Super Cookie Games

Blog about all things Super Cookie

[supercookiegames]

Using Gradle 4 Onwards with libGDX and GWT (HTML5)

So you are making your game work with the GWT export? Awesome

Oh you want to be using the latest Gradle version? Sweet!

Well you might find the default gradle build file generated by the libGDX setup tool, a touch outdated. You see, the Jetty plug has been deprecated in the latest version of Gradle (4+) and this used by the GWT gradle plugin to support the GWT Super Dev mode, a mode really useful for debugging HTML5/GWT oddities.

So how do we fix this?

Firstly, the way I approached this, was the right way for me - your mileage will vary.

First up we should change the Gradle plugin used for GWT, the current one used

classpath 'de.richsource.gradle.plugins:gwt-gradle-plugin:0.6'

Hasn’t been updated in 2 years! yikes!

Luckily there is a fork and an updated version lives on:

classpath 'org.wisepersist:gwt-gradle-plugin:1.0.1'

Next I completely rewrote the build file in the html directory:

apply plugin: "java" System.setProperty("user.home", "") import org.wisepersist.gradle.plugins.gwt.GwtSuperDev def HttpFileServer server = null def assetsLocation = "../core/assets" gwt {    gwtVersion = '2.8.0' // Should match the gwt version used for building the gwt backend    maxHeapSize = "8G" // Default 256m is not enough for gwt compiler. GWT is HUNGRY    minHeapSize = "1G"    src = files(file("src/")) // Needs to be in front of "modules" below.    modules 'com.mine.GdxDefinition'    devModules 'com.mine.GdxDefinitionSuperdev'    project.webAppDirName = 'webapp'    compiler {        strict = true;        disableCastChecking = true;    } } task startHttpServer() {    dependsOn draftCompileGwt    String output = project.buildDir.path + "/gwt/draftOut";    doLast {        copy {            from "webapp"            into output        }        copy {            from assetsLocation            into output + "/assets"        }        println 'start Http Server'        File root = new File(output);        SimpleHttpFileServerFactory factory = new SimpleHttpFileServerFactory()        server = factory.start(root, 9090)        println "Server started in directory " + server.getContentRoot() + ", port " + server.getPort()    } } task superDev(type: GwtSuperDev) {    dependsOn startHttpServer    doFirst {        gwt.modules = gwt.devModules    } } task dist(dependsOn: [clean, compileGwt]) {    doLast {        file("build/dist").mkdirs()        copy {            from "build/gwt/out"            exclude '**WEB-INF/**'            into "build/dist"        }        delete fileTree("build/dist") {            include "**/*soundmanager*.*"            include "**/logo.png"            include "**/clear.cache.gif"            include "**/hosted.html"        }        copy {            from "webapp"            into "build/dist"        }        copy {            from "war"            into "build/dist"        }        delete "build/dist/WEB-INF"    } } task addSource {    doLast {        sourceSets.main.compileClasspath += files(project(':core').sourceSets.main.allJava.srcDirs)    } } tasks.compileGwt.dependsOn(addSource) tasks.draftCompileGwt.dependsOn(addSource) sourceCompatibility = 1.8 sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs = ["src/"]

As you can see there are a lot of changes. The key points here are:

1: We use the built in SimpleHttpFileServer to allow for the files to be served, you see GWT starts it’s own Jetty instance for the code server - unsure what any of that means? check out the webpage - http://www.gwtproject.org/articles/superdevmode.html

2: No longer creating war files etc, we only need to deal in straight of Javascript so I ditched the need for the war creation.

3: Tied the superDev task to starting the httpFilerServer which in turn does a draft build (quicker, less optimized) of the javascript.

All in all a neat solution to allow a powerful feature

[supercookiegames]

Google Play Game Services with libGDX

Hey All,

Been getting a few messages of people on how to implement GPGS, and I have seen a couple of posts where people have struggled getting it going. So here is

"How We Do GPGS"

Make sure you have set up your game on Google Play and you have created a Google Play Services entry for the game itself - I won't cover that, there is plenty of help on the Google site for that

Import the BaseGameUtils code from the Android-Basic-Samples repo. Now I use my own fork, as I wanted to simplify what was going on, so I created my own fork and stripped out what wasn't needed. I think at the time they were including the dependency that adds ALLLLLLLLL the GPGS libs - simply not needed.

