Re: Options for Cross-Platform 3D Game Development
On Wednesday, 5 July 2023 at 22:27:46 UTC, Andrew wrote: So, I've gotten the itch to have a go at game development in D, after doing a bit of it in Java last year. I've previously used LWJGL, which is a java wrapper for OpenGL, OpenAL, GLFW, and some other useful libs. The problem is, apparently OpenGL is deprecated for apple devices, so I don't really want to use that unless there are no decent alternatives. So far, the most promising I've seen is [bindbc-bgfx](https://code.dlang.org/packages/bindbc-bgfx), but it's been a pain to set up due to having to build the bgfx codebase, which requires a specific version of glibc that my distro (Linux Mint) doesn't offer yet. Are there any other recommendations for cross-platform rendering libraries? Of course I could use a pre-made game engine like Unity or Godot, but for me, most of the fun is in making the engine. Lately I've been diligently updating BindBC-bgfx because bgfx is seriously really good. About your glibc problem, you can use an older version of bgfx (which might mean 1. you have to use the old BindBC-bgfx API, or 2. run the *newest* [binding generator script](https://github.com/BindBC/bindbc-bgfx/#generating-bindings) on an older version of bgfx; rather than running the old generator script that comes with that older version), or you can build and install a newer version of GDC yourself, which is what I did. It's VERY slow to build, but relatively painless otherwise. bgfx is a little bit confusing for a first-time user, but if you have any trouble setting it up try searching through the bgfx Discord server, and if you can't find the answer that way then just ask for help there. Its documentation is alright but some of the English in it isn't the best. Once you're familiar with it, it's a really simple and powerful API that can do basically anything, but it's all rendering backend-agnostic. On Wednesday, 5 July 2023 at 23:53:41 UTC, ryuukk_ wrote: If you need something that provides you an API to render things directly without doing raw GPU commands, then RayLib is excellent, you can still build your engine around it, it act like a framework a la libGDX/XNA/MonoGame - https://github.com/schveiguy/raylib-d If you want to create your own engine from scratch, then Vulkan (works on mobile/linux/windows and macOS via moltenvk) I wouldn't really recommend Raylib unless you only plan to use fairly rudimentary 3D, as I've found its 3D rendering to be very limited. Unlike bgfx it can't do compute shaders, read-back from the GPU, instancing, 32-bit index buffers, etc. [Raylib's cheatsheet](https://www.raylib.com/cheatsheet/cheatsheet.html) should give you an idea of what you CAN do with its API. On Wednesday, 5 July 2023 at 23:53:41 UTC, ryuukk_ wrote: If you want to create your own engine from scratch, then Vulkan (works on mobile/linux/windows and macOS via moltenvk) Vulkan is also a really good option, and probably a bit faster than bgfx (or OpenGL obviously), but its API is very complicated. My head nearly exploded trying to use Vulkan, and I never got to the point of rendering 1 triangle. If you think you're enough of a genius then I'd say at least give it a shot. Worst case scenario is you give up after spending a day or two trying to learn it. P.S. I'm planning on adding a native-D bgfx backend to BindBC-ImGui 1.0 (my WIP bindings to the ImGui C++ API), if that's of interest to you. ;)
Re: Options for Cross-Platform 3D Game Development
Oh, and i forgot to mention Sokol, great C library, i couldn't find D bindings, so you'll have to create your own (it's trivial) https://github.com/floooh/sokol
Re: Options for Cross-Platform 3D Game Development
On Wednesday, 5 July 2023 at 22:27:46 UTC, Andrew wrote: So, I've gotten the itch to have a go at game development in D, after doing a bit of it in Java last year. I've previously used LWJGL, which is a java wrapper for OpenGL, OpenAL, GLFW, and some other useful libs. The problem is, apparently OpenGL is deprecated for apple devices, so I don't really want to use that unless there are no decent alternatives. So far, the most promising I've seen is [bindbc-bgfx](https://code.dlang.org/packages/bindbc-bgfx), but it's been a pain to set up due to having to build the bgfx codebase, which requires a specific version of glibc that my distro (Linux Mint) doesn't offer yet. Are there any other recommendations for cross-platform rendering libraries? Of course I could use a pre-made game engine like Unity or Godot, but for me, most of the fun is in making the engine. Depends what you really want to do If you need something that provides you an API to render things directly without doing raw GPU commands, then RayLib is excellent, you can still build your engine around it, it act like a framework a la libGDX/XNA/MonoGame - https://github.com/schveiguy/raylib-d If you want to create your own engine from scratch, then Vulkan (works on mobile/linux/windows and macOS via moltenvk) Or you can use WebGPU, despite its name it's crossplatform, targets Web via wasm (with LDC, requires some extra work tho), Windows, Linux, macOS, mobiles - https://github.com/gecko0307/bindbc-wgpu
Options for Cross-Platform 3D Game Development
So, I've gotten the itch to have a go at game development in D, after doing a bit of it in Java last year. I've previously used LWJGL, which is a java wrapper for OpenGL, OpenAL, GLFW, and some other useful libs. The problem is, apparently OpenGL is deprecated for apple devices, so I don't really want to use that unless there are no decent alternatives. So far, the most promising I've seen is [bindbc-bgfx](https://code.dlang.org/packages/bindbc-bgfx), but it's been a pain to set up due to having to build the bgfx codebase, which requires a specific version of glibc that my distro (Linux Mint) doesn't offer yet. Are there any other recommendations for cross-platform rendering libraries? Of course I could use a pre-made game engine like Unity or Godot, but for me, most of the fun is in making the engine.
Re: Strange behaviour of __traits(allMembers)
On Wednesday, 28 June 2023 at 10:20:44 UTC, Dennis wrote: It's now fixed: https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/15335 Yesss! You're a hero indeed!
Compiling to RiscV32
Recently found out LDC supports cross-compiling to riscv, but while trying it out I can't seem to make it work. I am very likely missing something simple, as I haven't done something like this before. I've already been told it's likely something with linking, though I'm not sure how to set this up. (Nor even without imports & confined to 1 file) Using a simple single '.d' file with no imports: `Error: cannot find program 'cc'` With imports it's a longer issue: ``` E:\Code\D\Overig>ldc2 --mtriple=riscv32 --mcpu=generic-rv32 -c source/app.d C:\Program Files\LDC 1.32\bin\..\import\std\stdio.d(49): Error: module `core.stdc.stddef` import `wchar_t` not found C:\Program Files\LDC 1.32\bin\..\import\core\stdc\time.d(34): Error: undefined identifier `time_t`, did you mean function `time`? ... (many similar errors here) C:\Program Files\LDC 1.32\bin\..\import\core\stdc\wchar_.d(175): Error: undefined identifier `wchar_t`, did you mean `dchar`? ``` Note, the command I'm using is: `ldc2 --mtriple=riscv32 --mcpu=generic-rv32 -c source/app.d` I've also wanted to look into dub's `--arch=riscv32` command, which should function given what I've read, though this just states it's not supported. (Even though I believe it should be using ldc for this?) Apologies for naïvity here, I cant really find any examples or guidance.
