own custom parameters, for that you will need to add your own complex types and attributes to handle it.

Lastly, to add custom actions, go to the top of XOML.xsd to the ActionsEnum type and copy one of the existing actions, paste and replace your own action name, e.g:

<xs:enumeration value=”CustomAction1″ />

Well that’s it, hope the schema helps to make XOML more usable. Please let us know if you have any problems (don’t send me complex schema questions because I don’t have a clue :) )

 

 

 

 

IwGame Engine v0.34 Released – Modifiers, Box2D Joints and Marmalade 6.0 fix

New here? What’s IwGame? IwGame is an open source free to use cross platform game engine for iPhone, iPad, Android, Bada, Playbook, Symbian, Windows Mobile, LG-TV, Windows and Mac, built on top of the Marmalade SDK. You can find out more and download the SDK from our IwGame Engine page.

Well this release is a little earlier I’m afraid, we wanted to get UI functionality into 0.34, but 0.33 had a compile issue with the recent Marmalade 6.0 release so we decided to do a release now.

Below is the list of changes for IwGame 0.34:

  • Fixed Marmalade 6.0 compile error
  • JPEG loading support has been removed as this is now supported by Marmalade image classes
  • New extensions system added (pass true for enable_extensions in IwGame::Init() to enable, enabled by default) – Extensions are none standard IwGame code that will be added over the coming months to support game specific features
  • Actions now have a 4th parameter
  • New modifier system added that allows you to add functionality units to actors and scene. This enables a build from blocks style development
  • New AddModifier action that can be used to add a modifier to an actor or scene and modifier its behaviour in real-time
  • New ChangeModifier action that can be used to change the active state or remove a modifier from an actor or scene
  • Actors can now be marked as draggable. A draggable actor can be moved aruond by the user using their finger
  • New SetProperty action added for actors. You can now directly change the properties of an actor using actions. Can also be used to add torque and force onto actors under control of the physics system
  • New AddProperty action added for actors. This action can be used to add a value onto the peoperties of an actor
  • IwGame now supports brushes in code and in XOML. Brushes can be created and attached to actors saving you from having to specify image and SrcRect for each actor. This enables actor styling across any actors
  • CIwGameActorImage can now be instantiated from XOML using the ActorImage tag
  • New XOML atlas inner tag added to animations to allow auto generation of sprite atlas frames
  • Support has been added for joints (distance, revolute, prismatic, pulley and wheel joints are supported in code and in XOML)
  • A scenes physics update can now be changed between constant time step and variable
  • Box2D materials now support bullet, fixed rotation and gravity scaling parameters
  • Checks for duplicates added to resources, variables, actions, modifiers, class creators
  • New CIwGameActorConnector extension actor added – This actor will size and orientate itself so that it connects two static / dynamic points in space (can target moving actors)
  • New CIwGameModFollowHeading modifier extension added – When added to an existing actor the actor can be controlled using headnig and speed instead of velocity
  • CIwGameImage::CreatePNG() now supports RGBA_8888
  • Two basic Hello World examples added, one that displays text in code and another that uses XOML
  • BUG FIX: IwGameBox2d now coompiles on Mac without error
  • BUG FIX: CIwGameBox2dBody::setFixture() now behaves as expected
  • BUG FIX: Collision flags are now restored when turning an object from none collidable to collidable
  • BUG FIX: Memory leak in CIwGameActorImage::SetSrcDest(), SetSrcRect() and SetDestSize()
  • BUG FIX: Fixed problem with html parsing in CIwGameAds::ExtractLinkAndImageFromtHTML()
  • BUG FIX: CIwGameImage::CreatePNG() crash bug fixed

Lots of changes and a few bug fixes for good measure. The most interesting changes include Box2D physics joints (been playing with them all week and they are awesome), the new modifiers system, draggable actors and the ability to set actor properties directly using actions. Lets look at some of these new changes in more detail:

Box2D Joints Support

Physics joints enable you to connect physical bodies together in a variety of ways. The following types of physical joints are currently supported:

  • Distance – A distance joint limits the distance of two bodies and attempts to keep them the same distance apart, damping can also be applied
  • Revolute – A revolute joint forces two bodies to share a common anchor point. It has a single degree of freedom and the angle between the two bodies can be limited. In addition a motor can also be applied to the joint
  • Prismatic – A prismatic joint limits movement between the two bodies by translation (rotation is prevented). The translational distance between the two joints can be limited. In addition a motor can also be applied to the joint
  • Pulley Joint – A pulley joint can be used to create a pulley system between two bodies so that when one body rises the other will fall.
  • Wheel Joint – A wheel joint restricts one body to the line on another body and can be used to create suspension springs. A motor can also be applied to the joint

All joints share the same base class IIwGameBox2dJoint

Joints can be created in code and attached to a body using CiwGameBox2dBody::addJoint(). Joints can later be removed using removeJoint(). You can also search for existing joints using getJoint() and findJoint()

        <ActorImage Name="Crate1" ...... />
        <ActorImage Name="Crate2" ...... >
            <Joints>
                <Joint type="distance" ActorB="Crate1" OffsetA="0, 50" OffsetB="0, -50" Frequency="10" Damping="0" SelfCollide="true" />
            </Joints>
        </ActorImage>

The easiest way to create and attach joints is using XOML. Below is an example showing how to create and attach a distance joint between two crates:

Actor and Scene Modifiers

IwGame supports modifiers using the IwGameModfier system. Modifiers can be thought of as small functional building blocks that can be stacked in an actor or scene to extend the functionality of that actor or scene. For example, a typical modifier for a scene could be one that tracks the players scores / hi-scores, change day / night settings or detects special gestures. An actor modifier example could be a modifier that allows the actor move around using heading and speed or even a modifier with functionality specific to your game such as make a baddy that walks left and right on a platform. The idea is to allow developers to build games and apps up from smaller re-usable building blocks and be able to add them using code or XOML. Below is a quick example showing how to attach a modifiers list to an actor in XOML:

     <ActorImage Name="Baddy1" ....... >
          <Modifiers>
              <Modifier Name="AddThrustMod" Active="true" Param1="1" />
              <Modifier Name="ShootPlayerWhenClose" Active="true" Param1="1" />
          </Modifiers>
     </ActorImage>

Here we have added two modifiers to the Baddy1 actor which modify its behaviour. Note that up to 4 parameters can be passed to the modifier

Modifiers can also be attached in code like this:

    // Find the modifiers creator
    IIwGameModifierCreator* creator = IW_GAME_MODS->findCreator("addthrustmod");
    if (creator != NULL)
    {
        // Create an instance of the modifier
        IIwGameModifier* mod = creator->CreateInstance();
        if (mod != NULL)
        {
            // Set up the instance
            mod->setName("addthrustmod");
            mod->setActive(true);
            mod->setParameter(0, "1");

            // Add the modifier to the actor
            actor->getModifiers()->addModifier(mod);
        }
    }

Draggable Actors

Any actor can now be set as draggable, allowing the user to tap it and drag it around the world. You can make any actor draggble in XOML by adding Draggable=”true” to its definition.

Setting / Updating Actor Properties from XOML

Its now possible to set or update actor properties directly from an action in XOML. Using the new SetProperty / AddProperty actions

Extensions System

From v0.34 of IwGame a new optional extensions system has been added. The extensions system is basically a collection of actors, scenes, actions, modifiers and other elements that are not part of the base IwGame engine. The extensions system provides support for game specific objects and other functionality that can be used to make creating specific types of games much easier. There’s not many extensions available yet but many more will be added in the future

IwGame Usage Changes

Please note the recent changes that have been applied to IwGame Usage. The new usage terms are shown below:

You are free to use IwGame in your projects in part or in whole as long as the header comments remain in-tact. Whilst you are not obliged to mention your usage of IwGame in your products it would be great and beneficial to let us know as we can publicise your product on our blog and other web sites / services (Our blog receives over 200,000 hits per month) However, if you use any part of the IwGame extensions system, which includes extension actors, extension scenes or extension modifiers then you are required to mention usage of the IwGame Engine in your product.

You may not claim the IwGame engine or its documentation as your own work or package it up and include it in any kind of middleware product without express prior written notice from an executive of Pocketeers Limited with the correct authority to grant authorisation. You may not publicly host any source code that is part of the IwGame Engine, the source will be hosted at http://www.drmop.com/index.php/iwgame-engine/

These changes apply to all versions of the IwGame Engine.

