Development time for a full-featured engine?

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Post by jacmoe »

IFASS wrote:That's right, we started with the NeoEngine, but that engine died at some point, after that we moved to Yake :)
Was it in July 2005 that you switched to YAKE?
Did you use vanilla OGRE before that?
IIRC, you started to collaborate with YAKE because you wanted to concentrate on creating a game rather than (re)inventing wheels. :wink:
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Post by Levia »

We switched to yake in march if I remember correctly. I joined in may, then brainless just had the 'base' finished.
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Post by IFASS »

jacmoe wrote:
IFASS wrote:That's right, we started with the NeoEngine, but that engine died at some point, after that we moved to Yake :)
Was it in July 2005 that you switched to YAKE?
Did you use vanilla OGRE before that?
IIRC, you started to collaborate with YAKE because you wanted to concentrate on creating a game rather than (re)inventing wheels. :wink:
we did indeed use vanilla OGRE before Yake.. and indeed, we didn't wanted to reinvent any wheels, so i think it was about the beginning of this year when we started to use Yake.

Edit:
ow, and about the activity.. :
http://cia.navi.cx/stats/project/openfrag

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Post by BRAINLESS »

Since it would almost be impossible to quote to your and reply to questions, I'll reply to them all in one go :P

I don't think yake has many game-specific features yet (though it can certainly be used for games! and it's definitely easier then using pure Ogre!), but I expect they will add more game related stuff as they go. We did actually talk about joining up - which we did only we sort of lost the idea - but our goals were a little different. Eventually we decided it would be good to work together on tools, as we both need the same kind of tools for models, maps and the like. We never got to that point, because we never really had the manpower for it.

Back then there were 2 programmers and I wasn't very active, when we first started using yake about a year ago now it was still rather hard to use (or we just didn't know how to use it). My inability to work with it set me back a little, just as it had done when we switched to Ogre, it just took a very long time to build any kind of interest in openfrag again. Our first demo using yake was using more pure Ogre and ODE stuff then yake, it wasn't really anything we could build upon (just like most of our previous demos) and we had to start all over again. We even considered not to use yake for a while (I'm glad we didn't take that road, we'd still be struggling with a simple predemo and nothing solid to build upon), but eventually decided we could give it another go. I started out alone on that demo, but we got a new member and he's been happily adding code since, thanks Levia! That was about 4 months ago (April 21st 2006).

One of the main goals of openfrag is to support game plugins and eventually to mix parts of those plugins. Of course, you can't mix an FPS with an RTS, but perhaps an effect used in a FPS could somehow be useful to an RTS. Every option must be open. We've setup such a framework for the first time, the previous demos all needed a major redesign and no one really knew where we were going with the code. They weren't useless, as they were all different and helped us (or at least me) get a better idea of how to build such a game engine. I believe we can use the current codebase without major modifications for a very long time.

Yake really provides freedom in all respects, openfrag tries to provide freedom in games, but it also makes a few decisions for you: if you want to make use of our network infrastructure, you will have to use our network code; if you want to build a plugin for openfrag, you will have to link to openfrag and provide a class that extends Plugin; openfrag makes use of Ogre, ODE and OpenAL - you can use anything else but these 3 will always be in memory, so you might as well use them. We try to limit people as little as possible, but some things need to be set. And of course we have Broken Alliance (the First Person Shooter we hope to make). There is no code specifically for Broken Alliance, yet, and it's not even officialy one of our goals, but most of us would love to see it. If we had joined with yake we would have overwhelmed yake in numbers (we have over 50 members, though most are inactive, and the number increases all the time) and it would probably not have helped anyone. We pretty much extend yake, but we also do things a little differently. I guess that's a specialization, though we would also exist without yake (indeed we did).

