wxOgreMVC open sourced

[sinbad]

Last year I was creating an Ogre-based GUI tool, and as part of that I created a wxWidgets-based framework for it to live in. That tool hit a brick wall in terms of both funding, and some significant technical hurdles and as such it's shelved for the moment until I can figure those things out. However, since a number of people have asked for good wxWidgets examples I spent some time this weekend extracting the common elements so that I could release them as open source.

The result is wxOgreMVC, and I've chose the MIT license for maximum flexibility. Here's the obligatory screenshot:



As suggested by the name, the framework adheres to the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern of GUI software design. View components display the user interface, controller components receive user input and route it appropriately, and Model components store the persistent data. Controllers are switchable depending on what tool is currently selected, nicely handling variant behaviour.

There are several things this framework implements:

1) A multi-window system with embedded Ogre rendering
2) A typical 3D modeller style 4-pane setup with 'cross' splitter control and the ability to maximise a single window
3) Camera controls - FPS and 'focussed' (orbit) mode
4) An event system communicating changes to the model to other subsystems in a loosely coupled manner
5) A single click and rubber-band selection system
6) A generic property system
7) A simple model implementation
Examples of doing selection display and different view modes (wire, hidden line, textured)

When using this framework you will undoubtedly want to expand the model and probably the controller system to meet your applications needs. Note that a bunch of the panels and controls in the GUI example are non-functioning in this version, such as a the transform panel and most of the main toolbar - they're there as placeholders only to show you the kind of thing you might do.

I've only tested this on MSVC++ 2005 and Windows so far. Both the D3D9 and GL rendersystems are usable though. There are a couple of known issues, see the ReadMe for details, but overall it's pretty solid.

I hope this is useful to someone. I'm not actively developing it right now so don't expect any enhancements or anything, I'm just putting it out there as a starting point for anyone who might want to use it - nevertheless there's quite a few weeks of effort in this so it's a pretty solid base.

You can get it from the OgreAddons repository.

[triton]

It looks really nice and polished. Thanks for releasing this.

[Jallen]

Looks pretty awesome.
It will hopefully mean people will start using something like this rather than CEGUI for things like editors. I know i will be trying it out.

[dark_sylinc]

Thanks Sinbad!
This indeed looks pretty useful.

Pretty cool

Cheers and keep up the good work
Dark Sylinc

[syd]

Thanks!

[Brainshack]

Thanks Sinbad. I checked out the stuff from SVN but im missing a dependency called "boost"

#include <boost/signal.hpp>
#include <boost/bind.hpp>
#include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>

what is this for and where do i get em?#

Thx in advance.

[Estrich]

Wow that looks very useful! Thanks a lot.

Thanks Sinbad. I checked out the stuff from SVN but im missing a dependency called "boost"

#include <boost/signal.hpp>
#include <boost/bind.hpp>
#include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>

what is this for and where do i get em?#

Thx in advance.

http://www.boost.org/

[Brainshack]

Hmmm May it be possible that this only works with the newest trunk version or something like this? I installed boost now and fixed the problems regarding it but now i get failures like:

'BOX_NULL': Is no Element of 'Ogre::AxisAlignedBox'

I'm using Ogre SDK and not a self build version from SVN.

[syd]

Hmmm May it be possible that this only works with the newest trunk version or something like this? I installed boost now and fixed the problems regarding it but now i get failures like:

'BOX_NULL': Is no Element of 'Ogre::AxisAlignedBox'

I'm using Ogre SDK and not a self build version from SVN.

I was going to ask the same question =)
same problem here. I was wondering if my sdk version is too old. but could not figure out how to retreive the version...

[Jabberwocky]

Neat. Looks like a great starting point for new tool development.

What was the original intention - a level editor / worldbuilder?

[hsl9999]

Thanks, sinbad.
This is what i want.

[syd]

Ok, the latest sources made it work.

Sinbad, a big thanks, I was working on the exact same things, and this saves a lot of time.

[sinbad]

As stated in the Readme.txt:

Dependencies
------------
1) wxWidgets
2) Boost
3) Ogre (Shoggoth or later)

@Jabberwocky: I had what I believed to be a pretty radical idea for level building, this was the GUI framework I needed to build it on. I hit a few technical issues which were related to the level of ambition that I had for the tool (and it's unproven - AFAIK no-one has done an editor quite like this before), to the extent that I wasn't sure I could make it work the way I envisaged. Before I knew it I'd burned through all the time (== money) I had assigned to my pilot and thus had to take a more hard-headed look at the project, and the conclusion was I probably wasn't going to be able to make my money back on it, given the market available and the amount of time it might take to take it to conclusion (if it ended up working), so I've had to shelve it for now. I still think the idea is very interesting but it will have to wait until I have more money to spend (or spare time) on developing it properly. I'm keeping the idea to myself for now in the hope I eventually can.

I did find that I burned through a lot of time just coming up with this basic GUI framework, before I even got on to the exciting bits. That's why I decided to release it - it's really not that difficult but it's time consuming to do it right. There's no point someone else going through the exact same process as I did - if this helps someone else skip the dull steps and get their ideas going quicker than I could, I'll be happy.

[KungFooMasta]

Thanks a lot for releasing this, the code should serve as a good reference!

[nikki]

Wow! Sinbad made a topic in the Showcase forum!

Looks nice, it might prove useful for editors and tools (not that editors aren't tools).

[detox]

Wow Sinbad, thank you. This should give anyone attempting to build specialized tools a solid boost.

[oddrose]

Great! From all angles. This gives a huge head start in editor development.

[jacmoe]

- it's really not that difficult but it's time consuming to do it right. There's no point someone else going through the exact same process as I did - if this helps someone else skip the dull steps and get their ideas going quicker than I could, I'll be happy.

Thank you Steve 'Sinbad' Streeting - you're the man!

Perfect timing for me, as I have been searching all over for a usable wxOgre solution for an editor. To get me into Ogre programming again.
You just saved me a lot of work!

[Kentamanos]

OT: jacmoe lives!

This is cool and it will be something I play with soon

[KungFooMasta]

OT: jacmoe lives!

[Yacoby]

Ak, so I half write my editor, and then this comes along. Typical

Now I have to go and steal all the code, rewrite half my editor, realize my code is **** and start again.






Great work, I shall enjoy looking at the code and seeing how I can improve my editor. Maybe one day I will write the game that goes with my editor. Yeah right.

[syd]

a little issue here

Code: Select all

XRC ressource 'xformPanel' (class 'wxPanel') not found!

there is a xformpanel.fbp, but not xformpanel.xrc

[serkanergun]

That file is a Form Builder project file. You can use wxFormBuilder to generate the xrc file.

[manbearpig]

Very good work sinbad , it 's a very interesting piece of code for people who want to make an editor, but i have some problems during compilations


BOX_NULL' : is not a member of 'Ogre::AxisAlignedBox
getUserAny' : is not a member of 'Ogre::Renderable'
Visitor' : base class undefined
setOrthoWindow' : is not a member of 'Ogre::Camera'
and so on ...


looks like i don't use the right Ogre version? Currently i use the svn version.

[Brainshack]

Think you should switch to trunk.