[gameprogrammer] Re: Embedded file monitoring system?

On Thu, 2005-04-28 at 16:45 -0300, Kevin Fields wrote:
> Boost would help to solve the cross-platform issue.
> If it's a texture issue, maybe you should check out the devIL library.
> I know about it because I'm working with the Ogre rendering engine (which 
> makes use of both Boost and devIL).

Yes, I'm using Ogre too in this game I'm doing, and it's a quite
impressive engine :D
But regarding devIL... I haven't had a good experience with it in the
past. It gave me a lot of problems to get to compile Ogre with it (I've
even read Ogre developers saying "we know devIL is evil"). So, is it
still as evil as ever? Or have they managed to keep it's evilness down?

> As for determining whether the texture has been modified, instead of polling 
> each frame to see if the texture was modified, you could use a sort of event 
> handling system where the appropriate texture would have an event signaled 
> to it, and in the event handler function for that texture, you would reload 
> the texture. But, that's just one possible way of doing things.

Yes, that was what I was looking for the first time. But for what I've
seen, only a few platforms allow you to "register" a process as a
"filesystem events handler" and make the kernel tell that process when a
file has been modified (latest versions of Linux, for example, seem to
have this feature). And as one of my project goals is portability, I
think I'll have to find another way to do it. And the only other way
that comes into my mind is polling every few seconds :S

I think something like this could work:
Poll the filesystem for changes every few seconds in an independent
thread (using the Boost library). Then, between frames, check the
changed files and reload the corresponding textures. 

Probably I'll have to dig deeper into Ogre's internals to be able to do
that, as I'm no Ogre guru myself. Hummm... now that I think of it...
this could be a very interesting feature for Ogre... hummm

Well, I'll keep thinking about this, and looking for other solutions to
this problem.

Bye!

> Kevin
> 
> >From: Swalrus <swalrus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >Reply-To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Embedded file monitoring system?
> >Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 17:47:00 +0200
> >
> >On Thu, 2005-04-28 at 10:45 +0100, Trollfiddler wrote:
> > > Unless you use java. Cross platform IO works fine on various versions of
> > > Windows and Unix. Probably no use to you at this stage, but if it really 
> >HAS
> > > to be cross platform then it's worth mentioning in case you hit a dead 
> >end.
> >
> >Unfortunately I'm coding it using C++, so Java's I/O capabilities won't be 
> >of
> >much help this time :(
> >
> >Anyway, I've just found a C++ library that seems portable enough (works
> >on all POSIX compliant platforms and Windows), and that lets you check
> >files' last modification time as I needed. It's one of the Boost.org set
> >of libraries, called Boost Filesystem Library.
> >
> >Has anybody here used it before?
> >
> >And, answering Scott here, when I've coded this monitoring system I will
> >release under the LGPL, so anybody can use it :) And as you suggested,
> >if I manage to code that on-the-fly-assets-reloading system, I will
> >upload a tutorial to the wiki :)
> >
> >Bye
> >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Scott Harper" <lareon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > To: <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 3:43 AM
> > > Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Embedded file monitoring system?
> > >
> > >
> > > > Good luck on the cross-platform-ness in this regard.  I don't know TOO
> > > > much about programming on a per-system level, but from what I've
> > > > learned, dealing with the filesystems is almost COMPLETELY different
> > > > from platform to platform.  You would literally have to write calls
> > > > using completely different code on each platform to do the different
> > > > things.
> > > >
> > > > Although, now that I think of it, I suppose it wouldn't be 
> >unreasonable
> > > > to implement this way, just a whole bunch of #ifdef's in your code, I
> > > > imagine.  Careful coding would be requisite in this case, though, to
> > > > ensure that each platform's code was isolated appropriately.
> > > >
> > > > If you do it that way, you should go to the wiki and upload a 
> >tutorial!
> > > >
> > > > --Scott
> > > >
> > > > On 27 Apr, 2005, at 7:37 PM, Swalrus wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> On Wed, 2005-04-27 at 13:03 +0000, John-Philip Johansson wrote:
> > > >>> While I was reading "The Guerrilla Guide to Game Code"
> > > >>> (http://www.gamasu=
> > > >> tra.com/features/20050414/rouwe_01.shtml), which is a great article
> > > >> btw, I =
> > > >> came across this at the end; under References:
> > > >>> [Butcher]: Halo 2 =96 Chris Butcher =96 Speech at game|tech 2004
> > > >>> ( http://www.game-tech.com/Talks/Butcher.doc )
> > > >>
> > > >> Reading that document (a great reading, BTW), a Halo2 feature Butcher
> > > >> talks about just caught my attention. He talks of an embedded file
> > > >> monitoring system that reloads game assets when the related files are
> > > >> modified on the HD. For example, if a texture image is modified, it's
> > > >> automatically reloaded in the game, immediately showing 3D models 
> >with
> > > >> the new texture. And the same goes for all kinds of objects 
> >(geometry,
> > > >> collisions data, sounds, etc)
> > > >>
> > > >> This kind of thing would be REALLY helpful in a small game I'm
> > > >> developing, and so I wonder how could I implement this feature.=20
> > > >>
> > > >> I suppose I would have to manually poll each and every file I want to
> > > >> monitor every few seconds, to see if they've been modified, but... do
> > > >> you know if there's a better way to do it?
> > > >>
> > > >> I've been googling for a library I could use to do this kind of 
> >stuff,
> > > >> but the only ones I've found where non-portable (I need it to be
> > > >> cross-platform), and relied on a client-server architecture (see 
> >SGI's
> > > >> FAM for example).
> > > >>
> > > >> Do you know of any library that could be used for this? Or will I 
> >have
> > > >> to code this feature from scratch?
> > > >>
> > > >> Thank you!
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >>
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> > > >
> > > >
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