If your U-boat sim is a first person game, and you have the art available, I suggest you take a day or so to build your first demo using openfrag. If I'm online I can pretty much guide you through the process and you'd be able to fly through a sub in first person view in no time. Of course, this is easy using pure Ogre or yake as well, but at least you'd get an idea of how openfrag works. And because openfrag uses yake a lot, you'd even get an idea of how yake works :) If you dont have the art, you could look at our demos, they are being improved pretty much as you read this, but they can give some sort of idea as well. I'll see if I can upload some new developer packages tomorrow (media + dependencies) as the current ones are outdated once again.

I did not mean to build a U-boat sim using an RTS engine ;) Our goal is to supply functionality for FPS, RTS, RPG, etc. games. If you want to add something that would also be used commonly in RTS games (in any other type of game) you could probably just use the provided functionality instead of writing it yourself. You will probably need a lot of FPS functionaility, but I suppose some of that functionality could also be used in other gametypes (think of cameras for example, or input, they are common to most, if not all). We dont want to force people into creating FPS games using our provided functionality, as that would mean all our FPS plugins would be exactly the same (with different content probably). We want to provide the basic fundamentals, and perhaps a few specializations to get you started, but if you want anything fancy you will have to create that yourself. If you want, you could then send it to us and if we like it we could add it to openfrag, allowing other people to use it more easily.

It doesn't appear time is a problem for you, so I guess openfrag would not be the limiting factor for you. I'm thinking of writing a manual for openfrag to ease the use of it, but I have to learn TeX first. Writing in word is stupid and time consuming, the same goes for writing in a wiki, so I think the only real option is TeX... I'm learning though, and I've already started on some basic texts in OpenOffice.org. The learning curve depends on how 'good' a coder you are, if you can learn from reading code it's not too bad. Most of our code is tested in one of the samples, so sample code is available somewhere. We only have 6 samples at the moment (I'm thinking of a 7th to show networking, which is currently in Playground) so it's not too hard to find sample code.

We are progressing relatively slowly, I have a near full time job which means I have about 4 hours a day of free time, in which I also have to cook and eat dinner. Most of my weekends are consumed by parties or other things, like writing lenghty forum replies ;) I usually manage to throw in a few lines of code every day though. Levia is currently very active, he's still learning C++ so his code sometimes needs cleaning up a little, but he has a lot of time and is very motivated. Our project recently celebrated its third birthday, so I have no doubt we will survive another few years. I should soon be going to school again, which means I'll have a lot of free time for a while. I guess we're not quick, but we are getting there!

I suppose I'm not the right person to answer how big the interest of the community is, so I'll let others answer that. Search for openfrag on the internet or the Ogre forum though, that should help out a little...

Of course, joining our IRC channel does not obligate you to anything! As much as I'd like to see you using openfrag (as a developer), I would also like to see you using yake (as a supporter of yake), and I'm very glad you are so consistent in your choice of Ogre (which I also support)! If you decide not to use openfrag you wont have to expect any hard feelings on our end.

[edit]
wow, this post is longer then expected :shock:
...and I didn't even include all I wanted to say!
[/edit]
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Post by Levia »

Amen to that.
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Post by Deamon »

Hi Brainless,

thanks for your brief reply.
Back then there were 2 programmers and I wasn't very active, when we first started using yake about a year ago now it was still rather hard to use (or we just didn't know how to use it). My inability to work with it set me back a little, just as it had done when we switched to Ogre,
Never worked with Yake but heared that it's difficult to get used to it.
One of the main goals of openfrag is to support game plugins and eventually to mix parts of those plugins. Of course, you can't mix an FPS with an RTS, but perhaps an effect used in a FPS could somehow be useful to an RTS. Every option must be open. We've setup such a framework for the first time, the previous demos all needed a major redesign and no one really knew where we were going with the code. They weren't useless, as they were all different and helped us (or at least me) get a better idea of how to build such a game engine. I believe we can use the current codebase without major modifications for a very long time.
Is the current FPS engine also just a plug in ?

What is broken alliance about ?
If we had joined with yake we would have overwhelmed yake in numbers (we have over 50 members, though most are inactive, and the number increases all the time) and it would probably not have helped anyone.
How many of this 50 are actualy coder ?

