Compiling extensions to RGSS

[rey meustrus]

I was hoping to get some information on compiling an extension to RGSS. I am already fairly expert with C/C++ and Ruby programming; I'm just not familiar with the interface and don't know where to start looking. I am interested specifically in building a graphical component that can be integrated into the rest of the game, such as with new Mode 7.

 

[Glitchfinder]

I was hoping to get some information on compiling an extension to RGSS. I am already fairly expert with C/C++ and Ruby programming; I'm just not familiar with the interface and don't know where to start looking. I am interested specifically in building a graphical component that can be integrated into the rest of the game, such as with new Mode 7.

All right. You'll have to actually compile this kind of stuff as .dll files, and use the Win32API class to access them. I have a few posts on the subject, (mostly just clones of each other), so if you want to learn a bit more about Win32API, just put my name into the author field of the search function and put Win32API in the actual search field. Try to constrain it to the script support forum, too, if you want fewer results.

 

[rey meustrus]

Thanks. How would you suggest I build a graphical component? Can I interact with the RGSS classes or should I interact directly with GDI? Or could I use some other graphical system like OpenGL?

 

[Glitchfinder]

Thanks. How would you suggest I build a graphical component? Can I interact with the RGSS classes or should I interact directly with GDI? Or could I use some other graphical system like OpenGL?

You can actually interact directly with the graphical components of the game. I've posted the source code of a .dll I was working a few times, that would edit bitmaps the game had loaded, much faster than the game itself could.

 

[rey meustrus]

Could you link me to one of those posts? I saw nothing like that when I searched for your posts before, and perhaps I had bad search terms but there wasn't a lot of relevant stuff in the search.

 

[Glitchfinder]

Go here for one of the posts with source code. Scroll up a bit from that one to find one of my posts on Win32API.

 

[rey meustrus]

That's excellent! Do you have any examples dealing with Sprites instead of Bitmaps? I think it would be more efficient to modify the sprite as it displays than to modify the bitmap; for example, the zoom_x and zoom_y effects in RGSS are faster than stretch_blt. It may or may not be possible to implement effects at that level, though.

 

[Glitchfinder]

That's excellent! Do you have any examples dealing with Sprites instead of Bitmaps? I think it would be more efficient to modify the sprite as it displays than to modify the bitmap; for example, the zoom_x and zoom_y effects in RGSS are faster than stretch_blt. It may or may not be possible to implement effects at that level, though.

I know it's possible, but I'm not actually sure how to do that. The first step would be figuring out how the sprite was stored in memory, what equals what, etc. However, I'm not quite sure how to go about doing that.

 

[rey meustrus]

So basically, a hacking project? Sounds like it might be fun. I did that for the Table class once, to figure out how to read and write to the Marshal'd data for Table, so as to create a more portable pure-Ruby Table class that could read RMXP data. That didn't involve any compiled memory management, though, so I would appreciate any explanation of the techniques you used to manipulate Bitmaps in memory.

 

[Glitchfinder]

So basically, a hacking project? Sounds like it might be fun. I did that for the Table class once, to figure out how to read and write to the Marshal'd data for Table, so as to create a more portable pure-Ruby Table class that could read RMXP data. That didn't involve any compiled memory management, though, so I would appreciate any explanation of the techniques you used to manipulate Bitmaps in memory.

Well, the basics involve trying to load the data stored in memory, and creating a log in the process. For example, the bitmap class was mostly guessed at. I really have no idea what those other variables are. I just know that I have to load them before I can get to the ones I need.