Repo: https://github.com/MonsterOfCookie/android-basic-samples/tree/master/BasicSamples/libraries/BaseGameUtils

Add to location to gradle.properties:

~/.gradle/grade.properties GOOGLE_PLAY_HELPER_SDK=/android-basic-samples/BasicSamples/libraries/BaseGameUtils

Add to settings.gradle

include 'desktop', 'android', 'core', ':BaseGameUtils' project(':BaseGameUtils').projectDir = new File(GOOGLE_PLAY_HELPER_SDK)

Add to Android project

project(":android") { apply plugin: "android" configurations { natives } dependencies { compile project(":core") compile(project(":BaseGameUtils")) compile "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-android:$gdxVersion" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-arm64-v8a" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86_64" } }

Next take the game-ids.xml file generated by the Play Console and slap it in your res/values folder. It should look something like this: game-ids.xml - This file comes from Google Play Console

<resources> <string name="app_id">*FROM PLAY CONSOLE*</string> <string name="package_name">com.my.game</string> <string name="achievement_1">*FROM PLAY CONSOLE*</string> <string name="achievement_2">*FROM PLAY CONSOLE*</string> <string name="achievement_3">*FROM PLAY CONSOLE*</string> <string name="achievement_4">*FROM PLAY CONSOLE*</string> <string name="achievement_5">*FROM PLAY CONSOLE*</string> </resources>

Update your AndroidManifest.xml to include the meta-data tags for GPGS, like so:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.my.manifest" android:versionCode="1" android:versionName="1.0.0" > <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="16" android:targetSdkVersion="24" /> <uses-feature android:glEsVersion="0x00020000" android:required="true"/> <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/> <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE"/> <application android:allowBackup="true" android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@style/GdxTheme" > <meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.games.APP_ID" android:value="@string/app_id" /> <meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.version" android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version"/> <activity android:name="com.my.game.AndroidLauncher" android:label="@string/app_name" android:screenOrientation="portrait" android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" /> <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /> </intent-filter> </activity> </application> </manifest>

Now we are ready to rock and roll on the coding side.

public class AndroidLauncher extends AndroidApplication implements GoogleApiClient.ConnectionCallbacks, GoogleApiClient.OnConnectionFailedListener { private GoogleApiClient googleApiClient; private RelativeLayout layout; private View gameView; private YourGame yourGame; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // Create the Google Api Client with access to the Play Games services googleApiClient = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this) .addConnectionCallbacks(this) .addOnConnectionFailedListener(this) .addApi(Games.API).addScope(Games.SCOPE_GAMES) // add other APIs and scopes here as needed .build(); yourGame = new YourGame(); AndroidApplicationConfiguration config = new AndroidApplicationConfiguration(); config.useWakelock = true; config.useImmersiveMode = true; gameView = initializeForView(yourGame, config); layout = new RelativeLayout(this); layout.addView(gameView); setContentView(layout); } @Override protected void onStart() { super.onStart(); googleApiClient.connect(); } @Override protected void onStop() { super.onStop(); googleApiClient.disconnect(); } @Override public void onConnected(@Nullable Bundle bundle) { } private static int RC_SIGN_IN = 9001; private boolean resolvingConnectionFailure = false; private boolean autoStartSignInflow = true; private boolean signInClicked = false; @Override public void onConnectionFailed(ConnectionResult connectionResult) { if (resolvingConnectionFailure) { // already resolving return; } // if the sign-in button was clicked or if auto sign-in is enabled, // launch the sign-in flow if (signInClicked || autoStartSignInflow) { autoStartSignInflow = false; signInClicked = false; resolvingConnectionFailure = true; // Attempt to resolve the connection failure using BaseGameUtils. // The R.string.signin_other_error value should reference a generic // error string in your strings.xml file, such as "There was // an issue with sign-in, please try again later." if ( !BaseGameUtils.resolveConnectionFailure( this, googleApiClient, connectionResult, RC_SIGN_IN, getString(R.string.signin_other_error) ) ) { resolvingConnectionFailure = false; } } // Put code here to display the sign-in button } @Override public void onConnectionSuspended(int i) { // Attempt to reconnect googleApiClient.connect(); } protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent intent) { if (requestCode == RC_SIGN_IN) { signInClicked = false; resolvingConnectionFailure = false; if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) { googleApiClient.connect(); } else { // Bring up an error dialog to alert the user that sign-in // failed. The R.string.signin_failure should reference an error // string in your strings.xml file that tells the user they // could not be signed in, such as "Unable to sign in." BaseGameUtils.showActivityResultError(this, requestCode, resultCode, R.string.sign_in_cancelled); } } } // Call when the sign-in button is clicked private void signInClicked() { signInClicked = true; googleApiClient.connect(); } // Call when the sign-out button is clicked private void signOutClicked() { signInClicked = false; Games.signOut(googleApiClient); googleApiClient.disconnect(); } }

That should be the bare minimum you need. I checked, this all works for me.

