VGM Week 1: Starting up base framework

Video Game Middleware (VGM) is one of the module I am currently studying and will be based around developing a middleware and using them to develop game whiles using and modifying Gamebryo. As usual, this well be series of development log for personal reference.

This week, we got given a starting point for a base game framework using Gamebryo written in C++. Using the code provided, first I had to fix all of the bugs that were in the given projects. The project uses Crazy Eddie (CEGUI) for GUI so at first, I had to get hold of it and import it to the project in visual studio. For this project, due to limitation of only being able to work on this at university computers which, cannot save any setting setup to Visual Studio, I spent time editing the project files to store all of the include and library directories whiles fixing the bugs. Majority of the problem that I have faced during the first attempt to get the project up and running without it crushing was mainly to do with the project being setup in older version of visual studio (it used VS2005 files rather than VS2008 ones).

After fixing the initial bugs, I got the project up and running and started extending the project by adding more game states and importing a new level. Adding new game states and editing them was easy task but I struggled with importing the level created with the Scene Designer (a scene editor that comes with Gamebryo) to the game. The project always crushed when I try loading the newly created level and when I checked back on the level, it kept on losing its contents when I try re-opening it in the Scene Designer. Currently, I have not managed to overcome this problem so for the time being I have edited the project so that it can load multiple levels by using an existing example.