http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEnYrJynuSc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNaFPKHBpiI

Actually this filter has been “on hold” for a while because it was crashing the host app on some tester’s machines due to a map script contained in it that was responsible for an optional control which would display the rendered galaxy in a tilted perspective (similar like on the image above). This view mode however was just for convenience to see the graphic in a more practical use case in an instant. And so, because the script seemed to make the filter unstable, I threw it out. So you will only get a semi-cool looking render of a galaxy, but of course that’s no problem because Photoshop can fix the rest easily. If this filter doesn’t cut it for you, you might want to check out my Photoshop Galaxy tutorial, which is a lot more involved though.

Get the Spiral Galaxy filter here.

In case you’re into Filter Forge and coincidentally need to render planets you can download this filter here. But be warned that this filter is a tad more difficult to use is still a bit rough around the edges because many of the slider controls have no properly defined limits so you might want to approach it with sensitive finger tips. Hitting ‘next variation’ wildly will probably lead to anything but something good looking. Also, while I added optional clouds, please don’t use them! They look awful! If I learned something from making this filter then it’s the wisdom that trying to create realistic looking satellite imagery cloud layers are a pain in the butt to make! Still, there are some decent results you can get from this filter.

Terrestrial Planet Filter Forge Filter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MERLa33hY2k

I’ve mentioned before that it’s possible to run Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic in DOSBox with Tandy sound enabled but I couldn’t figure out how to get it working. Today I’m back with good news in that I can tell you how to get this fixed so the trillions of SWFM fans out there can enjoy this fantastic game with the excellent Tandy sound!

First you need of course DOSBox (v0.74 as of now), a copy of SWFM (you can find a pre-installed one here), and – the magic fix – my replacement files which you can get here …

Next, in the pre-installed version is a folder named FM, simply copy the files from my zip into that folder, overwriting the old ones (you might want to backup these first, but then, once you go Tandy you never go back! ).

Finally you need to tell DOSBox to use Tandy graphics and sound. I recommend using a frontend like D-Fend to configure those settings (and in all honesty I don’t know how to apply them to DOSBox without the frontend). So in D-Fend edit the profile of SWFM (wich you undoubtedly already created) and under ‘Graphics’ set ‘videocard’ to ‘tandy’ and under ‘Sound’ set ‘Tandy sound’ to ‘On’.

And, voila … you got SWFM with Tandy sound running. Note that any savegame that was saved with the non-Tandy version might get you scrambled graphics so you have to start a new game.

Listen Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic with Tandy sound

Shoot First, a game by Beau Blyth, is a mix of a Roguelike and Run-N-Gun where you explore a randomly generated dungeon while searching for precious items and encountering vile enemy monsters of all kinds. You get thrown into the dungeon at a random entry point from where you have to make your way to the next-lower floor. On the way you find chests that you can shoot open to reveal useful items and occasionally you find companions who join your party or damsels which you have to rescue from captivity. If you escort them safely to the next exit they will thank you with a reward item.

The game isn’t your generic rogue-like, it’s actually very fast-paced. To get forward you have to encounter many monsters and dispatch them or at least evade them but the enemy AI is quite smart. Many monsters will try to flank or evade you and try to shoot you while you’re hiding in a tunnel. That said, Shoot First is not an easy game. The enemies shoot a lot and they shoot well. Many of them are also quite powerful. To counter this, you’re able to shoot into any direction or strafe-shoot into one direction while running. You can also increase in level which will improve your character’s skills. You’re doing so by shooting monsters and collect small, yellow artifacts (gold?) that are revealed after a monster dies. Still the game is rather difficult to beat and to be honest I haven’t made it any further than to the third floor so far.

Automapping

The game’s music consists of a small selection of Impulse Tracker chiptunes which in my opinion aren’t anything to get excited about but they serve the game’s atmosphere well enough.

There are some nice ideas that the author brought into this game. For example boss fights! On every floor you will encounter one or more monster bosses. These are not only very powerful but as soon as you approach them the room will close around you and  lock you and the boss (and occasionally other enemies) up, making it impossible to escape from the fight. As if this wasn’t already malevolent enough, additionally the walls will start to move inwards slowly, making them room smaller.

Shoot First isn’t without flaws however. It won’t store your key control settings so you have to define them again every time you start playing a session. There seems to be a problem with the game’s screen resolution because it never fills the screen completely but only occupies a much smaller area centered on the screen. It’s not possible to play in windowed mode and the game switches your screen to a very small resolution so if you had any other windows open on your desktop you will find them in disarray after you return from the game. There’s an online hi-score board into which your score is written – if you managed to get a high-enough score. However it seems some cheaters already occupied the highest positions. Something that is easily done with several cheat tools.

It's getting busy!

