[ShinyCocos] First public release: 0.1.0 (Birthday Pinata)

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[ShinyCocos] First public release: 0.1.0 (Birthday Pinata)

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Started 11 months ago by rolando
Latest reply from Codemattic

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rolando
Moderator

Hi all,
I'm really happy to announce the first public release of ShinyCocos: 0.1.0 (Birthday Pinata)

What the heck is ShinyCocos? In a few words: ruby bindings for cocos2d-iphone. We have already sent to apple our first "test" game using ShinyCocos, and we are expecting an answer from apple anytime now.

You can grab your copy of ShinyCocos here:

http://github.com/funkaster/shinycocos/zipball/0.1.0

The release includes a sample project (TestProject) and the official documentation is hosted on github:

http://funkaster.github.com/shinycocos/

Anyway, that's all, I'm tired and I still have to finish our real first game :-D
Enjoy!

rolando./

Posted 11 months ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

Cocos scripting! No more retain, release, oh wait was I supposed to autorelease, am I leaking?

Very cool rolando!

Posted 11 months ago #
thesmileman
Member

Hey Rolando,

I am really exited about your project and I hope apple gives you the green light. I am a little concerned they might reject it because of the interpreter as they don't allow apps which "compile" code. (Unless that has changed. And yes I know the heart of what apple is trying to prevent isn't necessarily this however they seem to have been very picky in the past).

Looks great I am exited to try it out despite knowing little about ruby. You said on your site their was little performance hit. Do you have any idea of what performance hit it does have (10, 20, 30 percent)? Also are the binding for chipmunk 5 or a later version.

Posted 11 months ago #
riq
Key Master

congrats rolando!

If you want to add information about shiny cocos on the wiki, please, go ahead:

eg:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/shinycocos:faq
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/shinycocos:download
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/shinycocos:license
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/shinycocos:programming_guide

etc.

Posted 11 months ago #
Joao Caxaria
Member

I am a little concerned they might reject it because of the interpreter as they don't allow apps which "compile" code.

Torque Game Engine works the same way and the games have been approved. Great work Rolando.. I'm going to check this one out.

Posted 11 months ago #
Codemattic
Moderator

I think so does Unity. However there is a cross-platform engine which gets thrown off the appstore all the time.

Posted 11 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

Thanks all for the support. The games was rejected, but because some stupid naming inconsistency! :-P
I'll submit it again tomorrow, now I'm still reinstalling everything since I had to clean my system (hopefully, TimeMachine and git are saving me hours!! :-D)

I'll let you know what happens with the game.

Codemattic: yes, the developers of "that" framework have advised users to not say in the description or anywhere in the app that they are using that framework. What I did is to create a plugable "obfuscation" mechanism in ShinyCocos, so you can hide/compile/encrypt the source code. It's all explained in the wiki.

riq: thanks! As soon as I have some time I'll start adding info there.

Posted 11 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

For those of you that don't read the games announcements: ShinyCocos has been approved in the AppStore, which means only one thing: pure awesomeness :-D

Rolando./

Posted 11 months ago #
leftright
Member

@rolando.. this is really awesome, thanks for all the work.

I'm going to try out Shinycocos!

Posted 11 months ago #
yangfun
Member

I'm going to check out Shinycocos!!!!

Posted 11 months ago #
bradparks
Member

Hey there... Shiny Cocos sounds great... thanks for all the hard work...

I was wondering:

- Is it easy to expose new objects to the ruby side of things e.g Say I have a singleton I'd like to have available in the ruby scripts. Can I do so? This would make it so I could put lots of my code in Objective C, and use Ruby mostly for scripting levels and things like that.

- Can ruby scripts be run from the users Documents directory? If so, this'd make it easy to deploy a build to the Simulator, and just modify a ruby file and reload the app to see it work, which could be great for development and testing at the least!

Thanks again!

Brad.

Posted 11 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

Yes it is easy. You have to know something about theh ruby-c API, but It's really easy and you could totally figure it out by following how I implemented ShinyCocos.

Doing that: writing "heavy" code in obj-c and exposing it to ruby only for scripting purposes is how we're working right now.

