[aklug] Re: Linux game / programming

From: Christopher Howard <choward@indicium.us>
Date: Fri Nov 27 2009 - 14:29:30 AKST

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Damien Hull wrote:
> I would like to know what tools they're using.
> 1. compiler
> 2. 3D modelling tools
> 3. Any other art tools for creating graphics
>
> I would also like to know how they created the 3D world. I'm sure this is going to be over my head but I would like to know.
>
> Oh, you can get version 0.3.1 for Debian. It works on Ubuntu. I'm sure if you get the code you'll have the latest version.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Christopher Howard" <choward@indicium.us>
> To: "Damien Hull" <damien@linuxninjas.tv>, "Alaska Linux Users Group" <aklug@aklug.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 1:54:46 PM GMT -09:00 Alaska
> Subject: Re: [aklug] Linux game / programming
>
> Damien Hull wrote:
>> I was looking for a submarine game and found "Danger from the deep". This game goes way beyond anything I was expecting. Its a World War II submarine simulation. You play the part of the Germans. It's too bad you can't be the good guys. Here's the cool part.
>
>> 1. Realistic submarine simulation with diving etc...
>> 2. Realistic torpedo's that make firing tricky
>> 3. You can be killed
>
>> Did you know there were torpedo's that went out 800 meters, made a 90 degree turn and continued doing so until they hit something? I didn't.
>
>> The game is open source. I've been trying to get the code so I can compile the latest version. The subversion download takes a while. I'll have to stup a system to download it one night.
>
>> I wish I was a programmer cause I would love to see how this was put together. Can one of you programmer types look at the code and give the rest of use a simple explanation? What tools did they use? How did they create the 3D world?
>
>> That might be a lot to ask for but I'm curious.
>
>> LINK: http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/
>
>
>
> Danger from the Deep is a really cool game, which I've been watching for
> a while. Unfortunately, though, the current stable version (0.3.0) does
> not implement user-controlled torpedo targeting, and the automatic
> targeting is really lousy, which means you usually have to fire every
> single torpedo you have just to have a chance of taking down one or two
> ships.
>
> But I'm looking forward to the next release, because graphics and music
> are otherwise real cool.
>
> Um, there are something like 60,000+ lines of source code (depending on
> how you count it) in over 200 source files, so you'll have to be a bit
> more specific about what aspect of game programming you are interested in.
>

Code is in C++, compiler is g++, using the "scons" build-management
utility. Graphics are handled with SDL/OpenGL. I think they mentioned
using Blender for the 3D modeling, though even if I didn't read that I'd
bet you $20 that is what they used.

Mission data (ship positions, etc.) seem to be stored inside some
complex xml files.

- From a quick overview of the source code, it seems that the world and
objects are created with a pretty standard object-oriented programming
approach. There are different classes for ships, torpedoes, stars,
textures, etc. Since you admitted you aren't at all a programmer: that
basically means for each different kind of object in the game you create
a basic data structure that holds the information for that kind of
object, and then you use SDL/OpenGL libraries to render that object at
the appropriate time and location.

Since I'm not a DFTD developer that is as much detail as I am willing
research on this specific game. If you want to know more about
programming in general I'd be glad to help, but you'll have to be very
specific about what it is you want to know and how much you want to learn.

- --
Christopher Howard
http://indicium.us
http://theologia.indicium.us
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iEYEARECAAYFAksQYNkACgkQQ5FLNdi0BcVBTQCfceLmn1fvI8tEl4lw9XY+V4bu
sCEAn3aM7HTSYCzuRwkRufufiiQxX9Pa
=XsB0
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
Received on Fri Nov 27 14:29:09 2009

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri Nov 27 2009 - 14:29:10 AKST