B4J Library SimpleGameEngine

This is a game framework for B4J that includes many features of advanced game frameworks like libGDX but is designed to be as simple to use as possible.
It can be used for games of course, but also for animations, slideshows, paint program, etc. It is more complete than the Canvas library.

This framework has been entirely written from scratch (except 20-30 lines taken from libGDX for the most technical parts of the tiled map reader). The Java source code is available against a donation of 10 euros or more.

Don't miss this game made with SGE (PacDroid, a Pacman clone):
https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/pacdroid.78617/

Let me know if you are using this library for a real project. And, of course, feel free to post comments and suggestions.

Actors:
sgeActor
sgeGroup
sgeRootGroup

Audio:
sgeMusic
sgeSound

Automation:
sgeAction
sgeActions
sgeInterpolators

Camera:
sgeCamera

Drawing:
sgeGraphics

Effects:
sgeEffect...

Input:
sgeInput
sgeKeyEvent

Geometry:
sgeBoundingBox
sgeCircle
sgeIntersections
sgePoint2D
sgePolygon
sgeSegment
sgeSpline

Maps:
sgeMapCell
sgeMapTile
sgeMapTileset
sgeTiledMap
sgeTiledMapImageLayer
sgeTiledMapObject
sgeTiledMapObjectLayer
sgeTiledMapTileLayer

Navigation:
sgeNavigationGrid
sgeNavigatorAStar

Steering behaviors:
sgeBehavior
sgeBehaviorFollowPath
sgeBehaviors
sgeVehicle

Visual objects:
sgeAnimation
sgeNinePatch
sgePath
sgeRegion
sgeText

Miscellaneous:
sgeAssetManager
sgeScreen
sgeUtils

Current version : 1.61
Search tags: Simple Game Engine, jSimpleGameEngine

 

[Informatix]

I added the sgeVehicle class and 9 steering behaviors in the new beta version. I also fixed an important bug.

Beta 0.9:
- I fixed an important bug with rotated and scaled actors;
- I added the sgeBehavior, sgeBehaviors and sgeVehicle classes;
- I added the Vehicle property to sgeActor;
- I added two demos ("cars" and "grandma and the zombies");
- I changed the default angle of OrientToPath for the FollowThisPath action;
- I added SegmentAndRect to sgeIntersections;
- sgePoint2D.Angle now returns the angle of the vector, which is more useful than the previous implementation of this function;
- I added Negate to sgePoint2D.

 

[ilan]

I added the sgeVehicle class and 9 steering behaviors in the new beta version. I also fixed an important bug.

Beta 0.9:
- I fixed an important bug with rotated and scaled actors;
- I added the sgeBehavior, sgeBehaviors and sgeVehicle classes;
- I added the Vehicle property to sgeActor;
- I added two demos ("cars" and "grandma and the zombies");
- I changed the default angle of OrientToPath for the FollowThisPath action;
- I added SegmentAndRect to sgeIntersections;
- sgePoint2D.Angle now returns the angle of the vector, which is more useful than the previous implementation of this function;
- I added Negate to sgePoint2D.

Sounds really interesting.

If i remeber correct @Erel said once that we can publish b4j apps to the mac store so SGE may be very useful if we want to create games for mac's.

I have already a very nice idea for what SGE may be useful.

Wil try to study it in the near future

 

[Jaames]

Hi, i think that the "Interpolations" example is somehow broken after the latest B4J update.

Spoiler: Here is the screen shoot of the error

Reserved word "Wait" by the new feature "Resumable Subs" is the problem I think. Or Am I totally wrong?

 

[Informatix]

Hi, i think that the "Interpolations" example is somehow broken after the latest B4J update.

Spoiler: Here is the screen shoot of the error

View attachment 55643

Reserved word "Wait" by the new feature "Resumable Subs" is the problem I think. Or Am I totally wrong?

I use B4J v5.0 and all works fine (I never release anything without re-testing all demos).
That looks like a problem with the syntactic analysis of B4J v5.50. Could you report it in the bug section of this forum?

 

[ilan]

Change the int "Wait" to something different
I think it is reserved to the resumeable subs.

 

[Informatix]

Change the int "Wait" to something different
I think it is reserved to the resumeable subs.

Yes, but there's a big syntactic difference between "Wait For" and "Dim Const Wait As", so B4J should allow the use of Wait as a variable name (confusion is not possible with a "Wait for" command).

 

[ilan]

Yes, but there's a big syntactic difference between "Wait For" and "Dim Const Wait As", so B4J should allow the use of Wait as a variable name (confusion is not possible with a "Wait for" command).

If it would be WaitFor without a space i would agree but since Wait is a seperate word i understand why you cannot use it like

Dim for as int
Dim do as int
Dim while as int
...

 

[Informatix]

If it would be WaitFor without a space i would agree but since Wait is a seperate word i understand why you cannot use it like

Dim for as int
Dim do as int
Dim while as int
...

For is followed by a variable name, Do may be followed by While or Until... Wait is ALWAYS followed by For. Its a fixed syntagm.

 

[ilan]

btw the ".Then" function that allow to add multiple actions is really awesome. does it also exist in libgdx? (i cant remember that i saw it there )

EDIT: i am trying your new examples right now and i am really impressed by them.
SGE looks really powerful. Good Job!

 

[ilan]

ok now i had a look at your zombie grandma example (and car example)
really awesome.

please correct me if i am wrong.
i see that you create SGE Actors so you intialize them and attach image to them and then you just update their location. similar how SpriteKit works.
so there is no rendering of each actor manually.

is it correct?