Well that’s it for this update

 

Marmalade 6.0 is out NOW!

**** IwGame does not compile with Marmalade 6.0. To fix please comment out the following line at the top of IwGameImage.cpp for now. We will release an early update this week to fix it ****

//#include “pngstruct.h”

Ok, its not often I look in my email box and find good news, but today I saw an email from Marmalade announcing Marmalade 6.0. I took a quick look over the changes list and the new features and it looks pretty awesome. I’m a little disappointed that there’s no native web deployment, but there’s plenty of other cool features to be playing with including:

  • Web Marmalade – You can now develop apps with HTML5 / CSS3 and Javascript. Marmalade have used the same standard as Phone Gap to make it compatible (smart move IMO). This is pretty awesome in itself, but to be honest I’m waiting for the full native bridge exposure and documentation. You wont be making any real time smooth arcade style games with 6.0 but its great for apps and none arcade style game development. Either way I’m going to be getting my hands dirty with Javascript (the most lawless language on Earth :) )
  • iPad retina support
  • New native UI enhancements including Toolbar, Table, Picket / Listbox , Tab / Tap Group, Activity indicator and Navigation bar
  • New Mac anehancements such as support accelerometer and location in the simulator
  • And a mass of bug fixes, including the notorious Facebook extension which has been upgraded to the latest on  Facebook SDK for iOS. Also native support for JPEG images

To see the full list of changes check out Marmalades web site at https://www.madewithmarmalade.com/marmalade/whats-new

IwGame – We Need Your Feedback

Hi Everyone,

The IwGame Engine has been in development for around 6 months now and although we’ve received lots of feedback regarding bug reports and feature requests we would like to know your opinions on the current state of the engine. Here are a few questions to consider:

  • Is IwGame difficult to use, if so can you suggest any improvements that we could make to make it easier to use?
  • How are you finding the current feature set? Is anything particularly buggy, hard to use or simply missing something?
  • What’s the next BIG feature for you, what would you really like to see come next?
  • How are you finding using XOML? Do you prefer the declarative approach or do you prefer to code things up in C++ instead. Can you suggest any improvements you would like to see?
  • If you have recently stopped using IwGame, what made you leave? Was there a better option and if so, what was the deal making features?

This is the opportunity to have your say, any feedback that you can provide is greatly appreciated and will help steer the direction of the IwGame engine.

Mat

IwGame Engine Tutorial – Actors

CIwGameActor Object – Sprites With Brains

Introduction

Whilst our title comparison suggests that actors are simply sprites with brains they have the potential to be much more.

Going back to comparison in the scene introduction section, actors play a pivotal role in our scenes, each actor having its own unique role and visual appearance. Actors are the building block of the game, they provide the actual unique functionality and visuals that make up the game as a whole. They can provide any type of functionality from a simple bullet fleeting across the screen to something as complex as a dynamic machine that modifies its behaviour and appearance based upon data streamed from a web server.

A CIwGameActor is a very generic object that provides quite a lot of functionality out of the box. The idea is for developers to create their own actor types from the base CIwGameActor class then implement their own custom functionality within its Update() method. The basic functionality provided by CIwGameActor includes:

  • Support for actor pooling to help reduce memory fragmentation
  • Unique names so they can be searched
  • Actor types
  • Position, Depth, Origin, velocity and velocity damping
  • Angle, angular velocity and angular velocity damping
  • Scale and Colour
  • Layers
  • Active and visible states
  • A visual that represents it on screen
  • Animation timeline that can be attached to the visual
  • Collision size / rectangle
  • Wrapping at scenes extents
  • Instantiation itself from XOML
  • Animation timline update
  • Other actor linkage (used to connect actors in a child / parent style system)
  • A Box2D physical body consisting of a material and shape
  • Box2D collision category, mask and group

Note that any changes made to the actor will automatically be applied to the actors visual.

As IwGame progresses more actor types with additional functionality will be created to create more out of the box style game objects (plug-in actors if you will). For the moment the following actors have been created for you:

CIwGameActorImage – This object represents a basic image based actor which has an associated image and animation.
CIwGameActorText – This object represents a basic text based actor which has an associated font and animation.
CIwGameActorParticles – This object represents a complex particle based actor system consists of manypatricles that move independently and have varying life spans.

A word of warning, do not forget to call the based classes Init(), Reset(), Update(), UpdateVisual() methods from your own derived classes or the underlying functionality will not be provided.

Creating Actors

Creating an actor is very simple as the following code shows:

	// Create player actor
	MyActor* actor = new MyActor();
	if (actor == NULL)
		return NULL;

	actor->Init();
	actor->setName("Player1");
	actor->setPosition(x, y);

	// Add player actor to the scene
	scene->addActor(actor);

In the above code we create a a basic MyActor object, which is a class that I created derived from CIwGameActor giving us the base CIwGameActor functionality. However, adding this code into a game wouldn’t actually see anything as we have not assigned a visual element to the actor. CIwGameActor does not handle the creation of a visual for you, instead it handles the rendering and update of a visual and its animations.

To get developers started with actors we included the CIwGameActorImage that will create a basic image based actor that supports animation.

If you require your actor to support Box2D physics then you should either define the Box2DMaterial and Shape in XOML or if creating manually then call:

	InitBody(Scene, shape, material, &Position, Angle, com.x, com.y);

This can be called before or after CIwGameActor::Init()

Creating a CIwGameActorImage

Creating an image based actor is a little more complicated, lets take a look at some example code:

	// Create a new instance
	ActorPlayer* actor = new ActorPlayer();
	if (actor == NULL)
		return NULL;

	// Create player actor
	actor->setScene(scene);
	actor->Init(image, 36, 40);
	actor->setPosition(x, y);

	// Add player actor to the scene
	scene->addActor(actor);

Creation is very similar to creating a basic CIwGameActor with the additional complication of having to pass an image to the actors Init() method.

Looking at the above code we create an ActorPlayer, which is a class that I created derived from CIwGameActorImage as we want some basic image functionality.

We then call the actors its Init() method to set up actor internals. We give the actor a name so that we can find it later then set its world position to the centre of the scene. Finally we add the actor to the scene.

You will notice that ActorPlayer’s Init() method has quite a a few parameters. When we call Init(….) we are actually calling CIwGameActorImage::Init(….) and passing along all the details shown in the code above which includes an image that will represent our actor (or more usually an image atlas), and the width and height of the visual on screen (in virtual canvas coordinates). Internally CIwGameActorImage will create a sprite to display our actor.

The end product of the above code is an actor that can be seen, moved around, scaled, rotated etc..

Now lets take a look at a slightly more complicated ezmple that creates an image based actor that uses an animation time line (more details on time line’s later):

	// Create a new instance
	ActorPlayer* actor = new ActorPlayer();
	if (actor == NULL)
		return NULL;

	// Create an animation timeline to hold our image animation
	CIwGameAnimTimeline* timeline = new CIwGameAnimTimeline();

	// Create and set up our face animation
	CIwGameAnimInstance* face_anim = new CIwGameAnimInstance();
	face_anim->setAnimation(anim);
	face_anim->setTarget(actor, "SrcRect");
	timeline->addAnimation(face_anim);
	timeline->play();

	// Create player actor
	actor->setScene(scene);
	actor->Init(image, 36, 40);
	actor->setTimeline(timeline);
	actor->setPosition(x, y);

	// Add player actor to the scene
	scene->addActor(actor);

I have marked the changes from the previous example.

The first set of changes deals with creating a time line object then creating the instance of an animation and adding that to the time line. This process allows the actor to track and update its own animations

In the last change we simply assign the time line to the actor, the actor will now take care of playing the animation and updating the actors visual with animation changes.

Text Based Actors

Text based actors enable you to instantiate text into the scene with very little effort from code or more easily from XOML. Thse text objects can be use very much in the same way as image based actors in that they can be moved around, scaled, rotated, hit tested or even have physics and collision applied to them.

