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MAGE - Part 2

Table of Contents
First there was project architecture then there was directory structure
Check out Nui Engine on Github

The Process #

Since this is an editor-less game engine. We need to plan how the user’s game (project) is integrated with the engine/project solution. Here is the proposed usage pipeline:

  1. Clone/Fork the Github repository
  2. Run a script to generate project build scripts
  3. Generate project files
  4. Open Visual Studio solution with engine and user game code projects linked!

The Build System #

Since I am only developing this project for the Windows OS, I plan to use Visual Studio as my IDE and therefore MSVC as my C++ compiler. But to generate the solution and add the user project files I will be using Premake as my solution generator/build system.

Project Folder Structure #

When the user clones the repository, they should see the following folder structure

NuiEngine (Root)/
├─ Docs/
│  ├─ Doxygen generated docs
├─ Build/
│  ├─ Intermediate/
│  ├─ <BUILD_CONFIG>/
│  │  ├─ NuiCore/
│  │  ├─ NuiTest/
│  │  ├─ NuiConsole/
│  │  ├─ NuiGraphics/
│  │  ├─ NuiAudio/
│  │  ├─ <USER_PROJECT_NAME>/
│  │  │  ├─ Saved/
│  │  │  │  ├─ NuiEngine.log
│  │  │  ├─ <USER_PROJECT_NAME>.exe
├─ Scripts/
│  ├─ Templates/
│  │  ├─ PremakeProjectTemplate.lua
│  │  ├─ PremakeSolutionTemplate.lua
│  ├─ premake5.exe
│  ├─ CreateProject.py
├─ Engine/
│  ├─ Core/
│  │  ├─ BuildCore.lua
│  ├─ Graphics/
│  │  ├─ BuildGraphics.lua
│  ├─ Audio/
│  │  ├─ BuildAudio.lua
│  ├─ Console/
│  │  ├─ BuildConsole.lua
│  ├─ Test/
│  │  ├─ BuildTest.lua
├─ <USER_PROJECT_NAME>/
│  ├─ <USER_PROJECT_NAME>/
│  │  ├─ Game code...
│  ├─ Main.cpp
│  ├─ Build<USER_PROJECT_NAME>.lua
├─ GenerateProjectFiles.bat

Initially there will be no Build and User Project folder. That will be generated using the Scripts/CreateProject.py script. All engine modules will be the in the Engine folder with their respective Premake Lua build files. These will be defined manually and will not change during project generation. I also include the premake5.exe with the repository.

In the Scripts folder there are also premake template files for the solution and user project that the python script will use when creating a project.

Creating a New Project #

To create a new project the user will have to run Scripts/CreateProject.py with the project name as the command line argument. The goal is to run this script only once when the project has to be created for the first time.

Using Python #

I decided to use python since it’s super easy to easy to write and can be executed on the fly. This is what the Python script does:

  • Takes the user project name as an command line argument
    • Usage (cmd): CreateProject.py -projectname=<USER_PROJECT_NAME>
  • Creates project directory in the root folder
  • Creates the Build<USER_PROJECT_NAME>.lua using the PremakeProjectTemplate.lua file in the project directory
  • Creates a sub folder in the project directory with the same name as the project. This is where the user code will be written.
  • Calls premake5.exe to generate the Visual Studio solution and project files

Generating Project Files #

There is also a batch script in the root folder called GenerateProjectFiles.bat. Which invokes premake5.exe and can be used to update the project and solution when new files are added.

With this system I can also create GitHub actions to run the tests automatically.

With all that done, we now have a project generated with the right links. You can check the implementation details on the GitHub repository.

Programming Game Engine
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