User:AlexK/Gsoc2012

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Porting Blenderplayer to Android and OpenGL ES

Original Proposal: http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/proposal/review/google/gsoc2012/alexku/1

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:AlexK/Android (outdated)


Project Target

  • Make OpenGL of game engine compatible with OpenGL ES
  • Extend Android support (ghost)
  • Make a small game chooser or packager

Long Time Targets (Probably out of scope or as time allows)

  • Make whole Blender OpenGL ES compatible


P.S.

I will try to setup OpenGL ES on my desktop, and do the GL port on there also, which might save me time deploying and debugging on Android.

Progress Report

Week 1 (May 21-25)

  • Port headless Blender and basic libs (done)
  • Test Python port (Done thanks to PY4A proj. Still need compile it myself)
  • Update SVN from 2.62 (done)
  • SDL configured and tested for Blender (done)
  • Compile gameplayer (done)
  • Almost finish dynamic loader with nucleusbridge
    • nucleusbridge is used to run makesdna and makesrna
  • Design a system to easily test partiality ported OpenGL ES code.
    • Working on it. Wrote smart stub for GL. More Integration with glew is still needed.
  • Configure and consolidate build system/apk structure (nearly done for cmake)
    • Working on it, so it would find libs. After it is done will commit
  • Writing compilation instruction
  • Started debugging BGE openGL code

Week 2 (May 28- June 1)

  • Finished SDL port config to enable OpenGL 2.0
    • Fixed exit on rotate
  • Finished Smart OpenGL Stub. Now works as intended.
    • Also fixed couple issue I had with OpenGL
  • Added support OpenGL ES 2.0 on linux
  • Did documentation and tested how to build on Android
  • Studied/Debug GE code.
    • A little more complicated than what I expected with all branching and culling test
  • Make a solid monkey for Android's BGE

Week 3 (June 4-8)

  • Wrote matrix software stack
    • Standard GL functions like glPopMatrix
    • Some needed glu functions like gluLookAt
    • Ported whole GE to it
    • Still some problems like with dome
    • Now Android has a properspective
    • Added quad conversion for usual meshes (probably is not complete)
  • Had few prroblems
    • Spend a few hours why render was weird to find out that I forgot to enable Z=buffer in EGL
    • Qt+Chrome+gcc > 4.0 GB and my computer is prone to freezes. Also ext4 is not atomic resulting in lost of ~2.5 hour of work (OpenGL ES 2.0 tester).
  • Started planing default shaders management system

Week 4 (June 11-15)

  • Fix Android App (allow install without rooting)
  • Few fixes to matrix stack (+addition to math library)
  • Prepared and committed almost all my work (took much longer than I expected )
  • Converted part of GLEW extension flags to GPU flags
  • Studied GE GLSL
    • Make tested, the compilation on my phone is 0.03 S which is not a lot
    • Converted/disabled GLSL code to make compilable on phone.
    • Existing GLSL shaders works, but without lighting
    • Converted shader code to ES/modern, dropping ARB for now
      • With current openGL stub system, it is problematic to have both


Week 5 (June 18-22)

  • Added initial SDL input
    • Some SDL functions don't work as expected
  • Fixed Z-buffer
    • Turns out SDL for Android is terrible
    • It was setting wasn't respecting own settings
    • I'm investigating to have our own Ghost implementation (as original was planned)
    • It will also allow easier installation (like py4a): One click download with WiFi
  • Created simple "Blender Archive" file format for packaging files
    • It creates single installation file which is copied into internal directory.
  • GLSL lighting works
  • Added GLSL texture support
    • with refactoring code (needs to be coordinated with Jason, then commit)
    • Remove all ARB shading code (brecht approved it). Maybe we have old code if user base is big.
  • Clean up for matrix code
  • Icon fun https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/lib/android/armv7-a_9/aghosty-sdl/res/drawable-xhdpi/icon.png!


Week 6 (June 25-29)

  • First Android release!
  • Refactor OpenGL extensions. So gpu** calls gl** or gl**ARB if graphics card doesn't support it.
    • Jason made it compatible with Windows.
  • Few small OpenGL ES state fixes
  • Added VBO support.
  • Working on python GLSL
  • Added matrix rotation + double multiplication
    • +Converted blendfont to our matrix stack.
  • Fun merges fixes with my local branch
  • Worked one day on native Ghost
    • Made EGL in Java
    • Designed event queue. (hopefully it will work out very nicely. No malloc, only essential mutex)
    • There will be only one call from c to java (SwapBuffers). Many calls will be from java to c, events calls.
  • Designing Standard shading system (for text, lines) instead of glColor, glTexture...

