Bennu Game Development

English Forums => Platforms => Wii (homebrew) => Topic started by: josebita on July 14, 2010, 11:27:05 AM

Title: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on July 14, 2010, 11:27:05 AM
Beta 1 has been released:
http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/ (http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/)

Works pretty well, although it still has some bugs (not really sure if mod_glob is working at all...)
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: FreeYourMind on July 14, 2010, 12:01:26 PM
Karma Power On!
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on July 14, 2010, 12:35:00 PM
Thanks, we now need a lot of games :)
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: FreeYourMind on July 14, 2010, 01:01:32 PM
I will try it with my pinball action remake  :D
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Drumpi on July 14, 2010, 08:06:39 PM
Awesome news. Just karma.
...but games must wait, sorry, i'm very busy.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Imerion on July 24, 2010, 01:22:25 PM
Wow, really nice work! I didn't know there was such a complete Wii port! I might modify a few of my games to work on it eventually, and I have a few projects I want to do for the Wii specifically which might now become reality.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on July 24, 2010, 08:17:03 PM
Great to hear!

In the next few days I'll work on fixing the known bugs.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on August 10, 2010, 11:52:57 PM
I've just uploaded a refresh for Beta 2. It basically includes a stupid error fix and a few updates from official BennuGD:

http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2010/08/comments-on-beta-2-and-refresh-to.html
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Imerion on September 10, 2010, 12:44:23 AM
Nice!

I was planning to make my next game portable to the Wii, so I wonder: What kind of limitations are there when it comes to memory? That is, how much stuff can I load into the memory at once? Also, does the IR pointer work? I didn't find any info about it on your blog. (It's not necessary for my game, but it could provide some interesting functionality.)
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on September 10, 2010, 07:29:27 AM
Most of it is explained here:
http://code.google.com/p/bennugd-monolithic/wiki/WiiGettingStarted

The Wiimote works just fine, as does the Nunchuk. You can treat it as a normal mouse when it's pointing at the screen and as a joystick when it's not. You can read angles, accelerations... most things should work just fine. Have a look at the "Issues" section in the project page for the known bugs.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Imerion on September 12, 2010, 08:09:34 PM
I see, thanks! I hadn't seen that article. That explains everything I was wondering about except for two things:
Do you know if 24bpp graphic mode works? Also, what other resolutions are available besides 640x480? (I will probably use that resolution anyway, but it would be possible to add a Widescreen-mode to the game. Would that use 720x480 perhaps?)
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on September 13, 2010, 06:27:15 PM
I'm not sure about the resolutions, I should have a look at the SDL source code, but 320x240 and 640x480 are certainly supported.

As for 24bpp, it's not implemented in upstream Bennu, so it isn't in Wii either. 32bpp should work, but I've not tested it very much yet :)
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on October 25, 2010, 11:30:21 AM
If anybody is experiencing random crashes while programming your games, have a look at this:
http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2010/10/experiencing-random-crashes-use-mp3.html

It seems to be a problem with the library that reads OGG files. Using MP3 seems to avoid the issue.
Also, I'm planning on releasing a new beta soon.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: handsource-dyko on October 25, 2010, 12:45:31 PM
Cool stuff!

Unfortunatly I have no wii to test my games on it, but is very interesting
to have another supported platform.

How is the input mapped? Does it use the joystick functions or
are keyboard events mapped to joystick functions?

Also, does the classic controller work?

Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on October 25, 2010, 01:31:12 PM
Classic is supported, as is the Wiimote, Nunchuk, the Wii Balance Board and others.
Keyboard input should work with a USB keyboard, too. The Wiimote is mapped as a mouse for pointing, and as a joystick/mouse for input.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Jonsul on November 03, 2010, 07:27:59 AM
What would it take to make a native version for the wii, not just for homebrew? Wii dev kit?
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on November 03, 2010, 08:09:47 AM
It probably wouldn't be legally possible because the NDA they make you sign is incompatible with Bennu's GPL·

Anyway, the version is native; it's just not signed by Nintendo and thus cannot be run "normally" in your Wii. Installing the homebrew channel is very easy and requires no hardware changes though.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Jonsul on November 03, 2010, 10:12:35 AM
Well it's not really what I needed, I'm going to college soon for game design and think I'll be using Bennu a lot. I think I may go into indie development and open my own studio. Eventually I'd like to develop for wiiware, even though that's far off, so the wii version appealed to me. I have to say the system compatibility is the leading factor for me, I love how I can develop a game and sell it on so many systems.