And why not contribute to Yake without being an official member or not with all 50, if OpenFrag is after all an Yake extension/specialization ?
We pretty much extend yake, but we also do things a little differently. I guess that's a specialization, though we would also exist without yake (indeed we did).
You mean it doesn't fit in to the Yake philosophy ?
If your U-boat sim is a first person game, and you have the art available,


Well, right now there is still no sim but i have art available:

http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/heinrich/main.htm

Go to the gallery. If you like i can show you more.
I suggest you take a day or so to build your first demo using openfrag. If I'm online I can pretty much guide you through the process and you'd be able to fly through a sub in first person view in no time. Of course, this is easy using pure Ogre or yake as well, but at least you'd get an idea of how openfrag works. And because openfrag uses yake a lot, you'd even get an idea of how yake works :)
I will gladly accept your offer. However, i use CodeBlocks and i see that OpenFrag doesn't support it, is this right ?

I would also like to dig deeper in to OGRE first. And i feel i need more training with C++.

And then there is another issue. OpenFrag is under GPL right ?
but I have to learn TeX first.
Hey cool stuff. I'm also looking into it currently.
The learning curve depends on how 'good' a coder you are, if you can learn from reading code it's not too bad. Most of our code is tested in one of the samples, so sample code is available somewhere. We only have 6 samples at the moment (I'm thinking of a 7th to show networking, which is currently in Playground) so it's not too hard to find sample code.
I don't have so much experiance. So far i did only some small ascii projects and did some tuts in OGRE. So i first will need to go deeper into OGRE and C++. This will take me some time.
I have a near full time job
Are you a coder by profession ?
Most of my weekends are consumed by parties
You don't know what weekends are for :P
Our project recently celebrated its third birthday
Ours too :)
I should soon be going to school again, which means I'll have a lot of free time for a while.
School ? How old are you ?
Of course, joining our IRC channel does not obligate you to anything! As much as I'd like to see you using openfrag (as a developer), I would also like to see you using yake (as a supporter of yake), and I'm very glad you are so consistent in your choice of Ogre (which I also support)! If you decide not to use openfrag you wont have to expect any hard feelings on our end.
The last two days i took a closer look to your page and red through the progress posts. I'm curtainly interested to maybe use it as my starting point and then we shall see.

Cheers,
Deamon
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Post by Levia »

I can answer maybe 1 or 2 questions for you.
What is broken alliance about ?

Boken Alliance will be our game designed on oF core, its only available through multiplayer. Imagine a big world with 2 teams killing eachother in a round system. Medieval style.

However, i use CodeBlocks and i see that OpenFrag doesn't support it, is this right ?

A member compiled oF in code::blocks if I remember correctly, not too long ago.

My 0.0005 cents to the progress of this topic and to your information gathering experience?Or something.
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Post by raicuandi »

Levia wrote:Imagine a big world with 2 teams killing eachother in a round system. Medieval style.
Heh, what a small world this is... :)
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Post by Deamon »

Levia wrote: Boken Alliance will be our game designed on oF core, its only available through multiplayer. Imagine a big world with 2 teams killing eachother in a round system. Medieval style.
In whitch timeframe is it supposed to play ? Whitch year approximately ?

EDIT: And what do you mean with a round system ?
A member compiled oF in code::blocks if I remember correctly, not too long ago.
Hmm, i hope it's not to difficult.

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Post by Levia »

In whitch timeframe is it supposed to play ? Whitch year approximately ?

Between 800 and 1200(?)

EDIT: And what do you mean with a round system ?
counter strike,
or maybe we go for UT's way, not sure yet havent talked about it yet.
Hmm, i hope it's not to difficult.
Its basically converting the projects to code::blocks format and using the msvc compiler?
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Post by Deamon »

Levia wrote:In whitch timeframe is it supposed to play ? Whitch year approximately ?

