iDevGames

Starting life as ZBasic, FutureBASIC has had a loyal following on the Mac since Chris Stasny took over under Staz Software. We’ve reviewed FutureBASIC in the past, and even received some entries into uDevGames made with this IDE. In August 2005, Staz Software was severely hit by Hurricane Katrina and with advancements in Mac OS X, FutureBASIC headed towards the way of CodeWarrior. Staz Software released FutureBASIC as freeware in 2008 but we haven’t heard much from the community until now — an independent team of FutureBASIC programmers developed a translator that allows FutureBASIC to generate applications as Universal Binaries through the use of the open source GCC compiler. The translator, FBtoC is available for download and is currently at version 1.4.1. FutureBASIC 5.4.1 is also available from this project’s site.

Related Links:

• FBtoC Project
• Staz Software
• TNT Basic

SDL is a free cross-platform multi-media development API. SDL version 1.2 now builds on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Eric Wing posted a good rundown on the numerous changes. This release is intended to clean up the bug list for SDL 1.2 and lets the developers focus on new development for SDL 1.3! General fixed include the following:

• Fixed flicker when resizing the SDL window
• Fixed crash in SDL_SetGammaRamp()
• Fixed freeze in SDL_memset() with 0 length when assembly code is disabled.
• Added SDL_DISABLE_LOCK_KEYS environment variable to enable normal up/down events for Caps-Lock and Num-Lock keys.
• Fixed audio quality problem when converting between 22,050 Hz and 44,100 Hz.
• Fixed a threading crash when a few threads are rapidly created and complete.
• Increased accuracy of alpha blending routines.
• Fixed crash loading BMP files saved with the scanlines inverted.
• Fixed mouse coordinate clamping if SDL_SetVideoMode() isn’t called in response to SDL_VIDEORESIZE event.
• Added doxygen documentation for the SDL API headers.
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Basic Screen Capturing

Screenflick is a handy screen capture utility with a wide array of options for capture size, export type, frame rate and keyboard or mouse event display. This wide array of features makes it absolutely perfect for an indie game developer, allowing you to quickly and simply make gameplay videos or tutorials. The program is pretty bare bones, with a straightforward UI, presenting all of your options in an easy-to-understand settings pane and one big, obvious record button.

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Registration for Unite 2009, the third annual Unity Developer Conference, is now open to the public. This year’s conference, running October 28 – 30, will be held at Fort Mason, San Francisco.

Once again it’s time for developers, artists, publishers and anyone else interested to come together for a few days to learn more about Unity and how to get the most out of it. Unity’s larger and broader than ever before: we’re now offering a four day event that starts with an optional day of advanced hands-on classes, followed by three more days of technical sessions.

The conference features keynote and roadmap presentation, over a dozen one-hour technical sessions
5 hours of hands-on lab time, a bonus day of hands-on technical classes and more. On October 27th, they will be offering a free “Unity for Flash Developers” introductory course and a “Unity for Unity Developers” masterclass. For more details and pricing info, visit the Unity website.

Cheetah3D 5.0, released today, builds on previous releases of the native OS X 3D software by adding an all new node based material system, better multi-threading, a large library of included materials, and many other tools and UI tweaks.

Cheetah3D 5.0 was released today. Version 5.0 adds a completely new node based material system which allows professional designers to create stunning new materials just by drag and drop. Additionally, the render engine was optimized to efficiently handle up to 16 CPU cores. The modeling tools have been extended by a new bevel tool and a bend modifier, and basic export to the Collada file format has been added. Cheetah3D 5.0 now also supports pivot points.

A Cheetah3D 5.0 single user license costs 149 US$ and 69 US$ for an upgrade from an older version (1.x, 2.x, 3.x or 4.x).

• Related Link: Cheetah3D 5.0 Announcement

atMonitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Mac OS X that displays system activity in real-time. It is designed to allow quick assessment of computer’s state, but it is powerful enough to make it a core utility in any developer’s system troubleshooting toolkit. atMonitor offers a better alternative to Apple’s own “Activity Monitor” and combines the best of the features of many other existing monitoring programs. The developer has written specifically to help him with an OpenGL based framework. You can use atMonitor to not only monitor your CPU, but also GPU usage. In addition, atMonitor can monitor FPS — making sure that your game is not overflushing, as well as log all monitored values. atMonitor is compatible with Snow Leopard.

Related Link: atPurpose Technologies.

Impact Game Audio is a new audio outsourcing provider with facilities in Sydney, Australia. They have provided audio services for such films as Stardust, Happy Feet, The Sum of Us, TV shows and other movies. They work with game developers with budgets ranging from casual gaming to AAA title developers.

Simply mention “idevgames” and I am sure we will find something suitable. Our production is fully customisable to your budget.

They are also highly interested in working with iPhone developers.

