Damn the torpedoes

Instead of doing a source release, I just went ahead a jumped over the release schedule. Lua scripting for gtk+, OpenGL, and more are about finished now. Also UI plugins can now draw inside the freyja modeler scene, and aren't just limited to widget elements. I might be releasing two 'big' plugins in regards to midgard. An Octree 'cooker' with support for walkmesh, physics materials, etc. And a very simple IK solver / IK animation test plugin. I told you I'd do a weeks worth of code in a day. The bad news is I have to rewrite a lot of scripts in lua before I can check it in! You were wondering what the catch was! ;)

Like I said the roadmap was going to get turned on its head. I'm now considering breaking up the horrible control / view into plugins sooner now. The main focus has shifted to getting the 'map' editing up and running. I'm going to try and squeeze in metadata entities too.

This update has no affect on kuzu aside from pretty IK based animation coming sooner.

What the hell is going on?

This has been a busy week, and I barely got to touch Freyja or Kuzu again. This week should see the lua wrapper for mgtk checked into svn, and I've already ticketed another build system rewrite. WTF?! Yeah, you see Cmake 2.6 will finally support proper cross compile builds. This means I can remove the 'parallel track' build system. Instead of maintaining 2 build systems and 4+ rulesets for the project -- I would be able to reduce to one build system and 3 rule sets. I've updated the roadmap accordingly. I have no idea when they'll have this out either, so it's just ticketed for now. This also means I didn't have time to work on any Lineage II tools. I'll likely take a stab with those and Oblivion tools Sunday. I don't like to see Elves cry.

Speaking of Cmake... The current Cmake build on OS X doesn't work w/o the libtool injection hack I've discussed with dtm. If you want more information bug dtm, since he's the official OS X punching bag now. Yes, you still have to build Cmake from source until fink adds recent builds. I may have forgot to mention that before on the blog, but I'm sure if you managed to get all the dependency packages built you figured that out too. As far as I know it's a limit of Cmake, but if it's not instead of bitching on internet forums email me or dtm to fix it. I don't even have OS X anymore, so I was just reading documentation and guessing when I wrote the OS X build patches. It's amazing to me they even work. Perhaps more amazing the documentation was correct. ^^

I'm going to try and write a weeks worth of code for Freyja today, so wish me luck. I'm trying pretty hard not to get hit by the metaphorical bus again. If I get the new Lua based UI done today I'll post a pretty screenshot perhaps even with a pony. I know how you guys love ponies.

PS3Linux 'port' is done.

I finally got around to committing the big endian and powerpc patches to 0.9.5 svn. I haven't tested this, so be warned! I did take a pretty pick of a model I imported really quick. You guys are killing me with arch support. Hopefully I can go back to features soon. The bug was some obsolete code for big endian and a bad trap instruction in PPC. No big deal aside from waiting forever to download, build and setup the kernel, VNC, sshd, etc. Enjoy this screenshot of my VNC session of freyja on PS3Linux. ^^

I'm back!

The Playstation 3 build of freyja is now forked off. I'll release updated binaries for Win32 users Sunday night as discussed. Due to all that's happened the roadmap will be reworked. Yes, it sucks but life happens. Expect another bug fix build, which mainly focuses on fixes for Win32. I'm likely going to shift the Lua based UI to the top of the TODO given it could help regain time with increased productivity.

Unoptimized Playstation 3 Linux packages *may come out next week. The long forgotten big endian code in the system facade needs major fixes to bring it up to speed it seems. Those of you that remember the first modeler I wrote may recall it used a joystick as an input device -- that's all I'm saying for now. It was always great for presentations anyway. No screens as of yet.

My Secret Game Engine Project ( SGEP ) hasn't been touched for a while now. I'm going to dust that off and see if I can rip out half the codebase to toss into freyja's svn. Stripping it down and porting it would be worthwhile given the feedback I've seen so far. I have no timeline for that.