A singleton is best mapped to a Module in ruby. Take a look at how I implemented the Director in ShinyCocos:

http://github.com/funkaster/shinycocos/blob/92d9dacd1a0c0bf4b238d18ff0a8dc11b533cf03/Integration/SC_Director.m

if you have any questions, feel free to post it here or just email me.

Rolando./

Posted 10 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

Regarding your second question. All ruby code should live under the vendor directory in your project (check the TestProject). It should be possible to tell the ruby interpreter to reload a file again... I'll have to test it though, that's a very good idea!

Posted 10 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

@riq: I started filling the wiki pages. Thanks!

Posted 10 months ago #
iof
Member

Hi All!
I don't know if here is the place to ask about shinycocos but I haven't found another...
I'm trying to use your library to port a game, previously based on gosu, which requires for each frame to draw a Tileset (this tileset is more complex than the one included in cocos2d (for example uses animation), so I've to draw it "by hand"). In this way I've to draw at each frame different sprites (or maybe reuse the sprites changing their texture).

Here is the first question: is possible to change the texture of a sprite in shinycocos? If not, how can I help to include this functionality to the library?

And another question: if I create different sprites for each frame Ruby do not free the objects so the game freezes. I've modified the source code so Shiny deletes the objects from ObjectiveC (and not from ruby). I think this approximation is not good enough, can I force VM to clean up the objects?...

And the final question: Do you think that the best approximation for a complex tiled based game is to generate different sprites (or derivate like atlasprite) and change their texture for each frame?

Thanks in advance!
Iof

Posted 9 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

@hi iof,
Currently, this thread is a good place to ask questions about ShinyCocos.

The current TiledMap is very flexible: you each tile is an AtlasSprite, so you can animate, change, delete etc. I think they might fit your needs.

As for the texture, yes: you can change the texture in the same way you can using cocos2d. Check the forum for exact answer (I might need to check the API on how to do that).

The GC should be triggered when a malloc fails: that's the standard behavior in ruby: when an object is deleted from the ruby VM it calls release on the objective-c object associated. Can you send me your patch and/or a small project to test the problem?
Regarding the GC, you can always force a cleanup: GC.start

I don't know exactly what kind of game you have in mind, but that would depend on the size of your map and what you need exactly to do with the different tiles: would every one of them change? only some of them?... that kind of stuff.

rolando.

Posted 9 months ago #

iof
Member

Hi Rolando,
Thanks for your promptly response,
I think memory is not cleaned even if I force GC (until the application terminates). In the same way I can't access to the texture object of sprite using shinycocos. I've attached you my test ruby code :

--- main.rb ---
require 'engine_2d'

eng = Engine2d.new
eng.run

--- engine2d.rb ---
require 'my_layer'

class Engine2d
	def run

		Cocos2D::Director.set_orientation Cocos2D::Director::ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE_LEFT
		Cocos2D::Director.set_animation_interval 1/70.0
		Cocos2D::Director.display_fps true

		#Main scene
		@scene = Cocos2D::Scene.new

		#Add layer
		@scene.add_child(MyLayer.new)

		#Run scene
		Cocos2D::Director.run_scene @scene

	end
end

--- my_layer.rb ---

class MyLayer < Cocos2D::Layer

	def initialize
		super

		@stime=0

		#Obtain windows size
		@winSize = Cocos2D::Director.win_size

		#Create text and add to the layer
		@label = Cocos2D::Label.new("Hello world","Marker Felt",64)
		@label.position = [@winSize[0]/2.0,@winSize[1]/2.0]
		add_child(@label)

		#Create a sprite matrix
		@sprite = []
		10.times { |i|
			@sprite[i] = Cocos2D::Sprite.new("r1.png")
			@sprite[i].position=[@winSize[0]/2.0,@winSize[1]-i*10-40]
			add_child(@sprite[i])
		}

		#Event launched each frame
		schedule(:update)

	end

	def update(dt)

		@stime += dt*1000

		#This is deallocated OK each frame
		@label.string = "#{'%d' % @stime}" 

