Started Coding

[finnbryant]

I thought it would be nice to keep everyone updated on whats going on (I've followed lots of projects that could have done better in this respect) so here's where I'll do it.

If you want to look directly at what I'm doing, get a dropbox account (google it) and then pm me the email address you used to sign up. (I'll then share the folder with you so you can access it)

Anyway, on with the info!

I've done a good amount of work on Quantus today, considering it started with an exam (my last!). I decided to start with an algorithm, since that is an area of coding that I'm already pretty good at.
I started making a Perlin noise algorithm, what this does is to produce "noise" (basically lots of random* numbers) that follows a controlled pattern, this is very useful, it's an algorithm that is used everywhere from making movie cgi seem more realistic to making believable looking clouds. In the case of Quantus I think it will be particularly useful for producing artwork procedurally (more on that later) as it will allow us to focus our meager human resources on things that will actually make the game fun. But it has many (MANY) possible uses.

After making the algorithm I wanted to know if it was working properly, this was actually annoying and hard (but on the upside, I learnt a lot of useful stuff about python and panda while doing it, so its a good thing) and I spent a lot of time making my code more and more ugly until I gave up and actually read some of the panda documentation . In the end I got some nice images as output.



Looks like clouds right?

One of the best uses of perlin noise is creating terrain, it makes really nice hills and valleys. Since i didnt want to go to bed before seeing this I decided to implement it into a procedural forest showcase I've been looking at. It turned out to be pretty easy, so I went on to iron out some of the bugs the showcase had in it.

all in all a very productive day

heres a pic from in the procedural forest showcase with my terrain (note: I made it look extreme like that on purpose, rolling hills were hard to see through the trees and the fog)


this isnt finished, I plan to make it look better than that, once I can, also the perlin noise is slow at the moment but ive got some ideas on speeding it up.

It's 6:15 in the morning... I think I could do with some sleep.

*pseudo-random if you want to get technical

[Arson_Fire]

Very nice, it's great to see some work actually getting done code-wise.

One of my papers this coming semester is about image processing and graphics algorithms so this is starting to look very interesting. Maybe after I have learned a little more I will be able to help out.

[Blackdutch]

hmm... looks like a nice bit of terrain there.

i smell a special event map.

[madpeople]

QUOTE (Blackdutch @ Jan 27 2009, 04:25 PM) i smell a special event map.

it appears your nose is broken, what we have here is the option of a completely new map every game ever.

[Valiance]

=]

I love this idea and i think its great someone has stepped up tothe challenge of coding it, good luck =P

(ps, i dont have a clue what any of the code-y stuff youve written means, but for how long youve spent on it, those pictures are pretty awesome)

EDIT:
In game ive been given the list of modelling programs that alleg is compatible with, and sketchup isnt on there, and afaik, an exporter, but are models from useable in this program? not only because i canmake and upload to help ya, but also because there are thousands of well made models (with textures) with no copyrights on them at all, and the ones with copyrights, i can "trace"

EDIT2:
I'll post up more pics of models that are suitable for this with no copyrights (as soon as i figure out imageshack =] )


EDIT3:
It can be 3d exported into google earth and google earth4 (.kmz)

[finnbryant]

Indeed madp, that is one the more awesome things that this stuff could lead to, but i think he may have been referring to the terrain being too extreme for normal games...
I do plan to give some control to mapmakers though, so it may be select random or one of the pre-made maps (some pre-made maps will be fixed and some will use a different seed each time, meaning they are similar but not identical (a bit like the aleph randomizer does to alleg maps).

not getting nearly as much done today, woke up at 6:00pm, and it sounds like everyone (in my house) is going out tonight...


EDIT: valiance, thanks! remember that im actually using a lot of code that was kindly given away by others, so I don't deserve too much credit

[Cadillac]

Still, you made the effort, I guess I better get back to story writing then

[finnbryant]

hmm... I really should read what youve done so far (i have before, but ages ago)

valiance, the newest version of panda (not even released, but since its open source i can still get it) supports collada, which is the format that google earth models are based on (i think...) so it should be possible, though i think its still a bit buggy so i think ill just stick with using cubes as models until its mors stable (should be done before we get anywhere near beta, so you should be fine using sketchup)

EDIT: yeah, .kmz (which is an export option in sketchup) is just a zipped up dae file, so panda will support sketchup.

[Andon]

I would say that using models that other people have made for testing/beta/whatever purposes is fine, but in the long run, in order to be something that people take seriously, we'd really need to have purposely-made models.

[finnbryant]

I'm not sure I completely agree with that, thanks to the internet, we actually have the infrastructure built up that a single person (with enough know how) or team of people without the know how can actually make a game, but nobody does because its "unprofessional"? I get the point, and agree that making our own models to replace ones that don't really seem to fit within the game is good, but I think we should be using as much stuff thats pre-made as possible without having to actually change our game to make it work with their stuff. This work is going to be open source and the greatest benefit of open source is that you can pick and mix from everything thats ever been open source and we should take advantage of that.


btw: should this be gpl? since im allowing others to access and change the code, i guess this needs to be worked out as soon as possible. If we don't use anything that is from alleg we dont need to use their license right?