Im wondering the exact method through which I would go to build a VSTi Plugin is. I don't expect to code the next Massive in a few shorts week, as I have no knowledge of DSP and very basic programming skills. Im sure this is probably above my current level but I figure I'll grow as a programmer if I give myself a high goal that Im deeply interested in.
All that being said, Im at a loss as to where to begin. I know that I would need to download the Steinberg VST SDK, but many of the other resources I've searched have given conflicting info as to what framework I need to download, etc etc.
So what are the basic tools I need to have and what are some good resources.
I currently am using Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate as my IDE and I'll be coding in C++,.
Getting the development environment and tools set up to write a VST plugin is very time consuming. I strongly recommend Juce (http://www.juce.com), which will abstract away most of the VST framework weirdness for you, and also provide nice tools for generating the project files for your IDE, etc.
Juce isn't prefect, but it's much better than doing it all by hand.
Related
I'm trying to get into game development as a tools programmer and to get some hands on experience I was told I should try to create a custom data export plugin for Maya/Max to Unreal. I'm not sure how to go about starting this project and google searches haven't been helpful or productive.
I have experience in C++ and I'm going through tutorials for Unreal Engine now. I haven't downloaded Maya because I'm not a student anymore so I can't get the free version and I want to make the most out of the free 30-day trial when I do download it.
Does anyone have any suggestions on where to start with this? Thank you!
The maya devKit contains a lot of examples from command plugins up to Viewport renderers. And as much as I know there is an exporter as well. So you could download it and have a look at the example projects there.
If I'm not completele mistaken, you can use Maya in batch mode withou a license, at least it was the case for a long time. So you could use it for 30 days and after that period, you can try to start it in batch mode and execute your stuff even if it is a bit tricky because you do not have visual feedback.
And to be honest if you search for a "maya api exporter" you should get some decent results. e.g. the very first result here is "Maya API - Writing a plugin exporter".
I wanted to know some general throughts about Marmalade and AppEasy. http://www.appeasymobile.com/
I've been following DrMop's tutorials on creating a game engine in Marmalade but noticed that since the tutorials he's gone on to make AppEasy(with others). I have looked at it and have a couple of immediate concerns
1) How easily I can incorporate text files/xml files with XOML.
2) What degree of control I would have over the code base.
3) How deep the engine is and whether it has any comparitable rivels which are better.
I've started the project I'm working on with the IWGame engine that DrMop was using in his tutorials but was wondering that if all my fears are unfounded if it is worth carrying on?
Cheers,
Support for IwGame is coming to a close. IwGame is being replaced by the AppEasy Core SDK, which is an open source portable engine where Marmalade is just one of the platforms that it plans to support. AppEasy Core will also be open source so others can contribute to its development, submit bug fixes etc..
XOML + Lua or XOML + C++ or all 3 used together provide a very powerful easy to use environment. You can easily integrate text files, XML files, image files, sound files etc. You should check out the official web site appeasymobile, theres plenty of documentation and a drag and drop app builder that spits out cross platform apps based on XOML + Lua.
Cocos2d-x is a good alternative, but you will need to set up each dev environment for each platform you plan to support (massive pain to do) as it doesn't cross platform compile stuff for you. Although Marmalade do now have a stable interface to Cocos2dx which enables you to use Cocos2dx cross multiple platforms.
I have to develop a basic inventory system, and my client wants to see all the objects in the inventory in 3D and their positions in the warehouse. The thing is that I have to develop this as soon as possible, delivery time is my priority here. So I came to the conclusion that I would need a powerful 3D graphics engine and an UI toolkit that can be easily integrated with it. I've plenty of experience with C++, Qt, OpenGL, VTK, C# and WinForms. In my experience, VTK is not so good with textures and it would involve more work to add the eye candy my client wants (like animations, visual effects, etc). I've tried Axiom with WinForms. I went through hell making a sample load and run (framework incompatibilities, rendering engines not found, codec native dependencies missing, etc).
I have been evaluating different options:
Qt + Ogre (C++)
WinForms + Axiom (.NET)
Qt + Irrlicht (C++)
Which do you think would be the best option? Could you recommend me some other possibility?
Thanks in advance!
I spent a heap of time developing with Mogre (a C# wrapper around Ogre) and WinForms. In my opinion it's a good combination because you can develop the GUI much faster in C# WinForms than any of the C++ options.
If you don't mind using a C# wrapper around the C++ Ogre library I recommend using Mogre rather than Axiom. It is very stable, has some good maintainers and keeps up with the latest version of Ogre pretty well. Any code on the Ogre forums can easily be ported to C# because most of the API is identical.
Axiom is a pure .NET port of Ogre, although it lags a few versions behind and may have some missing features. I haven't spent a lot of time with it but I believe it's main strength is that it's all managed code, if that's important to you.
There's an open source project called Glue Editor that I started a while ago. It's no longer maintained but it has a lot of code you can use to get Mogre working with WinForms. You should be able to download the repository and compile it out of the box. You're welcome to take the code and use it however you like.
https://bitbucket.org/glue/glueeditor/src
If you decide to go down the Qt + Ogre path there's a project called Ogitor you might want to check out.
https://bitbucket.org/jacmoe/ogitor/src
You might also want to check out XNA and MonoGame. XNA is Microsofts framework for making games in C#. It is fairly bare bones but it has a much lower learning curve than Ogre, Mogre or Axiom. MonoGame is an open source implementation of the XNA framework that works on non-Microsoft platforms (e.g. Android, iOS, Linux).
http://monogame.codeplex.com/
I recommend Qt + Ogre (C++), although I have to confess this is the only combination from your list I have much experience with. The good thing about Ogre is the amount of documentation and the active community. So many questions are answered and documented. The graphics itself can probably be created in all library combinations. However, I like the easy intergration of object interaction in Ogre. The standard is based on bounding boxes, however there is code available for triangle intersection as well. Wish you luck!
