Wish Games Support

Do you need game engine for B4A ?

  • YES

    Votes: 24 88.9%

  • NO

    Votes: 3 11.1%
  • Total voters
    27

Johnmcenroy

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Johnmcenroy

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I used Lua engines such as Gideros and Corona. But these ones true have a very good reputation , especially LibGDX. Personally me I am very interested in good 2D engine for B4A. There are no so much JAVA 2D game engines in JAVA , so I read a lot of info about this engine and think that it is very good idea to port this to B4A.
 
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Informatix

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I plan to do many things to help people to create games with B4A, and it is not decided yet if a Java game engine will be wrapped or not. I have little experience of these game engines since I'm still discovering the Android world, but at first glance they are built with a thin layer over OpenGL for the graphics part and it's a major concern for me (not personaly because I know enough of OpenGL to use these engines, but if I wrap an engine and a lot of people are scared by its complexity, I miss my goal).
 

Johnmcenroy

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I understood what you mean. It will be great if you will do it. Sorry personally I cannot say exactly my opinion about simplicity of use of these engines , but I will try to find info on this. What is for now - I found that LibGDX is great but it is more of framework , AndEngine is easier and is full featured game engine.


Edit: Some info -
http://www.dustypixels.com/2010/11/17/native-android-ogl-game-libraries-3-of-the-best/
But it is 2010
Here votes go to LibGDX -
http://forums.ouya.tv/discussion/454/anyone-using-android-game-frameworks-like-andengine
Also-
http://www.andengine.org/forums/gles2/andengine-libgdx-t11193.html
http://jfix.by/2012/04/27/why-libgdx/
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-developers/xR6e9JNpwWM
http://simpletoplay.blogspot.com/2011/09/libgdx-better-choice-for-andengine.html
 
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Johnmcenroy

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So for now as preferred engine for B4A I see AndEngine , because of simplicity against LibGDX. Also from one of the blogs - "It completely shields you from the underlying OGL system, making it very easy to get sprites up on screen and give them behaviours and modifiers (kind of similar to Flash tweens)."

Edit: AndEngine example - http://www.raywenderlich.com/12065/how-to-create-a-simple-android-game
 
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Johnmcenroy

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Informatix

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Thanks for all your links. I still don't know if I will do a graphics engine based on OpenGL or a wrap of an existing engine. Many parts of game engines are not very useful because we have already libraries doing the same thing (for example AndEngine uses MediaPlayer and SoundPool for its audio part).
My Accelerated Surface is enough for a lot of games (you could do an Angry birds with it), but it is unoptimized and it is too slow for games needing to display a lot of sprites (or using particle emitters). That's why I think the priority is for a better graphics engine.
 
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Johnmcenroy

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So maybe it is better to do some layer for OpenGL. Thought that it would be easier to wrap an existing engine , but for now it is not clear. How I understand we can do a lot of different games with GameView/Accelerated Surface , but yes for me personally when i thought about a game in B4A was particles - explosions , smogs and so on. Maybe it is better so in this situation to make separate functions needed , for example particles engine if it is possible.
 

Johnmcenroy

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From WIKI :
"The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, and a scene graph."

How i understand we need particles animation, physics engine (Box2D,etc.)/collision detection (there is collision detector in GameView , class module) for B4A.
 
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Informatix

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There are already two physics engine available (JBox2D and ABPhysics). JBox2D is slow in comparison of Box2D but the author is working on a JNI version to improve its speed.
 

Johnmcenroy

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So how i understand there must be particles engine for accelerated surface if it is possible and maybe some advanced animation technics.
Informatix said:
There are already two physics engine available (JBox2D and ABPhysics). JBox2D is slow in comparison of Box2D but the author is working on a JNI version to improve its speed.
Click to expand...
 

Informatix

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Johnmcenroy said:
So how i understand there must be particles engine for accelerated surface if it is possible and maybe some advanced animation technics.
Click to expand...

For particles, you need OpenGL because you cannot do any sprite batching (i.e. create a list of things to draw and draw them in one pass) and proper blending (for fire or smoke effect) with my Accelerated Surface. Finally, I think I will do a graphics engine that uses OpenGL, of course, but more easier to use.
I retain the idea of a library for advanced animations (a tweening engine).
 

Johnmcenroy

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So i will try to summarize , based on that -
"The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, localization support, and a scene graph."
what there is for now for creating games:

2D GAMES
Renderer - GameView/Accelerated surface
Physics - JBox2D,ABPhysics engines/Collision detector class (GameView)
Music - B4A MediaPlayer , AudioTrack
Sounds - B4A SoundPool , OpenSL
Scripting/Programming - B4A
Animation (sprites,particles) - B4A manual/TimelineFX,Particle Illusion (export particles to animated sprites)
BUT for the moment there is no real particles engine and advanced animation technics
A.I. - Steering Behaviors
Networking - B4A
Streaming - B4A
Memory Management - B4A
Threading - B4A (AsyncStreams,Threading Library , Threading 2/3)
Localization - B4A/AHLocale/AndroidResources(Android Native)/Translation Class
Scene Graph - ?
Google Play Game Services (Leaderboards,Multiplayer) - B4A

Edit: Found Open Java Particles System , maybe it is possible to port it to B4A
 
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