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werkkzeug4 by Farbrausch [web]

README for Altona and Werkkzeug4

So, you want to get going with Werkkzeug4? Just read on!

The very easy way

try wz4/bin - there you'll find Werkkzeug4 for creating a demo and the wz4player for releasing one.

Just start Werkkzeug4.exe and hack away. If we're nice we'll write instructions at some point, or somebody else will.

If you want to ship a demo made with Wz4, please first check the "Document Options" because you can state the name of your production and a handful of options there. The operator that gets shown as demo is "root" as always, and if you want to have a fancy loading bar, try "loading" as op name (the progress will be used as time between 0 and 1 (16 beats)).

Then to ship, just call wz4player with

wz4player path_to_wz4_file --pack name_of_packfile.pak

... and bundle the player exe and the .pak. Easy as pie. :)

Compiling

So basically there's two directories.

"Altona" contains our aptly named framework for graphics, sound, IO and the rest of the essential stuff that's needed for creating demos, games and GUI tools. You will also find an "empty" Wz4 there which has the full GUI but there are no operators that actually do anything.

"Wz4" contains the library with the "Farbrausch engine" and all the effects, and also a GUI and player version of the Wz4 that uses this library. That's where the demos come from.

Step 0: Make sure you have at least Visual Studio 2008 (Express versions will do, also VS2005 should work but hasn't been tested for a long time), the DirectX SDK and YASM.

Step 1: Look for "altona_config_sample.hpp" in the altona/ dir, copy it to "altona_config.hpp", open that and change the constants found therein (most prominently the VS version). Make sure altona/bin is in the PATH from now on, then open a command line and type

makeproject -r path_to_source 

If everything goes according to plan, which it will because we've got a PhD in awesomeness, you should now find solution and project files in every directory.

Step 2: Open the wz4/werkkzeug4 or wz4/wz4player projects, compile, enjoy.

Compiling (the hard way)

To create all the tools found in altona/bin/ from scratch you need to locate the "bootstrap" project in altona/tools/makeproject/bootstrap - this should build without any further dependencies. Create the makeproject.exe, then call it (if you got sCONFIG_CODEROOT_WINDOWS in altona_config.hpp right, you can from now on omit the -r parameter). The VS projects should now be created and you can proceed to compile at least ASC and Wz4Ops (in this order). Put all executables in the PATH and Werkkzeug should compile.

That's it for now - more docs or blog entries will surely follow, this codebase is actually good for something. Have fun poking around or even making demos with wz4. Or even writing your own engine and using wz4 as editor, or use it as GUI for creating VMs to be used in 4K intros - that's exactly what it's for.

Sincerely, Tammo "kb" Hinrichs / farbrausch
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