Anyways, say in the future I could get my hands on a wii dev kit, would I be able to run this without the homebrew channel? Getting Nintendo to allow it shouldn't be to hard I think, I've heard of other people getting like licensed stuff to work and published on the wii.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on November 03, 2010, 11:35:22 AM
Getting the devkit for Wii is neither very expensive (~2000€ for a small studio) nor difficult, but as I said, they make you sign an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) that forbids you from sharing any info on the SDK to the outside world. As BennuGD is GPL, you'd have to share the binaries along with any games you made, so you'd be violating either their NDA by sharing the source code or the GPL by not sharing it.

Anyway, I believe it's a good idea to start with bennu, and once you get confidence and expertise with your coding jump to some other engine for wiiware code.

If Splinter ever got rid of the Fenix code from Bennu, you could license a version of Bennu with proprietary terms for him, and you'd be able to use that.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Jonsul on November 04, 2010, 08:24:59 PM
Well when the time comes I'll figure something out. A wii version that could be used to make wiiware titles would be really good for Bennu I think. I'd like it to be available to other people. It wouldn't be to hard I think if we just had one that could have optimizations for wii hardware as open source, which I guess is what this version is. But then have official wii libraries or modules under a different license. Would that seem like a good way to go about it.
I know what you're saying, I probably will be doing a lot of work in other languages eventually, but I have strong feelings on trying to give something back to open source communities when I use their technology.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on January 04, 2011, 09:33:39 PM
Beta 3 launched with proper Wii Balance Board support, amongst other changes:
http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2011/01/beta-3-released.html
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: FreeYourMind on January 04, 2011, 09:41:12 PM
Papaaaaaranoooouuuuu, papaaaaaranoooouuuuu, chiribiki let's go
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on January 04, 2011, 10:03:53 PM
Aham... :D
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on February 18, 2011, 09:17:49 PM
Now that I finished my exams, I've finally worked a bit on the modules. Now I don't need to patch them just to be able to create a monolithic build (thanks to DCelso for the idea), making the port much more manageable. Also, I updated all the code to match the latest BennuGD revision.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on February 26, 2011, 11:50:13 AM
Release candidate 1 launched:
http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2011/02/bennugd-for-wii-rc1.html
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Moogster on February 26, 2011, 04:54:02 PM
Very good news! Is it still mandatory to compile on the Wii itself? And as this is the monolithic-bennu project does this also mean that a new version of the PSP port is in the works? I just got myself a PSP today so a new version of that would be a real bonus. :-)

Thanks!
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on February 26, 2011, 05:11:11 PM
Hi Moogster. Unfortunately, you still have to compile your dcbs on the wii. Be sure to check out the Getting started page on the bennugd-monolithic wiki. If you cannot get it to work, please let me know (by PM, perhaps) and I can try to help you do it. I believe that once you get it working you'll find it's easier than it looks. Also, it helps a lot to have your Wii connected to the same Wifi your computer is on.

As for the PSP... I don't own one myself and that makes the porting much more difficult to mantain. I'd suggest you contact DCelso, who has produced working binaries. I'll try to integrate his latest changes into the SVN tree myself and even try to produce binaries but, as I don't own a PSP, I cannot guarantee they'll work.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: DCelso on February 27, 2011, 11:10:58 AM
Quote from: josebita on February 26, 2011, 05:11:11 PM
Hi Moogster. Unfortunately, you still have to compile your dcbs on the wii. Be sure to check out the Getting started page on the bennugd-monolithic wiki. If you cannot get it to work, please let me know (by PM, perhaps) and I can try to help you do it. I believe that once you get it working you'll find it's easier than it looks. Also, it helps a lot to have your Wii connected to the same Wifi your computer is on.

As for the PSP... I don't own one myself and that makes the porting much more difficult to mantain. I'd suggest you contact DCelso, who has produced working binaries. I'll try to integrate his latest changes into the SVN tree myself and even try to produce binaries but, as I don't own a PSP, I cannot guarantee they'll work.
Great notice.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: Moogster on February 27, 2011, 12:17:25 PM
I used to have a Wii to try things on but I had to return it to the owner some time ago :-( So it's just the PSP for me now. What do you mean by 'Great notice'? I would be very interested to know the state of things on the PSP port and expected course of events. If testing is a problem I wouldn't mind helping out.