Between 800 and 1200(?)
Then it's with swords and spears and stuff ?
Its basically converting the projects to code::blocks format and using the msvc compiler?
msvc compiler ? What about MingW ?

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Post by jacmoe »

Deamon, could you be just a tad more imaginative in your questioning? :o

Your signature is more interesting ... :)
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Post by IFASS »

Deamon wrote:
Levia wrote:In whitch timeframe is it supposed to play ? Whitch year approximately ?

Between 800 and 1200(?)
Then it's with swords and spears and stuff ?
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=82471
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Post by BRAINLESS »

Deamon wrote: Never worked with Yake but heared that it's difficult to get used to it.
That's not entirely true, but because of a lack of documentation and good sample code, it was a little tricky at first. Openfrag uses a lot of yake so you can use it as a sample now - even if you are not using openfrag for your project. It is good to read (some of) our code to get a better idea of yake.
Is the current FPS engine also just a plug in ?
No, the current FPS engine is built into openfrag Core. It could be taken out (perhaps we will eventually), but for now we cannot.
How many of this 50 are actualy coder ?
I think we've had roughly 10 coders alltogether - most of them are gone for good though. There are 4 right now that I expect to keep contributing over the next few months.
And why not contribute to Yake without being an official member or not with all 50, if OpenFrag is after all an Yake extension/specialization ?
We do contribute to yake, but some of things we make depend on other things we've made, which would basically mean porting the whole of openfrag to yake :)
You mean it doesn't fit in to the Yake philosophy ?
What is the yake philosophy? I think it is to provide a framework, including tools, that work together nicely and is very customizable. We do pretty much the same, only we are aimed more at games.
I will gladly accept your offer. However, i use CodeBlocks and i see that OpenFrag doesn't support it, is this right ?
That's right. I haven't tested it myself, so I can't tell you how hard it is, but I would imagine it's possible - especially when you use Microsofts compiler. I have no clue how the code performs using GCC.
And then there is another issue. OpenFrag is under GPL right ?
LGPL, though that may change at some point in the future (probably to GPL). We haven't decided what licensing scheme (GPL/LGPL) is best for us yet.
but I have to learn TeX first.
Hey cool stuff. I'm also looking into it currently.
It's really not as bad as it looks, I think I've learned most of what I need in about a day.
I don't have so much experiance. So far i did only some small ascii projects and did some tuts in OGRE. So i first will need to go deeper into OGRE and C++. This will take me some time.
Yep, it's a good idea to learn C++ and/or pure Ogre first.
Are you a coder by profession ?
Sort of, I'm working during the summer months and I've been doing an internship for 5 months from Februari, so basically I've been working full time for half a year now. I am still a student though (last year of Software Engineering).
Most of my weekends are consumed by parties
You don't know what weekends are for :P
Oh but I do! It's just a jolly time with loads of people having either their birthday or graduation... of course I try not to skip any of them :)
I should soon be going to school again, which means I'll have a lot of free time for a while.
School ? How old are you ?
I'm 22, will be 23 in 3 weeks (reason for another party! :D)
Of course, joining our IRC channel does not obligate you to anything! As much as I'd like to see you using openfrag (as a developer), I would also like to see you using yake (as a supporter of yake), and I'm very glad you are so consistent in your choice of Ogre (which I also support)! If you decide not to use openfrag you wont have to expect any hard feelings on our end.
The last two days i took a closer look to your page and red through the progress posts. I'm curtainly interested to maybe use it as my starting point and then we shall see.

Cheers,
Deamon
you're welcome :)
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Post by Deamon »

BRAINLESS wrote: That's not entirely true, but because of a lack of documentation and good sample code, it was a little tricky at first. Openfrag uses a lot of yake so you can use it as a sample now - even if you are not using openfrag for your project. It is good to read (some of) our code to get a better idea of yake.
Ok that's the documentation then. How do you find the yake design/intuitivity compared to OGRE ?
No, the current FPS engine is built into openfrag Core. It could be taken out (perhaps we will eventually), but for now we cannot.
If i understand it right you HAVE to take it out if the engine should suit different genres right ?
....which would basically mean porting the whole of openfrag to yake :)
So what are you waiting for ? :)

Thats what i tried to understand. Where's the deal breaker that forced you to make a separate engine ?

