PoGa 4DGL Manuale utente
PoGa - 4DGL Portable Game Console
Reference Manual
Document Date: 18th January 2011
Document Revision: 2.0
© 2011 4D Systems www.4dsystems.com.au Page 1 of 87
Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
Table of Contents
1. What is PoGa?..........................................................................................................................3
2. System requirements (all the resources/ ownloa s you nee ).................................................4
2.1 Hardware....................................................................................................................................4
2.2 Software ....................................................................................................................................4
2.3 Documents.................................................................................................................................4
3. Creating your first PoGa Program.............................................................................................5
3.1 Your first PoGa Program.............................................................................................................5
3.2 Writing your first PoGa game.....................................................................................................8
3.3 Writing your second PoGa game.............................................................................................1
3.4 Adding Graphics to your program............................................................................................12
3.5 Let’s add graphics to the TextTiler...........................................................................................15
4. A Images/Animations/Vi eos in your game........................................................................20
4.1 Building GCI DEMO .................................................................................................................2
4.2 Building the Tiler Demo...........................................................................................................28
5. PoGa Explorer........................................................................................................................39
5.1 PoGa Screenshot......................................................................................................................39
5.2 Formatting the SD card to PoGa Format .................................................................................4
5.3 Adding Folders.........................................................................................................................42
5.4 Copying programs to the DISK.................................................................................................43
5.5 Deleting programs from the DISK............................................................................................43
6. Inclu ing your game into the PoGa File System.......................................................................44
6.1 Setting PoGa Disk.....................................................................................................................44
6.2 Testing the files on the PoGa Disk............................................................................................51
7. PoGa Sprite E itor..................................................................................................................52
7.1 Making your First Sprite...........................................................................................................53
7.2 Making few more Sprites.........................................................................................................63
8. Creating an controlling sprites..............................................................................................73
Appen ix A: PoGa File System Overview...................................................................................................76
Appen ix B: PoGa Schematic.....................................................................................................................80
Appen ix C: Software/Driver Installation Gui e........................................................................................81
Appen ix D: Microsoft’s ‘User Account Control’ (UAC)..............................................................................85
Proprietary Information.............................................................................................................87
Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability.......................................................................87
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Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
1. What is PoGa?
Playing a computer game is one thing, but have you ever wondered how these games are produced?
•Do you want to learn how to make your own computer games?
•Is it really a 'dark art' practised by gurus working in secret for large companies?
•Do you want the satisfaction of showing your friends cool games that you have created?
4D Systems would like to introduce the PoGa, a Portable Game Development console and 4DGL (4D
Graphics Language), a cost effective way for you to be able to learn all about game development and
programming.
PoGa incorporates a 128 x 128 pixel full colour TFT display, 'standard' game console push button layout for
controlling the game flow, a small loudspeaker for sound effects, and a micro SD card for storing images and
game data. It is driven by the tiny yet powerful GOLDELOX-PoGa custom graphics processor from 4D Labs.
Graphics, text, image, animation and countless more features are built right inside the chip. For portability
the PoGa can be powered for many hours on standard 3xAAA batteries.
The 4D Graphics language provides enough power and flexibility to make some really cool games and learn
the 'art of programming' with a leisurely learning curve.
The 4D Workshop incorporates a text editor, graphics tools, and program down-loader in a neat and easy to
use package.
You can have your first demo game running within minutes and then start to understand how to modify and
improve existing games or use 'building blocks' of code to create your very own games!
The aim of the PoGa is to provide a highly educational game development platform, at the same time
providing lots of fun designing and playing arcade quality games!
Note: The GOLDELOX-PoGa is a close variant of the GOLDELOX-GFX2 chip.
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Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
2. System requirements (all the resources/ ownloa s you nee )
2.1 Har ware
•PoGa
•4D Programming Cable OR (uUSB-MB5 + USB extension Cable)
•Windows PC
•micro-SD memory card (2gb or above ... optional)
2.2 Software
•PoGa PmmC
•4D Workshop
◦PmmCloader
◦Graphics Composer
◦Sprite Editor
◦PoGa Explorer
•uUSB-MB5 Driver
•4D Programming Cable Driver
2.3 Documents
•PoGa-QuickStart-Guide.pdf
•PoGa-Kit-Construction-and-Assembly-Guide-revXX.pdf
•PoGa-4DGL-Portable-Game-Console-Reference-Manual-revXX.pdf
•GOLDELOX-PoGa-4DGL-Internal-Functions-revXX.pdf
•4DGL-Programmers-Reference-Manual-revXX.pdf
Note: Refer to Appen ix C for Installation Guide.
