2010-12-02, 02:54 AM
(2010-11-26, 03:08 AM)dmpdesign link Wrote:Maybe we will get lucky and some folks like Madison/Darchangel/Asus etc will return with some progress on their games.
What about Mr. Johnny Park? If anyone knows how to get in touch with him, I think I'd like to use his Wicklow demo to setup an official Ex download which will be called Example. I was just going to do a skeleton with nothing playable, but I thought it might help some if people had something to play with, plus you could use it to experiment with different extensions right out of the box. That demo just seems nice and tight (and generic) enough to really do the trick.
I'm going to try to get Ex to a point where it can officially be called a 1.0 release. Right now I'm mopping up visual bugs that players would almost never find unless their hardware didn't meet the current Shader Model 2.0 requirement or they monkeyed with the Ex.ini file. I've put in all the work to support Shader Model 1.0 but I just can't get the so called legacy compiler to do anything. At some point anyway Microsoft decommissioned the 1.0 compiler, and now all 1.0 shaders get compiled as 2.0 by default, but that's worthless if you actually have 1.0 hardware. Anyway, unless I get a bite over in the Gamedev.net forums I've all but given up on that. I worry though if it ever does work the vs_1_x instruction limit might be a problem.
I think I wanna implement graphics in the fallback targets that are as close as possible to the quality graphics... and a maximize button on the window if possible. But I have a feeling this stuff will have to wait for a 1.1 release. If maximize works out it will just upscale the resolution in the options and do any dithering/tonemapping type effects over the final scaled up image. It will have to include the window decorations, but I will try to set it up so they get blacked out if the mouse is left in the game window for long enough. I'm also going to hold back on movie letterboxing/cropping until I hear from someone who needs it.
2.0 will come when I am able to fix as much as the tile/object disappearing stuff as possible. As for an official place to download the latest Ex builds, I'm going to have to setup a Subversion repository/browser for that which will include the latest source code as well.
I have everything perfected for Trismegistus. I'm just holding out so the SomEx.dll will be the official 1.0 one, and hopefully not require any 1.0.1 type fixes. The coolest part was working with the translation website (\<span> site blocked, contact your administrator/wp-print.php/ex/lang/Trismegistus/) I'd setup long ago so to get rid of all the text irrelevant to Tom's changes. I'd forgotten just how clever that site is