The author obviously used Game Maker to create Shoot First and I have no trouble with that as the author did a great job crafting this game. Game Maker is a tool that let’s you easily build simple games by putting together sprites, objects, events etc. but for a game of the complexity of Shoot First you still need a considerable programming knowledge. The question for me is if Flash wouldn’t have been the better solution for such a game and I can answer that question easily with a Yes!
It would be a relatively easy feat to create a game of this sort in Flash – provided you have the coding skills – and even benefit from it as it could have been made a web game and a multi-platform desktop game at the same time via AIR. Alas, with Game Maker it’s Windows only. As a Flash web-based game it would be easier to protect the game from Cheating or Hi-score Hacking (although the same goes for a desktop game made with AIR). It would also benefit from a smoother desktop-integration by scaling up to fullscreen without the need to switch the screen resolution. As a trade-off Flash doesn’t support sound tracker modules (yet) but there is Flod to the rescue which already supports a nice selection of tracker formats.

Still, Shoot First is a nifty and fun little game to which I certainly will return more often.

You can download Shoot First at the game’s official website.

Ultima is the one role-playing game where you start in the present world and then travel into a fantasy parallel world of Britannia, usually via a portal. Here’s a nice video (from RetroHD) of the last game in the Ultima series, Ultima 9 – Ascension which introduces the beginning of the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wsFJa9VgWA

This guide explains how to set up a Flash and Flex development environment with Eclipse, FDT, Flash Builder and a couple of other editors that you want for ActionScript coding and Flash development with style! This guide is based on Windows because that’s what I’m using but I’m sure you Mac and Linux guys can figure out the parts that differ on your OS! Let’s get started …

• Java Runtime – In case you don’t have it installed yet. Choose either the Standard Java Runtime from Sun or  – my recommendation – the JRockit Runtime from Oracle. The latter is a highly optimized version of the Java Runtime. It’s free but you have to register an account at Oracle to download it.
• Eclipse Platform Runtime Binary – We want the bare bones version without all the additional junk. We’re going to add the stuff we need later. Don’t worry! It’ll be a smooth ride if you follow this guide.
• Powerflasher FDT – The best tool for ActionScript coding … with a price tag! But you don’t want to skimp on professional tools for professional work, do you?! We’re going to install this from within Eclipse later!
• Flash Builder PlugIn – I’d list this as optional since the only advantage of it over FDT is currently it’s visual editor. You don’t want to code ActionScript in this once you’ve used FDT, believe me!
• Other Eclipse PlugIns: HTML-, JavaScript-, XML-, CSS- Editors, Apache Ant (via JDT). These are all tools we need every now and then. Gratifyingly, the Eclipse project provides excellent versions of all these.
• Even more Eclipse PlugIns: Subclipse and Mylyn. Both optional! Subclipse for accessing SVN repositories and Mylyn as a great coding task tool. Both get installed later via Eclipse.

Other Tools you might need/want:

• Flex SDK – FDT ships with it’s own Flex SDK but they are usually a step behind the latest version so I prefer to use SDKs that stand on their own regardless of what FDT ships. Be sure to pick the ‘Adobe Flex SDK’, not the ‘Open Source Flex SDK’ since that one is missing a few things. Also you might want to have several different SDKs installed like for example Flex 3.x and Flex 4 which you can target individually from FDT. If you want to use Ant build files later to build your projects it’s a good idea to place the SDKs in a clean and easy folder hierarchy, e.g. let’s say I have Flex SDK 3.5 and 4.0 on my system then I would put them under C:\Users\username\Applications\FlexSDK\3.5.0 and C:\Users\username\Applications\FlexSDK\4.0.0. I remember having trouble with spaces in path names when I experimented with Alchemy hence I decided to not put the SDKs into a subfolder in ‘Program Files’.
• Flash Player Runtimes – Debug versions, release versions, browser plugins and whatnot. I typically disregard all the versions that come with any Flex SDK or Flash IDE and copy the newest version into a folder that always stays the same (for example C:/Program Files/Adobe/Flash Player/Debug/FlashPlayer.exe and C:/Program Files (x86)/Adobe/Flash Player/Release/FlashPlayer.exe) because it can get messy if you have X different SDK versions plus the Flash IDE, plus Flash Builder etc. installed that all come with their own runtimes.
• Adobe AIR – because Flash development would be only half the fun without it!
• Adobe Flash – The ol’ Flash IDE. If you code with this you will become impotent but it’s still great for putting visual assets together and use these as SWC’s with FDT.
• Alcon – My own little debugging and logging tool. There’s a good choice of similar loggers out there but Alcon still serves me well. Suit yourself.

1. Java Runtime
   This should be straightforward! Choose the one you prefer from the links above and install. If you go for the JRockit one, you might want to set an environment variable (under Windows) named JAVA_HOME that points to your JRockit runtime path. For example I have my JRockit installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jrrt, (under Windows 7) open the Start menu, from there navigate to Control Panel/System and Security/System, click the Advanced system settings link on the left of the window, in the System Properties dialog click the Environment Variables button, then click the New… button under System variables and enter JAVA_HOME as the Variable name and C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jrrt\jre (in my example) as the Variable value. You might have to reboot or at least relogin for this setting to take effect.
2. Eclipse
   Download the Eclipse Platform Runtime Binary (currently v3.5.2, ~47MB) and unpack it. Copy the Eclipse folder to where you like, typically something like  C:\Program Files\Eclipse but I prefer to have my installation under C:\Users\username\Applications\Eclipse. The reason for this is that under Windows with UAC turned on Eclipse will create an additional folder in your user location where it stores all your installed PlugIns so you end up with two locations in that things get installed. This led to discrepancies more than once for me before due to ambiguous PlugIn installs. Very, very annoying so eventually I decided to keep it simple and have it in a non-UAC protected location.  The C:\Users\username\Applications folder is my place for all applications that have trouble with UAC.
   Either way, you have your Eclipse where you want it, next step is to edit the eclipse.ini. Your default eclipse.ini will look similar to this:

