Using FireMonkey as a game engine
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Patrick Prémartin discusses using Firemonkey as a game engine for developing games in Delphi during the Delphicon 2021 conference. He explains the components of a game engine, the advantages of Firemonkey for multi-platform development, and presents various techniques for managing sound, visuals, and user interfaces in games. The session includes links to resources and examples for creating games with Delphi and Firemonkey.
Using FireMonkey as a game engine
- 1. Sponsored by Using FireMonkey as a game engine Patrick Prémartin DELPHICON 2021 The Official Online Conference All About Embarcadero Delphi delphicon.embarcadero.com
- 2. Sponsored by Agenda ● What is a game engine ? ● What is FireMonkey ? ● Why using FireMonkey to code games ? ● Really ? Games in Delphi FMX ? ● Managing music and sound effects ● Managing backgrounds and scenes ● Managing user interface ● Managing sprites, animations and collisions ● What about 3D ? ● You want more ?
- 3. Sponsored by Speaker ● Patrick Prémartin - MVP Embarcadero ● Freelance Delphi and web developer since 2000 (just after the bug) ● Delphi user since the beginning and before with Borland / Turbo Pascal. ● Game coder since a little more (TO7-70 J)
- 4. Sponsored by Speaker ● Patrick Prémartin - MVP Embarcadero ● Follow me on : ● GitHub : https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal ● Itch.io : https://gamolf.itch.io ● Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/patrickpremartin ● My blog : https://developpeur-pascal.fr ● LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickpremartin/
- 5. Sponsored by What is a game engine ? ● A game engine is a library or set of components available to create games. ● You have code, SDK and sometimes editor tools or you can use external tools like Tiled to create your scenes and maps. ● A game engine is not a complete game making software like you have with GameMaker Studio, AppGameKit Studio, Game Guru, Clickteam Fusion, Unreal Engine or Unity but the code to work with when creating games.
- 6. Sponsored by What is a game engine ? ● There are a lot of game making software and game engines coded in Pascal. ● One of the most known is Castle Game Engine available at https://castle-engine.io/ It now has Delphi compatibility. Look at Michalis Kamburelis DelphiCon 2021 session to know more about it. https://delphicon.embarcadero.com/talks/castle-game-engine- coming-to-delphi/
- 7. Sponsored by What is a game engine ? ● You perhaps eared about some of this other game engines for Delphi or Pascal developers : ○ Gorilla 3D Framework : https://www.gorilla3d.de ○ Apus Game Engine : https://github.com/Cooler2/ApusGameEngine ○ SDL2 for Pascal : https://github.com/PascalGameDevelopment/SDL2-for- Pascal ○ Andorra 2D, Turbu, Asphyre, DelphiX, Rage3D, and a lot more listed at https://wiki.freepascal.org/Game_Engine
- 8. Sponsored by What is FireMonkey ? ● FireMonkey is the multiplatform set of components and libraries available in Delphi. ● You have VCL for Windows projects since Delphi 1. ● And since Delphi XE2 we have FireMonkey for all major platforms. ● With Delphi 11 Alexandria you can target Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android platforms depending on your license level.
- 9. Sponsored by What is FireMonkey ? ● The idea behind FireMonkey is to have one project and one source code to target all major platforms. ● You don’t need to know “platforms languages” like Objective-C, Swift, Java, Kotlin, C, C++, C#, .Net, …
- 10. Sponsored by What is FireMonkey ? ● FireMonkey includes classic visual components but also shapes, animations, visual effects, 3D, access to system API and other libraries. ● It’s included in all Delphi license level even the Community Edition (free for personal use) and Academic Edition.
- 11. Sponsored by Why using FireMonkey to code games ? ● The simple answer could be “why not ?” and in fact it’s the first reason I had to play with it. ● Second answer is more technical : ● FireMonkey draws everything on screen by default. ● Visual components are sets of shapes and effects. They are styled and can be changed without coding. ● We have 2D and 3D components and layers in standard.
- 12. Sponsored by Why using FireMonkey to code games ? ● The simple answer could be “why not ?” and in fact it’s the first reason I had to play with it. ● Second answer is more technical : ● Touch, mouse and keyboard are managed by Delphi. It works for classic programs, so it works for games too. ● We can use properties and events, timers and threads, multi resolution images and bitmaps, classes and all thinks needed to code games.
- 13. Sponsored by Really ? Games in Delphi FMX ? ● In 2021 I streamed weekly game coding sessions on Twitch, with Delphi and FireMonkey. ● Published games are available at https://gamolf.itch.io ● Some projects have been open sourced on my GitHub account: https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/DevPas-Games-Pack ● A lots of other projects are available with “delphi-game” hashtag: https://github.com/topics/delphi-game
- 14. Sponsored by Really ? Games in Delphi FMX ? ● You can also check the showcase part of Embarcadero blogs at https://blogs.embarcadero.com/category/showcase/ ● And more on iOS and Android stores ! ● Simply look at the list of games which developers forgot to change default package name in their project options : https://www.google.com/search?q=%22com.embarcadero.%22 +game+site%3Aplay.google.com Please don’t forget to personalize your project version info option page.