Week 7 (July 2-6)

  • Python GLSL converted to gpu/Android
    • Not fully tested
  • DNA bug
    • I spent a day tracking down a crash to find out that dna was out of sync.
    • On a bright side:
  • I learned how to use Android's GDB
    • Through gdbserver on the device
    • There is a big lack of holistic documentation. I will post instructions later.
  • Native Ghost
    • ~60% complete
    • Figure out how to call java functions from C
    • And reverse way. So I can call SwapBuffers or have onKey event.
    • A little bit tricky with Java memory management in C
    • Implemented a nice, fast event queue
      • Did testing. Seems to be thread safe if only one thread is writing and only one is reading.
  • Figured out the problem with DNA/RNA generation on unrooted devices

Week 8 (July 9-13)

  • Java-C side with Ghost is working together
    • Apparently EGL context is not valid from another thread.
      • Had to refractor code
      • Still, we have support for only one display/Window.
    • Had to track down redrawing bug which took a lot of time
  • Native mouse input is implemented.
    • Mouse motion
    • Events system is very flexible and extendable
  • makesdna and makesrna is rewritten
    • Using Intent
    • Work on non rooted phones
    • Separate activity
  • Started working on opening .blend file
    • +Installation file
    • Based on "Intent" filters

P.S. Currently there are limitations for Ghost system

  • Only one window is supported
  • You cannot restart Blender from inside the app
    • memory leaks, lib loads, function registration etc.

Week 9 (July 16-20)

  • Added support for opening .blend
  • Created initial CenterControl activity (app menu) from which files can be also selected
    • In future we can add update/downloader/"blend store" functionality to it
    • And also latter will have options how to start a game
  • .bla are now .zip files
    • Unpackaged to internal folder
      • A little insecure
  • Wrote video mode selections
    • App tries to get highest video mode available starting from 8,8,8 color + 24 depth + 8 alpha
  • Added single lib installation for developers
  • A lot ghost/native fixes
  • Was able to get GE working in full blender (on linux openGL ES)
  • Started Accelerometer and gyroscope API

Week 10 (July 23-27)

  • Fix for initial screen size
  • Added ability to download blender from inside the app
    • Was investigating packing libraries into apk itself.
  • Added accelerometer and gyroscope support on android side
    • Did a little of reorganization of android app and jni
  • Added accelerometer and gyroscope to ghost
    • Data stored as 3d vector
    • Or smaller length according to the type
    • So it is easily extendable for other sensors
    • Had trouble with implementing sensor inside GE logic
      • Hopefully Mitchell Stoke or Dalai Felinto will help me out next week
  • Did some openGL wrapper addition
    • Trying to make more flexible for adding OpenGL 4.2 on desktop
  • OpenGL bug hunting/fixing
    • Alpha now works in Swiss and GLES
  • Did optimization and game testing
    • Was able to speed up GE
    • With -02 (for physics)
    • VBO improved performance
    • Use System Framerate decreases performance between 1/2 and 1/3 times (Blender issue)

Week 11 (July 30- August 3)

  • All libs are bundled in one apk
    • The future releases will automatically overwrite libs (no need to delete the app)
  • Moved python also to apk
  • Did part of Sensor manager
    • 3 step hierarchy in GE is confusing (and probably unnecessary)
  • Resolved some merges conflicts
  • Spend a lot of time fixing crashes on Tegra 2
    • All libs were built with float optimization with NDK r7
    • NDK 7b fails on Tegra 2
      • Because gnu stl (including math functions) were built with NEON optimization in NDK
    • Updated to r8b
    • Downgraded to r8
      • Solved the problem
    • Will file a bug report
  • Ported whole Blender to soft matrix stack (only GE was ported before)
    • New gpu matrix functions
      • Rotate-s and gpuProject
    • Still few bugs to resolve
    • also GE clean up/optimization

Week 12 (August 6 - 10)

  • Merged software matrix stack
    • Resolved selection and other important issues
    • Still we relay on gluUnProject for now
  • Make VBO compatibility interface (if glMapBuffer is available)
    • Very simple for now
  • Renamed gpu functions to gpu_gl for clarity
  • Added gpu view for setting and clearing the view
    • To avoid setting REAL_GL_MODE for GLES
  • Converted unsupported drawing types like GL_POLYGON, GL_QUAD_STRIP, and some GL_QUADS to analogus.
    • Did testing, doesn't effect rendering
    • Multiple drawing of GL_QUADS are harder. Probably, I will write converter.
    • GL_QUADS are depricated. With n-gons there is no advantage of GL_QUADS. They should be probably removed eventually from code.
  • Was investigating what should be done to complete the port.
  • Code clean up

Week 13 (August 13 - 17)

  • Visual Report
  • Fixed glMapBuffer on Android
  • Some code rearrangements to support OpenGL 3.0+ with soft switch in the future
  • Added emulations to GL_QUADS
    • by using glDrawElements with prebaked map, much better than sending 2 triangles.
  • Initial builtin shaders/gpuImmediate OpenGL ES implementation
    • Simple color shader is enough for most elements (although inefficient due to redraws for effects)
    • Alpha Texture shader for text.
    • Was looking how many shaders do we need:
      • 4-5 flat shaders for UI
      • 3 shaders * number of light sources * (alpha blending?) for 3d
    • Icons are done with deprecated gl*Pixels (needs to be converted to texture)
    • Blender on my phone crash on most of the start up files due to driver implementation/error not-checking
      • But it works on Mesa linux GL ES driver
      • And when the blender works, I can open the files that crash on start up
      • Will look into it.
  • Started documentation on code and how to build for Android
    • Will finish over the weekend.

P.S.

  • There is a lot to be done
    • From graphic code and UI+multitouch changes to Android API and iOS port
  • I plan to take a 1-2 weeks break from coding
    • After it, it probably will be a weekend project as University will start
Retrieved from "http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:AlexK/Gsoc2012"