If Yake will include more and more game features anyway, why not integrate openfrag in to it right away ?

Or is OF to specialized for yake ?

And how OO is OpenFrag then ?
That's right. I haven't tested it myself, so I can't tell you how hard it is, but I would imagine it's possible - especially when you use Microsofts compiler. I have no clue how the code performs using GCC.
Will try to figure it out then and eventualy coming back to this subject.
And then there is another issue. OpenFrag is under GPL right ?
LGPL, though that may change at some point in the future (probably to GPL). We haven't decided what licensing scheme (GPL/LGPL) is best for us yet.
I ask becose i aim for an commercial release for my u-boat project.
I'm 22, will be 23 in 3 weeks (reason for another party! :D)
I just turned 30.
you're welcome :)
I found you guys and the relaxed philosphy of your project appealing. Looking forward to some close encounters.

Cheers,
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Post by Levia »

Deamon wrote:
BRAINLESS wrote: No, the current FPS engine is built into openfrag Core. It could be taken out (perhaps we will eventually), but for now we cannot.
If i understand it right you HAVE to take it out if the engine should suit different genres right ?
No. We first make a FPS part, and put that in the engine, then we will continue adding RTS or whatever to the engine. So when you checkout that section, you will see FPS, RTS etc..
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Post by BRAINLESS »

Deamon wrote:Ok that's the documentation then. How do you find the yake design/intuitivity compared to OGRE ?
yake has a very clean design, it's really impressive. It's quite consistent in it's API and everything seems to make sense. It's just 'hard' to find the right objects to use together :)
No, the current FPS engine is built into openfrag Core. It could be taken out (perhaps we will eventually), but for now we cannot.
If i understand it right you HAVE to take it out if the engine should suit different genres right ?
Not exactly, we provide functionality for things like an FPS, but the user (you) has to actually use it. Things just have to be tied together and that's it. We could (and perhaps will one day) take out the FPS parts, but there is no reason to do that now. We try to provide everything, but you just cannot create a game with a single line of code. See it like this: there's a player object for FPS games, called FPSPlayer, and there's one for RTS games called RTSPlayer. Both extend Player, which is an boject that stores common functionality/features (for players the only common feature is a unique ID). FPSPlayer could contain information about hitpoints and armor, while RTSPlayer could contain information about buildings and vehicles the player owns. Both can coexist without any trouble, so why do they have to be in a seperate plugin?
....which would basically mean porting the whole of openfrag to yake :)
So what are you waiting for ? :)

Thats what i tried to understand. Where's the deal breaker that forced you to make a separate engine ?

If Yake will include more and more game features anyway, why not integrate openfrag in to it right away ?

Or is OF to specialized for yake ?
To be honest, I don't really know the answer to this. Perhaps it's because openfrag would just become 'a subproject of yake' or vice versa. I'm not sure if it would have any extra benefits from what we do now... we already contribute to yake, and in a way they contribute back to us.
And how OO is OpenFrag then ?
We try to keep things as much Object Oriented as possible, we've got objects for just about everything now. It's probably best to judge that for yourself...
That's right. I haven't tested it myself, so I can't tell you how hard it is, but I would imagine it's possible - especially when you use Microsofts compiler. I have no clue how the code performs using GCC.
Will try to figure it out then and eventualy coming back to this subject.
Thanks :)
And then there is another issue. OpenFrag is under GPL right ?
LGPL, though that may change at some point in the future (probably to GPL). We haven't decided what licensing scheme (GPL/LGPL) is best for us yet.
I ask becose i aim for an commercial release for my u-boat project.
Ah, I could've guessed :) As long as we're using LGPL, that's not a problem. I think LGPL is probably best anyway, so there's only a very small chance we'll ever switch. Besides, if I dont start about it I dont expect anyone else will, and since I see no reason to start about it there's almost no chance we will switch :)

