I come from a Mac background. I developed games with Xcode and Objective-C frameworks.
Recently I moved to Windows and decided to use VB.NET for a while. It is cool.
Here is my intention:
I want to develop a Windows platform game. The game is rather complex, and I will need some kind of "engine" or "editor" to be able to edit my levels and properties easily. The idea is that I can build most of the game with this editor and then the editor will compile the project files and resources into one .exe file for gaming.
Fortunately, I was able to create my editor with VB.NET. I am able to edit levels and such. However, I am not sure about the "compilation" part to create a .exe file and play the game.
Basically I am at the point of designing the "Compile" button in my editor. But I am clueless. I could not find much documentation regarding this topic.
My editor has all variables and information the game needs to run.
I assume that this .exe file is like another VB.NET project (produced by my editor) that will basically take the data it comes with and "run" the game loop alright.
Any ideas, links, etc? Thanks.
**Note: my game is a 2d game with, probably, a vast amount of sprites and such.
Visual Studio is a fantastic IDE for development of Windows apps. Compiling the project is pretty simple. You just compile and it gives you an exe that's in the .NET Framework. Microsoft also has XNA Game Studio to help with game design if you want to look at gaming frameworks for .NET.
Also, you can take files from your editor if they generate vb.net and use the vbc compiler command to compile them into libraries, executables, whatever you like. The command could be something like this:
vbc /reference:Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll File.vb
Here's a link to the .NET command line compiler for VB.NET.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Are you saying that you have an editor (something like a level or map editor?) for your game, and that you want the output of this editor to be embedded into the exe for your actual game application when it compiles?
If that's the case (or something similar to it) then you'll first want to consider how to persist your data to file. Then you could manually add files you've created as embedded resources. Or better yet, create a file type that holds as many 'levels' or 'maps' as you need and embed that. This way as you create more they will just get added to that file and you won't have to keep adding more embedded resources.
Related
I have a few different projects that all get mixed and matched into different types of solutions.
For projects, I currently have
EngineProj: c++, built as a .lib
GameProj: c++, built as a .exe
EditorProj: c++/clr, built as a .exe
For solutions, I currently have
Game: c++, built with EngineProj and GameProj
Editor: c++/clr, built with EngineProj and EditorProj
This has worked great for games. I have been able to make a few different game solutions that keep reusing the shared EngineProj.
The Editor solution has EditorProj build a .exe with a WindowsForm object called EditorForm. This is used to edit generic game data that is common for all game solutions.
Now, though, I want to be able to do the same thing for my Editor that I do with my games. I want to be able to make game specific versions of the Editor that reuse as much project setup and code as possible. Here is what I am working towards.
For projects, I am planning
EngineProj: c++, built as a .lib
GameCoreProj: c++, built as a .lib
GameExeProj: c++, built as a .exe (a very thin and small project)
EditorCoreProj: c++/clr, built as a .lib
EditorGameExeProj: c++/clr, built as a .exe
For solutions, I am planning
Game: c++, built with EngineProj, GameCoreProj, and GameExeProj
GameEditor: c++/clr, built with EngineProj, GameCoreProj, EditorCoreProj, and EditorGameExeProj
I am having troubles getting my GameEditor solution to come together.
The idea is for EditorCoreProj to provide the same EditorForm that EditorProj did; only in a .lib instead. EditorGameExeProj would then build with GameCoreProj.lib and EditorCorProj.lib. EditorGameExeProj would support a new WindowsForm object that derives from EditorForm, but implements new features unique to the needs of GameCorProj.
Various forms of unresolved externals have been plaguing me for a couple days now.
It seems that my issues stem from the fact that EditorCoreProj is a c++/clr project.
I read many articles and tried many different approaches, but eventually I found some reading that suggested that making a .lib would never work. It sounds like c++/clr .libs are not supported.
So, then, I tried making EditorCoreProj build as a .dll. For hours, I tried to get EditorGameExeProj to import the .dll. I read that maybe I need to tag everything for export and import. That sounded like a lot of work, and so I started just making some test solutions. However, that continually resulted in unresolved externals, too.
I am pretty new to making a .dll; I have always preferred .libs. Maybe I am just encountering newb issues with .dlls. At this point though, I have spent a couple days trying to get this setup.
And so, finally, my question.
Am I headed in the right direction? Maybe there is something much easier I should be doing?
Thank you for your time
I ended up sticking to the plan, and got everything working. I don't know if there was a better route to take, but this does full-fill all of my needs.
Is it possible to change an exe application design, example the calculator in windows xp or windows 7, can i some how embed the calculator into visual studio vb.net and change its design only like put different graphics around it, it will still work same way just design change. thanks
You need the code to do that. Extracting the code from a executable application is complicated most of the times: Why can't we extract source code from executable file?
I'm writing a strategy game in XNA and VB.NET. This technology combination looked like quite a good choice, right until I decided I would like to switch to MonoGame (but keep my game logic in VB.Net intact).
The problem is that MonoGame currently does not support VB.Net. I did some research and it seems I have basically two options:
Rewrite my code to C#
Write a small C# wrapper around MonoGame and turn my Game Logic code into a library
Needless to say, both of these options suck. Am I missing another option here? I don't mind giving considerable effort into making this thing work in MonoGame, but rewriting just isn't an option.