Additional: Ok, ok, ok.... You want to actually do things with it like register achievements. Create an interface in your Core module:

public interface GameServices { void submitScore(int score); void showLeaderboards(); }

Next add a reference in your Game class

public class YourGame extends Game { private final GameServices gameServices; public RollerCoaster(GameServices gameServices) { this.gameServices = gameServices; } @Override public void create() { // your awesome code } @Override public void render() { // your awesome code } public GameServices getGameServices() { return gameServices; } }

If I wish to access this class I usually do the following in my other classes

private final YourGame game = (YourGame) Gdx.app.getApplicationListener(); private final GameServices gameServices = game.getGameServices();

Now create an implementation in your Android module

public class GoogleGameServices implements GameServices { private final GoogleApiClient googleApiClient; private GoogleGameServices(GoogleApiClient googleApiClient) { this.googleApiClient = googleApiClient; } public void submitScore(int score) { if (googleApiClient != null && googleApiClient.isConnected()) { Games.Leaderboards.submitScore(googleApiClient, getString(R.string.leaderboard_1), score); } } public void showLeaderboards() { if (googleApiClient != null && googleApiClient.isConnected()) { startActivityForResult(Games.Leaderboards.getAllLeaderboardsIntent(googleApiClient), 8700); } } }

Finally update your AndroidLauncher class to create and pass in the above object

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // Create the Google Api Client with access to the Play Games services googleApiClient = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this) .addConnectionCallbacks(this) .addOnConnectionFailedListener(this) .addApi(Games.API).addScope(Games.SCOPE_GAMES) // add other APIs and scopes here as needed .build(); YourGame yourGame = new YourGame(new GoogleGameServices(googleApiClient)); AndroidApplicationConfiguration config = new AndroidApplicationConfiguration(); config.useWakelock = true; config.useImmersiveMode = true; gameView = initializeForView(yourGame, config); layout = new RelativeLayout(this); layout.addView(gameView); setContentView(layout); }

This should be more than enough to get you going.

[supercookiegames]

We did a book! Come and learn libGDX through 4 easy to learn games.

https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/libgdx-game-development-example

[supercookiegames]

Sharing a Screenshot in Android

Hey! So you all have a played a game where upon completion or game over you get the oppurtunity to share something, perhaps a screenshot along with your score, to friend?

Have you wondered how you go about sharing a screenshot? You may think it is as easy as:

Grab the screen

Tell Android to share it

It is shared!

Well in thoery I would agree with you. However it isn't that straight forward. Firstly how do you grab your screenshot? We will be taking the route of grabbing the frame buffer and writing that to a file.

Awesome, yet the next issue that we can only read/write to the applications personal space, when we go to share it with Twitter, for example, we will have permission issues as the Twitter application can't access the personal space of our game!

"It's OK" - I hear you cry - "We can just add the READ/WRITE external permissions to our manifest and save the screenshot else where" - Yes, I guess you could do that - but do you know how many people get turned off by a big list of permissions when they go install your app? It's a lot. I don't have numbers, but if it wasn't a lot then Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) would be fixing this with the Runtime Permissions that allow apps/games to ask on the fly.

Anyway, that's a moo point. We don't need to ask as we don't need to use them. We can use something awesome called a "FileProvider"

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/content/FileProvider.html

This will allows use to offer files we want our game to allow other apps to access the images we create.

So how do we do this? Glad you asked....

Firstly we update our manifest file to add the provider.

<application> .... <provider android:name="android.support.v4.content.FileProvider" android:authorities="com.our.cool.game.fileprovider" android:exported="false" android:grantUriPermissions="true"> <meta-data android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS" android:resource="@xml/file_paths" /> </provider> .... </application>

Now "com.our.cool.game.fileprovider" doesn't actually exist as a package in code, we just have to make sure our package is "com.our.cool.game"

Next we add a resource xml file, that I called "file_paths.xml" and put it in res/xml/

<paths xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"> <files-path name="leaderboard" path="screenshots/"/> </paths>

Here I specify the directory that will have allowed access to the other apps.

Next we need the code that will do the do for us...

public void shareScreenShot() { try { File imagePath = new File(activity.getFilesDir(), "screenshots"); File newFile = new File(imagePath, "screenshot.png"); Uri uri = FileProvider.getUriForFile(activity, "com.our.cool.game.fileprovider", newFile); FileHandle fileHandle = Gdx.files.getFileHandle(newFile.getAbsolutePath(), Files.FileType.Absolute); ScreenshotFactory.saveScreenshot(fileHandle); Intent sendIntent = new Intent(); sendIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND); sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "Hey this is a cool game"); sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Hey! check out this leaderboard, can you beat me?"); sendIntent.setType("image/png"); sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, uri); sendIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION); activity.startActivity(Intent.createChooser(sendIntent, "OurCoolGame - Share Via")); } catch (Exception e) { Toast.makeText(activity, "Unable to take screenshot at this time.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } }

Actually getting the screenshot...

public static FileHandle saveScreenshot(FileHandle fh) throws Exception { Pixmap pixmap = ScreenUtils.getFrameBufferPixmap(0, 0, Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getHeight()); PixmapIO.writePNG(fh, pixmap); pixmap.dispose(); return fh; }

So, what actually happens here.

We create file and URI to that file - This is in the personal area

We grab a screenshote and it is written to file.

We create our intent and add the information we wish to share.

We grant the read uri permission for that intent.

Then we just go for it. And lo and behold we can share an image! Pretty funky no?

Here it is in action for Thug Racer!

Play on Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supercookie.speed.android

[supercookiegames]

libGDX - Mode 7 Example!

Some of you may have seen a video on YouTube a while back of a Mode 7 example using Super Mario Kart sprites.