		#PROBLEM 1: Cant access to the sprite texture
		#tex = @sprite[0].texture

		#Change sprites (not optimal, only for memory test)
		10.times { |i|
			#PROBLEM 2: Must deallocate sprites here but library doesn't do it after application terminates  (see console)
			remove_child(@sprite[i])
			@sprite[i]=nil

			if((@stime/100).ceil%10==0)
				@sprite[i] = Cocos2D::Sprite.new("r2.png")
			else
				@sprite[i] = Cocos2D::Sprite.new("r1.png")
			end

			@sprite[i].position=[@winSize[0]/2.0,@winSize[1]-i*10-40]
			add_child(@sprite[i])
		}

		#Force cleanup doesn't free sprite objects
		GC.start

	end
end

Thanks!
Iof

P.D. I've modified your rubytest script in testShinyCocos because if you use any path with space names it will fail, my test script is:

touch -cm ${SRCROOT}/vendor
touch -cm ${SRCROOT}/lib
# syntax check
IFS=$'\n'
for i in ${SRCROOT}/vendor/*.rb; do
  ruby -c $i
done

Posted 9 months ago #

rolando
Moderator

@iof: I'll check your code during the weekend. You're right though, memory should be cleaned if you force GC to start... weird...

rolando

Posted 9 months ago #
iof
Member

Hi!

I think I've found a solution for the memory problem,
I'm not very familiar with ObjC, so this may be incorrect but it works as expected...
Line 43 of SC_Sprite: add "[obj autorelease];"

I assume that TextureManager is not implemented so I can't do this:

mySprite.texture=[[TextureMgr sharedTextureMgr] addImage: @"anotherTexture.png"];

and in this way I can't change the texture of a sprite in an easy way.
If I've enough time I will try to implement it.

It will be very useful to have a short documentation about how to improve/complete the library because there are some functions that are not obvious. The way that the library saves Cocos2D objects and communicates with ruby will be very useful too.

Thanks for all,

Iof

Posted 9 months ago #
valley
Member

Hi there,
i've just tried to build TestShinyCocos according to the manual, but i always fail
on building the ShinyCocos project with 430 errors and therefore also the TestShinyCocos project.
I've changed build -> ../build and the cocos2d and Chipmunk targets also build successful.

Sorry, i'm not an Xcode expert, i would be thankful for help on that.

@Update: I skip manually building ShinyCocos but when building TestShinyCocos i get
lots of errors like 'stdarg.h: No such file or directory' or 'float.h: No such ..'
@Update2: Finally it can't build libShinyCocos.a, and since it results with lots of errors i would like to know what versions (iphone sdk, gcc, ..) i need to compile everything successfully. Currently i work with version 2.2.1

Regards
valley

Posted 8 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

I'll have to check it... last time I tried, it worked just fine with SDK 3.0
You have to keep the build in the same place. Did you placed a copy of cocos2d (v0.8) in the same folder as ShinyCocos project? after that, you also need to set the build output to cocos2d project to ../build

let me know how that goes.

Posted 8 months ago #
valley
Member

Yes i've done everything you mentioned, but without luck.
I get a 100 errors when building ShinyCocos. Error messages are e.g.
- 'userData' undeclared in SC_CocosNode.m
- expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or '__attribute__' before '*' token in SC_common.h
- etc. etc.

I have now also tried with SDK 3.0 and gcc 4.0 or 4.2, it never works.
I hope you have an idea why not or it happens on your machine too.

Regards
valley

Posted 8 months ago #
rolando
Moderator

Oh, one thing: before buiding the test project, build the ShinyCocos project... did you try that?

Posted 8 months ago #
valley
Member

Yes i did that too, also with 78 errors. When you try it again it still works ?

Posted 8 months ago #
valley
Member

Ok, it still doesn't work (i've also tried the Zipped versions of ShinyCocos).
Here my settings i use for building:
- Leopard 10.5.8
- iPhone SDK 3.0 (Debug and Release)
- gcc 4.0 and 4.2

I don't think that i have special settings anywhere, that's why i don't understand
why i always end up with that much errors.
Did nobody else encounter problems with getting this project to run ?

