Yeah, I was pretty surprised to learn that last week... it took me way off guard - thus the exclamation.
Thankfully, we have Salv working on the aforementioned map(s) (since he's done with the weapon models! w00t!!!), and that's a relief.
:sbdance
Anyway, many thanks to corto - the true *feshuin*-meister.
:holosid:
"Will he finish what he begins?" - Yoda
Only one mapper?!?!?! Are you serious? Well I'm trying to join the MOD as a mapper, and I will do the map fully and properly. So you can always say you've got one and a half mappers...
Anyone who is interested in joining should follow the instructions in the first post of this thread:
Current Open Positions (Need filling to survive!) (
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80862)
:holosid:
i assume the only "real/full" mapper is MilesTeg? i havent seen or heard from him in awhile. and yeah, dont forget, ewok is trying to join the team too.
you are correct in that assumption.
:holosid:
I had considered joining, but, to be honest, I was not and still am not, entirely sure that any coding is really getting done. I'm sorry, but I don't want to spend time mapping for a mod that doesn't even have some promising code yet. Not to say that it doesn't, but I'd really like to know what's going on in the code department before I make any commitment.
???
pah... this really sounds like you don't want to help
or you don't know what you could help :rolleyes:
Jedistone has already done lot of coding,
and it is not that complicated once you have found out
how everything fits together.
What would you expect from coding, eh?
I ask because I have my own projects to work on this summer. I'm not going to spend on another project unless I'm absolutely sure it's really going somewhere.
What kind of coding is done? Weapons, items, all that is easy stuff. What about recoding AI and making the necessary entities needed to recreate the SP game in MP?
Heh its certainly going somewhere, but not obviously where you want it to go :D
We're trying to reuse as much as possible of the JO logic as long as it fits to DF behavior.
The interesting points are indeed AI and custom animations,
but we won't touch it unless we absolutely need to.
1. Wudan's GlaNeo is supposed to work pretty good by now, and he's still doing lots of improvement. Animations shouldn't be that hard soon. Infact, he's done some test poses already.
2. See, now that is a problem. How can you not touch AI unless you absolutely have to? Is this mod just going to not have any NPCs at all? How do you have a game without AI?
GlaNeo is just to make Matrix like animations... and there has been no other demo else than a movie where two robots run after Kyle...
Until we really can see custom animations work in our mod, we have to suppose it doesn't work by now.
We certainly will include NPC if we can get them into the code, but again, this is very complex. So at this point, we can't tell clearly yes or no.
And why is there no AI? JO has already lots of AI ennemies,
and if their logic matches one of the DF ennemies, we'll resuse it as is.
For the ennemies where the AI does not work, we have to think of a new one.
But i've heard we can't use them now, either because we can't include Icarus scripts or for some other reason.
Better ask JediStone or Darth_linux ...
You act as if you can release the mod without NPCs...
sounds like we are having a bit of a communication break down due to language barrier issues. Fracman speaks good english, but maybe he isn't expressing himself as well as he wants.
It is true that the WLS source code is less than ideal, and making a SP mod with a MP engine sucks pretty badly. We are continuing to work in hopes that a) Jedi Academy offers us a good platform to move the project to with a minimum of lost work , or b) Raven finally releases the SP SDK after Doom 3 comes out and they abandon pointless efforts at reusing the Quake 3 engine for Yet Another Star Trek Game (YASTG).
we're crossing our fingers and working on what we know is portable in the mean time, and trying to get code issues done that are easy to port over should we have to.
The fact is this Emon, we are going to release this MOD, in some form, by the end of the year or sometime early next year. It may be complete. it may be just a glorified map pack. I don't know yet, but we are pressing on regardless. If you are interested in working on the project let me know what you can do. If you aren't that's fine too. I don't think anything more needs to be said about it. The communications are taking on more of a hostile tone than I'm comfortable with, especially since all of us are volunteers and amatuers and doing this in our free time for our own benefit and the benefit of other Dark Forces fans.
thank for listening.
edit for spelling.
I would love to help you guys. If anything I would be a programmer because I have no artistic talent but I don't know much programming. I'm learning C and C+ but after that then I have to learn the Quake 3 engine.
If you ever need a programmer, talk to me in 6 months. I'll still be here. ;)
Darth_linux wrote: sounds like we are having a bit of a communication break down due to language barrier issues.
Emon: Sorry if i hit the wrong tone, i'm not as musical as Darth_Linux, you know :sing9:
Darth_linux wrote: Fracman speaks good english, but maybe he isn't expressing himself as well as he wants.
Heh thanks, this is exactly my problem. :rolleyes:
There are things even the translator can't tell, so i have to improvise :p
Okay, that makes more sense, Darth_Linux. Thanks for clearing it up.
Emon, I totally understand your concerns.
Is there coding going on? Absolutely.
I'm posting new builds practically on a weekly basis, and was posting updates to the teams forums for each build, with build notes outlining the latest changes (before our site and the team forums blew up).
Is it groundbreaking stuff? Not really.
But that's totally intentional at this point in the game.
Basically, we've got a [long] list of programming issues that have to be taken care of (prepared by Darth_Linux with suggestions/feedback from myself and others), and I'm trying to deal with the issues one-by-one, slowly but surely...
We've got one other programmer (MarkF) working on some HUD issues, and I'm handling weapons code right now.