Lets firstly take a look at creating a text based actor in code:

	// Find our preloaded font
	CIwGameFont* font = (CIwGameFont*)IW_GAME_GLOBAL_RESOURCES->getResourceManager()->findResource("font1", CIwGameXomlNames::Font_Hash);

	// Create a text actor
	CIwGameActorText* text_actor = new CIwGameActorText();
	text_actor->Init(font);
	text_actor->setText("Hello World!");
	text_actor->setRect(CIwRect(-100, -100, 200, 200));
	text_actor->setColour(0, 0, 0, 255);
	text_actor->setPosition(0, 0);
	text_actor->setAngle(45);

	// Add to the scene
	CIwGameScene* scene = findScene("Scene1");
	scene->addActor(text_actor);

In the above code we firstly locate our font (which we have already preloaded into the resource system) then we create a text based actor from CIwGameActorText initialising it with the font. We then set the text, rect and some other parameters.

We now search for the scene we want to place the actor in and it to the scene.

Now lets take a look at how to instantiate a text based actor in XOML:

<ActorText Position=”0, 0″ Rect=”-100, -100, 200, 200″ Angle=”45″ Font=”font1″ Text=”Hello World!” Colour=”0, 0, 0, 255″ />

As you can see the XOML definition is much more compact and readable.

Particle System Actors

From v.030 of IwGame the new particle system based actor is available. This actor is special in that it is optimised for creating, displaying and updating a complete system of sprites (kind of like its own sprite manager). The advantage of this actor is that it does not have to deal with each particle as a separate actor object. The CIwGameActorParticles actor supports both manual and auto generation of particles. Auto generation can be controlled using a number of a control parameters.

Particles have a number of properties that can be adjusted:

  • Visual
  • Position
  • Velocity
  • Velocity Damping
  • Gravity
  • Scale
  • Scale Velocity
  • Scale Velocity Damping
  • Angle
  • Angle Velocity
  • Angle Velocity Damping
  • Colour
  • Colour Velocity
  • Colour Velocity Damping
  • Depth
  • Depth Velocity
  • Depth Velocity Damping
  • Active state
  • Visible state
  • Lifespan – Duration of particle in seconds
  • SpawnDelay – The amount of time to wait before spawning for the first time
  • Lives – Number of times the particle will re-spawn (-1 for infinite)

The CIwGameActorParticles class contains two methods for generating random particles:

void GenerateRandomParticles(int count, CIwRect& src_rect, CIwFVec4& colour, CIwFVec4& colour_velocity, float duration, int repeat_count, float spawn_delay_change, float gravity)
void GenerateRandomParticles(int count, CIwGameActorParticle* particle, CIwRect& src_rect, float duration, int repeat_count, float spawn_delay_change)

Both of these methods will generate a number of particles based on a set of limits.

To determine which particle parameters are generated randomly the CIwGameActorParticles class supports the following methods:

void	setPositionMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setAngleMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setScaleMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setVelocityMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setAngVelocityMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setScaleVelocityMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setDepthMode(eParticleMode mode)
void	setDepthVelocityMode(eParticleMode mode)

By setting the mode to PAM_Random the specified parameters will be generated randomly.

When parameters are generated the following methods specify limits to the random formulas used to generate the parameters:

void	setPositionRange(CIwFVec2& range)
void	setAngleRange(CIwFVec2& range)
void	setScaleRange(CIwFVec2& range)
void	setDepthRange(CIwFVec2& range)
void	setVelocityRange(CIwFVec4& range)
void	setAngVelocityRange(CIwFVec2& range)
void	setScaleVelocityRange(CIwFVec2& range)
void	setDepthVelocityRange(CIwFVec2& range)

Lets take a look at some code that generates an explosion type particle system:

CIwGameActorParticles* GameScene::AddExplosion(int num_particles, float x, float y, float scale, float depth, int layer, float gravity)
{
	// Create explosion particle actor
	CIwGameActorParticles* actor = new CIwGameActorParticles();
	addActor(actor);
	actor->Init(num_particles);
	actor->setImage((CIwGameImage*)ResourceManager->findResource("sprites1", CIwGameXomlNames::Image_Hash));
	actor->setPosition(x, y);

	// Set random parameters
	actor->setScaleMode(CIwGameActorParticles::PAM_Random);
	actor->setAngVelocityMode(CIwGameActorParticles::PAM_Random);
	actor->setVelocityMode(CIwGameActorParticles::PAM_Random);

	// Set paramater limits
	CIwFVec2 scale_range(scale, scale + scale / 2);
	actor->setScaleRange(scale_range);
	CIwFVec2 angle_range(-5, 5);
	actor->setAngleRange(angle_range);
	CIwFVec4 vel_range(-5, 5, -5, 5);
	actor->setVelocityRange(vel_range);
	CIwRect src_rect(908, 440, 100, 100);
	CIwFVec4 colour(255, 255, 255, 255);
	CIwFVec4 colour_vel(0, 0, 0, -5);

	// Generate the particles
	actor->GenerateRandomParticles(num_particles, src_rect, colour, colour_vel, 2, 1, 0, gravity);

	return actor;
}

Here we create a particle actor, set up the which parameters should be randomised then set the random limits. Finally we tell the actor to generate random particles

Now lets take a quick look at generating particles manually in code:

CIwGameActorParticles* GameScene::AddStream(int num_particles, float x, float y, float scale, float depth, int layer, float gravity)
{
	// Create stream particle actor
	CIwGameActorParticles* actor = new CIwGameActorParticles();
	addActor(actor);
	actor->Init(num_particles);
	actor->setImage((CIwGameImage*)ResourceManager->findResource("sprites1", CIwGameXomlNames::Image_Hash));
	actor->setPosition(x, y);
	CIwRect src_rect(800, 291, 68, 65);
	CIwFVec4 colour(255, 255, 255, 128);
	CIwFVec4 colour_vel(0, 0, 0, -3);

	// Create and add particles
	float spawn_delay = 0;
	for (int t = 0; t < num_particles; t++)
	{
		CIwGameActorParticle* p = new CIwGameActorParticle();
		p->LifeSpan = 1;
		p->Lives = -1;
		p->SpawnDelay = spawn_delay;
		p->Gravity = gravity;
		p->Colour = colour;
		p->ColourVelocity = colour_vel;
		p->DepthVelocity = -0.01f;

		actor->addParticle(p, src_rect);
		spawn_delay += (float)1.0f / num_particles;
	}

	return actor;
}

This method creates a particle actor then manually creates a stream of particles that spawn at slightly different times to create a stream type particle system.

Particle actors can also be created in XOML. Lets take a quick look at an example:

    <ActorParticles Name="StreamParticles" Image="sprites1" Position="0, 0" Scale="1.0" Depth="1.0" Layer="1" VelAngMode="random" VelMode="random" AngMode="random" ScaleMode="random" PositionRange="100, 100" AngleRange="0, 360" AngVelRange="-5, 5" ScaleRange="0.25, 0.5" DepthRange="0.5, 1.0" VelRange="-2, 2, -2, 2" ScaleVelRange="0, -0.1" DepthVelRange="0, 0">
        <Particle Count="10" Position="0, 0" VelocityDamping="0.95, 0.95"
		SrcRect="908, 440, 100, 100" ColourVelocity="0, 0, 0, -4" Duration="2"
		Repeat="-1" SpawnDelay="0" />
        <Particle Position="0, 0" VelocityDamping="0.95, 0.95" SrcRect="908, 440, 100, 100"
		ColourVelocity="0, 0, 0, -4" Duration="2" Repeat="-1" SpawnDelay="0" />
        <Particle Position="0, 0" VelocityDamping="0.95, 0.95" SrcRect="908, 440, 100, 100"
		ColourVelocity="0, 0, 0, -4" Duration="2" Repeat="-1" SpawnDelay="0.4" />
        <Particle Position="0, 0" VelocityDamping="0.95, 0.95" SrcRect="908, 440, 100, 100"
		ColourVelocity="0, 0, 0, -4" Duration="2" Repeat="-1" SpawnDelay="0.8" />
        <Particle Position="0, 0" VelocityDamping="0.95, 0.95" SrcRect="908, 440, 100, 100"
		ColourVelocity="0, 0, 0, -4" Duration="2" Repeat="-1" SpawnDelay="1.2" />
        <Particle Position="0, 0" VelocityDamping="0.95, 0.95" SrcRect="908, 440, 100, 100"
		ColourVelocity="0, 0, 0, -4" Duration="2" Repeat="-1" SpawnDelay="1.6" />
    </ActorParticles>

The above XOML firstly generates 10 random particles at time 0, followed by 4 additional particles at times 0.4, 0.8, 1.2 and 1.6 seconds.

