Call for Mappers [Intensity Engine]

by kripken on 06/28/2009 12:41, 104 messages, last message: 09/29/2009 09:14, 49780 views, last view: 12/09/2021 06:27

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for good mappers to work with on maps for the Intensity Engine, an open source project of mine that is based on Sauerbraten. After a year of development, the Intensity Engine code is fairly stable, and almost ready for a 1.0 release, so what I'm focused on now is adding an example game (or games).

Why should you do this? Because cool stuff can be made :) Here are example videos showing some things that are possible in the Intensity Engine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7iq3ZxD5hw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gGe_pIV7cU

The Intensity Engine extends Sauerbraten with a very flexible API. In the first example some scripts use that API to make two automatic gun turrets, which face towards the closest player and shoot at him/her (it would be easy to make it so the turrets can be temporarily disabled when a player clicks a button, etc.). In the second an 'eye' is created by a script that generates some particle effects; the eye is only shown when someone is on top of the tower. A lot of other stuff is possible with the API, like for example doors that are controlled by scripts, special weapons that are only usable in certain areas in the map, etc. etc.

So, as I said above, the engine is almost finished, and now I want to create a game (or games) for the upcoming 1.0 release. The best sort of person to work with me on this would be someone that is both a good mapper and has a good idea for a game, because just one or the other might not get us far: My own mapping skills are poor, and my game ideas aren't much better - currently the top one I have is "insta ctf + automatic gun towers near the flags" ;) In other words, I can do all the coding, but an idea + mapping are really needed.

Here are some relevant things about this project:

- Changes to maps in the Intensity Engine can go live immediately: No need to download and install map files, or to compile anything, or to wait for a new release. When you upload changes to your map (which takes 1 click, well, 2 to click "I'm sure"), immediately after that all games using that map will use that latest version, streamed from the asset servers. This means that whatever maps we create, will immediately be playable by people that have the Intensity Engine client.
- I really want all content to be CC-BY-SA - in other words, no NC or other limitations - so that all content is reusable, both in the Intensity Engine and also in Sauerbraten and other Cube 2 based games. However, if you are absolutely not willing to use this license for your map, talk to me, maybe we can figure something out.
- Due to only using non-limiting content, we have fewer textures, mapmodels, etc., than Sauerbraten. I think we have enough to start with, and more is being added, but do not expect the same stuff as in Sauerbraten.
- In particular, there are currently no hudmodels, and I am thinking about making the first games in thirdperson (simpler for various reasons) - I implemented better thirdperson camera control to make that possible. But, if you want a firstperson game, it's possible, so long as we can find CC-BY-SA licensed hudmodels for it.
- As already mentioned the Intensity Engine is open source. Syntensity, which is the active server infrastructure (running master server + game servers + asset servers) is free to use and open source (everything but part of the master server, but that too will be open sourced soon). As running Syntensity costs me money, I'm looking for ways to make it self sustaining (while remaining free and open source), like getting funding somehow, or showing ads. Very possibly this won't work out anyhow, but I'm mentioning it here so I don't surprise anyone later on in the unlikely event that it does.
- Importing maps from Sauerbraten is possible, if you have a map of yours from there that you want to use as a starting point. The import requires some manual fiddling, but I can do that for you.
- While the Intensity Engine code is fairly stable, it is still changing fast enough that it doesn't make sense to release binary builds. Compiling the engine from source isn't that hard, and I will of course help, but if you aren't comfortable with that then you should probably wait for the 1.0 release.
- The engine currently compiles and runs on Windows and Linux. I haven't been able to test on OS X as I lack a suitable machine. But all the code is cross-platform, so there should be no problem (help is welcome).
- Bugs exist, hopefully not too many at this point, but still.

Some technical features of the Intensity Engine, for those that care:

- Over 30,000 new lines of code, in C++, Python and JavaScript.
- Scripting is done in JavaScript, using Google V8 (the same fast engine used in the Chrome web browser), using a custom object oriented API.
- Scripts (and parts of scripts) can run on both client and server, whichever is best for the map (for example, the automatic gun turrets in the video above are managed on the server, and their projectiles also on the clients).
- Syntensity provides a central user account system, which should be very helpful to prevent cheating (however, you can run your own server infrastructure, if you want - the code is available, and see README-standalone.txt for details on how to do it).

Links:

http://www.intensityengine.com
http://www.syntensity.com
http://syntensity.blogspot.com/

Feel free to ask me any questions, either here, or on IRC (I'm in the sauerbraten channel, and also #intensityengine on FreeNode).

- Kripken

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#78: Re: can i help?

by WakeField on 09/23/2009 03:05, refers to #77

blarget, i don't really even think you're as good as kripken.... and besides he has an artist, this topic just got bumped

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#79: Re: can i help?

by Blarget2 on 09/23/2009 03:57

whats the harm in helping/trying?

and please dont assume how good i am please.

