Sauerbraten Open Source Project?

by Aardappel on 01/21/2004 04:40, 94 messages, last message: 03/18/2004 20:41, 43901 views, last view: 05/18/2024 23:49

This discussion is for determining whether there is interest, skill, and determination available in the Cube community to make Sauerbraten an Open Source project... as in, one with many contributors.

You probably all have seen Sauerbraten on my main page, if not: http://wouter.fov120.com/sauerbraten/index.html

It really is a wonderful concept if I may dare say so myself. It also requires quite a bit more work than cube did and involves significantly more complex algorithms. I have been torn what to do with it for quite a while. Between Cube (which I want to continue) and my new gamedesign projects and my job, I am not sure whether there will be enough time for me completing it entirely on my own.

Normally I simply write software, and then open source it once I am finished, with sauerbraten I will consider a new direction, and make it a open source project all along. If this is succesful I may even consider making cube an open project, though I don't know how yet.

I would like to hear everybodies input, especially that of serious potential contributors. And here lies a problem, as you are all aware of the many projects that have people apply to do great amounts of work for and then absolutely nothing happens. I don't want to have to deal with that. Not everyone will be able to commit to the project, only very serious, committed and qualified people. If no such people are available, Sauerbraten will remain closed.

Also I still am an arrogant bastard, and will expect those working on the project to follow my guidelines for the design of sauerbraten closely. It will thus be more of an open cathedral rather than a bazaar :) But hopefully those who see the quality of Cube & Sauerbraten see that as a good thing.

let the ideas flow...

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#1: ..

by Fanatic on 01/21/2004 05:43

I'm all for the advancement of either engine. I've really enjoyed editing with Cube over the past few weeks.

I can't contribute to the coding, but for level design, support/testing/ideas, sounds, and music, I would be glad to contribute for either. You probably know of my work, but jump over to http://fanaticalproductions.net to see my "resume".

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#2: try it

by hungerburg on 01/21/2004 13:24

I've read comments, where people imply they ran it, but there is no download option on the page. what am I missing?

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#3: Cube simplicity

by Drakker_ on 01/21/2004 17:10

I like Cube's simplicity. The limits it imposes on mapper makes us think a lot more when working with it, it helps shape the creative process. When an engine is too powerful, I feel limited by the fact that there's too much you can do, it's too complicated, and takes far too long to produce something great.

Personnaly, I'd rather have you keep on improving Cube. :)

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#4: Re: Cube simplicity

by spentron-postcrash2 on 01/21/2004 17:59, refers to #3

You're possibly confusing freedom with the common insistence that every feature of an engine be used in every map (which nonetheless exists).

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#5: ..

by Pxtl on 01/21/2004 18:19

Take a closer look - its still extremely simple. Instead of landscape based, its building-block based. Still no nasty BSP's, and actually I find easier to understand (its like LEGO - just building out blocks).

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#6: Re: ..

by Piglet on 01/21/2004 19:56, refers to #5

I cant claim any credentials, or even garantee commitment to the engine.

However I still wish to indicate my interest in helping to develop Sauerbraten as both a long time member of the cube community and a Computer Science student.

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#7: ..

by Aardappel on 01/21/2004 20:06

fanatic: that's great... we'll need good maps especially, and music later.

hungerburg: it's just a private project of mine sofar. How to change that is exactly what we're discussing here

drakker: there is no question cube will continue. One of the reason for me considering enlisting help on sauerbraten is exactly so I can keep working on cube personally as well. And sauerbraten is not complex. It's simpler than cube for the mapper, just not for the programmer.

pxtl: indeed

piglet: thanks. we can certainly use your mapping skills. But to get this off the ground the initial work is mostly about programmers.

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#8: Re: ..

by Piglet on 01/21/2004 20:17, refers to #7

Though I havent shown it much so far in this community is that I program quite a lot too, perhaps I should have made it clear in my post. I'd certinally like to help with both aspects (mapping and coding), although as a guess some of the more techical stuff (like 3d storage and manipulation) may well be a little beyond me. That said I am quite a fast learner.

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#9: simplicity through prejudices

by Abdul on 01/21/2004 20:44

\"cathedral rather than a bazaar\"
once again its christianity against islam , and racism!, not only arrogance won the fight.

which direction should it take?