Posted 8 months ago #
rolando
Moderator
Ok, this is what I just did (I found 2 bugs I'll have to fix, but right now we're trying to have our game ready for IGF mobile, so all fixes will have to wait for a couple of weeks):

Download ShinyCocos:
```
git clone git://github.com/funkaster/shinycocos.git
```
Download cocos2d-iphone v0.8.2 into the new shinycocos directory
```
cd shinycocos
curl -LO http://cocos2d-iphone.googlecode.com/files/cocos2d-iphone-0.8.2.tar.gz
tar xzf cocos2d-iphone-0.8.2.tar.gz
# rename cocos2d-iphone folder to something expected by the shinycocos project
mv cocos2d-iphone-0.8.2 cocos2d-iphone
```
Open the ShinyCocos project and, here's a couple of changes you need to make:
- Set the target/sdk to Simulator (or device) OS 3.0
- Select the ShinyCocos target, and add this header search path: ./cocos2d-iphone/cocos2d/Support
- Comment the line 926 of SC_Action.m (John Beaven implemented support for this, but it's broken now)
Now you can build the ShinyCocos project :-)
So now, open the test project:
```
open TestShinyCocos/TestShinyCocos.xcodeproj
```
set the target/sdk to Simulator (or device) SDK 3.0, build and run!

Please keep in mind that ShinyCocos is an experiment, and although there is a actual game built using ShinyCocos on the App Store, I have much more ambitious plans on integrating ruby in the iphone-game development process... but more on that later.

hth

PS: @valley, thanks a lot for your feedback!
Posted 8 months ago #
valley
Member

I have to thank you, Rolando! Now it works fine and i'm playing around
with your Test project.
I'm looking forward to what's coming next with ShinyCocos or its successor.
It would be great having a community of Ruby developers for the iPhone.
Keep going on with that great work!

Best regards
valley

Posted 8 months ago #
valley
Member

So you wouldn't suggest to start writing Ruby games with Shinycocos now ?
I'm a little bit confused about your 'experiment' statement.
Also i would be interested in performance comparison between same iPhone apps
written in Objective C and with Ruby (e.g. 1'000 loaded images floating around).
Have you already done something in this direction. Would be interesting what
will be possible and what not when planning to write iPhone apps with Ruby.

Regards
valley

Posted 8 months ago #
rolando
Moderator
@valley: as I told you before, you can build a whole game (given that everything you need to write a game is supported by ShinyCocos && cocos2d-iphone) and put it on the appstore. You have to take a few precautions:

There's a weird bug that sometimes crashes your game. I think this is due to ruby VM colliding or being called when garbage collecting. I haven't been able to specifically locate it... (there are lots of messages I sent to the ruby-core list, but with not much response)

Apple won't like you to specifically advertise that your game was written in ruby and that your game is shipping a "custom" interpreter. We got around this by doing two things: "encrypting" our code (there's info about this in the project wiki) and not putting anywhere in the appstore info that we're using ruby.

About performance, I don't think there will be a big difference: all the hard stuff is written in C/Obj-C, ShinyCocos is just a thin layer... Although GC and callbacks do cost CPU time.

Finally, what I think will come out of this experiment is: ruby is a great scripting language, and really awesome tool to write games on, but we need to keep things fast as hell when writing iPhone games, so my next approach will be to use ruby to program the logic (just like ShinyCocos is doing right now), but with the help of llvm & friends compile that code to native arm/x86.

Benefits of that approach:
- rapid prototyping/developing (currently on ShinyCocos)
- avoid common memory handling mistakes (currently on ShinyCocos)
- code will run as fast as regular c/obj-c (not currently on ShinyCocos)
- apple can't say a thing, because you're not shipping a custom interpreter (not currently on ShinyCocos, but we can't ignore this if apple also ignores it)
However, for that I need time, and next week is the deadline for IGF mobile :-)... so no time to work on that until 2010
Posted 8 months ago #
bradparks
Member

@rolando:.... Did you ever try getting Ruby scripts to run from the users documents directory? If not, could you point me to where in the ShinyCocos source I'd have to make mods to make it happen? I'm not really familiar with Ruby, but would like to start getting familiar with ShinyCocos, as I think it'd be a great solution to scripting my app, and I feel like I'm at the point now where it'd really help out... thanks!

Posted 8 months ago #

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