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#80: Re: Crouching

by |ice|sub-zero|L on 09/23/2009 04:04, refers to #75

Really? 'Cause you see, I'd never know about this kind of thing, after all I am only playing in-game on most insta servers... Tentus, last time I checked, I have never actually noticed anyone using the chat to say "I hate these gay snipers". My point being is I saw more of that when I started Sauerbraten about a year and a half ago... Maybe its just me. And as for the sniper rifle being an inferior, thats mainly when your running and jumpping, my point in you slightly moving is when your standing still so you still have some trouble shooting... All in all without a slight bit of movement from side to side with the rifle. It kinda takes the point out of a crouch, crouching is better for aim in the case and thus if someone added crouching, people might as well use it... Honestly, how many people do you think will actually use in unless it helps their aim a bit?

All I said was not meant as to pull your theroy down, I just happen to notice the small problems with many things as to make them better. Your theroy is that people hate snipers with a passion now more than ever, but I see so many people rooting for something that makes more snipers...

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#81: Re: Crouching

by SheeEttin on 09/23/2009 06:00, refers to #80

Crouching: not gonna happen, unless you, or someone else, implements it.
Even then, it's never going to be in mainstream Cube 2 without overhauling practically every map (which is probably not going to happen).

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#82: Re: Crouching

by tentus_ on 09/23/2009 08:28, refers to #80

My "theroy" is that the Cube community is descended from the old Quake Community. (Do I need to list evidence for that? It'd be tedious and verbose.) Quakers are used to fast, circular flow type gameplay, and actively seek and praise these qualities in a FPS. If they want to slow it down, they can play Halo. If they want crouching, they can play CS. If they want more weapons, they can play UT. If they want classes, they can play TF2.

My point is, look at the people who actually make up the community. Notice a trend in the developers? Notice a common origin or inspiration for the art resources? We shouldn't be discussing where you want the Intensity Engine to go, we should be talking about what already exists and how to provide *working* content for it.

I've been in the community for longer than Sauer has existed. I have a very good idea what the strengths of the engine are. With every fork like the Intensity Engine, it only works if the developers look at what they have, or what few specific things they want, and run hard with them. (This is kind of a true statement about game development as a whole, if you broaden my terminology). When every casual player starts injecting their opinion into the project, it flounders and fails, because the focus is diluted and the gameplay weakens.

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#83: ..

by kripken on 09/23/2009 13:56

@tentus:

I think you make some good points. But I'll try to explain now why I disagree with some of them. Specifically, I don't think that a narrow focus is needed, at least not for the Intensity Engine; the opposite in fact - the goal of the Intensity Engine is to be a 'universal', 'neutral' platform. I'll explain what I mean.

It's true that it's not easy to add something like crouching to sauer - it requires working with a lot of complex C++ code, making sure the changes don't break other gameplay aspects, and so forth. And only a very small number of devs actually do that work. So yes, for sauer you are right - one needs to pick something, focus on it, and do it well.

The Intensity Engine, however, lets you script pretty much all of the gameplay. So you can add a feature like crouching in a very modular manner - only some games would use it. In fact, adding crouching to a game would be a change to the map script, not to the engine (or rather, a separate plugin that only some map scripts import).

So it would be fine if some people make a game with crouching, and some have a game with hitboxes, and so forth - entirely different people can write those scripts, without interfering with each other. Writing such scripts is much, much easier than modding a C++ engine, and more people can do it 'at once'. That, in a nutshell, is what the Intensity Engine is all about: One game client that can run all sorts of games, and that makes creating those games as easy as possible.

I think the fact that some people ask for crouching, some ask for reloading, and so forth, shows that the cube community and related ones have a lot of variety in them. My hope is that everyone can get what they want with the Intensity Engine: No reason why people can't have slower gameplay in an Intensity Engine map dedicated to that, instead of needing to play Halo, or have crouching in yet another map instead of needing to play CS ;)

To further explain myself, please take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IorAuXYTRfY&feature=player_embedded

It shows an Intensity Engine map that lets you draw on the scenery (kind of fun in multiplayer, actually). It consists of only 165 lines of script (no engine changes), and took me just a few hours to write. Now, obviously this is easier than adding crouching, but actually adding weapon reloading would be no harder than this, assuming we have an animation for that - and I actually think it would be fun even without a 'perfect' animation for it, because gameplay is what really counts.

---

@Blarget2: Thanks for the offer of help. The more people help out, the better stuff we will have :)

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#84: Re: ..

by tentus_ on 09/23/2009 17:45, refers to #83

Ok, I can accept that counterargument. It raises a different question though: how are you going to keep confusion down in regards to controls? For example, crouching in one module could be bound to the shift key. However, someone else could write a Metroid Prime module that uses shift as a target key. Are you going to just let players figure it out each time? Will you pop up an explanation on each mapload, like mappers have done in the past with Sauer? I like the idea of maximum flexibility in an engine, but it does have drawbacks.

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#85: Re: ..

by kripken on 09/23/2009 19:00, refers to #84

@tentus:

Yeah, getting the controls system right is hard, and probably we'll end up changing how it's handled a few times.