I just turned 30.
Congratulations :)
I found you guys and the relaxed philosphy of your project appealing. Looking forward to some close encounters.
It's what keeps us going :) It has it's ups (very friendly bunch of people) and downs (things can take a long time), but over all I think the ups win! I'll be out on holiday next week and won't be online a lot more this week either, so good luck!
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Post by Deamon »

Levia wrote:
Deamon wrote:
BRAINLESS wrote: No, the current FPS engine is built into openfrag Core. It could be taken out (perhaps we will eventually), but for now we cannot.
If i understand it right you HAVE to take it out if the engine should suit different genres right ?
No. We first make a FPS part, and put that in the engine, then we will continue adding RTS or whatever to the engine. So when you checkout that section, you will see FPS, RTS etc..
I meant to integrate it as a plugin or something, so that a developer can take just what he need. Or are all genres supposed to be integrated in to the core ?
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Post by Deamon »

BRAINLESS wrote:yake has a very clean design, it's really impressive. It's quite consistent in it's API and everything seems to make sense.


I hoped to hear the sentence from you that it's much like OGRE :)
I expected it would be like this.
It's just 'hard' to find the right objects to use together :)
About what objects are you talking ?
Not exactly, we provide functionality for things like an FPS, but the user (you) has to actually use it. Things just have to be tied together and that's it. We could (and perhaps will one day) take out the FPS parts, but there is no reason to do that now. We try to provide everything, but you just cannot create a game with a single line of code. See it like this: there's a player object for FPS games, called FPSPlayer, and there's one for RTS games called RTSPlayer. Both extend Player, which is an boject that stores common functionality/features (for players the only common feature is a unique ID). FPSPlayer could contain information about hitpoints and armor, while RTSPlayer could contain information about buildings and vehicles the player owns. Both can coexist without any trouble, so why do they have to be in a seperate plugin?
Ok i see what you mean. I was just irritated from something different on my mind. But can i compile the engine with just the parts that i need, or do i have to take the whole core even if i don't use all of it's functionality ?
Or is OF to specialized for yake ?
To be honest, I don't really know the answer to this. Perhaps it's because openfrag would just become 'a subproject of yake' or vice versa. I'm not sure if it would have any extra benefits from what we do now... we already contribute to yake, and in a way they contribute back to us.
You mean it's a kind of an undetermined thing, that started maybe with smaller ambitions and never got realy resolved to become a part of yake ?
And how OO is OpenFrag then ?
We try to keep things as much Object Oriented as possible, we've got objects for just about everything now. It's probably best to judge that for yourself...
How would you compare it to Yake and OGRE ? I guess it's inspired by their design ?
That's right. I haven't tested it myself, so I can't tell you how hard it is, but I would imagine it's possible - especially when you use Microsofts compiler. I have no clue how the code performs using GCC.
Will try to figure it out then and eventualy coming back to this subject.
Thanks :)
But wait AFAIK the MS compiler doesn't work on WinME or what ?
Ah, I could've guessed :) As long as we're using LGPL, that's not a problem. I think LGPL is probably best anyway, so there's only a very small chance we'll ever switch. Besides, if I dont start about it I dont expect anyone else will, and since I see no reason to start about it there's almost no chance we will switch :)
Good!