I have taken that code and boiled it down into a simple getting started project. As with all things Super Cookie Games, this is based on libGDX. 

You can access the getting started project here

https://bitbucket.org/MonsterOfCookie/mode-7-example/overview

You can also see the example in HTML format here - Performance isn’t that great.

http://www.supercookie.co.uk/mode7/

I am not going to dive into the code too much on this blog, as there isn't actually that much there. It will be far better if you check out the code yourself and have a tinker. The Mode7 transform is just a few lines of code and essentially I have found you need to think about the game mechanics 2D terms, hence the mini-map with the black dot.

You can run the desktop version from the command line with

gradlew desktop:run

You can use the arrow keys to control the camera.

One final thing before I go, this is based of a project I found on GitHub 

https://github.com/catmanjan/mode-7-gdx

Go check it out!

[supercookiegames]

Come and try out Super Cookies Next game!

Come and play Game I, our next game. 

We have taken the opportunity to use libGDX’s fantastic GWT support to delivery our game in HTML5 format, so you guys can see the game develop as we make it! 

Heck, we will even listen to any input you guys have, be it anything!

Go ahead and play!

[supercookiegames]

Accessing Music on Android and iOS.

In OMG Dancer! (Play | iOS) We wanted the players to be able to access their own music library to play the game with. Whilst this might be a simple feat if you are focusing on a single platform, but here at Super Cookie Games we like to go cross platform from launch. So this means that we need to learn how to access the music library on iOS and on Android.

The requirement was straight forward, we need to get access to the songs by genre id available on the device and then create a map of song id to genre name, then we want an array of all the songs on device.

First lets tackle Android. To begin with you will need a ContentResolver this is accessible from you Activity via a call to the method

getContentResolver()

This is actually in ContextWrapper which the Activity inherits from.

Once you have that you can simply query for the information, or content, you actually want. Like so.

Cursor genCur = contentResolver.query(MediaStore.Audio.Genres.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, new String[]{MediaStore.Audio.Genres.NAME, MediaStore.Audio.Genres._ID}, null, null, null); if (genCur != null && genCur.moveToFirst()) { do { int nameIndex = genCur.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Audio.Genres.NAME); int idIndex = genCur.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Audio.Genres._ID); String genreName = genCur.getString(nameIndex); long genreId = genCur.getLong(idIndex); Cursor tempcursor = contentResolver.query(MediaStore.Audio.Genres.Members.getContentUri("external", genreId), new String[]{MediaStore.Audio.Media._ID}, null, null, null); if (tempcursor != null && tempcursor.moveToFirst()) { do { songIdToGenre.put(tempcursor.getLong(tempcursor.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Audio.Media._ID)), genreName); } while (tempcursor.moveToNext()); tempcursor.close(); } } while (genCur.moveToNext()); genCur.close(); }

In the above code example you can see we are querying for the Genres of music on the device. The result is a cursor that we can iterate over to ge and we use that data to populate a map.

Next we can query for all the songs. It might be worth pointing out it is possible a song might not have a genre!

Uri uri = android.provider.MediaStore.Audio.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI; Cursor cur = contentResolver.query(uri, null, MediaStore.Audio.Media.IS_MUSIC + " = 1", null, null); if (cur == null || !cur.moveToFirst()) { return; } int artistColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Audio.Media.ARTIST); int titleColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Audio.Media.TITLE); int albumColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Audio.Media.ALBUM); int durationColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Audio.Media.DURATION); int idColumn = cur.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Audio.Media._ID); do { long songId = cur.getLong(idColumn); items.add(new Item( cur.getLong(idColumn), cur.getString(artistColumn), cur.getString(titleColumn), cur.getString(albumColumn), songIdToGenre.get(songId), cur.getLong(durationColumn))); } while (cur.moveToNext()); cur.close();

A little less complex than the genre request, this snippet is fairly straight forward. We query, get a cursor, extract the song information and then add a data object that contains all the information.

When it comes to playing the song, we just request the path of the file using the song id and pass that to our player.

String[] projection = {MediaStore.Audio.Media.DATA}; CursorLoader loader = new CursorLoader(context, getURI(), projection, null, null, null); Cursor cursor = loader.loadInBackground(); int column_index = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA); cursor.moveToFirst(); path = cursor.getString(column_index); cursor.close(); Uri getURI() { return ContentUris.withAppendedId(android.provider.MediaStore.Audio .Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, songId); }

the path variable ends up being the internal path we need to play. Like so:

Gdx.audio.newMusic(Gdx.files.internal(path));

One thing to note is that I had to strip off “/storage/emulated/0” from the start of the path.

Awesome so that is Android, but what about iOS?

Well, we want to access the iPod API to get a list of all the songs the device knows of. This is pretty simple compared with Android, using RoboVM, we just make the following requests.