Currently the approach is 'virtual action keys'. So there is action key 0, 1, 2, and so forth. You can bind them using cubescript to whatever physical keys you want. Scripts on the other hand only deal with action key 0, 1, 2, etc.

So action key 1 could be 'reload' in one game and 'crouch' in another. And keybindings are done entirely in cubescript (which is good since maps can't mess with your keybindings). But there are several problems with this approach, of course.

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#86: Re: ..

by tentus_ on 09/23/2009 19:13, refers to #85

Maps can't mess with your keybindings? I successfully did so in my Portal map ( http://www.quadropolis.us/node/1066 ). Did you disable that explicitly?

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#87: ..

by BuRnItDoWn on 09/24/2009 05:04

Wow, plenty of discussion on the crouching/reloading/etc front... Also, I do play Halo, I play this, and I play Final Fantasy XXII all at the same time. That doesn't mean that me, the casual gamer, can't want features from other games, just because I can play those other games when I want those features.

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#88: Re: ..

by kripken on 09/24/2009 12:42, refers to #86

@tentus:

Maps in sauer indeed can mess with your keybindings, and in fact can do much worse.

On the other hand, in the Intensity Engine map scripts are written in JavaScript, not cubescript, and are carefully sandboxed. They can access a subset of the sauer mapping commands - the useful and safe stuff like defining textures, sounds, models - in addition to the new Intensity Engine scripting API commands.

So map scripts should *not* be able to do things like mess with keybindings, at least assuming we did our embedding code right ;)

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#89: ..

by WakeField on 09/25/2009 21:43

i was soo dissapointed to find that this will not be on macs anytime soon :(. i would feel better if the release was delayed but... that wouldn't be fun for anyone

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#90: Release Candidate

by kripken on 09/26/2009 17:33

I'm happy to announce that there is a release candidate :)

The purpose of the release candidate is to check that the download binaries work (that is, to check if I didn't forget some DLL or other file), and also to check for any major bugs that I missed.

To try the release candidate, do the following:

1. Download it,

Windows: http://download.syntensity.com/windows_1.0.zip

Ubuntu 9.04: http://download.syntensity.com/ubuntu9.04_1.0.tar.gz

For Ubuntu 9.04 you also need to get some deps, with a simple

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian libsdl-image1.2 libsdl-mixer1.2 python libboost-python1.35.0 zlib1g

Note that the Ubuntu 9.04 version probably will *NOT* work on other Ubuntu versions (except *K*ubuntu 9.04, etc.) or other Linuxes - you would need to compile from source so it links correctly against your distro's libraries. Compiling from source is actually very easy on Linux, see instructions on http://www.syntensity.com/toplevel/intensityengine/ and of course feel free to ask for help (here or on the sauer IRC, or the syntensity IRCs, #intensityengine and #syntensity, both on FreeNode)

2. Unpack the download and run intensity_client.bat (Windows) or intensity_client.sh (Linux).

3. You also need to sign up for a user account, for the release candidate you should do that here:

http://www.syntensity.com:8888/accounts/releasecandidate/register/

4. Aside from that, instructions for how to do stuff (log in, join a game, etc.) are on the wiki, in particular you should read

http://wiki.syntensity.com/introduction

as some stuff is done differently than in sauer.

---

Note that I am announcing the release candidate here, and not on the main website or elsewhere, because I don't want too many people to try it (since there might be a problem with the binaries) - I'm just looking for a small amount of feedback on the release candidate for now. Then if all is well with the release candidate, the release itself can be in a few days (with an announcement on the main website, new video and screenshots, etc. etc.). Or if there is a problem, the launch will be delayed until we can fix it.

Thanks in advance for testing the release candidate!

- kripken

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#91: ..

by BuRnItDoWn on 09/26/2009 18:24

Sweet! I can't wait to try it!

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#92: Mac

by fispaul on 09/26/2009 18:42

Will there ever be a Mac version?

Just curious

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#93: Re: Mac

by kripken on 09/26/2009 19:12, refers to #92

@fispaul:

It should be fairly little work to get it to run on Macs (all the code is cross-platform and already works on both Linux and Windows). I'm looking for someone that knows about OS X development to help do this, it's one of my top priorities.

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#94: Re: Mac

by fispaul on 09/26/2009 22:13, refers to #93

Ok, thanks.

I own only a mac but I am not a developer, so unfortunately I can't help.

But when I get my new ocmp running windows 7 in december i shall check it out :)

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#95: cant login

by mitte on 09/27/2009 00:54

i cant login... i can register and its say "You successfully registered" but when i try to login its say "Please enter a correct username and password. Note that both fields are case-sensitive". in the game its the same deal.... whats wrong?

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#96: Re: cant login

by kripken on 09/27/2009 06:42, refers to #95

@mitte:

That's strange. Can you try to register a new account and see if the same problem happens?

Or private message me (IRC, or to kripken AT syntensity.com) the user/password and I'll try it myself.

- kripken

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#97: Re: cant login

by mitte on 09/27/2009 13:25, refers to #96

now it works:> strange...

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