Current Research
I am currently working with the open source OGRE 3D graphic engine. Of course, I am putting Lua to good use.
So far, so good. I have had lots of successes in using the engine. It has some quirks, most notable is the use of C++ exceptions on what I would consider normal errors. The initial issues are not enough to cause me to even think about moving on.
The community looks to be very active and, in most ways, helpful. The main authors are very active in the forums and IRC chatroom. This is one of the most important issues to consider when selecting an open source library of any type.
The main thing I have been playing with is Cg shaders. J5 never got developed enough to include programmable shaders, so this stuff is all new to me and very fun. I have learned a lot in playing around with the engine as well as with shaders.
As a GUI guy, I was initially impressed with the companion GUI library, "Crazy Eddie's GUI System". It is complete, XML Based and has a decent tool for layout. It has since caused me more problems than it is worth. The community there is pretty much dead and/or unhelpful and there are some strange interactions with the OGRE code that causes major problems in rendering. OGRE's native GUI support is sparse, but I am starting the work to bring the J5 GUI system (the one used in "Game Development with Lua") over to the OGRE engine. I am hopeful that the many scripts that have been written for J5GUI will be directly portable to the OGRE System.
Of course the finished port will be posted here and submitted to the OGRE team for possible inclusion.
So far, so good. I have had lots of successes in using the engine. It has some quirks, most notable is the use of C++ exceptions on what I would consider normal errors. The initial issues are not enough to cause me to even think about moving on.
The community looks to be very active and, in most ways, helpful. The main authors are very active in the forums and IRC chatroom. This is one of the most important issues to consider when selecting an open source library of any type.
The main thing I have been playing with is Cg shaders. J5 never got developed enough to include programmable shaders, so this stuff is all new to me and very fun. I have learned a lot in playing around with the engine as well as with shaders.
As a GUI guy, I was initially impressed with the companion GUI library, "Crazy Eddie's GUI System". It is complete, XML Based and has a decent tool for layout. It has since caused me more problems than it is worth. The community there is pretty much dead and/or unhelpful and there are some strange interactions with the OGRE code that causes major problems in rendering. OGRE's native GUI support is sparse, but I am starting the work to bring the J5 GUI system (the one used in "Game Development with Lua") over to the OGRE engine. I am hopeful that the many scripts that have been written for J5GUI will be directly portable to the OGRE System.
Of course the finished port will be posted here and submitted to the OGRE team for possible inclusion.
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