If you would like finer grained control over particle actors then you can simply derive your own version from CIwGameActorParticles

Actor Lifetimes

Actors will persist within the scene until a) the scene is deleted b) you explicitly remove them or the recommended method c) they remove themselves. An actor can easily remove and delete itself from the scene by returning false from its Update() method. Here’s an example:

bool ActorPlayer::Update(float dt)
{
	// If fade timer has timed out then delete this actor
	if (FadeTimer.HasTimedOut())
	{
		return false;	// returning false tells the scene that we no need to be removed
	}

	// Calculate our opacity from time left on fade timer
	int opacity = FadeTimer.GetTimeLeft() / 2;
	if (opacity > 255) opacity = 255;
	Colour.a = opacity;

	return CIwGameActorImage::Update(dt);
}

Actor Naming and Finding Actors

As mention previously for scenes, actors also named objects, each instance of an object that you wish to query should have its own unique name (per scene) so that it can be located and modified at a later date.

You can find an actor in a particular scene using:

	CIwGameActor* actor = scene->findActor(“Player1”);
	if (actor != NULL)
	{
		// Do somethinig with the actor
	}

There are three ways to locate actors within a scene:

	CIwGameActor*		findActor(const char* name);
	CIwGameActor*		findActor(unsigned int name_hash);
	CIwGameActor*		findActor(int type);

These allow you to search for actor by string, hash or type. Note that searching by type will return the first and only the first instance of that particular actor type. This is very useful if you want to find a unique actor type, for example the player.

Actor Types

When developing games I find it incredibly useful to assign different types of actors different type ID’s, this allows me to optimise many area of my code such as collision checks. Carrying a type ID for each actor also comes in handy when you want to know the types of actor that you are interacting with.

You can set and get the actors type ID using:

	void		setType(int type)
	int		getType() const

Moving, Rotating and Spinning Actors

Actors come with a very basic physics system that allows movement via velocity and angular velocity, actors can also be scaled. CIwGameActor provides the following basic functionality to handle these features:

	void				setPosition(float x, float y)
	CIwFVec2			getPosition()
	void				setAngle(float angle)
	float				getAngle()
	void				setVelocity(float x, float y)
	CIwFVec2			getVelocity()
 	void				setVelocityDamping(float x, float y)
	void				setAngularVelocity(float velocity)
	float				getAngularVelocity() const
	void				setAngularVelocityDamping(float damping)
	void				setScale(float scale)
	float				getScale() const

Note that velocity and angular velocity damping is a reduction factor that is applied each game frame to slow down objects linear and angular velocities. Their default values are 1.0f which provides no damping, setting this value to less than 1.0f will dampen velocity whilst setting it to a value greater than 1.0f will enhance velocity.

Also note that changing position or angle will not effect velocity.

If the actor was created with Box2D physics enabled then you can also use the supplied force application methods.

Attaching a Visual and an Animation Timeline

For our actor to become visible on screen we need to assign it a visual component. If you are rolling your own actor and don’t go the CIwGameActorImage route then you will need to create and assign your own visual component to the actor.

To assign a visual to an actor you would call:

	void		setVisual(CIwGameSprite* visual)

Now when the scene renders the actor it will attenot to render the visual. I want to mention at this pont that as far as IwGame is concerned a visual is an object type that derived from a CIwGameSprite (we will cover this later), but for now we will just say that a sprite as far as IwGame is concerned is anything that can be displayed, be it a simple image or a complex piece of SVG.

And where you find visuals you will usually find some kind of animation. The actor class supports attachment of CIwGameAnimTimeline which is basically a collection of animations (we will cover this in more depth later). To assign a time line we call:

	void		setTimeline(CIwGameAnimTimeline* timeline) { Timeline = timeline; }

Changing an Actors Colour

Each actor has its own independent colour (including opacity). All actors are set to a default colour of white and full opacity. To change the colour of an actor you can call:

	void		setColour(CIwColour& colour)

Note that an actors colour will be combined with its parents base colour.

Obeying Scene Extents

By default an actor would merrily travel across the game scene and beyond its extents into oblivion and out of range coordinates, this can cause a bit of a mess for the underlying math and rendering routines. To prevent actors from going off into oblivion we can tell them to wrap around to the other side of the scene if they hit its extents boundary. To force actors to wrap around at the boundaries of the scene we call setWrapPosition(true):

	void		setWrapPosition(bool enable)
	bool		getWrapPosition() const					{

Actor Layering

We touched on layering earlier when we talking about layering in scenes. All actors within a scene exist (visually) on a layer. The layer determines the order in which the actors are rendered with lower layers appearing below higher layers. The maximum layer that an actor can exist on is determined by the scene that it lives in. To change the layer that an actor appears on and to retrieve its current layer we use:

	void		setLayer(int layer)
	int		getLayer() const

Scene Visibility and Active State

You can query an actors visibility state and set its visibility state using:

	void		setVisible(bool visible)
	bool		isVisible() const

You can query an actors active state and set its active state using:

	void		setActive(bool active)
	bool		isActive() const

Note that when an actor is made inactive it will also become invisible. However making an actor invisible will not make it inactive.

Resetting Actors

Because actors can be part of an object pooling system and may not get re-initialised when re-used, we provide the functionality to reset them to a default state. This allows developers to re-use objects and not worry about the previous state of the object. Just remember to call the underlying CIwGameActor::Reset() method from your own Reset() method to ensure that the actor is completely reset.

Collision Checking

Right now IwGame does not carry out collision checks for you, instead it calls back each actor in the scene after the scene has been updated to give each possible colliding object a chance to check and respond to collisions. To take advantage of this functionality you need to implement the following handler in your derived actor class:

	virtual void	ResolveCollisions() = 0;

A basic actor to actor collision method is included in CIwGameActor to allow actors to test for overlap based on the size set by setCollisionRect();

When a collision does take place, actors can notify each other by calling:

	virtual void	NotifyCollision(CIwGameActor* other) = 0;

Here’s a quick example showing how to use the system:

void ActorPlayer::ResolveCollisions()
{
	// Walk the scenes actors
	for (CIwGameScene::_Iterator it = Scene->begin(); it != Scene->end(); ++it)
	{
		// Only test collision against ball type actors
		if ((*it)->getType() == ActorType_Ball)
		{
			// Check for physical collision
			if (CheckCollision(*it))
			{
				// Notify ourselves that we collided with ball actor
				NotifyCollision(*it);
				// Notify ball actor that we collided with it
				(*it)->NotifyCollision(this);
			}
		}
	}
}
Note that if you are using integrated Box2D then you safely bypass this collision check system.

Creating an Actor from XOML

Actors can be created declaratively using XOML mark-up, making actor creation much easier and more intuitive. Below shows an example of an actor declared using XOML:

        <MyActor Name="Player1" Position="0, 0" Size="100, 100" Angle="45" SrcRect="0, 0, 36, 40" Image="Sprites" Timeline="Player1Intro2" />

The basic actor tag supports many different attributes that determine how an actor is created and how it behaves. A description of these tags are listed below:

  • Name – Name of the scene (string)
  • Style – Style that should be applied to this actor. If a properties that exists in the style is added to the definition then it replaces the property found in the style
  • Type – A numerical type that can be used to identify the type of this actor (integer)
  • Position– Position in the scene (x, y 2d vector)
  • Origin– Origin in the scene, moves the point around which the actor will rotate and scale (x, y 2d vector)
  • Depth – Depth of the actor in 3D (float – larger values move the sprite further away)
  • Velocity – Initial velocity of the actor (x, y 2d vector)
  • VelocityDamping – The amount to dampen velocity each frame (x, y 2d vector)
  • Angle – The orientation of the actor (float)
  • AngularVelocity – The rate at which the orientation of the actor changes (float)
  • AngularVelocityDamping – The amount of rotational velocity damping to apply each frame (float)
  • Scale, ScaleX, ScaleY – The scale of the actor (float)
  • Colour – The initial colour of the actor (r, g, b, a colour)
  • Layer – The scenes visible layer that the actor should appear on (integer)
  • Active – Initial actor active state (boolean)
  • Visible – Initial actor visible state (boolean)
  • HitTest – If true then this actor will receive touch events
  • Collidable – Collidable state of actor (boolean)
  • CollisionSize – The circular size of the actor (float)
  • CollisionRect – The rectangular collision area that the actor covers (x, y, w, h rect)
  • WrapPosition – If true then the actor will wrap at the edges of the canvas (boolean)
  • Timeline – The time line that should be used to animate the actor
  • Box2dMaterial – Sets the physical material type used by the Box2D actor
  • Shape – Box2D fixture shape for the Box2D actor
  • COM – Centre of mass of Box2D body (x, y 2d vector)
  • Sensor – Can be used to set the Box2D actor as a sensor (boolean)
  • CollisionFlags – The Box2D body collision flags (category, mask and group)
  • OnTapped – Tapped event handler
  • OnBeginTouch – Event handler that specifies an actions list to call when the user begins to touch the actor
  • OnEndTouch – Event handler that specifies an actions list to call when the user stops to touching the actor
  • OnTapped – Event handler that specifies an actions list to call when the user taps the actor
  • OnCreate – Event handler that specifies an actions list to call when this actor is created
  • OnDestroy – Event handler that specifies an actions list to call when this actor is destroyed
  • LinkedTo – Name of actor that this actor links to (string)

