Current Status [april 2012]

[uzurpator]

Greetings fellow TErs

If you have been wondering why there was no alpha for a long time now...

Well, there is progress being made, quite A LOT of it. However... to add support for terrain modification I had to rewrite completely the terrain display code. Currently I am working throught Ogre way display vertex buffers directly. This is a ghastly, tedious process and my lack of time doesn't help either. However, once done I expect quite abit of performance boost and a workable terrain to put stuff on.

So - have patience.

[Arathorn]

Good to see you're still working on it. Shame though that you had to do so much stuff twice, but I guess that's all part of the learning process.

[The Archcontroller]

Uzuraptor, I am new to TE, and I'm wondering what I can do to help out. Other than the original Design Document, is there a conceptual framework of things to be worked on?

If there isn't, I'd be glad to write one (or update the original, etc).

[Steve]

The DD is the only real document we have, apart from snippets of information on the wiki and on these forums.
What kind of document were you thinking of writing?

[The Archcontroller]

I've looked at the design document, and it doesn't go into a heck of a lot of detail in terms of the tasks which need to be done. In my experience, it's easier to get work done if it's broken up into smaller chunks. Basically, I was looking to see if I can break it down to make it easier for part-timers to deal with.

I also have some ideas about things to implement that I'm hoping to sneak in there, but since there's a discussion freeze, I was going to save those 'till later.

[Ne0Que]

Give it a shot, dont wait

in fact, it is broken up in pieces. There is an SVN link here, but i guess its far out of date since uzurpator said he made a lot of progress. So we have to wait till he updates the svn files.

svn://81.171.98.104/trunk

Maybe you could pm uzurpator.

I agree it looks like a discussion freeze.

[uzurpator]

The SVN has the most recent source - which should be dated a few days ago.

The progress is slow, because the Vertex Buffers proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated.

[Ne0Que]

The SVN has the most recent source - which should be dated a few days ago.

The progress is slow, because the Vertex Buffers proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated.

No problem, take your time

[The Archcontroller]

I'm having trouble opening this page....is there some kind of program needed to open it?

I'm a bit of a n00b when it comes to web-stuff like this....

[DaleStan]

Note the first three letters in the URL. Do some research on what they might mean.

[ohlidalp]

Hello.

As to the DD, I have one question: Where to look for it in the future (if it gets modified)? Now there are 3 places to get it:
The TE website http://www.transportempire.com/files/DD%20-%20core.doc
The SVN server svn://81.171.98.104/branches/designdocument/DD - core.doc
The wiki http://tempire.phoenixscripts.co.uk/wik ... n_Document
The web and svn files are identical, the wiki one is mostly the same.
If there is some design documentation created in the future (DD or whatever we call it...), where to look for it? I guess Wiki would be a good place, if there is a link to it on the TE website.

This page was last modified 05:53, 17 July 2006

The design documentation really needs to be completed. I'd love to work on it myself but unfortunately I won't have time until summer (school ). The development of TE goes on somehow, but there is no design to follow. For example, Uzurpator will soon work on land-modification tools and interface and he asked someone to create a landscaping panel. Well, I just thought one of ( http://tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?p=641429#p641429 ), as the DD does not mention landscaping tools.
Another thing is that a lot of things were "Discussed and agreed" on the forum, but nothing about them in the DD.

What I want to say: I appreciate Archcontroller's interest in the design documentation ( finally someone since 05:53, 17 July 2006 ) and I believe he should get access to the wiki(I believe registering is disabled) so he can start working on it right now.

[Steve]

You're quite right.
My interest in the project has been somewhat refreshed though and have nothing to distract me too much for the next few months.

My plan:
- When members show enthusiam, I will work with them to set, monitor and mentor any tasks they want.
- Respond to any requests/complaints/suggestions etc from you guys, for anything about the project.
- Consolidate information on our web platform (website/wiki/svn).

The current area that need development is with the code. I'd like people to become familiar with the code we have and suggest any improvements that would be necessary to continue and check design choices are still feasible. Otherwise we give uzurpator time to proceed as he is, as he's doing a great job.