When I came on board, Darth_Linux had full knowledge that this was my first MOD project, and it's been a pretty steep learning curve for me. I've been working in the software development business for almost ten years now and I thought that my methods and experience would be helpful (which I think it has, since I've been able to add some valuable processes to the project). However, little did I know the complexity and the amount of time necessary to work on a project of this magnitude... :eek:
Honestly, I didn't expect to end up as the Lead, either. That was entirely by default.
Basically, due to the fact that I've got a 40-60 hr./week job that's been insanely busy the last four months (March was the worst), a family and other obligations to deal with, I've only been able to devote minimal time each week, so I've trying to chose my assignments carefully.
There are two really big issues that I've essentially been putting on the back burner:
Repairing the WLS Icarus engine (enabling NPCs)
Level-loading and player state management across levels
One major reason is because there has been suggestion/hints that an SP SDK will eventually be released (by James Monroe of Raven). Will it be for JO or JA? We don't know. Probably JO, but we'll see. We also don't know what tools will be available for JA, though it sounds from your other posts that you may have some more information than the rest of us do.
Personally, I didn't want to get hip-deep into re-engineering the incomplete WLS Icarus engine (since WLS left us a hobbled version) and then have LucasArts release the SP SDK.
However, if we've completed the easier issues, and get to the point at which it's time to get the NPC coding done and the SP SDK is still not released, then we will be forced to bite the bullet and go for it...
I'd like to think that MarkF and I have the support of most of the other team members in the way that we've been working on the code. Mark's very busy as well at the moment with secular work issues, so his time has been limited too.
But we're making progress, and that's what matters. At some point in the future, as Darth_Linux pointed out, we will release this, and I'm hoping that it will live up to everyone's expectations, possibly even exceeding them.
:holosid:
The Demo already exceeded my expectations. Keep it up guys, it rules.:D
I've gathered the following information on JA editing:
1. SP editing is greatly expanded, probably to the level of SoF2 or higher. The differences between JO and SoF2 SP modding are staggering. SoF2 lets you do almost anything you want.
2. Multiplayer has ICARUS II and AI built in. This leads me to believe that MP and SP share the same code, making it incredibly easy to port things from MP to SP and SP to MP. It also may mean we'll have the gamesource for SP.
3. If we don't have the gamesource for SP, and if the rendering engine doesn't suck like JO's (unlikely with the time they have), we should be able to easily recode all we need for SP in the MP engine. The Open Jedi Project (
http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=104564) is aiming for this sort of thing, as well as other stuff. It would be great to combine what I'm going to be coding with what the DF mod will code for JA, to hopefully create a totally complete SP codebase for MP.
So the Dark Forces MOD is now going to be for Jedi Academy?
Hmmm... if JA is really "just" an improved JO, that will be fine for the DFMOD and we could come up with the first great MOD for JA then :p
But until JA and the JA editing tools are released, we're doing business as usual.
Recombinant: did you already analyse the SOF2 code and compare it with the JO code?
Originally posted by Fracman
Recombinant: did you already analyse the SOF2 code and compare it with the JO code?
Eh? Are you talking to me? If so, I looked at the SoF2 docs and available entities for SoF2 SP. It puts JO to shame.
Emon, would be nice if you could tell this more detailed, especially to recombinant, our lead coder, to whom i addressed my last post btw.
About SoF2? I didn't look into it that much. It wouldn't help for the coding of JO either, since SP doesn't really have much code in SoF2, same as JO. But it has a lot more externalized stuff.
If you're thinking about switching to SoF2, forget it. :) Recreating all the Star Wars sounds and resources you have in JO/JA wouldn't be worth it. Reusing them would be illegal.
Originally posted by Emon
About SoF2? I didn't look into it that much. It wouldn't help for the coding of JO either, since SP doesn't really have much code in SoF2, same as JO. But it has a lot more externalized stuff.
If you're thinking about switching to SoF2, forget it. :) Recreating all the Star Wars sounds and resources you have in JO/JA wouldn't be worth it. Reusing them would be illegal.
Somehow, I don't think he is ;)
Emon, you're really funny... on the one hand you say SOF2 code is so much better than JO code, and on the other hand you can't tell why! Is that right?
Indeed, i'm not thinking about switching completely to SOF2 code,
that would be ridiculous and not suitable for the reasons you told also.
It would just be interesting to know the differences because I think JA code = JO code + relevant SOF2 code modifications.
We'll continue working with JO code and wait for JA editing tools and sources before deciding to switch or not.
Chances are great to use JA, but it's not totally sure.
I didn't do anything with the SoF2 code, ever. Only SP, and SP doesn't really have code. Not that we can have, anyway. What I mean, is that I looked into the tools, I poked around in GtkR with SoF2, and I found a lot of really cool stuff that you can do that we cannot do in JO. Create new entities (in a limited fashion), make new weapons and new NPCs and classes and all that. If you just look at their weapons.dat or npcs.cfg or equivelant, you can see right off the bat that there is a whole lot more you can customize.
Ah, i see, thanks!
So let's cross our fingers for the best in JA :p
Yep! I asked Mike Gummelt (ChangKahn[RAVEN]) a question about some JA editing stuff in the General Editing forum, in a topic he made. If he doesn't see it, I have similar questions for the Massassi and Raven interview on JA.