For actors that are derived from CIwGameActorImage we have the following additional properties:

  • Image – The image that is to be used as the actors visual (string)
  • Size – The on screen visible size of the actor (x, y 2d vector)
  • SrcRect – The position and source of the source rectangle in the image atlas (x, y, w, h rect). Used for panning the portion of a sprite atlas shown allowing frame based animation.
  • FlipX – Horizontal flipped state (boolean)
  • FlipY – Vertical flipped state (boolean)

For actors that are derived from CIwGameActorText we have the following additional properties:

  • Font – Name of font to use to draw the text (string)
  • Rect – The area thuat the text should be drawn inside of (x, y, w, h rect)
  • Text – String to display (string)
  • AlignH – Horizontal alignment (centre, left and right)
  • AlignV – Verticalalignment (middle, top and bottom)
  • Wrap – If true then text is wrapped onto next line if to long (boolean)

Note that unlike scenes you cannot create an Actor or ActorImage directly as their corresponding CIwGameActor and CIwGameActorImage classes are abstract, so you must derive your own actor class. More on this later.

In addition, actors must be declared inside a scene tag element as they must have a parent scene and cannot be declared as resources.

Animating Actor Components

Actors allow an animation time line to be attached to them that animates various properties of the actor. The following properties are currently supported:

  • Position – Actors current position
  • Depth – Actors 3D depth
  • Origin – Actors transform origin
  • Velocity – Actors current velocity
  • Angle – Actors current angle
  • AngularVelocity – Actors current angular velocity
  • Scale, ScaleX, ScaleY – Actors current scale
  • Colour / Color – Scenes current colour
  • Layer – Actors current visible layer
  • Visible – Actors current visible state
  • HitTest – Determines if the actor can be tapped
  • Timeline – The currently playing timeline

For actors that are derived from CIwGameActorImage we have the following additional properties:

  • SrcRect – Actors currebt bitmapped visual source rectangle
  • Size – Actors visible size on screen

Any of these properties can be set as an animation target

Creating a Custom Actor

Whilst CIwGameScene can be instantiated and used as-is, CIwGameActor and CIwGameActorImage are abstract and cannot. The actor system is designed this way as the developer is meant to create their own custom actor types that provide bespoke functionality that is specific to their game.

You begin the creation of a custom actor by deriving your own actor class from either CIwGameActor or CIwGameActorImage then overloading the following methods to provide implementation:

	virtual void		Init();
	virtual bool		Update(float dt);
	virtual bool		UpdateVisual();
	virtual void		ResolveCollisions() = 0;
	virtual void		NotifyCollision(CIwGameActor* other) = 0;

Here’s a quick example:

class MyActor : public CIwGameActor
{
public:
	MyActor() : CIwGameActor() {}
	~MyActor() {}

	void		Init()
	{
		CIwGameActor::Init();
	}

	bool		Update(float dt)
	{
		if (!CIwGameActor::Update(dt))
			return false;

		// Here we put our actor specific implementation

		return true;
	}

	bool		UpdateVisual()
	{
		if (!CIwGameActor::UpdateVisual())
			return false;

		// Here we put our actor specific rendering code (if any is needed)

		return true;
	}

	void		ResolveCollisions() {}
	void		NotifyCollision(CIwGameActor* other) {}
};

We have provided a very basic implementation of Init(), Update() and UpdateVisual() which call the base CIwGameActor class methods so we keep its functionality in-tact.

We also provide a none functional implementation of ResolveCollisions() and NotifyCollision() as these are required methods

You can take the implementation one step further by implementing both the IIwGameXomlResource and IIwGameAnimTarget interfaces to allow instantiation of your custom actor class from XOML and to allow your class to be a target for animation time lines.

Firstly lets take a look at XOML enabling your custom actor class. To get IwGame to recognise your class whilst parsing XOML files you need to do a few things:

  • Derive your class from IIwGameXomlResource and implement the LoadFromXoml method
  • Create a class creator that creates an instance of your class then add this to the XOML engine

Lets start by taking a look at step 1.

Because we have derived our class from CIwGameActor we already have the support for step 1. However we would like to insert our own custom attribute tags so we need to make a few changes.

Lets take a look at our new class with thiose changes:

class MyActor : public CIwGameActor
{
public:
	// Properties
protected:
	int		NumberOfEyes;
public:
	void		setNumberOfEyes(int num_eyes)	{ NumberOfEyes = num_eyes; }
	float		getNumberOfEyes() const		{ return NumberOfEyes; }
	// Properties End
public:
	MyActor() : CIwGameActor() {}
	~MyActor() {}

	void		Init()
	{
		CIwGameActor::Init();
	}

	bool		Update(float dt)
	{
		if (!CIwGameActor::Update(dt))
			return false;

		// Here we put our actor specific implementation

		return true;
	}

	bool		UpdateVisual()
	{
		if (!CIwGameActor::UpdateVisual())
			return false;

		// Here we put our actor specific rendering code (if any is needed)

		return true;
	}

	void		ResolveCollisions() {}
	void		NotifyCollision(CIwGameActor* other) {}

	// Implementation of IIwGameXomlResource interface
	bool		LoadFromXoml(IIwGameXomlResource* parent, bool load_children, CIwGameXmlNode* node)
	{
		if (!CIwGameActor::LoadFromXoml(parent, load_children, node))
			return false;

		// Add our own custom attribute parsing
		for (CIwGameXmlNode::_AttribIterator it = node->attribs_begin(); it != node->attribs_end(); it++)
		{
			unsigned int name_hash = (*it)->getName().getHash();

			if (name_hash == CIwGameString::CalculateHash("NumberOfEyes"))
			{
				setNumberOfEyes((*it)->GetValueAsInt());
			}
		}

		return true;
	}
};

Our new class now basically supports a new NumberOfEyes attribute that we will eventually be able to set in XOML using something like:

    <MyActor Name="AlienCritter" Position="100, 100" Size="100, 100" NumberOfYes="3" />

However, before we can do that we need to let the XOML system know about our new type of class (MyActor), so it can be instantiated when the XOML parser comes across it. To do this we need to create a XOML class creator:

class MyActorCreator : public IIwGameXomlClassCreator
{
public:
	MyActorCreator()
	{
		setClassName("MyActor");
	}
	IIwGameXomlResource* CreateInstance(IIwGameXomlResource* parent) { return new MyActor();	}
};

The creator basically defines the tag name “MyActor” and returns an instance of the MyActor class when CreateInstance() is called.

To get the XOML system to recognise our new creator we need to add it to the XOML parsing system using:

	// Add custom MyActor to XOML system
	IW_GAME_XOML->addClass(new MyActorCreator());

Now XOML integration is out of the way, lets take a quick look at enabling our class as an animation target.

To enable a class as an animation target we derive it from IIwGameAnimTarget and implement the UpdateFromAnimation() method. Luckily we derived our MyActor class from the CIwGameActor class which already provides this functionality.

Lets take a quick look at how we extend the animation update method to account for animating our NumberOfEyes variable.

	bool	UpdateFromAnimation(CIwGameAnimInstance *animation)
	{
		if (CIwGameActor::UpdateFromAnimation(animation))
			return true;

		// Add our own custom animating property
		unsigned int element_name = animation->getTargetPropertyHash();

		if (element_name == CIwGameString::CalculateHash("NumberOfEyes"))
		{
			CIwGameAnimFrameFloat* frame = (CIwGameAnimFrameFloat*)animation->getCurrentData();
			setNumberOfEyes((int)frame->data);
			return true;
		}

		return false;
	}

We added the above code to our MyActor class definition. We begin by calling the base UpdateFromAnimation() method so we can keep the existing animation properties of the actor. We then add our own custom check for the NumberOfEyes variable. If the animation property matches NumberOfEyes then we set the number of eyes to the provided interpolated value.

