Tag Archives: .NET

MOAR!!! NAO!!!

sitelogoAhoy hoy.

I’ve actually been working on Gorgon off and on (mostly off) throughout the last 2 weeks and I’ve sent a few new changes to the svn repository:

  • Modified the bump in the night sample (-again-) to allow better results when rendering specular maps and also to update a stupid mistake that I made.  That is, I added unicode symbols directly into the source code instead of using their respective codes.  While this hasn’t given me trouble yet, there’s always that possibility.
  • Modified the TextSprite object to fix an issue where the MeasureText function was not calculating the correct height for a block of text.  Also fixed an issue where the alignment settings would sometimes place the text in between pixels and cause the text to look jagged and unreadable.
  • Removed Mount()/Unmount() from the public interface of the FileSystem object.  These functions didn’t really serve any purpose and just made more work for the user.  Internally Mount() is still available as a protected method for plug-ins so that the file system index can be built after a root is assigned.  Sorry if this breaks anything.
  • Added support for MRT (multiple render targets)!  Finally!  This allows a pixel shader to output to multiple targets at the same time and should help out in performance situations where multiple passes are being used to achieve the same thing.  To manipulate the additional render targets you can call Gorgon.SetAdditionalRenderTarget to add/update/remove a render target or Gorgon.GetAdditonalRenderTarget to return one.  The previous property: CurrentRenderTarget is still in place and uses the SetAdditionalRenderTarget internally and is available for use if you’re only looking to switch the primary target.
  • Font objects can now load external TTF files.   While you could always do this by hand by using PrivateFontCollection and then creating a Gorgon Font object from the resulting GDI+ font, it was a pain the ass.  This new functionality will allow the reading of TTF fonts from various sources such as:  A TTF file on the disk, an embedded resource, from a stream, or from a Gorgon file system.  To load a font you just call: Font.From* (were * = Resource, File, FileSystem, or Stream) and it’ll import the font.  For luddites:  You can still create fonts directly from GDI+ font objects if you wish.
  • And finally, the one that caused the most cursing:  GorgonZipFileSystem.dll.  What’s that?  It’s a file system that allows you to manipulate zip files (you know, the files that Winzip generates).  Now using this plug-in the file system editor can open/create/update your zip files.  Or you can forego the file system editor completely and just use winzip.  There are some caveats however:  You cannot use a password, you cannot use encryption and the file format must be the legacy zip file format (Zip 2.0).  But yeah, awesome.

So there you have it.  Hopefully the zip file support will be a plus.  I have no idea when a packaged release will be available, but when it is I’ll make sure to announce it.

Gorgon v1.1.3266.898

sitelogoA new version of Gorgon has been released.  The current version is now 1.1.3266.898.  This fix includes some enhancements to the sprite editor animation editing interface and several bug fixes.  You can see the change list here.

This will be the final release for Gorgon for a while.  I’m going away on vacation at the end f the week and real life (i.e. work) has become increasingly busy so I have no time to devote to Gorgon at least until later in the new year.  If someone wants to pick up the reins and take over for a bit, post a comment here or contact me through the forums.

Gorgon v1.1.3246.24958

It’s that time again.  A new version of Gorgon has been released into an unsuspecting populace to help spread terrorism and christianity at the same time.

There are multiple bug fixes, and these are detailed here.  The most fun thing is that I’ve included a new example that demonstrates how to make per-pixel lit (and bump mapped) sprites via normal maps.  It’s pretty spiffy if I do say so myself.

Other than that, the biggest change is the upgrade to the November version of SlimDX.  With this version the requirement for the Visual C++ 2008 SP1 runtimes has been dropped (about goddamn time too) and the SlimDX guys have created awesome installers for SlimDX.  The big deal about dropping the runtimes is that Gorgon no longer requires the runtimes to be distributed with its own installer and this has decreased the size of the installer (a little).  But the biggest deal comes from the SlimDX runtime installer and x64.  This installer will put SlimDX (both x64 and x86 versions if you’re on an x64 version of Windows) into the GAC.  This means that if you’re running with a project configured for AnyCPU (Project Properties->Build Tab), and you’re running on an x86 OS, it’ll use the x86 version of SlimDX automatically, and if you’re on an x64 version of Windows it’ll use the x64 version automatically.  This means there’s no longer a need to maintain two project/solution files for x86 and x64.  This is a great relief to me as it was a pain in the ass to keep updated.  Of course, this only works if both platform versions of SlimDX are installed into the GAC (e.g. if you only have the x86 version of SlimDX installed and the program is forced to compile to x64 – it’ll fail). 

Wait… what’s that?  You -want- an x64 (or x86) only version of your program?  Well, just set it to compile for x64 (or x86) instead of AnyCPU and the runtime will automatically use the x64 (or x86) version of SlimDX.  Fantastic!

So what are you waiting for?  Happiness is only a download away.