I've been out of the Microsoft stack for a while now, been focused on Linux, open source stuff and web development in PHP. I used to do some desktop app development and some DirectX stuff on Windows in Dev Studio (all C and C++).
I'd like to brush up on the MS stuff just to keep up on what's going on. I've installed MSVC++ 2008 Express but I'm looking for a little side-project to play with. Given my background in C/C++ and familiarity with MFC and STL, what would be a good way to jump back in?
I've been developing on Microsoft stack since 1997, starting with C/C++/MFC/ATL, but all of the recent projects were on .NET platform (C#), so I would recommend learning .NET/C#. C/C++ still has its place, but it loses relevance rather rapidly. If not for legacy projects, we would not even bother with C/C++. Just my 2 cents.
If you want to get back into modern Windows programming you should learn C#/WPF.
If you're looking to get back into windows programming C# ASP.NET 3.5 is a fairly common and current language and framework to start with. This is the direction that the masses of C# .NET guys have been migrating as of late and you may be able to find a wealth of communities and bloggers contributing to that scene.
From the sounds of it, however, it looks like you were doing something along the lines of game development (DirectX and C++). Although more niche and slightly dated there are still a great deal of coders using the language. One of my favorite stops is GameDev.net because of the active community and active forums.
Good luck and have fun!
You could check out the VC++2010 beta, which comes with C++0x support and some MFC updates.
Since you're experienced with Linux, you might want to check out Qt for Windows too.
I fancy wxWidgets very much. It portable, effective and easy to learn especially if you've got some experience from MFC.
I've spent 4 years developing C++ using Visual Studio 2008 for a commercial company; it's now time for me to upgrade my development process.
Here's the problem: I dont have a 1 button build automation. I also dont have a CI server that automatically builds when a commit happens, and emails me whether a build is broken or not. Worse we dont even have a single unit test!!
Can someone please point to me how I can get started?
I have looked at many many tools and I think I might go with:
Visual Build (for build automation) (Note: I also considered Final Builder)
Cruise (for CI server)
I also now am just starting to practice TDD...so I will want to automate my unit tests as well. I chose Google Test/Mock for their extensive documentation. (Cant go wrong with Google brand can I? =p)
Price is not the issue, I want what's best and easiest to get started.
Can people that use real CI/automation tool for unmanaged MSVC++ tell me their tools and how I can go about starting?
Our source control is Subversion.
Last point: I'm also considering project management/tracking tool that integrates right into VSTD ..and thinking about using OnTime. VSTS costs too much. I tried FogBugz, but I think it's too simple. Any others?
I would take some time to seriously consider TeamCity. We used CruiseControl.NET for a while and TeamCity completely demolishes it. Plus it has built-in plugins for Boost and CppUnit, so your unit testing will come for free.
Best of all, the tool is free for < 20 users and gives you three build agents.
I just finished implementing our C++ product at work and it was fairly simple. We did it with msbuild and basically use the msbuild task to compile the solution. Other targets can be used to copy files, run unit tests, etc.
The last time I worked on an unmanaged MSVC++ project (which was moderately sized I might add), we used FinalBuilder to do the automated build & versioning (and even executing PCLint and other profiling tools as well).
Having said that, if you're willing to invest the time, MSBuild (or nAnt perhaps?) can do everything you need - even for unmanaged solutions.
Which brings us to the trade-off: Tools like Visual Build Pro and Final Builder get you up and running quickly. If you want something which offers a greater range of customization, you'll probably be spending a decent amount of time learning and understanding it - i.e. MSBuild, CIFactory, nAnt etc are no cake walk.
So if price isn't an issue - is time an issue? If time is at a premium, I'd investigate the GUI driven tools, they'll get you to where you want to go quickly. If you know you're going to need to extend on the simple one button build + unit tests + deploy scenario (which happens a lot!) then decide if you can invest the time into the more complex tools like MSBuild?
We use a combination of Boost.Build, NAnt, CPPUnit and either Cruise Control.NET or Hudson (we've used them both for various projects but are starting to prefer Hudson).
They are all good tools though we're considering replacing CPPUnit - the Google unit test system is pretty good from what I've seen.
If you're happy running on just Windows you can lose Boost.Build and just call out to Visual Studio from NAnt.
As for issue tracking/project management we settled on Vision Project after a long investigation. It's not well known (yet) but we've found it a very good fit in our environment. Fogbugz is great, a nice, clear interface but we came to the conclusion you did too; way too simple for our needs.
Although the .NET world is spoilt for these kinds of tools Continuous Integration is still pretty easy to set up for C++! I wouldn't think of starting a non-trivial project without putting these systems in place.
we use subversion + cruisecontrol + wix to accomplich CI automated builds outputting one-click installers. this combo has worked very well for us. we've created out own site for admin of svn user groups and permissioning and added the web interface to cc to it. we have a sql server storing all the collected stats from svn and cc and use them for custom reports available on our site. we are looking to add other tools to the mix for checking various attributes of the code stored in svn. this combo has worked very well for us.
At my company we use CruiseControl (http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/). The Java version, not .NET, to build our wxWidgets application on Windows and OS X. Working great for us so far.