 

[Informatix]

btw the ".Then" function that allow to add multiple actions is really awesome. does it also exist in libgdx? (i cant remember that i saw it there )

It is not the same syntax but you can do the same with Actions.Sequence. And for "With", it's Actions.Parallel.

 

[Informatix]

ok now i had a look at your zombie grandma example (and car example)
really awesome.

please correct me if i am wrong.
i see that you create SGE Actors so you intialize them and attach image to them and then you just update their location. similar how SpriteKit works.
so there is no rendering of each actor manually.

is it correct?

All actors are rendered by this call: SGE.Root.Draw. Root is the main group, the root of the actors tree.

 

[ilan]

All actors are rendered by this call: SGE.Root.Draw. Root is the main group, the root of the actors tree.

ok its the same like in libgdx.

i could create a group add all actors to it and everytime i would call draw (or act) it will draw (act) only that group.

    Dim sgeGr As sgeGroup
    sgeGr.Initialize(SGE.Root,"sgeGr")

EDIT: i just hope using .draw/ .act will not drop down the FPS like in libgdx. will need to test it

 

[Informatix]

i could create a group add all actors to it and everytime i would call draw (or act) it will draw (act) only that group.

Exactly. You can also move the whole group by a single change of the group coordinates, or apply effects only to this group, etc.

i just hope using .draw/ .act will not drop down the FPS like in libgdx.

libGDX does not really suffer from a performance drop when you use actors. In my Diktatour game, all visual objects are actors, including missiles, and it's a game where performance is critical due to the heavy computations and the great number of objects on screen at the same time.
Anyway, SGE is designed right from the start to render actors and groups, and there's no performance reason to not use them.

 

[Jaames]

Could you report it in the bug section of this forum?

Here
[EDIT]
Yes, @Erel confirmed the bug, and it will probably fixed in future updates.

 

[Informatix]

The final version 1.0 has been released:
- I added the AutoReverse property to sgeAnimation;
- I added the sgeEffectDisplacementMap class;
- I changed the name of the COST constants in sgeNavigationGrid;
- I added AddDirectConnection and GetDirectConnection to sgeNavigationGrid;
- I added the support of staggered orientation to sgeTiledMap;
- I added the OptimizedRendering property to sgeTiledMap;
- I added two new demos: Pathfinding\DirectConnections and Effects\DisplacementMap;
- I added an example of staggered map to the TiledMap demo;
- I renamed the Wait constant in the Interpolations demo so it should work with B4j 5.50.

The Java source code is available against a donation of 10 euros or more.

 

[EnriqueGonzalez]

I am testing each of the examples, and both files in Behaviours folder fails.

Grandma
Error occurred on line: 228 (Main)

Cars
Error occurred on line: 114 (Main)

Thank you!

Edit:

PhysicsbodyEditorLoader also fails in line 121 (Main)

 

[Jaames]

I am testing each of the examples, and both files in Behaviours folder fails.

Grandma
Error occurred on line: 228 (Main)

Cars
Error occurred on line: 114 (Main)

Thank you!

Edit:

PhysicsbodyEditorLoader also fails in line 121 (Main)

I tried it on b4j v 5.51, SGE v 1.0 and all above examples working fine here.

But small "bug" in the DirectConnections example, if I click on the "start" position example crashes.

Loading 0% IMAGE "Level" level.png
Loading 50% GRID "NavigGrid" navigrid.txt
main._sge_render (java line: 202)
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at b4j.example.main._sge_render(main.java:202)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
    at anywheresoftware.b4a.BA.raiseEvent2(BA.java:90)
    at anywheresoftware.b4a.BA.raiseEvent(BA.java:77)
    at flm.b4j.simplegameengine.SGE$1.handle(SourceFile:134)
    at javafx.animation.AnimationTimer$AnimationTimerReceiver.lambda$handle$484(AnimationTimer.java:57)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at javafx.animation.AnimationTimer$AnimationTimerReceiver.handle(AnimationTimer.java:56)
    at com.sun.scenario.animation.AbstractMasterTimer.timePulseImpl(AbstractMasterTimer.java:357)
    at com.sun.scenario.animation.AbstractMasterTimer$MainLoop.run(AbstractMasterTimer.java:267)
    at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumToolkit.pulse(QuantumToolkit.java:506)
    at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumToolkit.pulse(QuantumToolkit.java:490)
    at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumToolkit.lambda$runToolkit$404(QuantumToolkit.java:319)
    at com.sun.glass.ui.InvokeLaterDispatcher$Future.run(InvokeLaterDispatcher.java:95)
    at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication._runLoop(Native Method)
    at com.sun.glass.ui.win.WinApplication.lambda$null$148(WinApplication.java:191)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

 

[EnriqueGonzalez]

I tried it on b4j v 5.51, SGE v 1.0 and all above examples working fine here.

Me too.. i tried with 5.51 and SGE V1.0, at first it was failing, then i realized that i was running it in debug mode, tried on release and worked.

Thank you.

 

[Informatix]

I am testing each of the examples, and both files in Behaviours folder fails.

Grandma
Error occurred on line: 228 (Main)

Cars
Error occurred on line: 114 (Main)

Thank you!

Edit:

PhysicsbodyEditorLoader also fails in line 121 (Main)

I will fix these issues with the Debug mode in future releases. I probably forgot to add @RaiseSynchronousEvent somewhere.