moltarx

13th June 2003 23:47 UTC

OpenAVS (You have a better name?)
Ok, so i have been coding for a few days now on a language system similar to the one used in avs, and so far, i have one that accepts variable declerations, and does math n'such. I am going to hopefully add in the ability to write custom functions, and possibly look up pre-written functions this weekend. If anyone has any ideas on a name for this project, it would be greately appreciated, as I was thinking of posting my code on sourceforge.net soon (all you coders best get in gear, and help me ;) ). I have some ideas of my own on how i would like to do the designing of presets etc.. in the new version, but am very open to suggestions. In the spirit of open source, i am also very happy to share around what i have written. Right now I am coding for the xmms system, but am writing it in a way that seperates core plugin code and pretty visualizer code in two seperate modules, that way we can hopefully have an easy time porting it to winders (yet another reason that i need some other developers on board with me). For the actual visualizer code, I was thinking that SDL would do a very nice job of rendering, and being free/portable. If anyone is interested, working in some OpenGL stuff would be a heck of a lot of fun too :)

Let me know if you are interested, cuz im gunna need help with this one :)

Wiser87

14th June 2003 01:46 UTC

err... wrong forum (or sub-forum, or whatever...). This should go on the main AVS forum...

mikm

14th June 2003 02:30 UTC

i don't think you can use AVS in the name- copyright issues, plus it sounds cheap

UnConeD

14th June 2003 02:55 UTC

Did you write your own parser or use a generator? Is the code interpreted or compiled? Please post more details ;).

moltarx

14th June 2003 08:59 UTC

Well, ive been coding a pascal compiler from scratch for a side project, and to take up less time, i used flex/bison to do quicker generaton of the language rules, and lexical analysis. Worked out pretty well :) I hear there are ports for the winders, so if all goes well, this should be a damn portable project :)

I was thinking of compiling to an intermediate code format - still to be devised of course - but that would run a heck of a lot quicker than interpreting every time it loads any ideas UCD? :D

Currently it is very very interpreted... doesnt even translate into any sort of icode... so its way un-optimised, and needs some work... but i dont think that its going to be anything too major to get goin well.

Yathosho

14th June 2003 14:28 UTC

i thought of the names openvis or openviz, but actually both names were used for different projects already. coincidently openviz is an application from avs.com.

well there's been a lot of talk about this before and it never resulted in anything. so i'm hoping your doing better, although i can't judge if pascal is optimal for this task. other programming languages might ease cross-development, and i'd love to see osx, linux and windows supported, maybe even (Open)BeOS. many other operating systems might have better multimedia-capabilities than windows. iirc, jheriko was also interested in working on something like this. my suggestion is -since you sounded like you want to make it an open project- that you team up and register the project at sourceforge. this might attract other people as well to work on it. but then it really needs a name. of course it would be nice if this new visualization plugin would be in a way compatible to avs. i don't know about the legal situation here, but then again nullsoft built in that svp loader, which plays sonique visualizations, sonique is a product from lycos.

so, back to the name issue. remember that this can be anything (i.e. 'dog', 'house' etc.), it doesnt need to have this close association to the name of avs. if you still prefer this, think of OpenVS, OpenAV or IVS (independent vs)... whatever.

Zevensoft

14th June 2003 14:48 UTC

OpenVL - Open Visualization Language

Phaze1987

14th June 2003 21:50 UTC

OpenVL sounds waaaaaaaaay to much like OpenGL.FreeVIS sounds nice to me.
http://www.google.com/search?q=freev...TF-8&hl=ro&lr=

moltarx

14th June 2003 22:49 UTC

Yeah, i like the sound of freevis a lot :)

The pascal thingie was just a pascal compiler that i was working o as practice in writing lexers/parsers/compilers in c/c++. This one has a lot more avs syntax like syntax, and is still written in c/c++, but hasn't taken nearly as long as i wrote it with flex and bison. Well, if no one has any objections, should we go with FreeVIS?



edit:
damn, i didnt click the link before i wrote that... does that mean that FreeVIS is out?

Phaze1987

15th June 2003 00:11 UTC

NO way ! Its an eye clinic.We are eye doctors ! Plus,i dont think they have copyright on FreeVIS.

moltarx

15th June 2003 02:52 UTC

Maybe we should taunt them and have a big eye as our logo? :D

Well, i've run into a block. I can add in set functions like abs() etc... but im having a lot of trouble thinking of a way to store user functions. Any one have any ideas?

