IRC Meeting 1

Saturday, 25. June 2005 18:00 GMT (http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/) Server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #windstille

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[13:00] grumbel: main issue with with unpacking is that images can't be relative I'm pretty sure

<grumbel_> quickflash: doesn't pressing the 'relative path' button help?

maybe, never noticed that button

<grumbel_> is in the load dialog

<grumbel_> when you load a image

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So is it 18:00 GMT?

jamesg: yep

MazteB and godrin already said they couldn't make it, so I guess this is everyone who will be here

yep, think so

so what is up for discussion?

grumbel: are you logging

jamesg: good question :)

quickflash: unless my xchat crashes I will have a log

Opera can't log, which is dumb, maybe I should get a proper IRC client some time

line72, PauloMorfeo, straver: interesting in helping developing?

yes

line72: which area? graphics, prog, story, etc?

is WolfganB just logging?

mainly programming

some graphics (2d and 3d)

yes, but I ca't ufor two weeks

jamesg: not sure

?

Its me and several others from our gamedev club are going to help out

WolfgangB: hi, wanna help too?

ther should be a log function somewhere

let

wolfgang, I just meant, are you really here or had you just left an IRC client connected to log the conversation whilst you went out. Obviousuly not.

So at least to start with we have quite a few people then.

grumbel, yes, i can do some programming.

http://windstille.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Jobs has some tasks available

okay, i learnd something about blender in lincity

but it will look like the placeholder images :)

I'll work on animations and voices...

anybody interesting in writing a opengl based ttf font system?

are the clanlib fonts not good enough?

no system fonts in linux

jamesg: a) we might get rid of clanlib b) bitmap fonts are rather throuble some with multiple encodings

I'll most likely do some programming but I'll wait and see what tasks are left

the bitmap fonts are fine as long as one doesn't need a different fontsize or something different than latin1

past has however shown that sooner or later people always want to translate to non-latin1 languages

nehe has a tutorial on using freetype2 with opengl

yeah, thought I'd seen that before

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the ttf support is not really urgend, just some thing that we might need sooner or later, so if anybody wanna pick that task..

If someone wants to add support for non-European languages then fair enough, but given the amount of other work to do I don't think it's a priority

if there is voice-acting, localisation will be difficult alyway.

jamesg: it really depends if you switch away from clanlib, if we do, then it might be better to start with ttf renderer then doing a bitmap renderer

WolfgangB: simply switch voice acting off

ok, so let's talk about clanlib: use or don't use...

what's the option if we don't use it

oh, so voice is just reading on screen texts, no replacement for them?

line72: write stuff ourself & recycle supertux code

WolfgangB: yes

and recycle ClanLib code too, possibly?

jamesg: yep, that too

so, is this going to be 2d or 3d ?

mix

meaning we render everything in 3d, or we create 3d models, animated them, and generate 2d sprites from them ?

line72: tilemaps will be 2d, some sprites will be 2d and we will have 3d sprites, ie. simple meshes

3d sprites will be used when it makes sense for memory

and when the graphic requires it

one thing are characters which will most likly be all 3d

other thing are stuff like cars or spaceships that might need to rotate to land/start

but that's easy in 2d withopengl anyway

yes, but then you get large textures

so what would be the advantage of leaving clanlib, other than reducing dependencies?

have a system you can understand in shorter time?

straver: the other two axes which are not z

straver: if you do that in 3d than you get huge texture

straver: 640x480 * 24 frames per second like

clanlib is no harder to understand than ano other library

my only issue with clanlib is we need the cvs version

line72: that IMHO a non-issue

the only change to clanlib cvs in the past week was a win32 makefile fix, by me. It doesn't change much, the issue is just that they haven't made a new release for ages.

the important parts go more into the direction of how hard is it to add shader support to clanlib

or how much of clanlib do we really need

jamesg: nothing clanlib fix is to change the near/far clipping planes from -1/1 to something larger, however not yet commited

anyway, thats more the kind of problems I expect if we stay with clanlib

Well, anyway, if we drop clanlib because it's easier for people writing graphics code then I won't complain, but I don't think we should rewrite a whole load of code just to reduce dependencies. There could be a new ClanLib release to coincide with Windstille, or otherwise just before release ClanLib could be copied into its own directory in Windstille.

jamesg: yep

clanlib release is just waiting for someone to do it...