   -startup
   plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.200.v20090520.jar
   --launcher.library
   plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.200.v20090519
   -showsplash
   org.eclipse.platform
   --launcher.XXMaxPermSize
   256m
   -vmargs
   -Xms40m
   -Xmx256m

   And this is how it ‘should’ look after you edit it:

   -vm "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jrrt\jre\bin\javaw.exe"
   -startup
   plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.200.v20090520.jar
   --launcher.library
   plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.200.v20090519
   -showsplash
   org.eclipse.platform
   --launcher.XXMaxPermSize
   256m
   -vmargs
   -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=10
   -XX:MaxPermSize=128m
   -XX:PermSize=64m
   -XX:+UseParallelGC
   -Xms128m
   -Xmx1024m

   If you don’t use JRockit you can skip the first line, if you do use JRockit you need to adapt the first line to point to your JRockit jawaw.exe!
   The -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=10, -XX:MaxPermSize=128m, -XX:PermSize=64m and -XX:+UseParallelGC lines are not mandatory but they improve performance (or so I’ve heard!). Just be sure to set Xms and Xmx high enough, to at least 128 and 512, but better 1024 (Eclipse and FDT need LOADS of RAM!).
   Next fire up Eclipse and choose your Workspace location. Eclipse will present itself with its nice and warm intro screen …
   

3. JDT & Ant
   Click through to the Workbench (the arrow on the right) and from the menu choose Help/Install New Software… then in the Install window  where it says “Work with:” choose the Galileo update site (Galileo – http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo) and in the tree list that shows up, unfold the Programming Languages branch and check Eclipse Java Development Tools. Then click the Next button and follow the install procedure. Restart Eclipse when it asks you to do so after the installation.
   
4. HTML-, JavaScript-, XML- and CSS- Editors
   This is the exact same procedure as in step 3 with the difference that you unfold the Web, XML, and Java EE Development category and check the Eclipse Web Developer Tools, Eclipse XML Editors and Tools and the JavaScript Developer Tools.
   
5. Subclipse
   Next things next! For Subclipse we need to add the update URL to Eclipse. Open The Eclipse Install window again, click the Add… button and enter Subclipse 1.6 as the name and http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x as the location (or you might wanna check the official Subclipse site for any newer update URLs) …
   … Hit OK and choose the required Subclipse components from the tree list. You need at least the parts that are marked as required but I also pick Integration for Mylyn, the SVNKit Library, SVNKit Client Adapter and the JNA Library. Can’t hurt to have them on board! After that click Next ansd from there on the procedure is very much the same as before with step 3 and 4.
   
6. Mylyn
   We can install Mylyn and all its dependencies again from the Galileo update site just as above under step 3 and 4. You’ll find Mylyn in the Collaboration category. I’ll go for Mylyn Task List, Mylyn Task-Focused Interface, Mylyn WikiText and Mylyn Bridge: Eclipse IDE. There are some other bridges for other Languages if you want them but since FDT has no support for Mylyn yet there’s nothing for ActionScript. However we can still put Mylyn to good use for our ActionScript programming, we just don’t get the same task-focused integration as with Java or C++.
   
7. FDT
   Time to install the FDT trial! We need to enter the update site just as with Subclipse in step 5. For the update site enter FDT as name and http://fdt.powerflasher.com/update/ as the location (or check the Powerflasher website in case the URL changed). Pick the FDT version(s) that you want to install from the tree list, hit Next and go drink a coffee! Installing FDT will take a couple of minutes. Don’t forget to restart Eclipse after install!
   
8. Flash Builder PlugIn
   At last we install Flash Builder! This step is wholly optional! If you don’t have any use for Flash Builder’s visual editor I actually recommend to skip this step and instead enjoy a more lightweight Eclipse without Flash Builder.
   Head over to Adobe and download the Flash Builder PlugIn trial version (at the time of this writing it’s the Flash Builder 4 beta 2 which can be found at the Adobe Labs). You might be required to register at Adobe to download the trial.
   Next quit your Eclipse and start the downloaded Flash Builder installer. Go through the installation steps and when it asks for the Eclipse install choose Plug into another copy of Eclipse and enter the path to your freshly prepared Eclipse location …
   … continue the installation, then go drink another coffee, installing Flash Builder takes long!
9. Bonus Step
   Download this slick Splash screen and replace the unlucky default Eclipse Splash screen with it by copying it to your Eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.platform_x.x.xxx… folder.
   

And that’s all for now! With this setup you have your one-stop-shop for Flash and Flex development at your fingertips! In the next part I will try to guide through some configuring of Eclipse, in particular on how to use FDT and Flash Builder on the same project.