- 15. Sponsored by How to ? ● Know, let’s look a little more at developer side of game making with FireMonkey projects in Delphi. ● You’ll find code samples and usable Delphi units on GitHub at https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/DelphiFMXGameSnippe ts
- 16. Sponsored by Managing music and sound effects ● Managing sounds in a Delphi project is simple. We have a component for that : TMediaPlayer. ● In my games I use it to play MP3 music in background. A timer check if the music is over and restart it for a loop. ● For sound effects, I play WAV files with another TMediaPlayer (or more than one in a TObjectList<TMediaPlayer> depending on the game). ● To do the same, use the TMusicLoop class in uMusicLoop.pas
- 17. Sponsored by Managing backgrounds and scenes ● For backgrounds and scenes, I use TImage component, the Fill property of shapes like TRectangle or TCircle and the TPath to draw SVG path depending on my needs. ● All FireMonkey visual components are containers. They can be parents for all other visual components. ● All visual components have opacity, rotation and scale properties.
- 18. Sponsored by Managing backgrounds and scenes ● We can use nonvisual components to change property values in a specific duration (TFloatAnimation is very useful). ● We have visual effect as nonvisual components like TShadowEffect and TGlowEffect, useful for games and classic programs to show errors or needed edit fields. ● It give us unlimited possibilities without coding anything… and of course we can code !
- 19. Sponsored by Managing backgrounds and scenes ● For Egg Hunter project, available at https://gamolf.itch.io/egg- hunter, I needed to manage sprites positions and actions in different threads. ● I wanted 60 FPS (because we need goals in life). ● I didn’t check if I succeeded but the result is good enough in term of user experience.
- 20. Sponsored by Managing backgrounds and scenes ● My scene is a TImage. I never draw on it. ● I use a TBitmap in background as a buffer. It’s only refreshed depending on the viewport position and sprite actions. ● A timer checks every 16ms if I changed the buffer bitmap. If so, I copy it to the scene image. ● It’s simple. Just need some Booleans and TMutex to avoid access violations, conflicts and sprites flipping.
- 21. Sponsored by Managing backgrounds and scenes ● In other games, I simply use TLayout on a TForm to simulate a Z-Index if needed. ● You have a sample at https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/DelphiFMXGameSnippe ts/tree/main/AnimationVaguesEtCanards ● I used it for Ok Ducky ! game available at https://gamolf.itch.io/ok-ducky
- 22. Sponsored by Managing user interface ● User interface is simple : I can use styled visual components, shapes, images, … ● For texts I user TLabel if I want the look and feel of the OS or TText when I prefer to change color, size and font in my program. ● For buttons I use TButton, a personalized button style or I “draw” them in a TFrame with TRectangle, images, effects and texts.
- 23. Sponsored by Managing user interface ● Have a look at this 2018 CodeRage replay to see how I proceed : https://serialstreameur.fr/coderage2018-christmasgame- codereview.php ● This project source code is available on GitHub : https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/CodeRage2018- ChristmasGame
- 24. Sponsored by Managing sprites, animations and collisions ● For sprites I use the bitmap kind of Fill property from TRectangle or TCircle components. ● For other visual elements I use TImage with a TImageList or the background (Fill.Bitmap) of other shapes.
- 25. Sponsored by Managing sprites, animations and collisions ● Animating is easy : FireMonkey give us a TBitmapListAnimation component which accepts a sprite sheet. ● Look this samples : https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/DelphiFMXGameSnippe ts/tree/main/AnimSpriteExplosion and https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/DelphiFMXGameSnippe ts/tree/main/AnimSpritePersonnage
- 26. Sponsored by Managing sprites, animations and collisions ● To check collisions, I use what Delphi use for the visual components and testing mouse clicks. ● IntersectRect() is a very useful (too unknown) method to check if two rectangles collide. ● It’s standard. It works since more than 26 years in the VCL and now in FMX. Why not using it ?
- 27. Sponsored by Managing sprites, animations and collisions ● For circles I calculate the distance between center of each circle and compare it to the sum of their radius. ● You have a sample with Soap Bubbles game available at https://gamolf.itch.io/soap-bubbles ● The base code for this game is available on GitHub : https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/DelphiFMXGameSnippe ts/tree/main/JeuDesCercles
- 28. Sponsored by Managing sprites, animations and collisions ● For circle versus a rectangle, I calculate the distance between the circle center and each angle of the rectangle. ● The classic sample for this is a Pong or Breakout game, when the ball hits a wall or a brick. ● You have the source code of a sample breakout done for Learn To Code Summer Camp 2021 event at https://github.com/DeveloppeurPascal/Casse-Briques
- 29. Sponsored by What about 3D ? ● 3D is little more complicated, but FireMonkey includes 3D viewport and 3D shapes. ● You can use them to create games like did Grégory Bersegeay, another French Embarcadero MVP, for ○ 3D Pong : a pong game in 3D. https://github.com/gbegreg/FMXPong ○ FMX Corridor : a The Light Corridor remake. https://github.com/gbegreg/FMXCorridor ○ FMX Island : an island in 3D, base for FPS games. https://github.com/gbegreg/FMXISland
- 30. Sponsored by You want more ? ● Did I say it’s simple to use Delphi and FireMonkey for game coding and deploying them for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android devices ? ● With those samples and links, I hope you have all what you need to understand how to use FireMonkey as a game engine in your games. ● If not, contact me and tell me what is missing or submit new feature requests directly in Embarcadero’s Quality Portal.
- 32. Sponsored by Q&A ● Sorry, I’m not live for Q&A during DelphiCon 2021 but if you want to talk, leave me a message on LinkedIn or at https://developpeur-pascal.fr/contact/ ● You also can talk with me on Twitch during a live (game or other) coding stream at https://www.twitch.tv/patrickpremartin ● Please write in French or English. Use https://www.deepl.com/translator tool to translate if needed.