• Related Link: http://www.impactgameaudio.com/

Provocative and Interactive

With uDeadGame, our uDevGames 2008 entry, we set out to create a provocative and interactive learning tool to initiate conversation about the spiritually sensitive controversy over appeasing the infinite hunger of the restless dead. To our surprise invididuals found it either entertaining, disappointing and/or disturbing. This unexpected result has lead the iGame3D team of experts to feel confident that people may like or perhaps even dislike a three dimensional first person zombie action adventure game. Such profound discoveries will certainly lead our research and development team to rich and meaningful technologies that will with out a doubt benefit all mankind.

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Cheetah3D 4.7 was released today. Version 4.7 is mainly a bug fix release which solves the problems Cheetah3D 4.6.4 had on Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Cheetah3D 4.7 is free for all registered Cheetah3D 4.x users. A single user license costs 149 US$ and 69 US$ for an update of an older version (1.x, 2.x or 3.x). New features in Cheetah3D 4.7 include:

• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard compatibility
• Fixed texture import bug (on 10.6)
• Fixed render manager bug (on 10.6)
• Fixed crashing render bug (on 10.6)
• Fixed bug when rendering resolutions not dividable by 8 (on 10.6)
• Optimized frame buffer which uses less memory
• Faster calculation of material previews
• Minor bug fixes and enhancements

Related Link:

• Download Cheetah3D

Installing Mac Applications

Maybe its just my Mac bias, but I have never liked installers much. They always strike me as black boxes. Whenever I run one I always imagine it scattering hidden files all over my hard drive. I love it when you download software on the Mac and are presented with a simple disk image with an alias to the applications folder. Its nice, simple and very clear where things are being installed. I can see where installers have their uses for complicated programs requiring special system libraries and such, but I always feel a twinge of suspicion when I encounter software that has an installer when I don’t feel it needs one.

Unfortunately, most of the world runs Windows, and on Windows you need an installer to set up all of the proper start menu aliases etc. I wanted some Windows equivalent of the dmg with which to install the windows version of my game, but it apparently doesn’t exist. Windows users expect installers and most software portals apparently won’t even distribute Windows software that doesn’t have a proper installer. Because of this, BitRock InstallBuilder has become an important part of my publishing workflow for the Windows version of my game Constellation. I really like that it works on a mac. I program with Adobe Director, that can publish a windows .exe from a Mac its really helpful to have InstallBuilder lets me publish to Windows without ever touching Windows (other than for testing of course).

Getting Around un-Mac Interface

I was at first very confused by InstallBuilder. Its interface and directory structure is decidedly un-Mac like. Opening its main folder, I was confronted with a number of subfolders, and an uninstaller. I had trouble finding the application at first! It turns out it lives in the bin subfolder. It would be nice if they included an alias to the main folder. Likewise, when you save a project it goes to the projects subfolder, building goes to output etc. This wasn’t a problem once I got used to it, but I was expecting to be able to choose locations for all of those things.

InstallBuilder creates an XML project file that contains links to your files, and locations for where to install everything. It then uses this file to build your installers. Unfortunately, you can’t modify all of your installer’s properties with the InstallBuilder’s UI. Some things require you to modify the XML file directly. For example, I wanted my installer to default the name of the installation folder to my company name rather than my game’s name. This change required me to modify the XML. This wasn’t very well documented, but Bitrock’s support team was very quick to respond to my questions, and tell me how to make the change. They also listened and added some of my suggestions to their feature request database. I give them high marks for customer support.

Once your installer project is set up, its very easy to update. Just update the version number in your product details, make sure the installer is pointing to the latest build of your .exe and hit Build. I could easily build a similar Mac installer at the same time, but as I have mentioned before I prefer the disk image approach. It would be nice if InstallBuilder gave you the option to create that sort of installation on the mac. As it is I use Araelium Group’s DMG Canvas to create my Mac installer. Its an extra step in my publishing process, but feels better to me.

My biggest problem with InstallBuilder is the price. I would gladly pay as much as $40 for the ease and convenience of building Windows installers on my mac. Bitrock’s posted price of $1,995 makes me gasp. Having received the software for free as a uDev prize, I have found it very useful, but I couldn’t see myself ever paying that much for this software, especially when free Windows alternatives like Inno Setup exist. Bitrock does offer InstallBuilder for free to open source developers however. Their website also states that they offer discounts for businesses with less than 5 employees as well. I would be curious how much this discount is.

Conclusion

If you can get InstallBuilder discounted, or you work for a big company that makes a lot of multi-platform instlallers, I recommend this software. Once you get used to the interface, its easy to use and creates rock solid, nice looking installers. If you only need to make Windows installers, can’t get a discount, and don’t need any advanced functionality I might try a free alternative like inno setup first.

Pros

• Easily create nice professional looking installers for Windows and other operating systems without ever leaving your mac.
• Free to open source developers
• Good customer service.

Cons

• Expensive for non-open source (Though there is an unspecified discount for small businesses).
• Un Mac-like interface.
• Can’t create .dmg / applications folder alias Mac installer

Details

• Company: BitRock
• URL: http://bitrock.com
• Version: 6.0
• Category: Installer
• MRSP: $795 (Mac OS X), Pro $1,395, Pro Site $4,495, Enterprise $1,995, Enterprise Suite $6,995