MPMediaQuery mpMediaQuery = MPMediaQuery.createSongsQuery(); for (final MPMediaItem song : mpMediaQuery.getItems()) { if (!song.isCloudItem()) { musicTracks.add( new Item( song.getPersistentID(), song.getArtist(), song.getTitle(), song.getAlbumTitle(), song.getGenre(), song.getAssetURL(), (long) song.getPlaybackDuration() * 1000)); } }

The only caveat here is that an iOS device will report cloud based songs as well, in this instance we filter them out.

Now, with Android playing the music track was straight forward, we got a path to it and played it! With iOS it isn’t as straight forward. You get an asset URL which is great if you plan on playing the music through the native player as you can just throw it at it! However we need to access the music so we can play it ourselves. Get ready for some funky coding gymnastics.

private void export(final Item item) { AVURLAsset avurlAsset = AVURLAsset.create(item.path, null); final AVAssetExportSession exporter = AVAssetExportSession.create(avurlAsset, AVAssetExportPreset.Passthrough); String extension = "m4a"; if (item.path.getPath().contains(".m4a")) exporter.setOutputFileType("com.apple.m4a-audio"); if (item.path.getPath().contains(".mp3")) { exporter.setOutputFileType("com.apple.quicktime-movie"); extension = "mov"; } final String exportURL = getApplicationDocumentsDirectory() + "/omgmusic_" + sessionId + "_" + item.getId() + "." + extension; final File exportFile = new File(exportURL); exportFile.deleteOnExit(); exporter.setOutputURL(new NSURL(exportFile)); exporter.exportAsynchronously(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { item.filePath = exportFile.getName(); if (item.filePath.endsWith(".mov")) { File mp3File = new File(getApplicationDocumentsDirectory() + "/omgmusic_" + sessionId + "_" + item.getId() + ".mp3"); mp3File.deleteOnExit(); exportFile.renameTo(mp3File); item.filePath = mp3File.getName(); } } }); }

In the above code snippet we are essentially copying the music track to our games document directory. In the process we are examining the file to see what type it is so we can manipulate the output file if needed. Once this is done you have the music file in the local space where you are free to do what you want to do with it! Just remember to delete it once you are done, otherwise your game/app will end up eating a lot of space!

[supercookiegames]

OMG Dancer!

OMG Dancer! is the latest Super Cookie Game to go live.

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id968971475 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details…

It it is a rhythm base music game. As with all SCG releases we try to use something new, do thing a little bit different see where they go.

1. Spine based character animation

2. Camera for personalisation

3. iPod/Android library access to allow the player to use their own music.

4. Everyplay integration - I have previously blogged about this.

I am sure the rest will become blog items in their own time :)

[supercookiegames]

Facebook SDK - Now Mavenised (Android)

As many of you on here will know, we like to add the Facebook functionality to our games, and previous posts have shown that has been a bit of a nightmare. Particularly when it came to adding the SDK code as dependency.

But now, Facebook are adding newer versions of their SDK to Maven. So now in my Gradle script all I need is:

dependencies { compile "com.facebook.android:facebook-android-sdk:3.22.0" }

And I automatically get the Facebook SDK dependency!

P.s Don't forget to add the MavenCentral to your list of repositories!

[supercookiegames]

Shaders

Hi all,

I have been messing about with shaders in my spare time. Just trying to get my head around them really.

What are shaders I hear you cry?

Shaders in OpenGL are little programs written in a C-like language called GLSL that runs on the GPU and processes the data necessary to render things. A shader can simply be viewed as a processing stage on the GPU. It receives a set of inputs which you can do a set of operations on and finally sends them back out. Think of this like function parameters and return values. Typically, when rendering something in OpenGL ES 2.0 the data will be sent through the Vertex shader first and then through the Fragment - libGDX Wiki

You can read more about them there. 

What piqued my interest though was discovering this little library - https://github.com/manuelbua/libgdx-contribs - on GitHub where this nice dev has wrapped C-like code and libGDX support code into something more accessible.

As you can see from the commits, it hasn’t been touched in a while and after a message exchange with the author - they don’t have time to update it. But that’s cool it has lot in there already! Plus there are other forks you can choose from. Particularly mine - https://github.com/MonsterOfCookie/libgdx-contribs - Now, not because I am a super hot awesome shader coder - I am not. No where near, I wouldn’t know where to start. But, what I did do, was Gradlize it so I can easily add it to a libGDX project!

You should be able to check out my fork and on the CLI 

“gradlew postprocessing-demo:run" (Without the quotes) (or the message about the quotes) (or that message)

You should get the original authors demo, here you can tweak settings to your hearts delight to create all sorts of funky effects.

Now, to add it to a project and use it yourself. The original author has the directions on his GitHub site on how to do the bulk of it. But for simplicity I will repeat them here.

Firstly, start off with a default libGDX project from the setup jar (I am using libGDX v1.5.3) - You can untick everything bar the desktop module for now.

Now, lets add the dependencies.

settings.gradle

include 'desktop','core','postprocessing','utils' project(':postprocessing').projectDir = new File(*Path to postprocessing module*) project(':utils').projectDir = new File(*Path to postprocessing module*)

build.gradle

project(":core") { apply plugin: "java" dependencies { compile project(":postprocessing") compile "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx:$gdxVersion" } }

Next, copy the shader folder from the post-processing resources folder into the assets folder of your project. This should really be automated, but for now this will do.