Just wanted to solve it right away, just for the case when i should stick with OF. :)

But of corse i would always give back contributions(contribute a subsim plug in and stuff), would like however to keep the last word in what and what not.
I just turned 30.
Congratulations :)
Uhh, i fell rather concerned :lol:

BTW: I never celebrate it. I don't celebrate anything at all and i never go to parties or discos, don't whatch soccer don't drink and don't smoke. It seems i live only for my project, that becomes a big obsession by the time.
It's what keeps us going :) It has it's ups (very friendly bunch of people) and downs (things can take a long time),
It's exactly the same with us. :)
but over all I think the ups win! I'll be out on holiday next week and won't be online a lot more this week either, so good luck!
Holidy ? Lots of time for coding! :)

Enjoy,
Deamon
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Post by Deamon »

jacmoe wrote:Deamon, could you be just a tad more imaginative in your questioning? :o
Lol, please bear with me. You never know what problems the person on the other end have. :wink:

I tried to keep a low profile here but sooner or later someone will see me :lol:
Your signature is more interesting ... :)
Just click on it and it will be even more interesting :)

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Post by jacmoe »

Deamon wrote:Just click on it and it will be even more interesting :)
Yeah, I did! Jolly good! :)
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Post by Levia »

Deamon wrote:
It's just 'hard' to find the right objects to use together :)
About what objects are you talking ?
Any objects. Like some things that are needed are in another namespace or something. Hard to find what you need sometimes :)
Deamon wrote:
Not exactly, we provide functionality for things like an FPS, but the user (you) has to actually use it. Things just have to be tied together and that's it. We could (and perhaps will one day) take out the FPS parts, but there is no reason to do that now. We try to provide everything, but you just cannot create a game with a single line of code. See it like this: there's a player object for FPS games, called FPSPlayer, and there's one for RTS games called RTSPlayer. Both extend Player, which is an boject that stores common functionality/features (for players the only common feature is a unique ID). FPSPlayer could contain information about hitpoints and armor, while RTSPlayer could contain information about buildings and vehicles the player owns. Both can coexist without any trouble, so why do they have to be in a seperate plugin?
Ok i see what you mean. I was just irritated from something different on my mind. But can i compile the engine with just the parts that i need, or do i have to take the whole core even if i don't use all of it's functionality ?
I don't see why it would matter apart from a larger dll. For now, you'll need to compile whole oF core. We'll change that later on maybe.

Deamon wrote:
And how OO is OpenFrag then ?
We try to keep things as much Object Oriented as possible, we've got objects for just about everything now. It's probably best to judge that for yourself...
How would you compare it to Yake and OGRE ? I guess it's inspired by their design ?
You could say inspired but yake covers much for us. I think we can be compared to yake, not to OGRE. OGRE is way bigger ;)

Deamon wrote: But wait AFAIK the MS compiler doesn't work on WinME or what ?
I have got no idea.
Deamon wrote: But of corse i would always give back contributions(contribute a subsim plug in and stuff), would like however to keep the last word in what and what not.
Cool :)

Deamon wrote:
but over all I think the ups win! I'll be out on holiday next week and won't be online a lot more this week either, so good luck!
Holidy ? Lots of time for coding! :)
Yes Ive been coding for 3 weeks now. Thats what holiday's are for.
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Post by BRAINLESS »