Note: mico-SD card is also referred as uSD card.
Note: You will need a separate USB A-to-miniB cable to use with the uUSB-MB5 module.
Note: The minimum size memory card you will need for the PoGa-Disk is 2Gb. To format the card and to
add your games and applications you will need to use the PoGa-Explorer software tool that's included in the
4D Workshop3 IDE.
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Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
3. Creating your first PoGa Program
All of the example program files used in this section can be found at ‘All Users\Shared Documents\4D
Labs\PoGa Intro\’ folder (XP) or ‘Users\Public\Documents\4D Labs\PoGa Intro\’ folder (Vista and Windows
7).
3.1 Your first PoGa Program
Fire up WorkShop
Click Start, Programs, 4D Workshop 3 IDE, Workshop
Start a new Program
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'New' Icon in the Tool bar
Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
Click ‘New’ Icon or “New” in the File menu; Select ‘4DGL program’, if necessary. This will create a program
with an empty shell, the 1st line is the platform type and will be filled in for you, if necessary, change this to
PoGa-Goldelox by using the ‘Platform’ Combobox in the middle immediately above the editor.
A some housekeeping co e
For this first example we simply need a main function and end function.
func main()
endfunc
A the co e
func main()
print("Hello world\n") ;
repeat
forever
endfunc
Notice that print uses ‘standard’ C escape characters, it doesn’t really do anything here it’s just to show that
it can be used.
The ‘repeat’ and ‘forever’ is just to keep the program running in an endless loop, rather than exit back to
the PmmC or menu program.
Run it
If you haven’t connected your PoGa to the computer, do it now.
Select the com port using the combobox to the left of the traffic light.
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Choose the Platform
Choose the Com Port
Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
Now Press F9 which will compile your program, download it to your PoGa and start running it. You could
also have clicked on “Comp’nLoad” which is the same thing.
Save the program with the file name 'helloworld.4dg'
Snazzy it up
Move the cursor and insert a new line before the ‘print’ statement, type “txt_” and press Ctrl-Space, this
will bring up a list of all the functions starting with “txt_”, select “txt_Height” either by positioning the
cursor and pressing Enter, or by clicking with the mouse.
Keep typing until your code looks like the following.
func main()
txt_Height(2);
txt_Bold(ON);
txt_ talic(ON);
txt_MoveCursor(3, 3);
txt_FGcolour(WH TE);
print("Hello world\n") ;
repeat
forever
endfunc
Since you have used WHITE as a color you need to tell the compiler where to locate the definition of
WHITE, so insert the following line after the platform statement.
#inherit "4DGL_16bitColours.fnc"
If you want to have a look inside ‘4DGL_16bitColours.fnc’, just right click the filename and select ‘Open File
at Cursor’. Now press F9 again and see what is displayed this time.
You may Save As with a different name, like 'helloworld2.4dg'
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Click Comp'nLoad button
Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
3.2 Writing your first PoGa game
Start a new Program
Click on the ‘New’ Icon again, the file type should be ‘4DGL program’, since that’s what you created last
time, then click OK. The platform should be PoGa-Goldelox, since that’s what we selected last time.
We are going to write a simple target shooting game, so lets start by including the color definitions and
adding some constants.
#inherit "4DGL_16bitColours.fnc"
#constant LineLen 5 // length of each crosshair line
#constant BoomPause 100 // pause between each expanding circle for the kaboom function
#constant TgtSize 4 // distance from centre-point to start of crosshair lines
#constant ndent 20 // ndent must be >= Linelen + TgtSize so cursor stays within
display area
And some global variables.
var xtgt, ytgt ; // position of the red circle (target)
var xcross, ycross ; // crosshair position
var xcrosso, ycrosso ; // old crosshair position
We’ll need some effects to be displayed when the target is hit.