We are ready to rock an roll! Hopefully, if you run the desktop module

“gradlew desktop:run" 

It should all compile and launch - hopefully you will see the standard logo and red background. No funky effects, yet!

Finally we need to hook in the code to get us up and running. I am just going to paste the full example here.

/* Package and imports ommited for obvious reasons */ public class MyGdxGame extends ApplicationAdapter { SpriteBatch batch; Texture img; PostProcessor postProcessor; @Override public void create () { boolean isDesktop = (Gdx.app.getType() == Application.ApplicationType.Desktop); ShaderLoader.BasePath = "shaders/"; postProcessor = new PostProcessor( false, false, isDesktop ); Bloom bloom = new Bloom( (int)(Gdx.graphics.getWidth() * 0.25f), (int)(Gdx.graphics.getHeight() * 0.25f) ); postProcessor.addEffect( bloom ); batch = new SpriteBatch(); img = new Texture("badlogic.jpg"); } @Override public void resume() { super.resume(); postProcessor.rebind(); } @Override public void dispose() { super.dispose(); postProcessor.dispose(); } @Override public void render () { postProcessor.capture(); Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 0, 0, 1); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); batch.begin(); batch.draw(img, 0, 0); batch.end(); postProcessor.render(); } }

Now, hopefully, when you run the desktop module again. You should get a the same as before, but this time with a lovely bloom effect!

Admittedly, not much to look at!

But if you play about with the post-processing demo and read through the code you should be able to come up with your own funky effects combination.

Like this one I did for BetaMax!

Pretty cool huh? :)

Final word - I didn’t author the original code, nor did I write the shaders. I am dunce when it comes to shaders - So please, please, do not ask me how they work or if they don’t work for you.

Chances are I won’t be able to help you!

[supercookiegames]

Everyplay with libGDX

Hi Everyone!

I have been tinkering with Everyplay in my spare time. If you don't know what it is - https://www.everyplay.com/ - go check it out. It allows for recording of the game, think replays, that then can be shared with other. 

Sounds pretty awesome. However when looking at their SDKs they seem very geared up to Unity and native iOS. There is a native Android SDK, but it is lacking in documentation - there isn't really any, there is a sample project but I couldn't really get to function properly. https://github.com/Everyplay/everyplay-android-examples - Check this out as we will refer to it later.

So, I started with the base libGDX sample project and then checked out the Everyplay SDK - https://github.com/Everyplay/everyplay-android-sdk 

Unfortunately, it isn't Gradlized however that isn't a big issue. We can fix that! The beauty of opensource software ;) well semi open, in the SDK is an obfuscated jar and a native (.so) library. Anyway, a cheeky fork later. I added a build file for Gradle. My fork is here - https://github.com/MonsterOfCookie/everyplay-android-sdk - I have submitted a pull request, to see if they dev's there are interested.

With the library now easier to import, I added project to my settings.gradle and build.gradle files.

include 'desktop', 'android', 'ios', 'core','everyplay' project(":everyplay").projectDir = new File("F:\\everyplay-android-sdk-master\\everyplay-android")

project(":android") { apply plugin: "android" configurations { natives } dependencies { compile project(":core") compile project(":everyplay") compile "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-backend-android:$gdxVersion" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-armeabi-v7a" natives "com.badlogicgames.gdx:gdx-platform:$gdxVersion:natives-x86" } }

I checked out the examples method of initialization applied to my AndroidLauncher class. 

@Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); AndroidApplicationConfiguration config = new AndroidApplicationConfiguration(); gameView = initializeForView(new MyGame(), config); layout = new RelativeLayout(this); layout.addView(gameView); setContentView(layout); Everyplay.configureEveryplay(*YOUR_CLIENT_ID*, *YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET*, *THEIR_REDIRECT_URI*); Everyplay.initEveryplay(this, this); }

I then hooked up a couple of buttons to start/stop the recording and to launch the Everyplay share dialogs. I am not going to go into too much detail on that part because it is pretty trivial.

I kicked off the buid.

Gradle jumped into life

It deployed to device

then.....

then.....

Nothing much really happened. 

I discovered the libeveryplay.so wasn't being packaged into the APK. The error message was very similar to:

"UnsatisfiedLinkError: Library libeveryplay.so not found"

Now begins the hour or two of head scratching. I could see the *.so file in the exploded-aar folder in the main projects build directory. But it wasn't in the lib/armeabi-v7a/ folder in the APK. The libGDX one was there. 

I spent some time going down dead end corridors until I looked more closely at how libGDX handles its own *.so file. Namely

// needed to add JNI shared libraries to APK when compiling on CLI tasks.withType(com.android.build.gradle.tasks.PackageApplication) { pkgTask -> pkgTask.jniFolders = new HashSet() pkgTask.jniFolders.add(new File(projectDir, 'libs')) }

What I discovered was the packing task was deleting the Everyplay library when it was creating the structure for libGDX. 