Just being curious I checked out the SVN last night and tried to run the PSP makefile, but it wouldn't give me a binary. Is there a specific location for the PSPSDK toolchain or the source tree that is causing it giving me a psp-gcc: CreateProcess: File not found error? I'm just running the make.bat file in the bgdi folder, and have changed the PSPSDK path in that file to suit my install. I am using the MinPspSDK toolchain package, maybe that is what's causing it? Something like a wiki page on how to get things on the road would be very helpful?

Any information is greatly appreciated!
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: DCelso on February 27, 2011, 02:01:32 PM
The GN is the notice to integrate the changes of psp in the monolithic svn version.

And if you can test the bennu psp version I will be glad.

In the psp post I will tell you what can you do to test it.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on February 27, 2011, 03:48:12 PM
Notice="News", as I understand.
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on March 02, 2011, 11:52:15 AM
Binary release for Wii integrating mod_chipmunk:
http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2011/03/bennugd-for-wii-rc1-modchipmunk.html
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: aisman on August 12, 2011, 07:47:24 AM
Hello josebita,
I have 2 question about the Bennu Wii port:

1) Is the Motion Plus also supported?
2) Which chipmunk version (latest is 6.0.1) is used on the Wii port.
   (If it not 6.0.1 will it be updated too?)

Thanks
aisman
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on August 12, 2011, 11:47:34 AM
Quote from: aisman on August 12, 2011, 07:47:24 AM
Hello josebita,
I have 2 question about the Bennu Wii port:

1) Is the Motion Plus also supported?
2) Which chipmunk version (latest is 6.0.1) is used on the Wii port.
   (If it not 6.0.1 will it be updated too?)

Thanks
aisman
I haven't tested wiimotion plus, but it should work -at least- as well as normal wiimotes.
I'm using Chipmunk 5.3.4

Hope to see your games soon :)
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: aisman on August 14, 2011, 09:59:55 AM
Hello josebita,
I have some more questions about the Bennu Wii port:


1) Can I develope a Bennu game on Windows first and after that starting to port it for Wii?
2) Is it a hard work to port a Bennu Windows source to the Wii?
3) Is it a good idea to develope it on Windows before porting to Wii?
Title: Re: BennuGD Wii port
Post by: josebita on August 15, 2011, 05:39:07 PM
Well, the three questions are pretty much the same one :)

The idea is that you should be able to develop your games in your PC (windows, linux, whatever) and then port your games without much trouble to the Wii, as long as you've followed a few rules when developing them in your computer. You can find the details here:
http://code.google.com/p/bennugd-monolithic/wiki/WiiGettingStarted

But they're, basically:
DCBs created in your computer won't work in your Wii -> to play your games in your Wii, you have to compile them in your Wii [howto (http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2011/03/compiling-your-code-directly-from.html)]
Your game resolution should be 640x480.
16 bits color is -obviously- faster.
You have to recode your songs to 48KHz (In your computer they're typically 22 or 44KHz) for them to play at right speed. If you want to avoid problems, you can use module tracker formats (XM, S3M, IT...) for the music.
To be able to read "advanced" data from your Wiimotes like orientation, accelerations... you have to use mod_wpad. You can find its documentation in the wiki and instructions on how to make code that uses mod_wpad and compiles fine in both your Wii and your PC here (http://bennugd-wii.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-use-modwpad-when-compiling-your.html).

So, basically the idea is that it's easier to make your games in your computer and from time to time test them in your Wii to make sure that everything is working as expected.
Title: Re:BennuGD Wii port
Post by: square on December 10, 2013, 08:30:38 PM
How about gamecube controller support at the moment? Recently tested it and the left stick dosen't respond, making that control method kind of redundant...

I monitored joy_getaxis for axes 0,1 (horizontal, vertical) and it's frozen at 0.

I did some research and there is a new SDL wii version and a possible fix. If this is related or useful, have a look josebita:

http://code.google.com/p/sdl-wii/issues/detail?id=49