My findings so far:
While browsing the web, I stumbled across a MonoGame template for VB.Net. While it looked to be just what i needed, it crashed upon loading even after running a plain new project. I then proceeded to google for the error, but got nowhere near running the thing.
To explain my technology choice (because someone will ask):
Why XNA? I used it before, I'm familiar with it and even though it's outdated, it suits my needs perfectly and should still work for a couple years.
Why VB.Net? I have huge experience with it and I prefer it's syntax over C#. This is important to me since I'm writing a rather large-scale strategy game and keeping the code clean and understandable is essential.
Why not C#? Experience. I worked with C# for a little over a year, but it ain't natural yet. VB is.
I found a solution. A failry painless way to make this work was the MonoGame template I mentioned earlier. There are several small issues with that approach, but nothing too problematic.
Issue #1: Error when starting MonoGame Project.
After running a new VB MonoGame template project, a nasty error is thrown upon startup (System.TypeLoadException in mscorlib.dll). This happened since the template reference an incorrect version of MonoGame library (I'm using windows and there was an android library linked to the project).
Solution: Remove the MonoGame reference from your new project, and use browse to add back the correct version.
Issue #2: Content project missing in MonoGame.
MonoGame does not have a Content Project, but rather a folder called 'Content', which honestly behaves just like the project. Just add all your content from the XNA content project to this folder and it works. Amazing!
What it failed to do however is loading sounds and fonts from uncompiled content files (e.g. myFont.spriteFont). For MonoGame content, sound and font files had to be replaced with their compiled version from the XNA project.
Plus there is one small nuisance - each content file must be marked as 'Copy always' or 'Copy if newer' (default 'Copy Never'). I didn't really find a way to change this for all of them at once, but it doesn't take that much time.
Issue #3: XNA project was automatically resolving imports.
XNA project had one 'Syntactic Sugar' advantage. I never realized it until i switched to mono, but I never saw a single line called 'imports' in my XNA project. I made massive use of this, having many small classes which consisted only of few lines and used a 'list' of 'Vector2', etc. After porting to MonoGame I had to go through several hundred compile errors due to missing imports.
I'm still wondering whether this was caused by the XNA project or some other config in Visual Studio itself, but I must say I liked it. If you know something about this, please do share.
Conclusion:
Looking back, the process of porting to MonoGame took me about a month to figure out - but when I finally had all the pieces, the entire process took about 4 hours for 100+ source file + 100+ content file project. I'd say the guys at MonoGame did a tremendous job, and so did the gentleman who modified the template to work with VB.Net.
Hi guys I'm starting the design of a new little game engine and I was assuming the game engine as a DLL and then build a project for the game that would use this DLL and output an EXE file.
But then I read about the latest ID Tech Game Engines and how they do it the other way around. (http://fabiensanglard.net/doom3/index.php)
It's not really explained why though. I have the feeling it has something to do with modding as only the Game (DLL in this case) was open to the public for quite some time while the Engine (EXE) was closed source.
But I would like to know if there are other reasons for this.
As fas as I know the DLL project should have all the reusable code. The normal project should be the application, which would reference the reusable DLL. This way you can build a framework in the DLL project that can be used for any of other future projects.
The other only reason I can think of is that AFAIK only the name of the DLL is recorded in the program file, no text or data so if the Game is potentially bigger than the Engine, it could make the executable size smaller.
[EDIT]
I have thought of another reason to have it this way: The Engine is an EXE so it could be that it could be used without a Game DLL? Like for tools such as CAD or scripting?
If you are using a library in an application e.g. a game, then you have an app with an EXE with zero or more of its own DLLs consuming a library with one or more DLLs.
If you have a generic environment loading elements that customize it's behavior, thus making it a specific game, then you have an environment with an EXE and zero or more DLLs which uses configuration to load various DLLs and configuration files to determine its behaviour.
Either easy, you should probably have more than two assemblies in your application.
E.g. one (the EXE) for loading the main config and modules and connecting them all, one for the main UI, one for the graphics, one for the physics, one for the AI and etc.
I am a javascript/html developer that hasn't ventured into visual studio much, so this might be a trivial question.
I am currently developing a Windows Store app (winJS), that will likely turn into several apps. And it would be highly likely that I will be reusing code, so I have made a js library with the common code.
The question is, how can I develop on this lib in visual studio, so that the apps that I am developing will use the latest version of it (i.e without me having to copy the files in again manually).
Best thing I can think of is, create a new project for the lib, and include it in the applications solutions, but what type of project would it have to be, and how to you expose the files?
Hope that makes sense!
Thanks!
I usually solve this by having the project copy the JS files I want to a common location, and add that file to the target project using a LINK to the file I want to include, rather than just adding it -- this is on the "Add Existing File" dialog, under the little arrow on the "Add" button.
VS 2012 doesn't have a JavaScript library project type. You'll have to manage your library as loose files.
The easiest thing would probably be to create a nuget package. That way it would be easy to pull into other projects and have the tool help keep you up to date. It does have the downside of needing to put your stuff into a nuget feed, which is not something you want for private stuff.