When the engine is more developed, it would come to a point where we need to decide how particular features are implemented, which will largely be based on a first come, first serve, to encourage development over discussion, but when two ideas conflict, they will be resolved peacefully through meetings. Until this point, we don't need to worry two much about state of the design document. Though, if anyone has ideas on tehe best way to manage the document and discussions around me, please let me know.

I was not aware that I disabled registrations on the wiki, perhaps I did so to stop spam, or perhaps it just broke. Give me a couple of days, I may play around with it before opening it to the world again, this seems an ideal time.

Thanks

[Arathorn]

Wise words Steve. I'd like to add that, when you want to improve some aspects of the code, people ask uzurpator what he's doing, to prevent people doing things double. I think coordination between development is best done directly between developers, but off course that's mostly up to those developer's preference. Wow, those last two sentences were useless, but saying just the first would have been too little... or something.

[ohlidalp]

I was not aware that I disabled registrations on the wiki....

Sorry, I confused you... I just expected the registrations to be disabled, I didn't try it. Registered now.

When the engine is more developed...Until this point...

The time is now. A I showed in my last post, Uzurpator already works on features not described in DD and thus he designs them himself. He's doing a great job, right, but I think it would be better to discuss the features here first, because someone might have better ideas than Uzu.

When members show enthusiam, I will work with them...

I know it's easy to criticise, but I don't think this is enough... You must show enthusiasm and the member must work with you. There are a lot of thoughts and intentions here, but no actual decisions and work (apart of uzu's coding). Take GUI design for example... Ne0Que tried to create one, but the discussion on the thread went quite wrong way... and if you look in the development archive, there are more threads that ended like this. I mean, members give ideas, but they expect to be lead. I'm sure Ne0Que would create a great design if we told him what it should contain, which controls and indicators to display and such. That's to be discussed and I don't think ne0que will start the thread. You should. And if the discussion is inconclusive, you should decide.

if anyone has ideas on tehe best way to manage the document and discussions around me...

Well, I do. I alreay said how you should manage the discussions.
As for the wiki:
- It should be a place where everyone can learn what kind of game TE is supposed to be. It's important because new contributors and coders will only join us if they get a complete picture what we're doing here. All features coded and to be coded should be described there. If anything is agreed, it should be written there right away.
- Quantity is important, organisation is secondary. It's important for the infos to be there, not to be in this or that subsection... of course, it shouldn't be a total mess, but "features" section with mixed subsections describing one feature each would be better than a nice section-tree with half-empty topics.
- Today there are paragraphs in italics telling ideas. I'd change that- the wiki should only display things that are sure.
- There are DD and CoreDD. I'd merge them or delete the CoreDD, as it's incomplete and I don't know what makes it better than the original DD.
When I learned about this project about half a year before, I thought I'll just check the wiki to see what TE will be like... but I didn't learn too much.

I think coordination between development is best done directly between developers...

Sure. I'm not adressing this at all, I'm only talking about deciding what to implement and what not, which is up to us to discuss.

[Arathorn]

The reason I said that was (besides the fact that I was drunk), having seen the way this project has been going from day one, that there was too much talk and consensus making. Some time ago Uzurpator decided to just start coding and make the developer decide the direction parts of the project were going. So if you want to develop something, please go ahead, and don't mind us too much (though telling us what you're doing at that moment is nice off course). It seems the shortest route to success.

[uzurpator]

The reason I said that was (besides the fact that I was drunk), having seen the way this project has been going from day one, that there was too much talk and consensus making. Some time ago Uzurpator decided to just start coding and make the developer decide the direction parts of the project were going. So if you want to develop something, please go ahead, and don't mind us too much (though telling us what you're doing at that moment is nice off course). It seems the shortest route to success.

Wut saideth him.

[Arathorn]

Heya uzu, any updates?

[uzurpator]

Update:

after a long time of:
1. Actual paywork needing to be done
2. Me being busy with other shiny things
3. Me learning to code in Cg
4. Other

I am now working again on TE. My current goal is to clean the infrastructural mess of the current code base. Currently it is at approx 10% done.

[Arathorn]

Nice. I'll be looking for more updates.

[NukeBuster]

Please drop by in IRC from time to time, so we might get on the same track again.

Anyway, I'm trying to get contact with Steve. But untill now no succes.