[Bf-committers] BGE API - was 2.49 release proposal

[Campbell Barton]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 6:21 AM, Mitchell Stokes <mitchell at daboys4u.com> wrote:
> These are some good suggestions. I'll what I can do (or who I can poke :P )
> about them. However, I think a few points need to be made.
>
> On 1. This makes sense for most actuators. But a few should return a name,
> like Add Object's object property since there is no object for it until it's
> actually added (at which point you can use GetLastCreatedObject()).

Theres no need for it to return the name. The add object actuator has
2 pointers...
SCA_IObject*	m_OriginalObject;
SCA_IObject*	m_lastCreatedObject;

So both can be accessed as attributes act.object, act.objectLast
(readonly), if no object added yet then return None.

> On 2. This may be used since there is an identifier for things besides
> objects, there's also IM (image), MA (materials), and such. I don't know if
> removing the prefix will cause issues, but probably not since Blender should
> already be smart enough to know which to look for.

Your right but I don't think this is a problem since the BGE dosnt
have lists that mix images/materials/objects etc in one place.
Its also not a problem for blender's UI or though the python api from
my experience since all commands are clear about what type there
dealing with.

> On 3. This would make things a whole lot nicer, and simpler.
>
> Thanks again for your suggestions and interest in the topic!
>
> --Mitchell "Moguri" Stokes
>
> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 3:52 AM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hey there, not sure if these changes would be appropriate for 2.49 or
>> 2.5  BGE api but will suggest them anyway and see what ya think.
>>
>> 1) return Objects, Meshes, not their names.
>>
>> BGE api by default will return an Object/Mesh name when running
>> actuator.getObject() and similar. Its much more useful to return the
>> object or mesh its self, since I found in many cases I needed to
>> lookup the scenes for the object name since I wanted to check the
>> objects location or a property on it.
>> I added an optional argument for some of the actuators to get the data
>> rather then the name, but with attributes there are no arguments so
>> for existing scripts...
>>  act.getObject() -> act.object.name
>> ...If we decide to return Objects/Meshes rather then just names.
>>
>> 2) GET RID OF STUPID "OB" PREFIX EVERYWHERE!
>> there is a reason id.name+2 is used throughout blenders code. Not sure
>> why nobody picked this up in the BGE before a release.
>> For those of your who are not aware "Suzanne" is known as "OBSuzanne"
>> in the BGE, Having to do  'ob.name[2:]'  is annoying.
>>
>> 3) return Mathutils types Vector(), Matrix() etc.
>> Its annoying that in C++ you can do vec1+vec2 but in the python API
>> you have do this one axis at a time or convert to Mathutils types.
>> We switched some parts of Blender.* api to use Mathutils types and
>> surprisingly few scripts broke because in most cases they can be used
>> interchangeably with tuples/lists.
>>
>> -------
>> 1) and 2) I'm quite keen on having,  3) is just a nice touch.
>> For the changes I mentioned scripts will need updating and this will
>> break more then the proposed get/set -> attributes change.
>> Otherwise all these changes are quite easy to do, I can probably find
>> the time in the next few weeks.
>> I'll also update scripts in YoFrankie's SVN repo.
>>
>> - Campbell
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 4:37 AM, Benoit Bolsee <benoit.bolsee at online.be>
>> wrote:
>> > I'm strongly in favor of a 2.49 release. There has been significant
>> > improvements on the BGE side that deserve an official release:
>> > VideoTexture, BGE API cleanup, bug fixes.
>> >
>> > For the BGE API cleanup, we plan to have a transition phase where the
>> > old API will still be supported but will produce deprecation warnings on
>> > the console. A 2.49 release will allow us to propose a smooth transition
>> > from 2.4x to 2.50 by introducing the new API in 2.49 and dropping the
>> > old in 2.50.
>> > Then the procedure to upgrade the scripts will be as follow: run your
>> > game under 2.49 with warnings enabled, fix the scripts until there is no
>> > warning, the game is ready for 2.50!
>> >
>> > Without a 2.49 we will have to do the transition between 2.50 and 2.51,
>> > which looks a bit odd, or worse between a unofficial release and 2.50.
>> >
>> > Of course if we decide to go for a 2.49 release, I'll make sure that the
>> > new API and VideoTexture and fully ready for the release.
>> >
>> > /benoit
>> >
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-- 
- Campbell