Extract all JSON structures to their own classes

[jakubg1]

All JSON structures that exist should be given their own classes. This will greatly improve code clarity and will make development easier.

Some insights:

• All structure-related classes should be in a separate folder.
• Some JSON files should have not just one class representation, but a few, due to some microstructures being bundled inside.
• Introduce all needed getters and setters, but also some useful functions. For example, in a collectible generator data class, we could define a function which evaluates it and returns a randomly selected output.

[jakubg1]

We need to consider migrating some classes, too. Here's a list of the more important resource types used in the engine:	Name	Extension	Located in	Stored as	Class name	Loaded by	Notes
Image	*.png	/images	Class	Essentials/Image	ResourceManager
Sprite	*.json	/sprites	Class	Essentials/Sprite	ResourceManager
Sound	*.wav/ogg/...	/sounds	Class	Essentials/Sound	ResourceManager
Sound Event	*.json	/sound_events	Class	Essentials/SoundEvent	ResourceManager
Music	*.wav/ogg/...	/music	Class	Essentials/Music	ResourceManager
Font	*.json	/fonts	Class	Essentials/Font	ResourceManager
Font File	*.ttf	/font_files	LOVE2D Object	(none)	Font	This is an example of very bad implementation!
Particle	*.json	/particles	Table	(none)	ResourceManager
Color Palette	*.png	---	Class	Essentials/ColorPalette	ResourceManager	Stored and loaded in Load List
Sphere	*.json	/config/spheres	Table	(none)	ConfigManager
Sphere Effect	*.json	/config/sphere_effects	Table	(none)	ConfigManager
Collectible	*.json	/config/collectibles	Table	(none)	ConfigManager
Collectible Generator	*.json	/config/collectible_generators	Class	CollectibleGenerator/Entry	CollectibleGeneratorManager
Color Generator	*.json	/config/color_generators	Table	(none)	ConfigManager
Level	*.json	/config/levels	Table	(none)	ConfigManager
Map	*.json	/maps/<map name>/config.json	Table	(none)	ConfigManager	Load list defined by Levels

Some insights I can see from the table:

• Font files should be given their own resource and class, and be properly loaded by ResourceManager.
• Collectible Generators should get rid of its manager and be handled like other similar structures.
• Color Palettes should get their own folder.

Ideally, either:

• everything should be stored in the ResourceManager, except for files and structures which appear exactly once in the config,
• or everything what isn't JSON should be stored in the ResourceManager, and everything what is JSON should be stored in ConfigManager.

Also:

• All resources should be accessed by just name, not the path such as sound_events/button_hover.json -> button_hover. Currently, ConfigManager does that but ResourceManager does not.
  • Rebuild ResourceManager so resources stored inside are keyed by names, not whole file paths.

[jakubg1]

Additional key benefits by introducing this change:

• Data can be easily validated in a clean way, without messing with game classes themselves.
• Data can be also patched over time, prepending or changing certain variables as they change their format over time.

[jakubg1]

An example involving the shooter data structure has been added in commit https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE/commit/77cf19b2e0519ae3f01f9fdaea05ab7d9a4cb7fa. A few notable observations one can see in my approach:

• All resource paths/Vector structures are immediately converted to a more useful form.
• The structure of the original file is preserved.
• Most of the variable types are rectified using the ---@type tags.
• There are no getters. It's stupid as it doesn't add any value while adding lots of not-very-useful boilerplate code.
• There is no data verification, as this would double the JSON schema checks performed by VS Code.
  • However, some checks can exist if for example an illegal type is provided.

[jakubg1]

API draft for the new Resource Manager:

• ResourceManager:resolveAssetPath(path, [namespace]): Resolves and outputs the entire asset path starting from the game folder. As per https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE/issues/103.
  • Example: resolveAssetPath(":flame.spr", "Map1") will return "maps/Map1/sprites/flame.spr".
• ResourceManager:resolveAssetType(path): Resolves and outputs the resource type of this file, based on its extension.
  • Example: resolveAssetType(":flame.spr") will return "sprite".
• ResourceManager:getAsset(path, [namespace], [batches]): If the resource has been already loaded earlier, returns this resource. If not, immediately loads it in, optionally as a part of designated batches. (TODO: Decide whether to make variants for different asset types or not. LDoc might have a problem with this.)
• ResourceManager:loadAsset(path, [namespace], [batches]): If the resource has been already loaded earlier, do nothing. Otherwise, load this asset (not immediately - treat this as queueing the resource to be loaded soon!), optionally as a part of designated batches. If many calls are performed in a quick succession, the load order will be preserved. This function will never return anything.
• ResourceManager:loadAssetFromServer(path, [namespace], [batches], [cache]): Proposed way of loading resources from the server, for use in Cosmic Crash.
• ResourceManager:releaseAssetBatch(batch): Removes all mentions of the given batch from all the loaded resources. For any resource, if that was the only batch, unloads it completely.
• ResourceManager:startLoadCounter(name): Creates a counter which will be counting all resources queued from this point onwards. The total number of resources and the number of resources already loaded will be tracked.
• ResourceManager:stopLoadCounter(name): Stops counting the resources that are queued. Does not destroy the counter: the counter will be hanging around forever. The number of loaded resources will still rise when they are loaded afterwards.

• ResourceManager:getLoadProgress(name): Returns the percentage of loaded resources out of queued resources (between the startLoadCounter and stopLoadCounter calls).

  • Example of all three:

    
    function loadGame()
    resourceManager:startLoadCounter("main")
    resourceManager:loadAsset(...)
    resourceManager:loadAsset(...)
    resourceManager:loadAsset(...)
    ...
    resourceManager:stopLoadCounter("main")
    end

  function draw() local progress = resourceManager:getLoadProgress("main") if progress == 1 then drawStartButton() else drawProgressBar(progress) end end

Notes:

• Use getAsset for loading the maps and the splash screen itself, and loadAsset for all game resources which are loaded during the splash screen.

[jakubg1]

A few Config Classes have been added which follow the most recent style:

• Shooter Config: https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE/commit/ece2d6a52eead5d873929ef30b3e10745e9be98c
• Shooter Movement Config: https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE/commit/b469aaa55dbca5e843b3b5f340452f9e391a44e4
• Score Event Config: https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE/commit/05d12130388a0ff892ab94df1a67e76fa6ff8b72
• Path Entity Config: https://github.com/jakubg1/OpenSMCE/commit/a593693e86fbb79514244b78926195ea40acfe33