// a sequence to show that we 'hit' the target
func kaboom()
var i ;
for (i := 1;i < ndent;i++)
gfx_CircleFilled(xtgt, ytgt,i, RAND());
beep(i*210,BoomPause/2) ; // beep as we go
pause(BoomPause) ;
next
endfunc
A routine to move the crosshairs around the screen.
func writescreen()
// erase old crosshairs
gfx_Line(xcrosso-TgtSize-LineLen,ycrosso,xcrosso-TgtSize,ycrosso,BLACK) ;
gfx_Line(xcrosso+TgtSize,ycrosso,xcrosso+TgtSize+LineLen,ycrosso,BLACK) ;
gfx_Line(xcrosso,ycrosso-TgtSize-LineLen,xcrosso,ycrosso-TgtSize,BLACK) ;
gfx_Line(xcrosso,ycrosso+TgtSize,xcrosso,ycrosso+TgtSize+LineLen,BLACK) ;
gfx_CircleFilled(xtgt, ytgt,TgtSize-1, RED); // incase crosshairs were covering it
// Write new crosshairs
gfx_Line(xcross-TgtSize-LineLen,ycross,xcross-TgtSize,ycross,WH TE) ;
gfx_Line(xcross+TgtSize,ycross,xcross+TgtSize+LineLen,ycross,WH TE) ;
gfx_Line(xcross,ycross-TgtSize-LineLen,xcross,ycross-TgtSize,WH TE) ;
gfx_Line(xcross,ycross+TgtSize,xcross,ycross+TgtSize+LineLen,WH TE) ;
endfunc
Note that we erase the old crosshairs by redrawing them in BLACK before drawing the new crosshairs in
white.
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Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
And now the main function, compile and download, saving it as 'Target.4dg'.
func main()
var i, newgame;
SEED(peekB(SYSTEM_T MER_LO)) ;
newgame := 1 ;
while(1)
if (newgame == 1) // if this is a new game
xcross := 63 ; // set crosshairs to screen centre
ycross := 63 ;
xcrosso := 63 ;
ycrosso := 63 ;
xtgt := (ABS(RAND()) % (128 - 2* ndent)) + ndent ; // make rand pos for the tgt
ytgt := (ABS(RAND()) % (128 - 2* ndent)) + ndent ;
gfx_Cls(); // clear the screen
newgame := 0 ; // new game now set, clear newgame flag
endif
writescreen() ; // update display with crosshair and target
xcrosso := xcross ; // save current crosshair, needed so we can erase old position
ycrosso := ycross ;
while((i := joystick()) == 0) ; // read the joystick value
pause(50) ; // pause a little bit, so we get autorepeat
if ((i == UP) && (ycross != ndent)) // move crosshair if within bounds
ycross := ycross -1 ;
else if ((i == DOWN) && (ycross != 128- ndent-1))
ycross := ycross +1 ;
else if ((i == R GHT) && (xcross != 128- ndent-1))
xcross := xcross +1;
else if ((i == LEFT) && (xcross != ndent))
xcross := xcross -1;
else if (i == BTNB) // else see if it was the fire button
beep(20,200) ;
if ((xcross == xtgt) && (ycross == ytgt)) // if cross is same as the target
kaboom() ; // do the kaboom sequence
newgame := 1 ; // set flag so we start a new game
endif
endif
wend // loop forever
endfunc
A snapshot of the 'Target.4dg'.
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Portable Game Console PoGa-4DGL Reference Manual
3.3 Writing your secon PoGa game
Start a new Program
Click on the ‘New’ Icon again, the file type should be ‘4DGL program’, since that’s what you created last
time, then click OK. The platform should be PoGa-Goldelox, since that’s what we selected last time.
We are going to write a computer version of the classic ’15 puzzle’, so lets start by including the color
definitions and adding some constants.
#inherit "4DGL_16bitColours.fnc"
#constant TileSX 32 // pixel width of each Slider
#constant TileSY 32 // pixel height of each Slider
#constant TileNX 4 // Number of Tiles in X direction
#constant TileNY 4 // Number of Tiles in Y direction
And some initialised global variables.
var chars[16] := ['A','B','C','D','E','F','G','H',' ','J','K','L','M','N','O','P'] ;
var posn[16] := [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15] ;
See the program snapshot below.
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