JFront beta

[Lilwolf]

Hey, I'm moving from New Mexico to Cincinnati in 3 weeks by myself (wife and kids are already there... so I get to do all the packing ect.....sigh....), so I'm hoping to get a beta out since I won't get much time in the next few weeks.
 
Anyway, I have the basics of the new 3d version of JFront running.  It's still missing some major pieces but it's still functional.  Would anyone be willing to look at it.
 
but... It will take some time to install.  You need Java jdk1.4 and a library called gl4java (opengl for java).  This library has and install process that is just slighly annoying in that you need to copy dll files around and then add some jars to the classpath (I can give easier instructions then on the gl4java homepage)
 
jdk1.4: java.sun.com
gl4java: http://www.jausoft.com/gl4java/
 
Then if you want to make sure that everything is working, you can also configure gl4java into your browser plugin and run the 3d stuff from the web.  Some pretty cool demos there.
 
After all that, you need to resize your png files in your snap and marquee section so that the width and height are the same.  This is a bug in the gl4java and I haven't had time to take a look.  I think it's only with png files... but not sure.  I only did the first 20 or so png files initially.
 
Now that you know how annoying the installation is at the moment.  If you would still like to take a look at jfront (should probably rename it glFront?) let me know (PM, email, or just reply)  I will send you the code.
 
So after all that trouble... why do it.
 
Well, because I think its kinda cool.  A 3d frontend that is pretty much completely configurable in .ini files (hopefully I will get to do it ingame soon... but after all the other stuff is added).  I wrote a simple 3d engine that has the ability to do a ton of stuff super fast.... but the example doesn't show that off since all moving items can't be optimized.... but it does mean that I can make all the screen items MUCH more complicated at no additional cost from this point on...  I spend a lot of time with dealing with motions in a different way then normal.  I think it came out pretty good and I can add animations to any object in a few lines of code.  
 
So whats missing?
 
1)  The cabinet.  I haven't parsed the VRML files yet.  I did it once with the help of a jar file that I decided sucked... So I put it off hoping for a better solution to come up... hasn't yet, so it's time to start parsing by hand.  Once the VRML files are being parsed, I will use them for the cubes at the bottom also to add some extra visuals down there.  Also allowing people to change them later.
 
2) Keyboard entry.  Since I was storing in jfront all keyboard mappings  in a proprientary file format, I didn't want to use it again since I didnt' have a way to change them.  So I scrapped the object for a while and hardcoded some keys.  These will make it unusable in a cabinet since left is 'j' and right is 'l' for now.  good enought for testing though.
 
3) I'm always parsing the listinfo.ini.  Why?  Without parsing a bunch of the other parts in it (I'm not using the historical anymore for instance) it parses almost as fast as loading it from a text file... Almost but not exactly.  I want to add some smarts so that it will check the mame.exe data and the number of roms in the roms directory to reparse automatically, so I left saving them out for now.
 
4) Left out all the indexing and filtering and mame configuration stuff from jfront.  It's indexed, but no way to set what field yet (but added into the objects so it should be fast, I just don't know how I want to add the UI to swap it).
 
Whats left to do.
1) parse VRML
2) add pageup/pagedown alphaup/alphadown animations
3) add real keyboard stuff
4) add index and filter objects and ingame UI to change them.  I'm toying with filters being set with cubes that represent a field (like a picture of a football for all sports games, a fist for fighting games ect) similar to the cubes to quakes that you can rotate between them.  But I don't have a keyboard plan that wouldn't be to confusing for anyone to use.
5) Add more games then mame.  Especially since Howards wrappers are around (THANKS HOWARD) I have to give them another go.  
6) Ingame configuration of cubes, cabinet, text, ect location and size.
7) I would love to add mouse/lightgun support and allow you to shoot the cubes as they move to start that game.  Just for fun.
 
cya
Drake