 

 

IwGame Engine Tutorial – Scenes

CIwGameScene Object – A Place for Actors to Play

Introduction

Its easier to think about game development if we think in terms of the movie business, we all watch movies and programmes on the TV which makes it easy to relate to.

A movie usually consists of a number of scenes that contains the environment, actors and cameras. At the moment, IwGame only supports actors and cameras (environments may be added at a later date).

A CIwGameScene is responsible for the following functionality:

  • Setup and handling of the virtual canvas
  • Managing, updating and cleaning up actors
  • Managing, updating, rendering and cleaning up sprites
  • Managing and clean up of animation data
  • Managing and clean up of animation timelines
  • Managing and clean up of Marmalade resource groups
  • Managing and clean up of images
  • Managing and clean up of physics materials and shapes
  • Clipping sprites against the scenes visible extents
  • Updating the camera
  • Tracking actors that can potentially collide
  • Transitions between scenes
  • Updating the scenes animation timeline
  • Instantiating itself from XOML
  • Managing and clean up of XOML variables
  • Updating physics

Its also worth a major note at this point that any actors that live inside a scene will be transformed by the same transform as the scene, so if you move, scale or spin the scene then the contained actors will also move, scale and spin with it. The same can also be said about the base colour of the scene

Creating a Scene

Creating a scene is very simple, as the following code shows:

	CIwGameScene* game_scene = new CIwGameScene();
	game_scene->Init();
	game_scene->setName("GameScene");
	game_scene->setVirtualTransform(VIRTUAL_SCREEN_WIDTH, VIRTUAL_SCREEN_HEIGHT, 0, true, false);
	changeScene(game_scene);

In the above code snippet we allocate a new CIwGameScene object and called its Init() method to set up scene internals. We give the scene a name so we can find it later then set the virtual transform (see next section for explanation of the virtual canvas). Finally we ask the game to change the current scene to our newly created scene (CIwGame::ChangeScene())

You can create as many scenes as you like and add them to the game, just remember only one can be the active scene, but all visible scenes will be rendered.

I would like to add some additional information regarding CIwGameScene::Init(), its prototype looks like this:

int	Init(int max_collidables = 128, int max_layers = 10);

As you can see, the method actually takes two parameters (defaults are applied so you can go with the defaults if you like). The two additional parameters are defined as:

  • max_collidables – This the maximum size of the collidable objects list and should be as large as the maximum number of objects that can possibly collide in your scene. For example, if you have 100 objects that are marked as collidable then you can set this value to 100
  • max_layers – Scenes support object layering, the default number of layers is set to 10, but you can change this value here

If you would like to prevent the internal Box2D physics engine update then set the scenes WorldScale to 0:

	game_scene->getBox2dWorld()->setWorldScale(0, 0);

This stops the internal Box2D physics update. It can be re-enabled by changing WorldScale to a valid value.

Virtual Canvas

Targeting a large selection of different phones, tablets and other devices with a variety of screen sizes and aspect ratios is a bit of a nightmare when it comes to game development. Luckily the CIwGameScene class takes care of this for us. A scene is quite a clever object in that it can render itself to any sized / configuration display using the virtual canvas concept. A virtual canvas is basically our own ideal screen size that we want to render to. The scene will scale and translate int visuals to fit our canvas onto the devices display allowing us to get on with developing our game using a static resolution. Lets take a look at the prototype for setting a scenes virtual canvas:

	void	CIwGameScene::setVirtualTransform(int required_width, int required_height, float angle, bool fix_aspect = false, bool lock_width = false);

And an explanation of its parameters:

  • required_width – The width of the virtual canvas
  • required_height – The height of the virtual canvas
  • angle – Angle of the virtual canvas
  • fix_aspect – Forces the rendered canvas to lock to the devices aspect ratio (you may see letter boxing or clipping)
  • lock_width –Calculates scale based on screen_width / required_width if set true, otherwise scale based on screen_height / required_height.
  • 3.4 Scene Object Management
  • When it comes to coding I am quite bone idle and hate having to track things such as allocating actors, images / memory for animations etc,. I want something that will let me allocate these types of objects, assign them then forget about them. CIwGameScene contains a SpriteManager, and a ResourceManager (will cover these in detail later) that takes care of the things that I don’t want bothering with during development. In addition, if I remove a scene from the game CIwGameScene will clean the lot up for me when it gets destroyed.

This automated clean-up does come at a very small price however, if you want to add a resource group to the scene then you will need to do that through the scene itself. Here’s an example:

	// Create and load a resource group
	CIwGameResourceGroup* level1_group = new CIwGameResourceGroup();
	level1_group->setGroupName("Level1");
	level1_group->setGroupFilename("Level1.group");
	level1_group->Load();
	// Add the resource group to the scenes resource manager
	game_scene->getResourceManager()->addResource(level1_group);

As you can see we need a reference to the scene so that we can get to the resource manager. Not too painful, but thought it best to make you aware of this small caveat.

Scene Extents and Clipping

Scenes have an extents area that can be defined which defines the area in which actors can be, actors that are outside of the scenes extents are wrapped around to the other side of the scene. This behaviour can be enabled / disabled on a per actor basis. You can set the scenes extents by calling:

	void CIwGameScene::setExtents(int x, int y, int w, int h);

Scenes also allow you to define a visible clipping area, pixels from the scene that fall outside that area will not be drawn. You can set the clipping area of a scene by calling:

	void CIwGameScene::setClippingArea(int x, int y, int w, int h);

The default behaviour is for the clipping area to move with the scenes camera, but this can be disabled by enabling the scenes ClipStatic state. When ClipStatic is true, the scenes clipping rectangle will remain static on screen, whilst the contents move around inside the clipping area.

Scene Camera

A scene has a camera associated with it that allows the user to pan around the scene as well as rotate and scale the view. All actors within the scene will move / rotate and scale in relation to the camera. It is possible to switch cameras within a scene, although you will need to manage the lifetime of these cameras, the scene will only manage the currently attached camera (so do not delete it a camera if it is assigned to the scene. You can assign a camera to the scene using:

	void CIwGameScene::setCamera(CIwGameCamera* camera);

Potential Colliders and Collision Handling

As a scene processes actors it will build a list of references to all actors that are marked as possibly colliders, once all actors have been processed the scene will walk the list of potential colliders and call their ResolveCollisions() method to give each actor a chance to handle its own collisions. Note that the scene does NOT handle collision detection and response, actors themselves should take care of that.

Note that actors that have a physics material attached are under the control of the Box2D physics engine and collision is handled separately (more on this in the actors section)

 

Current Scene Concept

Because the game consists of multiple scenes and only one scene can have the focus at any one time we use the concept of the current scene. Whilst all scenes are visible (unless made hidden) and rendered they are not all processed. By default the only scene that is processed is the current scene. It is however possible to force a scene to be processed even when it does not have the focus by calling CIwGameScene::setAllowSuspend(false). This will prevent the scene from being suspended when another scene is made the current scene.

Scenes can exist in two states, suspended or operational (resumed). Suspending scenes are not processed but are still rendered. When a new scene is switched to using CIwGame::changeScene(CIwGameScene* new_scene) the old scene will be put into a suspended state and the new scene will be resumed. IwGame will notify you when either of these events occur via the following methods:

virtual void	NotifySuspending(CIwGameScene* new_scene)    // This event is called when this scene is being suspended
virtual void	NotifyResuming(CIwGameScene* old_scene)      // This event is called when this scene is being resumed
virtual void	NotifyLostFocus(CIwGameScene* new_scene)     // This event is called when this scene has just lost focus
virtual void	NotifyGainedFocus(CIwGameScene* old_scene)   // This event is called when this scene has just gained focus

In order to receive these events you should implement them in your derived scene class, e.g.:

void	MyGameScene::NotifySuspending(CIwGameScene* new_scene)
{
	// Add code to handle the scene being suspended
}

Note that you do not need to derive your own scene class from CIwGameScene as long as you are happy with the generic functionality that it ptovides, however you will not have access to the suspend / resume functionality as C style callbacks are not used in this instance.