Update:
Win32 binaries of the 0.9.5.15-2 build, which includes the requested tools, is uploading right now. This build is a debug build with symbols, so get to testing. All you need is cygwin setup with gdb or ddd if you like UIs for debugging.

freyja_0.9.5.15-win32-lua-debug.zip

freyja on OS X

Freyja 0.9.5 build on OSX!

Just in time for the This is Serious Cat OS release too. Much thanks to dtm for providing a mac and a lot of time for me to use him as a human compiler and debugger interface. ;)

The source is already in svn, so enjoy. There will be a regular release this week as well.

freyja 0.9.5.14 notes

I forgot to mention all the new features from the .13 release wishlist got into .14. If you click on your Help menu in freyja you'll notice that it now links to various websites for this project for reporting bugs, etc across platforms. In Windows it will load your preferred browser, and currently in Linux it attempts to guess your preferred browser. I may add gconf support later, since this project favors GNOME users to use your set preference for that DE.

In the future auto network updates much like firefox in Windows will be integrated. This way you only need to download what's changed, and the system becomes more flexible. Now that the supporting libraries are about locked down it might be possible to do this as soon as the zip/gz support library is ready. I'm holding off checking in the network code done last week until then. This is mainly due to the fact that I might want to add new hooks for compression on the fly or maybe even binary deltas. That is however unlikely for an initial test release.

If you have the Lua plugin crash in Windows please report it. I'm going to go ahead and schedule time to look at it this weekend, but more test data is always nice. I'm going to some job interviews out of town this week, as I'm seeking to relocate to the Atlanta metro area. The next freyja release will likely be mostly bug fixes as well due to the time constraints.

freyja 0.9.5.14

The binaries should be out by tonight for win32 and Ubuntu Linux amd64. I didn't get time to finish the new keyframing, or the camera system. We had some power outages and I had to clear some limbs from around my dog's play area. Oh well. =)

I'll update this post with the feature update once it goes live. Hopefully, after I get back tonight I can get cameras in the UI in some form really quick. I have the new keyframing partially merged, but I refuse to commit the rollover without any testing.

Update:
Here's a pic editing a tombraider level... ah, yes a tombraider level. Why? It shows off the new skeleton of the camera system.

My laptop isn't really suited for OpenGL development. I had network access during the power outage, but I couldn't really do much work on freyja. Since I wasn't able to code much this week most of the improvements are reorganizing the project goals and fixes. I cleaned up mstl a little more, pushed back LegacyABI use, and got the backend ready to rework the entire animation system. Right now the camera is KISS with a simple pos and target interface. The other feature in this release is Lua now supports QueryABI, so you can prompt a user for simple data input from Lua macros. Tomraider map import is enabled once more and it's using the 0.9.5 ABI as you can see. The binaries should be up as soon as they finish building and uploading.

I'm going to be off site for a bit this week, so I'll likely only have 1-2 nights to work on freyja. In that time I'm going to work on a design for Lua mgtk+ widgets and finishing up the features missed due to downtime. The new Keyframe and Track API behind the ABI may go in next week even if I don't get time to test -- you guys will have to test it. =) Camera editing and editing in camera view are planned as well. It will be cool to have the camera animation in by next release using the new keyframe system. I know this project is mostly used for fan art and animation, so this is a way you guys can do more with the tools I provide.

Update #2:
I had to make an lua5.1 dll for win32 users at the last minute! Amd64 bins will be delayed until tomorrow, because you guys can just build from source anyway. I'll fix the cmake crap to autobuild with dpkg this week too -- like the old Makefiles I wrote before then. ;)

Update #3:
I gone ahead and rewrote the cmake + debian bulid systems, so it's easy as pie again to make debs. Just download the source and do a 'make deb' in the top level. Cmake is now used for the debian packages and it even auto generates a debian/changelog for you. AMD64 debian packages are uploaded, and i386 packages should be up tomorrow if I get time. i386 debian packages are uploaded. These packages are actually based on Ubuntu Feisty amd64/i386.

Enjoy the July Forth Holiday!