Few posts recently but, summer is a commin'... (read me!)

MakerOfGames · Post by **MakerOfGames** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 2:48 am

BEFORE YOU CLICK THAT BACK BUTTON, please read on and post your thoughts.
Thank you.

I originally planned to post this in the RF2 Discussion thread but after reviewing it I realized how off topic it was. So I created this seperate thread to address the concern of the lack of posting in the forums and about the upcoming summer.

Many users have noticed and even stated:
User: I noticed that not many people are using the forums recently.

I attribute it to the time of year. Schools (any type from grade school to colleges) are going through end of the year events (such as finals and graduations) along with other spring activities that are local for towns and the fact that spring enables us to go and do more things, it's no wonder this forum isn't as lively as usual. We were all couped up inside for the winter and found this forum as a nice place to "hibernate". Anyway, I know I have been extreamly busy with school. Summer vaction is finally here for me! I hope everyone else gets some time off.

As for the forums, I bet they will pick back up. I haven't posted much, aside from the fact of being busy, because I haven't found many topics of my concern. I used to post alot in the scripting forums and in the general discussions, but alas, it seems that everyone is reading tutorials and not asking those questions I liked to answer or give input on. Like how do I make AI go for cover? Or how would I set up a death match game with random spawn points? Ah, those were the days.

Summer is almost here!
I am looking forward to getting some game development completed over my summer break. Either way I will be able to stop by here more often. Maybe I can finally get that duel guns things completed. Heh heh, anyone remember me taking on that project? Yeah, well that was last September, my how time flies. I hope that I haven't let down anyone by not completing it yet. I'm very sorry if I have, my only excuse is life. I'll have to see what I can do before school starts up again in the fall. Potentially with RF's quick game development time, someone could whip it up easily in a few days or less. However, life gets in the way of things. Also, I plan(ned) to put it in my current game project and was hoping that I would be finished by now and thus have it ready for the community. But development has been at a crawl for the past 9 months. Even though I would love to have a week devoted solely to my game's development, I know that will not happen. On second thought, thats a good thing because my brain would get fried from all that constant work! I guess I'll impliment it in whatever form I can. As an fyi it will be either multiple scripted actors(pawns) for arms or make use of rag doll. I would prefere to impliment it once with rag doll, but wait a minute, I can do it with current physics and have an easy conversion! I hope to be posting more on this in the future.

Maybe something like the duel weapons will get us forum users talking again. Please post whatever thoughts you have on the current slow of posts, or about the summer, or on whatever is currently on your mind. I hope this will be the post that can start the chatter on the forums again.

steven8 · Post by **steven8** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 4:59 am

It may just be me, but I feel that the community is collectively holding it's breath in anticipation of Andy's RF2. I still am quite fond of RF1 and what it allowed me to accomplish, but an RF2 based on irrlicht is a very exciting prospect. I believe that is why it has been slow. More lurking, waiting for Andy's updates.

Juutis · Post by **Juutis** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 9:08 am

I have a game project of my own but I haven't worked on it in the last two months for some reason... maybe the school has been sucking all my energy and I've simply haven't had any enthusiasm to go on with the project.

And so, no project -> no problems -> no questions -> no posts.

However, I've read almost every single post posted here and usually I check for new posts daily.

Post by **paradoxnj** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:38 am

steven8 the 2nd wrote:but an RF2 based on irrlicht is a very exciting prospect

The lack of a viable level editor makes me a little queasy about Irrlicht (no offense AndyCR, keep up the good work). RF is about the beginner and ease of development. To make an editor is an extremely long task. Take it from me, I have been working on JDesigner (Jet3D's Level Editor) for 2 years now and it still isn't complete and it was mature already when I picked it up. RF1 is still more appealing to me due to the toolset and the prospect of D3D9 with hardware T&L. Just MHO.

Post by **AndyCR** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:42 pm

steven8 the 2nd wrote:It may just be me, but I feel that the community is collectively holding it's breath in anticipation of Andy's RF2. I still am quite fond of RF1 and what it allowed me to accomplish, but an RF2 based on irrlicht is a very exciting prospect. I believe that is why it has been slow. More lurking, waiting for Andy's updates.

That's what I figure. But don't hold your breath, you'll suffocate. Don't delay projects to make them on RF2 instead of RF1; it'll only kill RF1 and start splitting the community because of 'nobody is doing anything with this engine so lets move on' syndrome. Remember, I was forced into announcing RF2 way before I intended to. If I had had a choice, you would not have known about RF2 to this day.

I agree. This is a huge project, and I'm silly for even trying it. Each program that comprises RF is an insane project to try. It is slow, hard work. Most of my work is done in Konqueror these days (IE alternative on Linux), researching *ahem* stuff *ahem* that is going into RF2 to make it the most flexible RF ever. I'm almost done the research part and back into the coding part, and I can't tell you how pleased I am of that. This 'stuff' will affect all aspects of RF2. It will change it forever, yet keep it forever the same if desired.

I expect major progress during summer; almost full-time work on RF2.