You can tie into these events in XOML by implementing the OnSuspend /OnResume events, e.g.:

    <Scene Name="GameScene3" OnSuspend="SuspendActions">
        <Actions Name="SuspendActions">
            <Action Method="ChangeScene" Param1="GameScene2" />
            <Action Method="PlayTimeline" Param1="GameScene3Anim" />
            <Action Method="PlaySound" Param1="Explosion" />
        </Actions>
    </Scene>

When the scene is suspended, the actions set SuspendedActions will be executed.

Actor Management

The main reason that scenes exist is to facilitate actors. Once an actor is created and added to a scene the scene handles their update, rendering and clean up. CIwGameScene contains the following methods for adding, removing and searching for actors within a scene:

void				addActor(CIwGameActor *actor);
void				removeActor(CIwGameActor* actor);
void				removeActor(unsigned int name_hash);
CIwGameActor*			findActor(const char* name);
CIwGameActor*			findActor(unsigned int name_hash);
CIwGameActor*			findActor(int type);
void				clearActors();

 

Scene Naming and Finding Scenes

IwGame is designed to prevent what I like to call “unreliable references”. To me an unreliable reference is a reference to an another object that can disappear at any moment without the object that references it knowing about it, this can lead to some pretty nasty bugs that are incredibly difficult to track down. So instead of simply keeping a reference to an object we keep a name.

IwGame uses object naming quite extensively for major system such as actors and scenes. The idea is that if we want to speak to a scene from somewhere outside that scenes instance we simply find it by name using CIwGame::findScene(). Once found we can grab a pointer to it and access it. The wonderful thing about this system is that if the scene has disappeared when we call findScene() a NULL pointer will be returned signifying that it no longer exists, allowing our calling code to determine what to do about it (as opposed to simply crashing or doing something even worse such as writing all over memory that its not supposed to).

The naming system does add a little overhead to our game but not a great deal as searches are done using string hashes instead of string comparisons. The tiny overhead is definitely worth the buckets of tears that you can potentially save from days of tracking down hard to find bugs.

 

Scene Layers

Actors within a scene can be depth sorted using layers. Each actor has its own layer number which decides where it will appear within the scenes depth tree. Actors on higher layers will appear over actors on lower layers. Actors on the same layer will be drawn in the order in which they were added to the layer, so later actors will be drawn on top of earlier added actors.

Note that the layering system is not strictly part of the scene engine, instead it is handled by the sprite manager contained within a scene, but for the purpose of easy access is accessible through the scene.

 

Scene Origin

A scenes origin is set at 0, 0, which is the centre of the virtual canvas (usually centre of screen) for the default transform.

 

Scene Visibility and Active State

Scenes can be made visible or invisible by calling CIwGameScene::setVisible(). You can also query the visibility of a scene using CIwGameScene::isVisible(). When a scene is invisible it is not rendered.

Scenes can also be made active or inactive by calling CIwGameScene::setActive(). You can also query the active state of a scene by calling CIwGameScene::isActive(). When a scene is active it is processed.

Note that a scenes active and visibility states are independent, an inactive scene will still be rendered and an invisible scene that is active will still be processed.

 

Scene Transitions

Scene transitions are taken care of by the timeline system. A quick scroll scene transition is shown below:

    <Animation Name="SceneTransition1" Type="vec2" Duration="2" >
        <Frame Value="0, 0"    Time="0.0" />
        <Frame Value="480, 0"  Time="2.0" />
    </Animation>

    <Scene Name="GameScene" …..... OnSuspend="SuspendActions">
        <Actions Name="SuspendActions">
            <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="SceneTransition1" />
        </Actions>
        <Timeline Name="SceneTransition1" AutoPlay="true">
            <Animation Anim="SceneTransition1" Target="Position" Repeat="1" StartAtTime="0"/>
        </Timeline>
    </Scene>

In the above XOML we create a scene and attach the SuspendActions collection to the OnSuspend scene event. Note that the timeline was defined inside the scene because it is not requested until some actor actually suspends the scene. Here’s an example showing an actor that raises the scene suspended event when it is tapped:

    <TestActor Name="Player4" ...... OnTapped="SuspendScene3">
        <Actions Name="SuspendScene3">
           <Action Method="SuspendScene" Param1="GameScene3" />
        </Actions>
    </TestActor>

 

Creating a Scene from XOML

Scenes can be created declaratively using XOML mark-up, making scene creation much easier and more readable. Below shows an example of a scene declared using XOML:

    <Scene Name="GameScene" CanvasSize="320, 480" FixAspect="true" LockWidth="false" Colour="0, 0, 255, 255" AllowSuspend="false">
    </Scene>

The scene tag supports many different attributes that determine how a scene is created and how it behaves. A description of these tags are listed below:

  • Name – Name of the scene (string)
  • Type – Type of scene (integer)
  • CanvasSize – The virtual canvas size of the screen (x, y 2d vector)
  • FixAspect – Forces virtual canvas aspect ratio to be fixed (boolean)
  • LockWidth – Forces virtual canvas to lock to with if true, height if false (boolean)
  • Extents – A rectangular area that describes the extents of the scenes world (x, y, w, h rect)
  • AllowSuspend – Determines if the scene can be suspended when other scenes are activated (boolean)
  • Clipping – A rectangular area that represents the visible area of the scene (x, y, w, h rect)
  • Active – Initial scene active state (boolean)
  • Visible – Initial scene visible state (boolean)
  • Layers – The number of visible layers that the scene should use (integer)
  • Layer – The visual layer that this scene should be rendered on (integer)
  • Colliders – The maximum number of colliders that the scene should support (integer)
  • Current – If true then the scene is made the current scene (boolean)
  • Colour / Color – The initial colour of the scene (r, g, b, a colour)
  • Timeline – The time line that should be used to animate the scene
  • Camera – Current camera
  • OnSuspend – Provides an actions group that is called when the scene is suspended
  • OnResume – Provides an actions group that is called when the scene is resumed
  • OnCreate – Provides an actions group that is called when the scene is created
  • OnDestroy – Provides an actions group that is called when the scene is destroyed
  • OnKeyBack – Provides an actions group that is called when the user presses the back key
  • OnKeyMenu – Provides an actions group that is called when the user presses the menu key
  • Gravity – Box2D directional world gravity (x, y 2d vector)
  • WorldScale – Box2D world scale (x, y 2d vector)
  • Batch – Tells the system to batch sprites for optimised rendering (boolean)
  • AllowFocus – If set to true then this scene will receive input focus events that the current scene would usually receive exclusively. This is useful if you have a HUD overlay that has functionality but it cannot be the current scene as the game scene is currently the current scene1Anim
  • DoSleep – If set to true then actors that utilise physics will eb allowed to sleep when they are not moving / interacting

 

Animating Scene Components

Scenes allow an animation time line to be attached to them that animates various properties of the scene. The following properties are currently supported:

  • Camera Position – Cameras current position
  • Camera Angle– Cameras current angle
  • Camera Scale– Cameras current scale
  • Colour – Scenes current colour
  • Clipping – Scenes current clipping extents
  • Visible – Scenes current visible state
  • Timeline – The currently playing timeline
  • Camera – change current camera

Any of these properties can be set as an animation target

 

Creating a Custom Scene

Whilst CIwGameScene can suffice for most tasks, you may find that you need to create your own type of scene that has functionality specific to your game or app. You begin the creation of a custom scene by deriving your own scene class from CIwGameScene then overloading the following methods to provide implementation:

	virtual int	Init(int max_collidables = 128, int max_layers = 10);
	virtual void	Update(float dt);
	virtual void	Draw();

Here’s a quick example:

class MyGameScene : public CIwGameScene
{
public:
	MyGameScene() : CIwGameScene() {}
	virtual ~MyGameScene();

	virtual int		Init(int max_collidables = 128, int max_layers = 10)
	{
		CIwGameScene::Init(max_collidables, max_layers);
	}
	virtual void	Update(float dt)
	{
		CIwGameScene::Update(dt);
	}
	virtual void	Draw()
	{
		CIwGameScene::Draw();
	}
};

We have provided a very basic implementation of Init(), Update() and Draw() which call the base CIwGameScene class methods so we keep its functionality in-tact.

