Blue Dino Code

SDL 1.3 Community Builds

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:14:28 GMT

Hey, I'm setting up a page to make it easier to check out SDL 1.3 and contribute your own build. Come on in!

Meissner Effect

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 03:20:46 GMT

I just think this is cool. This is an image of a Meissner Effect demonstration for a lab that I did recently. The effect lets you easily levitate a magnet above a superconductor. That is, if you call attaining temperatures of 80 Kelvin easy (which technically it is - liquid nitrogen boils at 77 K - you just don't see it every day).

What, why, how Linux?

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:47:16 GMT

A new section is open. It's all about Linux: What it is, why you'd want it, how to get started, and more!

NFont v2.0.0

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:16:42 GMT

NFont: v2.0.0
NFont has been upgraded! Check out the NFont page for details.

Getting Over the Hump

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:47:00 GMT

Getting Over the Hump:
Here's an article about what to try when you're just plain stuck on a problem or you've run out of motivation.

Blue Dino Code + SDLTutorials.com = Awesome!

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:17:33 GMT

Blue Dino Code + SDLTutorials.com = Awesome!:
Blue Dino Code and SDLTutorials.com are teaming up! You can now find a forum to discuss the games, libraries, and tutorials on this site. There's also a forum link on the left panel. I might not update all of the pages until the Blue Dino Code site itself moves to the new format I have planned (more dynamic, for sure). Be sure to take a tour of SDLTutorials.com if you haven't been there before! There's a lot of good stuff for beginners to either C++ or SDL.

Pile, A Build Tool

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:51:04 GMT

Pile:
Pile needs you! Are you tired of the mess of Makefile syntax, portability issues, Make in general or have no clue what I'm talking about? Then check out Pile, a cross-platform, intuitive build system currently in development.

goodio v1.1

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:28:22 GMT

C++: goodio
goodio has been updated to v1.1! I added a FileReader class that makes all your problems with ifstream go away (output will come eventually), as well as ioExplode() for help with parsing certain things, and little improvements like changing things such as ioStripDir to ioStripToDir (to make what it does clearer). I also found a way to get the program's executable path in Linux, so I've replaced the ugly argv stuff with that and the equivalent code for Windows. So now you can use ioGetProgramPath() with ioSetCWD() to make sure that your relative file names work even if your program is called from a weird place (like /usr/bin). Comments? Suggestions? Let me know!

MixBox - Easy C++ Audio!

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:57:01 GMT

With Knight of the Cave Dragon, I finally added sound to a Ludum Dare game. I was really surprised by how easy it was, so I've polished the library that I used. Here's the first official release of MixBox, a C++ library that wraps and extends SDL_mixer. You can download it from the SDL page and read the quick usage guide to get more details and to get started.

Knight of the Cave Dragon

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:03:08 GMT

Ludum Dare 15 is over! That makes another game on this site. In "Knight of the Cave Dragon", you play Sir Camus, a knight on a quest to slay a dragon. If that's not original enough, then consider this: The dragon lives in a cave! Anyhow, it has some fun elements having to do with light and darkness. No full page yet, so you can grab the LD version as linked from the LD page, or get the latest version here.

A game event library

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:28:21 GMT

When I was writing Frank the Dinosaur, I ran into a question: How should I handle game events? Of course, since I was on a bit of a time crunch, I just did it the naive way. I checked each condition once every frame. I knew this was a bad way, since some events were time-based and hence would not be triggered out of order. Yesterday, I wrote up the first bit of a library that will deal with this problem. JEL Event Library holds both time-based and action-based events. The action events are stored for quick access in a vector. The time events are stored in a sorted tree. In this way, many time conditions can be skipped altogether, meaning fewer checks and a more efficient system. Borrowing from the GRO_gui codebase, JEL events trigger Signals, which are typesafe wrappers for function pointers (i.e. events call the functions you give them). With Ludum Dare 15 starting this coming weekend, I've uploaded a partial implementation here. There are pieces missing, but the basic functionality is there. Future plans include a conditional system that automatically checks variables that you provide and triggers events as their conditions are met.

Two new projects?

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:10:14 GMT

As you can see, I've added a little board so that my current focus is clearer. Here you can see what I'm up to... It'll change again when the new site is ready. Well, it looks like two new (to you ;p ) projects are up there, too. NFont is getting a makeover and finally receiving texture fonts in OpenGL through FreeType. GRO_gui is a GUI (graphical user interface) library with a lot of neat ideas packed in. It has replaceable backends for graphics (SDL or OpenGL so far) and fonts (NFont). It's not quite ready for primetime, but here it is. gfxr is a project that will replace 'programmer art'. You can keep up with it on its Google Code project page.