The next step was how can we make this play nice?

After some searching I discovered if you tell libGDX to unpack their natives into a folder called jni you can then delete the packing task lines as thanks to the version of the Android Gradle tools (14.4) these will get merged nicely together in the APK.

Don't forget to update the copyAndroidNatives task in the Gradle file.

Lo and behold it worked. I was able to record and watch and upload :)

However there is 2 issues I have.

1. Sounds are not recorded

2. The moment the activity loses focus, perhaps to the Everyplay dialog, when it regains focus, I can't no longer record. I have contacted Everyplay for a solution.

[supercookiegames]

Upcoming blog topics...

Prolly will do one on Spine,

Android Camera API

Box2d

And any oddities I find :)

[supercookiegames]

Jiggle Jaggle

Jiggle Jaggle is also available on iOS!

[supercookiegames]

Jiggle Jaggle is also available on the Amazon App Store!

[supercookiegames]

Yey New Game! 

Jiggle Jaggle is a fun match 3/Columns-esque style game.

Free to Play! Enjoy

[supercookiegames]

Adding Amazons GameCircle SDK to a Gradle Project

Hey!

So, long since I last blogged, plenty of things have been happening - new games released etc. But before I talk about them, I want to show how to added Amazons fantastic GameCircleSDK to your gradle based project.

The download from Amazon comes in the form of a zip that contains an Android project. This is fine if you are doing things manually and just want to import the project, but what if you are using gradle and want to lean on the magic?

Well it turns out it is quite easy to "gradlize" the Amazon code. I created this build.gradle file in the base of the game circle project:

apply plugin: 'android-library' dependencies { compile fileTree(dir: "libs", include: ['*.jar']) } android { compileSdkVersion 20 buildToolsVersion '20' sourceSets { main { manifest.srcFile 'AndroidManifest.xml' java.srcDirs = ['src'] res.srcDirs = ['res'] } } }

Then updated the manifest with a different package name:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" package="com.amazon.ags.lib" android:versionCode="1" android:versionName="2.4.2" >

The reason for this is that you get a clash on the buildConfig object:

UNEXPECTED TOP-LEVEL EXCEPTION: com.android.dex.DexException: Multiple dex files define Lcom/amazon/ags/BuildConfig;

I recently updated the library and the above no longer applies.

You may also get a build issue with your manifest. This will suggest a fix of added 'tools:replace="label"' to your main activity - Do it!

Finally update your gradle.properties and your settings.gradle and your build.gradle and awayyyyyyyyyy you go!

AMAZON_GAMECIRCLE_SDK=User/GameCircleSDK/

include 'kindle', "AmazonGameCircleSDK" project(':AmazonGameCircleSDK').projectDir = new File(AMAZON_GAMECIRCLE_SDK)

project(":kindle") { apply plugin: "android" dependencies { compile project(":AmazonGameCircleSDK") } }

[supercookiegames]

Facebook Integration /w LibGDX

Hey Internet! One question I get asked a lot, is how do I do my Facebook integration with libGDX! Well it should come to no surprise that actually you just follow the Android integration notes on Facebook (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/android) First off, there is a caveat, I am building my project with Maven. So for getting the Facebook code onto my classpath and into my APK I use

<dependency> <groupId>fr.avianey</groupId> <artifactId>facebook-android-api</artifactId> <version>3.17.1</version> <type>aar</type> <exclusions> <exclusion> <artifactId>support-v4</artifactId> <groupId>com.google.android</groupId> </exclusion> </exclusions> </dependency>>

Once you have that in, go through the standard process of creating a class in the Android project and an interface in the Core project. I use the UiLifecycleHelper, only way really! Means less code and less code = less bugs! Here is an example of my Facebook class in my Android project

