The Continuum Project

[Samapico]

I talked with ice returns and he looks interested... he's a good 3D artist

[»doc flabby]

I didn't find it in the thread, but will the gameplay be 2D? You're talking of a 3D engine, but would it be 2D gameplay, rendered in 3D?

The gameplay will be 2D. But the game will use a 3D engine. This means 3D ship models and levels rendered in 3D. I'm going to make it backwards compatable with LVL, but ultimalty create new format for Levels. The perspective will stay as a top down perspective as in continuum. But i'm going to allow people to zoom in and out and tilt the camera a bit to get different views, also to finally make it fair for people whatever re!@#$%^&*ion they play and it will lookg good for all reselutions too. I'm currently in the process of learning OpenGl and starting writing the engine, if anyone has experience of OpenGL (an knows how to render models + textures etc, they would be able to help this bit alot.

anyone else sign up?

No one else has signed up so far, but its only been 2 days, im trying to get a working multiplayer game engine out asap (hopefully before the new year) for testing. Probably using just a triangles for your ship for now, gameplay and lag is just as important as eye candy and i'll want to test it.

 

OpenGl is some hardcore stuff, going to have to learn some math -_- . Still need to implement quite a few things in the subspaceAPI (which will power the networking code). Going to use VIE protocol, unless anyone has a better one, I will probably add extensions to it later such as MTU discovert (allows larger packets to be sent) That took 4 years of design or something so i'm willing to go with it for now.

 

I still need to set everything up on sf.net, and create some tasks you can take etc etc. will probably do it on sunday as I have a big uni thing on friday night.

Edited December 14, 2007 by doc flabby

[tcsoccerman]

well i think i'm gonna start on the start screen, any preferences or something to shoot at me?

[Samapico]

I think we should get together and agree on some key features we want before starting anything

 

And TC, I haven't really checked your code in that other project, so I don't know how much you progressed... But I'll give you a few recommendations:

 

-We'll probably want most of the stuff to be customizable, so keep in mind nothing will be fixed when coding (number of ships, start screen's skin...)

-Since this is a team project, comment everything you can, preferabbly with your name so we know who to ask if we have concerns about a specific part of the code

 

And... a few newbish questions: Is all the System.blahblahblah stuff is part of .NET Framework? If so, we don't want to use these right? What about API's? Do we want to make it cross-platform? Are common windows APIs compatible with other OS'?

[»doc flabby]

I think we should get together and agree on some key features we want before starting anything

 

And TC, I haven't really checked your code in that other project, so I don't know how much you progressed... But I'll give you a few recommendations:

Agreeded, I'm going to try post up some specs we can discuess online. but however you can write some code if you wish, don't be upset if it has to be thrown out however.

-We'll probably want most of the stuff to be customizable, so keep in mind nothing will be fixed when coding (number of ships, start screen's skin...)

-Since this is a team project, comment everything you can, preferabbly with your name so we know who to ask if we have concerns about a specific part of the code

I'm going to type up some guidelines (unless someone else wants to) at the weekend (commenting, naming conventions etc).

Not everything needs to be commented, only stuff where its not obvious whats going on.

example:

 

Code like below does not need a comment, Alot of commenting can be avoided by good naming of variables,method and classes.

function int AddTwoToAnInterger(int number) 
{
 number=number+2;
 return number
}

Code like this does:

function int FixAHorribleProblem(int a) 
{
 a=a+2;
}

 

And... a few newbish questions: Is all the System.blahblahblah stuff is part of .NET Framework? If so, we don't want to use these right? What about API's? Do we want to make it cross-platform? Are common windows APIs compatible with other OS'?

Anything in System.blahblah is safe to use.

Anything in Windows.blahblah is NOT to be used.

Direct Windows API calls (P/Invoke) are NOT to be used.

 

I am aiming to keep this cross-platform. Mono supports the System tree. Also we must use C# 2.0.

When reading files. Take into account the platform that may be reading them can be case-senitive for file names.

 

As I have said before i hope on sunday to get a chance to post up a set of guidelines and plan that we can disucess. I know everyone is keen to start and if you want to start writing code now that is fine, but don't be upset if it doesnt get used/modiefed beyond recognition (this applies though the entire project, alot of code will get discarded/modified)

 

Im going to join ?chat=subspace2

[Samapico]

I use MSN more than I'm logged in SS... Check my profile for my address I'll join the chat though. We might want a subforum too

 

 

Anything in System.blahblah is safe to use.

Anything in Windows.blahblah is NOT to be used.

Windows is in System though...

[»doc flabby]

I use MSN more than I'm logged in SS... Check my profile for my address I'll join the chat though. We might want a subforum too

 

Anything in System.blahblah is safe to use.

Anything in Windows.blahblah is NOT to be used.

Windows is in System though...

Ah ive made a mistake I was posting from memory.

 

Anything starting with System is fine.

 

System.Windows namespace is fine.

Its the Microsoft.Win32 one that can't be used.

 

Ok will do, my MSN is kingsleym@totalise.co.uk (dont email me there tho, the email address died years ago)

 

I have pmed d1 to request a subforum (says on forum staff page he is the one to ask)

[»freakmonger]

If you want you can give me the info and I will set the forum up if he hasn't already.

[Samapico]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAL

 

You might find this interesting... I found that while getting FreeSpace 2 Open (An open source project by the community, since Volition released Freespace2's source)

Also, they use OpenGL, so you might want to take a look at their stuff

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/board,50.0.html

They made their engine too as far as I know... the game originally used D3D.

[tcsoccerman]

Maybe we could ask Bjorn about his project. Maybe even use it :/.

[»doc flabby]

This may have to wait untill christmas before I get anything organsied i am extremly busy irl at the moment. I'll try and get the subforum setup before then however.

[Samapico]

The 'splash' project, is it intended for the main menu?

 

I started working on something for the main menu, based on how the current skins work. Just saying...

 

And that Tao thing... Do I need to install it? It says it can't find the references... or is it just a .dll that you'd put with the project?

[»doc flabby]

The 'splash' project, is it intended for the main menu?

I started working on something for the main menu, based on how the current skins work. Just saying...

And that Tao thing... Do I need to install it? It says it can't find the references... or is it just a .dll that you'd put with the project?

Ya it is. The network project is to be shared between both projects, and will contain code for all network calls (anything to do with talking to other computers) will be done in that library.

 

The Tao thing is from the Tao Framework http://www.taoframework.com/ (this provides an interface to opengl, Lua etc).

Unless you want to use opengl for the splash screen/menu you don't need it.

 

My recommendation is that now as more than one person is working in the SVN we create a branch for ourselves. (in branch folder)

Basically you then do all your work on that branch, but once you are happy with it we can merge it back into the trunk. You can merge trunk into your branch as well if u want to get updates from the trunk

[Samapico]

[»doc flabby]

and.. is Subspace 2 the official name? Or more like the codename of the project?

Code name for the project is "The Continuum Project". The !@#$%^&*le "SubSpace II" will have to be earnt.

And for the menu, I did 'Add Windows Form...' , which sounds like it adds a windows-only thing, but all the references are still from System.Windows, is that ok?

Yes, thats fine. Windows, refers to a "window" rather than the OS in this case.

 

All further discussion to take place in thie forum. http://www.ssforum.net/index.php?showforum=398

 

Request for thread to be locked

Edited December 18, 2007 by doc flabby

[Samapico]

Request for thread to be locked

 

Request granted