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#10: Gah...

by Pxtl on 01/21/2004 21:04

I wish I had time and I would join this project... I've been itching to implement a Cosmic Unreal style modifier system into a game engine, and this would be an ideal platform for it (the lack of bots means that the clunky AI for such systems isn't a problem). CU was a mod that gave mappers/admins some tools allowing them to design complex playerclasses as suites of modifiers on the standard player pawn. With some work, it could be useful for letting admins and mappers design their own huntmatch, runematch, and classmatch (TFC) gametypes entirely through an easy GUI (as it stood, it could do some really cool stuff with classes in CTF and DM).

Or a Python interpreter (already embedded one into a 3d engine before - good, fun, solid system for scripting, but lets the modders be _too_ powerful on a platform where we intended to allow clients to download plugin code at runtime). Under those circumstances, Unreal-style Mutators could be used (unfortunately, if they're insecure, then you can hack the client machine by running a server with malicious mutators running).

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#11: Re: simplicity through prejudices

by Aardappel on 01/21/2004 23:18, refers to #9

I hope you are joking. just incase you are not, the terms cathedral and bazaar refer to this document: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ and have nothing to do with religion.

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#12: I'll be helping with great pleasure

by D.plomat on 01/21/2004 23:20

I still don't fully understand 100% of the maps representation and processing in Cube so for now i won't be able to make advanced coding in the landscape engine itself, but you can already have me doing some simple things, and some betatesting with source code tests ;)

And indeed i'll follow your decisions and guidelines, you leaded Cube to be an excellent game, so i want Sauerbraten to be an as much successful project :)

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#13: Re: ..

by Aardappel on 01/21/2004 23:22, refers to #6

ok sorry piglet, didn't want to assume that.

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#14: religion through prejudices

by goetzenzar on 01/22/2004 01:58

how do i convert mapfiles to islam?

1. be sure to make the playerstarts point to mekka!
2. hi aard, wanna trade a camel/girl? :D

damn why cant i hide my identities,
they r like a penis -come out and penetrate others)

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#15: Re: religion through prejudices

by D.plomat on 01/22/2004 02:20, refers to #14

Maybe we'll have to make a c(atholic)gz2i(slam)gz tool ;)

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#16: Cube speed

by Drakker_ on 01/22/2004 02:44

Well, Cube is instant gratification. That's what I mean by quick and simple. ;)

You dont have to spend weeks on a map, you dont have to deal with having to place that polygon 1 micro-unit closer to the other or trying to find the leak (though this should not be a problem with this new engine). You dont have to deal with texture alignment, rotation, stretching, etc either.

Power basicaly comes at the price of time. I like mapping for exemple with Serious Sam, but it takes so long to complete a map that I can hardly afford to find the time to complete any.


If Sauerbraten is as quick and simple for editing as Cube, then I'm in for mapping.

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#17: Open Cathedral

by tomb on 01/28/2004 23:45

I just downloaded Cube for the first time today and I\'m pretty blown away by what you have accomplished by taking a simple concept (quad-tree height field) and really running with it. This is brilliant stuff, and Sauerbraten sounds even more elegant, powerfull - and easy to use.

I can\'t claim longstanding membership in the Cube community. I\'ve been trying to understand how game engines work and Cube is one of the few whose code I have a hope of understanding without referring to a ton of documentation.

I guess what I\'m saying is at this point I\'m a watcher rather than a doer when it comes to coding. I\'d like to read your Sauerbraten code and encourage you to make it open regardless of whether you get more volunteers in the short run - though I hope that you do.

In the meantime, thanks for what you\'ve already done.

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#18: ..

by pushplay on 01/29/2004 05:41

This semester isn't going to be so involved after all. I dropped one class because I didn't need a 5th and one of the remaining classes is an absolute joke. That's a good thing because I'm sick of school anyways.

So I'll throw my hat into the ring... Assuming Aard will take me. ;)

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#19: Re: ..

by Aardappel on 01/30/2004 21:37, refers to #18

sure, I'll be happy to have you on board.

But it doesn't look like sauerbraten will go open source any time soon, what is lacking is a programmer that can take over some of the more complicated stuff related to physics, light, occlusion and such.

Lacking such a person, I will do this myself but who knows when I will have time for this. And open sourcing it in such a half-done state as it is now without anyone working on it wouldn't be a good idea I think. The people who would like to work more on the gameplay/editing side of things would have to wait for this to be done anyway.

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#20: Re: ..

by pushplay on 01/31/2004 06:14, refers to #19

Yeah, I think you have my strengths sussed out pretty thoroughly there.

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