Zevensoft

15th June 2003 03:29 UTC

Use a call(functionname,param0,param1,...) method.

And store functions like:

function fName, pVar0, pVar1, ...

end function

moltarx

15th June 2003 04:31 UTC

yeah, i was wondering what the data structure would look like though. do you think that a linked list would work? i'm expecting that some sort of frame work for developing functions in c/c++ will be done too...

Deamon

15th June 2003 13:04 UTC

How easy would everything be if Nullsoft would just give the source for AVS to us, and make it all open source...

Yathosho

15th June 2003 13:14 UTC

Originally posted by Phaze1987
i dont think they have copyright on FreeVIS.

mquadrat

15th June 2003 13:52 UTC

FreeVis is a registered Trademark in Germany and is owned by LASIK Zentren GmbH, Mannheim. In the US there's a trademark FreeVision owned by CCCNetwork Systems Group Limited.

Hope that helps..

Yathosho

15th June 2003 13:57 UTC

mannheim, my birthplace :)

mquadrat

15th June 2003 14:02 UTC

Well I'm there from time to time. A Friend of mine lives there. But mhhh I think we're going off topic ;)

[Ishan]

15th June 2003 15:40 UTC

How 'bout "FUTURE VIS" or "GRAND VIS"??:D

Phaze1987

15th June 2003 17:04 UTC

Grand VIS sounds like porn.FutureVIS sounds pretty nice.
Suggestion : EyeDlite . Sounds like crap...

NemoOrange

15th June 2003 20:40 UTC

How about something like "Dilate"

v. intr.
To become wider or larger; expand.
To speak or write at great length on a subject; expatiate

stuff like "OpenViz" or "FreeFL" sounds boring.

Phaze1987

15th June 2003 21:09 UTC

Dilate? o_O Sounds spooky,it might attract people.

moltarx

15th June 2003 21:31 UTC

yeah, i like the sound of dilate :) as long as someone makes some sort of awesome preset involving an eye when its done...

[Ishan]

16th June 2003 06:36 UTC

Dilate sounds nice to me too.

shreyas_potnis

16th June 2003 08:29 UTC

OpenVL!

mquadrat

16th June 2003 08:54 UTC

Dilate sounds nice, but where's the connection to visualization?

And for the preset: If Dilate will be at least as powerful as AVS then an awesome preset with an eye, shouldn't be the problem ;)

Yathosho

16th June 2003 08:58 UTC

i like it, sounds less boring than any abbreviation

Originally posted by mquadrat
Dilate sounds nice, but where's the connection to visualization?

mquadrat

16th June 2003 09:09 UTC

Mhh you're right.. Then I'm voting YES for Dilate.

Tuggummi

16th June 2003 09:33 UTC

Dilate gives an classy impression, i vote for that :D And i agree that all those "openvis" "futurevis" "grandvis" "supervis" etc. those sound boring and rather childish...

[Ishan]

16th June 2003 10:00 UTC

Allright so its decided is it? DILATE!

Yathosho

16th June 2003 10:24 UTC

moltarx: you should get this registered at sourceforge then

Shock Value

16th June 2003 14:41 UTC

Dilate sounds good to me.

[Ishan]

16th June 2003 15:36 UTC

So approximately how much time would it take till we get to see "Dilate"??

moltarx

16th June 2003 16:26 UTC

Who knows, ill register it tonight, and hopefully get somewhere with coding support for user functions in the language part of it... but we still have the whole visualization part of it to go :)

Its just me right now (that i know of) and any help would definitly speed up development :D Ill post the url of the sf.net project once i get it registered, so anyone that wants to can pull down the code, and start work :)

UnConeD

16th June 2003 18:23 UTC

I'm already building a vis though :rolleyes:. It'll just won't get worked on any further until I finish exams.

Might as well build one big, decent compiler rather. I can make it output assembly (and thus be as fast as any regular code) rather than be interpreted. Think about how it is layed out:
- Is it typed or untyped?
- Support for objects?
- Extensible?
- Event-driven or linear?

moltarx

16th June 2003 21:25 UTC

Are you going to have it generate assembly only for the routines that do math type functions? or just have it spit out a shared object or the like?

