OUYA Specific Torque SDK (Possible?)
by Benjamin Stanley · in Torque 3D Beginner · 09/28/2012 (5:37 pm) · 8 replies
Ok, recently I have been looking at OUYA.
For those of you who do not know what Ouya is it is a Open Source Console that is currently in development by Boxer8. The Console Costs around 100.00 with 10.00 Shipping. This is for one controller + Console. 2 - 4 controllers will cost more. It is planned to be released around next year in march.
Now here goes the question - Would it be possible to develop a Torque Port for OUYA?
As far as I am aware OUYA is using custom port of android for its OS.
Pre-Order OUYA: Link
System Specs:link
The reason I bring this up is that Kotaku recently put up an article about developers wanting to develop for OUYA.
For those of you who do not know what Ouya is it is a Open Source Console that is currently in development by Boxer8. The Console Costs around 100.00 with 10.00 Shipping. This is for one controller + Console. 2 - 4 controllers will cost more. It is planned to be released around next year in march.
Now here goes the question - Would it be possible to develop a Torque Port for OUYA?
As far as I am aware OUYA is using custom port of android for its OS.
Pre-Order OUYA: Link
System Specs:link
The reason I bring this up is that Kotaku recently put up an article about developers wanting to develop for OUYA.
About the author
My name is Benjamin Stanley. I am a Procedural World enthusiast, 3D artist, and Generally Awesome Guy. I have worked on various projects and Modifications in the past and I am currently looking at making a Free Game with Torque 3D or Torque 2D.
#2
I would be more concerned about memory on the ouya. Since they only have 1024 Megabytes of RAM.
09/28/2012 (7:31 pm)
Here are the specs for the Tegra3 Processor.It is a Quad core @ 1.4 Ghz.I would be more concerned about memory on the ouya. Since they only have 1024 Megabytes of RAM.
#3
09/29/2012 (8:59 am)
It is really no different than developing for normal android and targeting a specific device only except you have to replace touchscreen with a controller API. By the time the Ouya comes out, there will be devices like tablets and phones than have the same and possible better hardware specs. As far as torque running on it, you will need an opengl es 2.0 layer as well as a java wrapper around the dynamic library to take care of all of the OS interaction. Probably the most lengthy thing outside of opengl es 2.0 would be all the JNI code you have to write to interface the two specially since JNI is a bit of a nightmare compared to other languages accessing native code. 
#4
12/09/2012 (8:43 am)
I hope this isn't a dead topic but I would be interested in developing for the OUYA myself. Now with the work being done to get an OpenGl layer into T3D. What else would need to be done? I think this would be a fantastic way for indies to get a chance to develop for a console.
#5
12/09/2012 (9:27 am)
Even with linux fully working, you would still need an opengl es 2.0 layer outside of the desktop opengl layer. Granted it wouldn't be as hard to make one once opengl was working. You also need a java application wrapper around the T3D dll to communicate with android. As far as other things go like sound, openal might work ( I have not researched it) otherwise would need to use the android APIs there as well.
#6
12/09/2012 (9:40 am)
I think it was be a good boost once the opengl layer was complete. Not for sure if something like DNT would be the way to go with the java wrapper but I'm going to look into this some more.
#7
12/09/2012 (9:59 am)
Basically a JNI wrapper has to be written for the torque dynamic library, but you wouldn't need to export everything like DNT does since you are just wanting to bootstrap the application and provide some calls back and forth between java and C++. Really the C++ code should do most of the work and only make calls out to the java interface when necessary.
#8
12/09/2012 (3:40 pm)
That's encouraging especially since the openGl part is currently being done! 
Torque 3D Owner Conall McGarry
We would need to ensure torque compiles on ARM with Linux (and all its dependencies), implement support for the planned windowing system and also implement an OpenGL ES 3 renderer which is very similar to OpenGL 3+ (no fixed function pipline).
I believe more work may need to be done for IO and Audio etc but I'm not well clued up on android so i can't say for sure.
I'd say this goal would be fairly far off unless either OpenGL 3+ and DirectX 10+ support would be implemented, in which case the engine wouldn't need that much work to extend for OpenGL ES 3 support, or a developer does the work to add an OpenGL ES render system and pushes it upstream.
Unless someone wishes to implement a OpenGL ES 1.1 render system?
I'm also not sure how the Tegra3 would hold up against T3D's minimum specs.