package com.supercookie.bombnom.android.facebook; /* Your imports */ public class FacebookServiceImpl implements FacebookService { private static final String APP_NAME = "Super Bomb Noms"; private final TwiddleActivity twiddleActivity; private final UiLifecycleHelper uiHelper; public FacebookServiceImpl(TwiddleActivity twiddleActivity) { this.twiddleActivity = twiddleActivity; this.uiHelper = new UiLifecycleHelper(twiddleActivity, new Session.StatusCallback() { @Override public void call(Session session, SessionState sessionState, Exception e) { } }); } @Override public boolean isLoggedIn() { return Session.getActiveSession() != null && Session.getActiveSession().isOpened(); } @Override public void logIn(final TaskCallback taskCallback) { List permissions = new ArrayList<>(); permissions.add("user_friends"); TwiddleGame.analytics().facebookLoginInit(); Session.openActiveSession( twiddleActivity, true, permissions, new Session.StatusCallback() { // callback when session changes state @Override public void call(Session session, SessionState state, Exception exception) { if (session.isOpened()) { TwiddleGame.analytics().facebookLoginAccept(); TwiddleGame.debug("Available Perms " + session.getPermissions()); if (!session.getPermissions().contains("user_friends")) { Session.NewPermissionsRequest newPermissionsRequest = new Session .NewPermissionsRequest(twiddleActivity, Arrays.asList("user_friends")); session.requestNewReadPermissions(newPermissionsRequest); } else { taskCallback.onSuccess(null); } } } } ); } @Override public void inviteFriends() { if (isLoggedIn()) { final Bundle params = new Bundle(); params.putString("message", "Come play Super Bomb Noms!"); params.putString("filters", "app_non_users"); params.putString("title", "Invite Friends!"); //This part is optional params.putString("action_type", "send"); params.putString("object_id", /* Your object id*/); TwiddleGame.debug("Params " + params); twiddleActivity.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { WebDialog requestsDialog = ( new WebDialog.RequestsDialogBuilder(twiddleActivity, Session.getActiveSession(), params)) .setOnCompleteListener(new WebDialog.OnCompleteListener() { @Override public void onComplete(Bundle values, FacebookException error) { if (error == null) { final String requestId = values.getString("request"); if (requestId != null) { Toast.makeText(twiddleActivity.getApplicationContext(), "Request sent", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } } } }) .build(); requestsDialog.show(); } }); } } @Override public void shareBuyingBombNom(CharacterBase characterBase) { if (FacebookDialog.canPresentShareDialog(twiddleActivity, FacebookDialog.ShareDialogFeature.SHARE_DIALOG)) { OpenGraphAction action = GraphObject.Factory.create(OpenGraphAction.class); action.setProperty("bomb_nom", BOMB_NOMS_IDS[characterBase.getId()]); action.setExplicitlyShared(true); action.setType("superbombnoms:buy"); FacebookDialog shareDialog = new FacebookDialog.OpenGraphActionDialogBuilder(twiddleActivity, action, "bomb_nom").setApplicationName(APP_NAME).build(); uiHelper.trackPendingDialogCall(shareDialog.present()); } } @Override public void shareWinningBombNom(CharacterBase characterBase) { if (FacebookDialog.canPresentShareDialog(twiddleActivity, FacebookDialog.ShareDialogFeature.SHARE_DIALOG)) { OpenGraphAction action = GraphObject.Factory.create(OpenGraphAction.class); action.setProperty("bomb_nom", BOMB_NOMS_IDS[characterBase.getId()]); action.setExplicitlyShared(true); action.setType("superbombnoms:win"); FacebookDialog shareDialog = new FacebookDialog.OpenGraphActionDialogBuilder(twiddleActivity, action, "bomb_nom").setApplicationName(APP_NAME).build(); uiHelper.trackPendingDialogCall(shareDialog.present()); } } @Override public void logOut() { if (isLoggedIn()) { Session.getActiveSession().closeAndClearTokenInformation(); } } public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { uiHelper.onCreate(savedInstanceState); } public void onResume() { uiHelper.onResume(); } public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) { uiHelper.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data); } public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) { uiHelper.onSaveInstanceState(outState); } public void onPause() { uiHelper.onPause(); } public void onStop() { uiHelper.onStop(); } public void onDestroy() { uiHelper.onDestroy(); } }

So just have log in method associated with a button or whatever you want and the magic will happen. Then try invite friends on the a successful log in. Then in my Activity

package com.supercookie.twiddle.android; /* imports! */ public class TwiddleActivity extends AndroidApplication { protected FacebookServiceImpl facebookService; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE); getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN, WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN); getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FORCE_NOT_FULLSCREEN); super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); RelativeLayout layout = new RelativeLayout(this); AndroidApplicationConfiguration cfg = new AndroidApplicationConfiguration(); cfg.useAccelerometer = false; cfg.useCompass = false; cfg.useWakelock = true; facebookService = new FacebookServiceImpl(this); facebookService.onCreate(savedInstanceState); twiddleGame = new TwiddleGame(); View gameView = initializeForView(twiddleGame, cfg); twiddleGame.setFacebookService(facebookService); } @Override protected void onResume() { super.onResume(); Gdx.app.debug(TwiddleGame.LOG, this.getName() + " onResume"); facebookService.onResume(); AppEventsLogger.activateApp(TwiddleActivity.this); } @Override protected void onPause() { super.onPause(); Gdx.app.debug(TwiddleGame.LOG, this.getName() + " onPause"); facebookService.onPause(); } @Override protected void onStop() { super.onStop(); Gdx.app.debug(TwiddleGame.LOG, this.getName() + " onStop"); facebookService.onStop(); } @Override public void onDestroy() { super.onDestroy(); Gdx.app.debug(TwiddleGame.LOG, this.getName() + " onDestroy"); facebookService.onDestroy(); } @Override protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) { super.onSaveInstanceState(outState); facebookService.onSaveInstanceState(outState); } @Override protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) { super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data); facebookService.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data); } private String getName() { return ((Object) this).getClass().getSimpleName(); } }

Don't forget to add the Facebook stuff to your AndroidManifest.xml (I won't post that, as it is in the documentation) Hope this helps!