so the decision on clanlib should be made by whoever it is who is coding graphics stuff?

jamesg: I would say we simply continue as we are and see if there is any clanlib left after a while

ok

ie. adding opengl based ttf font handling or switching tilemap to raw gl is all rather independed of clanlib

what other potentially controversial issues are there to discuss before we can discuss division of tasks?

question to all: have you actually played flashback or looked at least at the video in the "Similar Games" section in the wiki?

just so that everybody has a basic idea with what we start

I have played it briefly, so I know how it works.

no, i heard about the whole thing just yesterday

I couldn't get the avi to play

playing "Another World"/"Out of this World" and/or "Prince of Persia" might help as well

watching it now

i compiled windstille and looked at it, thats about it

prince of persia I recall

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to make the avi play open it up i na hex editor and change the two occurences of "FCMP" or whatever it is to "XVID"

rotoscoped animation

quickflash: flashback is basically the same, except you have a gun and you walk around in a city

quickflash: at least in some levels

I played the original prince of persia a bit, too

if somebody could explain me how to encode videos in linux that actually work that would be helpfull...

stuff that mplayer produces is seldomly usable

encode them in a less advanced format - MPEG4 is all well and good but support varies

even after editing the second video it still crashes vlc

mplayer says "Video: no video" to the first one.

grumbel: kmenc15 or kino are quite helpfull

its working with xine. strange

it's because it uses the codec fourcc "FCMP" or something which is very new and most players don't yet realise that it is the same as MPEG4

but anyway, back to windstille

here a little screenshot: http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/flash2.gif

anyway, point is windstille will have at least two basic modes

one will be that girl in normal cloth with realistic movement and abiliies

apparently I meant fmp4, not fcmp

the other will be girl in powersuit and thus more strength, faster, higher jumps, etc.

without the powersuit will be more or less an adventure mode, one where you walk around, buy stuff, talk to people

maybe infiltrate some factory, sneak around and such

powersuit will be used outside of the city, on alien plants or in space

thats basically what we are aiming at

don't have much idea yet how the powersuit should play

something metroid-ish maybe, but then I don't like that jumps at all

metroidish

so its supertux with different graphics?

WolfgangB: nothing like supertux

I got the impression the game was supposed to be nonlinear

more like gta as sidescroller

So I take it the player will have a gun, but the gun will be flashback like (very slow rate of fire, time consuming to aim) than like metroid (hold down fire button)?

jamesg: in human mode definitivly

and in power suit mode too?

will the player be able to buy new weapons and upgrade the powersuit and so?

in powersuit mode I am not sure, but even there I would prefer something that is a lot less fast then metroid

something that gives you a realistic feel for the powersuit and not the ability to jump around like a flubber

if even in powersuit mode it will be quite slow paced, might it not be simpler if powersuit mode was a bit less different to normal mode than you are proposing? I.e., same control system, same basic gameplay style, just you cna jump higher and take more damage

straver: most likly

straver: however I am not so sure how much freedom is usefull there

jamesg: not sure, but powersuit should really feel different and more then just higher jumps

So what is the difference?

well, I want powersuit mode to be slower then metroid, but thats still a lot faster then flashback

so it might mean to take something like metroid controls and replace the spin-jump with something more realistic

so, ok, in power suit mode will you shoot bad guys by a) aiming a firing once or b) jumping on to a platform and holding down the fire button?

depends on the weapon I would say

ie. you could use a handgun or a bazooker style thing

depending on what the current mission offers

ok

powersuit mode might provide a auto-lock-on or so on enemies

and what control method are we going to use. I really like the abuse mouse/keyboard control.

definitvly not abuse like

I hate them

currently I am aiming for cursorkeys + wasd

so left/right -> walk

one button to run

one to use/talk

what's so bad with mouse aim? gives you more precision

one to draw the gun

straver: I don't like precision, it simply feels rather unnatural

gamepad support?

beside from that you don't need precision

(19:11:23) grumbel: Sorry, i was playing TA::Spring :P I don't expect to have enough time to do helping around this GOTM, unfortunatly... But i may do some things like voices if/when needed! (or something that doesn't require much time nor much learning to do)

So will we start off working on both game modes at once, or concentrate on just one to start with?