Deamon wrote:I hoped to hear the sentence from you that it's much like OGRE :)
I expected it would be like this.
Well, you can use pure Ogre from yake, so anything you've learned for Ogre will not be useless for yake. It is different in how objects are created though, Ogre has a lot of factories and managers and in yake you can do new *() a lot more. Manager objects are provided for most basic classes, like SceneNode, but the more advanced ones are on their own.
It's just 'hard' to find the right objects to use together :)
About what objects are you talking ?
For example, there is a vehicle class that helps you create vehicles, there is a dotSceneLoader class that helps you load dotScene scenes... you just have to figure out where they are.
Not exactly, we provide functionality for things like an FPS, but the user (you) has to actually use it. Things just have to be tied together and that's it. We could (and perhaps will one day) take out the FPS parts, but there is no reason to do that now. We try to provide everything, but you just cannot create a game with a single line of code. See it like this: there's a player object for FPS games, called FPSPlayer, and there's one for RTS games called RTSPlayer. Both extend Player, which is an boject that stores common functionality/features (for players the only common feature is a unique ID). FPSPlayer could contain information about hitpoints and armor, while RTSPlayer could contain information about buildings and vehicles the player owns. Both can coexist without any trouble, so why do they have to be in a seperate plugin?
Ok i see what you mean. I was just irritated from something different on my mind. But can i compile the engine with just the parts that i need, or do i have to take the whole core even if i don't use all of it's functionality ?
I see no reason why you would want that right now (except that compile time would be a little bit shorter). The amount of additional code is so little that it does not really matter.
To be honest, I don't really know the answer to this. Perhaps it's because openfrag would just become 'a subproject of yake' or vice versa. I'm not sure if it would have any extra benefits from what we do now... we already contribute to yake, and in a way they contribute back to us.
You mean it's a kind of an undetermined thing, that started maybe with smaller ambitions and never got realy resolved to become a part of yake ?
I meant that we have both worked hard on what we've got right now, a merge would obscure the work of one team - either we merge into yake which means openfrag doesn't look like a seperate project anymore, just something 'the yake developers made' - or they merge into openfrag which means yake was made by the openfrag team to outsiders. I don't think we could work together much more though, mainly because of time issues on our end. We cannot work both on yake and on openfrag and still produce anything.
We try to keep things as much Object Oriented as possible, we've got objects for just about everything now. It's probably best to judge that for yourself...
How would you compare it to Yake and OGRE ? I guess it's inspired by their design ?
Yeah our design is inspired by them, which is kind of inevitable. We don't use managers (yet) though, everything, except the yake stuff, can be created using the new operator.
But wait AFAIK the MS compiler doesn't work on WinME or what ?
I couldn't find any information about that, but I would not be surprised if it didn't. Why are you using WinME (not trying to convince you to use XP or anything, just wondering), as far as I know it's the worst windows release ever?
Ah, I could've guessed :) As long as we're using LGPL, that's not a problem. I think LGPL is probably best anyway, so there's only a very small chance we'll ever switch. Besides, if I dont start about it I dont expect anyone else will, and since I see no reason to start about it there's almost no chance we will switch :)
Good!

Just wanted to solve it right away, just for the case when i should stick with OF. :)

But of corse i would always give back contributions(contribute a subsim plug in and stuff), would like however to keep the last word in what and what not.
We could always release it under a special license for you if need be. Everything we've got is made by us. Keep in mind yake is released under the LGPL as well as custom licenses you can request from them, maybe you could use one.
I just turned 30.
Congratulations :)
Uhh, i fell rather concerned :lol:

BTW: I never celebrate it. I don't celebrate anything at all and i never go to parties or discos, don't whatch soccer don't drink and don't smoke. It seems i live only for my project, that becomes a big obsession by the time.
I used to not celebrate anything and never go out too - but it's too much fun not to now :)
It's what keeps us going :) It has it's ups (very friendly bunch of people) and downs (things can take a long time),
It's exactly the same with us. :)
How many people are on your team?
but over all I think the ups win! I'll be out on holiday next week and won't be online a lot more this week either, so good luck!
Holidy ? Lots of time for coding! :)
Actually, I meant vacation... I'll be in Turkey for a week starting on saturday :) (with no computer nearby, luckily)
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Deamon
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Post by Deamon »

Levia wrote: Any objects. Like some things that are needed are in another namespace or something. Hard to find what you need sometimes :)
Becose of lacking documentation, right ?
Deamon wrote: But wait AFAIK the MS compiler doesn't work on WinME or what ?
I have got no idea.
IIRC during installation it says that it needs at least Win2000 or XP to install everything.
Yes Ive been coding for 3 weeks now. Thats what holiday's are for.
:wink:

Deamon
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Post by BRAINLESS »

Exactly, the documentation could do with an update. They are working on it though! Too bad the microsoft compiler doesn't work for you. Please let me know how GCC performs, if it needs changes I'll see what I can do - but I won't be able to do much before I go on vacation.
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