You can take the implementation one step further (or maybe two) by implementing both the IIwGameXomlResource and IIwGameAnimTarget interfaces to allow instantiation of your custom class from XOML and to allow your class to be a target for animation time lines.

Firstly lets take a look at XOML enabling your custom scene class. To get IwGame to recognise your class whilst parsing XOML files you need to do a few things:

Derive your class from IiwGameXomlResource and implement the LoadFromXoml method
Create a class creator that creates an instance of your class then add this to the XOML engine

Lets start by taking a look at step 1.

Because we have derived our class from CIwGameScene we already have the support for step 1. However we would like to insert our own custom attribute tags so we need to make a few changes.

Lets take a look at our new class with those changes:

class MyGameScene : public CIwGameScene
{
public:
	// Properties
protected:
	float		Gravity;
public:
	void		setGravity(float gravity)	{ Gravity = gravity; }
	float		getGravity() const		{ return Gravity; }
	// Properties End
public:
	MyGameScene() : CIwGameScene(), Gravity(10.0f) {}
	virtual ~MyGameScene();

	virtual int		Init(int max_collidables = 128, int max_layers = 10)
	{
		CIwGameScene::Init(max_collidables, max_layers);
	}
	virtual void	Update(float dt)
	{
		CIwGameScene::Update(dt);
	}
	virtual void	Draw()
	{
		CIwGameScene::Draw();
	}

	// Implementation of IIwGameXomlResource interface
	bool	LoadFromXoml(IIwGameXomlResource* parent, bool load_children, CIwGameXmlNode* node)
	{
		if (!CIwGameScene::LoadFromXoml(parent, load_children, node))
			return false;

		// Add our own custom attribute parsing
		for (CIwGameXmlNode::_AttribIterator it = node->attribs_begin(); it != node->attribs_end(); it++)
		{
			unsigned int name_hash = (*it)->getName().getHash();

			if (name_hash == CIwGameString::CalculateHash("Gravity"))
			{
				setGravity((*it)->GetValueAsFloat());
			}
		}

		return true;
	}
};

Our new class now basically supports a Gravity attribute that we will eventually be able to set in XOML using something like:

    <MyGameScene Name="GameScene" Gravity="9.8">
    </MyGameScene>

However, before we can do that we need to let the XOML system know about our new type of class (MyGameScene), so it can be instantiated when the XOM parser comes across it. To do this we need to create a creator:

class MyGameSceneCreator : public IIwGameXomlClassCreator
{
public:
	MyGameSceneCreator()
	{
		setClassName("MyGameScene");
	}
	IIwGameXomlResource* CreateInstance(IIwGameXomlResource* parent) { return new MyGameScene(); }
};

The creator basically defines the tag name “MyGameScene” and returns an instance of the MyGameScene class when CreateInstance() is called.

To get the XOML system to recognise our creator we need to add it to the XOML parsing system using:

	// Add custom MyGameScene to XOML system
	IW_GAME_XOML->addClass(new MyGameSceneCreator());

Now XOML integration is out of the way, lets take a quick look at enabling our class as an animation target.

To enable a class as an animation target we derive it from IIwGameAnimTarget and implement the UpdateFromAnimation() method. Luckily we derived our MyGameScene class from the CIwGameScene class which already provides this functionality. Lets take a quick look at how we extend the animation update method to account for animating our gravity variable.

	bool	UpdateFromAnimation(CIwGameAnimInstance *animation)
	{
		if (CIwGameScene::UpdateFromAnimation(animation))
			return true;

		// Add our own custom animating property
		unsigned int element_name = animation->getTargetPropertyHash();

		if (element_name == CIwGameString::CalculateHash("Gravity"))
		{
			CIwGameAnimFrameFloat* frame = (CIwGameAnimFrameFloat*)animation->getCurrentData();
			setGravity(frame->data);
			return true;
		}

		return false;
	}

We added the above code to our MyGameScene class definition. We begin by calling the base UpdateFromAnimation() method so we can keep the existing animation properties of the scene. We then add our own custom check for the Gravity variable. If the animation property matches Gravity then we set the gravity to the provided interpolated value.

 

Creating Custom Actions

XOML’s event / action system is very powerful, allowing you to tie certain events to collections of actions without writing any code. Lets take a quick look at an example:

        <!-- Create back button -->
        <InertActor Name="Back" Position="-120, 10" Size="200, 90" SrcRect="600, 333, 200, 90" Image="sprites2" OnTapped="BackAction" OnBeginTouch="BackBeginTouch" OnEndTouch="BackEndTouch">
            <Actions Name="BackAction">
                <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="fly_out_back" Param2="PauseMenu" />
            </Actions>
            <Actions Name="BackBeginTouch">
                <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="buttonin_anim1" />
                <Action Method="PlaySound" Param1="ui_tap" />
            </Actions>
            <Actions Name="BackEndTouch">
                <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="buttonout_anim1" />
            </Actions>
        </InertActor>

In the above XOML our actor handles the events OnEndTouch, OnTapped and OnBeginTouch. Each of these events calls an actions list when the event occurs on that object. Below the actor definition we have three action lists defined that correspond to the actions that are specified in our events:

            <Actions Name="BackAction">
                <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="fly_out_back" Param2="PauseMenu" />
            </Actions>

            <Actions Name="BackBeginTouch">
                <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="buttonin_anim1" />
                <Action Method="PlaySound" Param1="ui_tap" />
            </Actions>

            <Actions Name="BackEndTouch">
                <Action Method="SetTimeline" Param1="buttonout_anim1" />
            </Actions>

The first action collection “BackAction” is called when a user performs a tap action on “Back” actor. This collection contains a single action which contains a method called “SetTimeline” and two parameters “fly_out_back” and “PauseMenu”.

This action actually changes the time line of the PauseMenu object to the fly_out_back animation time line (defined elsewhere in XOML). However, how does the system know how to do this and more importantly how do we define our own actions that we can call from XOML events?

Well firstly it depends on where the action is being called as certain object types have their own list of actions. In addition, there is also a global list of actions carried by the global resource manager.

Here we will take a look at adding our own custom action to the global resource manager.

The first thing we need to do is derive a class from IIwGameXomlAction and implement the Execute() method like this:

class CustomXomlAction_Global : public IIwGameXomlAction
{
public:
	CustomXomlAction_Global() {}
	{
		// Set out action name
		setActionName("customaction1");
	}
	void Execute(IIwGameXomlResource* source, CIwGameAction* action)
	{
		CIwGame* game = NULL;
		CIwGameScene* scene = NULL;
		CIwGameActor* actor = NULL;

		// Determine the scene, game and possibly actor that called the action
		if (source->getClassTypeHash() == CIwGameXomlNames::Scene_Hash)
		{
			scene = (CIwGameScene*)source;
			game = scene->getParent();
		}
		else
		if (source->getClassTypeHash() == CIwGameXomlNames::Actor_Hash)
		{
			actor = (CIwGameActor*)source;
			scene = actor->getScene();
			game = scene->getParent();
		}

		// TODO: Do something with the action here (Param1 and Param2 contain parameters

	}
};

Now that we have an action object we need to tell the XOML system that its available using:

IW_GAME_XOML->addAction(new CustomXomlAction_Global());

We would place this call somewhere in our main boot up so it gets called before any XOML parsing that contains this action begins.

Now lets take a look at a bit of XOML that shows the use of our new action:

    <Actions Name="BackAction">
        <Action Method="CustomeAction1" Param1="Hello World!" Param2="Im an action!" />
    </Actions>

 

Augmenting Scenes

A scene once declared in XOML can later be updated / augmented with additional XOML code elsewhere. For example, lets say that you declare some common scene that contai9ns a basic background and some other elements that are common across a number of screens. You can later load the scene and then augment it by declaring the scene again then supplying the additional elements inside the newly declared scene:

    <Scene Name="CommonScene" ............ >
        <Original_Element1 />
        <Original_Element2 />
        <Original_Element3 />
    </Scene>

Now declare a 2nd scene with the same name:

    <Scene Name="CommonScene">
        <Extra_Element1 />
        <Extra_Element2 />
        <Extra_Element3 />
    </Scene>

In memory the scene now looks like this:

    <Scene Name="CommonScene" ............ >
        <Original_Element1 />
        <Original_Element2 />
        <Original_Element3 />
        <Extra_Element1 />
        <Extra_Element2 />
        <Extra_Element3 />
    </Scene>