Also, what were you going to use for rendering your vis? I was going to try and go for a cross platform type thing, and use sdl to render, as that has been built for linux, winders etc. I thought that if we did it that way, we might be able to bring some new people into the community that were forced to oogle at presets made until then :)

UnConeD

16th June 2003 22:36 UTC

Currently using OpenGL in Windows, but I'm thinking of switching to SDL. I'll see, first I have to get a prototype working ;);
I intend to make it compile completely to assembly.

moltarx

16th June 2003 22:53 UTC

well, if you are interested in someone to help you code on it, im happy to scrap what i have, and help with yours, otherwise, ill probably just work on this one :)

moltarx

2nd August 2003 09:51 UTC

Ok, I finally got my lazy ass around to registering the project on sourceforge. It's currently in review, and I should hear from them sometime on Monday about whether or not it was accepted.

moltarx

4th August 2003 16:52 UTC

There we have it :) https://sourceforge.net/projects/dilate/

Im going to commit the code for the assembler (for the virtual machine) that I have already, although, I'm going to stop work on that for now, and design the virtual machine. If anyone is interested in helping out, get setup on sf.net, and send me an email :)

Yathosho

4th August 2003 23:57 UTC

posted the link in the vjforums. what about an osx version?

moltarx

5th August 2003 07:48 UTC

Could be doable if we get someone coding that knows osx. I'm goin for compatibility and standards with what im coding, so hopefully porting it wouldn't be too bad.

Yathosho

13th August 2003 21:52 UTC

i think the official dilate discussion has moved here

elcapjtk

14th August 2003 04:34 UTC

VisNG :)

Visualizations THE NEXT GENERATION!

[Ishan]

14th August 2003 16:50 UTC

uh...the name has been decided before.Dilate.

jheriko

15th August 2003 21:42 UTC

This seems like a great project.. I'd love to contribute, unfortunately I have no good development environment at the moment... this computer is far too crappy and lacks any tools or the space to install such tools. I should have my old machine back soon though.. then i might be able to lend a hand. I have no real knowledge at all of compilers and parsers, I made a really shit command line interpreter once but thats about it. However I have a pretty fair knowledge of 3d programming and opengl. I've made lots of small 3d side projects before.. 3d rendering in qbasic several spinning cubes, particle systems and other such basic pap in opengl and endless vb and gdi crap too.

moltarx

22nd August 2003 01:13 UTC

Well, I would love to have some extra help! :)

Currently the project has changed course a bit, and im working on developing a virtual machine... dont ask me if this is the best route to go, but it does seem to be the most fun :) Maybe I should split the two projects apart, and focus solely on the visualizer >.<

Anyway, I am going to need help later on building visualization portion of the virtual machine bits... I havn't really posted any information on the architechure that I have sort of planned for this thing, but if anyone wants to start chatting on the sf.net forums for dilate, we could probably start to work thing out there :)

Anyway, currently I have it all building in Linux, but would like to move towards having it be cross platform, so any help from windows developers would be very much appreciated!

sf.net forums for dilate:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=87119

We also have the ability to setup a mailing list if that works better for anyone.

jheriko

22nd August 2003 04:00 UTC

Hmm.. don't think I can help much... all I know is Win32 and OpenGL.. everything else is very much a blur.

Developing for Linux? Is this a wise idea.. your target audience is going to be about .1% that of a Windows based vis.

moltarx

22nd August 2003 07:01 UTC

Well, like I said, I'm looking to make this a cross platform thing, which is why I was looking for some Win32 developers to help out with getting it running in windows. I'm not using any linux specific libraries right now, so it should compile just fine in windows.

moltarx

22nd August 2003 16:47 UTC

Well, I'm beginning to realize that this virtual machine project is more of a personal thing, that I would like to do, and isn't necessarily going to make the development of dilate go any quicker. So I found the ferite language parser, which looks pretty awesome, and very flexible. We could use that as the language parser for the preset, as it has a fairly small footprint, and just develop the interface to the various mp3 players out there seperatly. Sound ok?

btw, Ferite is cross platform, so as long as we use something like SDL to do the windowing, we should be able to keep everything but the interface to the various players cross platform :)

http://sf.net/projects/ferite

Yathosho

23rd August 2003 08:58 UTC

Quote: