XianForce's Blog

I'm still in the planning stages, and I have spent quite some time there, but I also want to invest a lot more time into it still.

What I really want to focus a lot of time into is System access. Since I've quite literally depleted my use of Singletons/globals, I have to make sure each System has access to any other Systems it needs to use. The biggest problem I'm finding with this is with the ApplicationSystem. For playing audio or rendering a class needs access to the ApplicationSystem. But I don't want every single object that needs to be rendered, have a pointer to the ApplicationSystem.

Really I'm trying to find an elegant way to handle rendering. Because as of now, here's what I have been thinking:

-Render method from current state is called

-Current state calls render method from ActorSystem (Actors can be NPCs or Players)

-ActorSystem iterates through it's list of Actors, and grabs it's surface, then renders it

Now this is all fine and dandy, but the kink I'm hitting is the ActorSystem itself. So what about rendering the bullets? Then I thought, hey, I can make it an EntitySystem instead (Entities are anything that moves). But then I would be updating/rendering from the EntitySystem, and the Actor would have little control over it.

I could just make a 'WeaponSystem' and call an accessor to it from the ActorSystem. But what if the Actor doesn't have a WeaponSystem?

So through this, I'm finding that in many places where I would 'just do it' I'm starting to think ahead at the consequences, to find the best method of implementation.

As I'm typing this, I'm actually starting to like this idea:

-Create a weapon system

-WeaponSystem would dictate what weapon the holder has currently

-Through this, the WeaponSystem would set up the children bullets, which would then be

registered into the EntitySystem.

-Everything is actually Updated + Rendered through the EntitySystem

So through this, anything that is NOT player controlled is all nice and set up. So for Player controlled, I will need to create a PlayableSystem or something of the sort.

Lately, around the ElysianShadows forum, many people have been posting about developing an Engine, and I'm so happy for all the great information I've gotten from them (Notably GroundUpEngine and GyroVorbis - I'll have links to their Youtube Channels below!)

But this whole idea of Systems came from something GyroVorbis said. He was talking about how everything is handled, like a CollisionSystem handles collisions, and needs access to an EntitySystem and TerrainSystem which control Entities and Terrain, respectively. That's when it really hit me, I need to stop being such a dip, and actually get something like that going. Albeit, I probably followed the same form in a MUCH LESS elegant way.

So, that's just what happens to be rambling around in my head regarding Charge at the moment. As for now, I'm going to get back to studying, and maybe some more design tonight.

Hopefully I'll remember to update again next week!

As I said: GyroVorbis and GroundUpEngine

Be sure to check both of them out if you haven't already, they are both AWESOME projects =D