PauloMorfeo: ok

jamesg: starting with human mode I would say

since thats rather clear how it should look like

so first step would be to get the virtual environment ready, add doors, scripting, dialog

then start creating the city

OK

and somewhere inbetween there toy around with powersuit tests

MazteB said he would do scripting?

jamesg: yep

grumbel, what language was planed for scripting?

its already in supertux and looks quite nice

WolfgangB: squirrel

it seems like we need scripting quite soon because lots of other stuff relies on it - e.g. I imagine doors will be implemented as scriptable objects? Is he going to do it soon?

WolfgangB: supertux uses it's own, afaik

he is currently playing around with openal

but scripting would be the next step

doors themself don't need scripting, a 'sector' property would already be enough

egore: its squirrel in supertux

grumbel: ah, ok

grumbel: now that you mention it, I remember it :D

should we start assigning tasks ?

I supose it would be more like taking task onto self rather than assigning...

so whats the technical difference between windstille and supertux? Sounds more or less the same to me.

WolfgangB: well, technically its of course similar, gameplay wise however not

and supertux is more in direction of SDL, while windstille goes towards clanlib

graphically its a bit different since windstille supports lightmapping and 3d sprites

Grumbel: Is it suposed to scrool like SuperTux or to change screens like the old one... Forget it, i remember, it scrools!

would it be easier to change the gameplay in supertux than create something new?

PauloMorfeo: its supposed to scroll around, not screen switches

WolfgangB: no

Yes, i remember from playing that little demo!

http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/windstille-screenshot-2005-06-25-5.png

thats how windstille looks right now

on the right is a particle based fire

on the left a 3d sprite

in the middle a old 2d sprite

surrounded by light

the glow of the vr-tiles is a seperate highlight-layer

the different layers can be switched on and off via 1,2,3,4

about the 'story'/beginning of the game: game should start in a virtual environment where the player learns the basic movement

after that he leaves the VR, walk a bit around in his apartment, gets phonecall and is called over to a bar in the city

where he then gets the first mission assigned

http://esoteric.clanlib.org/~khirsch/windstille/Run.avi

I think the head is coming down to fast when the front foot hits, what do you think?

grumbel: about the story... Think if you want voice acting, perhaps make the boss a guy

mainly because women voices are limited :)

quickflash: that run needs quite a bit more work, arm position is wrong, hands should be much higher

not enough up/down of the whole body

and the leg makes an unnatural quick leap forward

and overall it needs more speed

hey, I have to run, is there a good place for me to get started with the code ?

line72: http://windstille.berlios.de/wiki/index.php/Jobs has some small tasks every once in a while

k, i'll play with the code tonight and see what I can do, later

just some more images: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/windstille-shower.png

thats how the apartment will look like

thats how the subway might look like: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/windstille-elevator.png

and this is url has basically all sketches around windstille: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/windstille-files/

and here a whole bunch of random gameplay ideas: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/puzzles.png

btw. one can zoom in and out with a/o in windstille at the moment

F10 toggles fps

F11 toggles fullscreen

F12 screenshots

graphic engine also supports rotating the playfield

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is it possible to jump so hight that you reach the upper board?

however beside shaking the screen that might not be so usefull

WolfgangB: nope, but you can press left at startup then you land on the platform to the left

am planing to lowering/shrinking the platforms: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/windstille-upjumpsketch.png

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so that you would be able to jump up and grab the ledge and pull yourself up

when human

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anybody interested in implementing a quake-like console for windstille?

would be of little use at the moment, but once we have scripting such things can be extremly helpfull

i have not looked at the code much, but i'll give it a try

so i can't predict how long it will take to create the console.

there is currently a little-output only thing available

now linuxtag is over i'll find more time to do coding :)

WolfgangB: if MatzeB ports the sripting, you could use that for a console

WolfgangB: did I miss much today at linuxtag?

no. maybe i had just bed luck choosing the presentations, but most of them were not that interesting :(

but i got a community ticket so I can't really complain.

WolfgangB: hehe. Did you see the X.org presentation?

no, wrong plannig from Linuxtag there. x.org was in one of the smaller rooms, whe I arrived people where already standing in the doorways to watch the presentation.

like the Xen presentation ...

it started half an hour to early and the room could have been filled twice

but i looked at the exibition. x.org hat a nice demo with 4 videos plaing in transparent windows on the same desktop. another video as background.

right, that looked great :D

grumbel, Of course you missed the LinCity-NG meeting.

ok, that was not an official event on linuxtag

bye

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ok, meeting official over, i'll post a log