Voltare · Post by **Voltare** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:54 pm

[/b]paradoxnj said :

RF1 is still more appealing to me due to the toolset and the prospect of D3D9 with hardware T&L. Just MHO.

i've worked with many things in my 12 years of internet wanderings.....from those little rm2k-things to beyond virtual, and demo's of a whole bunch of things.But I keep wandering back to Reality Factory because no matter what i find out there, even my current infatuation with 3drpg builder 2004 and it's newer brother , 2005, nothing beats RFEDITPRO's ease of use. And if they get it to work with irrlicht.........*wipes drool from face*

jonas · Post by **jonas** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:54 pm

Yeah we need to almost pretend that rf2 isn't being developed. Not completly ignore it, but just not focus only on rf2. If everyone is waiting on rf2 and say for some reason he drops it, you have wasted a lot of time you could have made a game with rf1. I know that a few encouraging words, for rf2 will help Andycr out a little bit(I know encouraging words help me), but lets not just sit around and wait on rf2. I my self are going to write a few docs and learn rf1, as well as I can.

MakerOfGames · Post by **MakerOfGames** » Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:17 pm

jonas wrote:Yeah we need to almost pretend that rf2 isn't being developed. Not completly ignore it, but just not focus only on rf2. If everyone is waiting on rf2 and say for some reason he drops it, you have wasted a lot of time you could have made a game with rf1. I know that a few encouraging words, for rf2 will help Andycr out a little bit(I know encouraging words help me), but lets not just sit around and wait on rf2. I my self are going to write a few docs and learn rf1, as well as I can.

Very good point jonas. I too was waiting for RF2. I didnt want to waste development in RF1 to have to remake everything later. But one very important thing to remember is what Andy is currently working on, BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY. Now I wont worry about my development because no matter what happens, I will have a game. I think everyone else should do the same. From what I understand, you will be able to take an RF1 game slip the files into the RF2 game making folder and have a RF2 game. Then just tweak your files to have the updated features, whatever they will be. Now lets let Andy work in peace.

AndyCR, I ask one thing of you. You have stated that you have let RF2 information way before its time. I don't know about anyone else, but I am fine with you keeping quite on RF. If you decide to do so, I ask you only keep all of us informed by updating the RF2 Development Progress Table on your website once or twice a week. That is all the information I need to know about RF2's progress.

Also, if anyone can help AndyCR in any way please do so.

Lets stop putting so much pressure on Andy, we need to let him develop RF2 without having to tell us so much.

Post by **paradoxnj** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 12:28 am

And if they get it to work with irrlicht.........*wipes drool from face*

That's the problem. He won't be able to. RFEdit uses the Microsoft Foundation Classes for it's windowing, menus and such. MFC is NOT cross platform.

Irrlicht needs to create it's own windows due to it being cross platform. This is a big problem because MFC cannot handle this. He would have to write the editor from scratch using Irrlicht's windowing system. This is a humongous task for a group of people let alone just 1.

On a good note, backwards compatibility can be achieve although translating the Genesis VFS system could be tough.

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 12:49 am

Exactly. If people stop working with RF1 because of RF2, and I cannot complete it and nobody else will, you've all lost a year of work and so have I, and that does nobody good. I cannot promise 100% reverse compatibility, but I will try.

That is definitly a problem. Almost everything is being rewritten from scratch. I cannot, cannot, -cannot- do it alone. I need more programmers. I need as many as I can possibly get.

RFEditPro and the like are wierd bits. They need to use the respective platforms windowing system and embed their irrlicht rendering window inside a corresponding widget that is different on all platforms, and yet work the same on all platforms. I know I have support on Windows and Linux, I just need support on Mac. Either someone else does it or RFEditPro won't be for Mac at first; sorry, but I do not have a Mac to test it on, and I can't program something blindly.

jonas · Post by **jonas** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 12:55 am

I have a mac and a compiler. I've never used it but I have a compiler.

Post by **AndyCR** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 1:10 am

Ah, good. That will work.

shadow · Post by **shadow** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 3:01 am

It does seem fairly quiet these days.

I guess most of the people that frequent here already know RF fairly well and therefore, no questions.
The new people that join have lots of questions then realize how difficult it is to make a game... and most quietly disappear...

To develope your game there's the learning curve of getting to know the ins and outs of RF.

Then the real challenge becomes making a game as a one man team!

People get overwhelmed by the shear magnitude of the development process. Everything from building actors and animating them, creating a world, textures, scripting, story, gameplay...

Then 'Real life' gets in the way, day jobs, family etc... Not enough hours in the day.

So, hats off to anyone that achieves what they want when they started their game.
I don't mean to sound negative, I'm not really, just stating what most people already know.
Game development is a difficult process.

Perhaps a joint venture is the best way to go, as difficult as this is.

Hmmm, I have lots of partial levels, partial monsters, a great monster script...

Voltare · Post by **Voltare** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:49 am

me and my team's working on the actors bit.......hehe....something i can't announce or show just yet.....

but the biggest problem I have is actors.yes, i could use someone else's, but then they just don't have that" look" that i want, or the "feel" for the other parts of my game.

( and I think i know of a few mfc to wx converters-------just gimme this afternoon to dig them up------and I once found a site that wne through the process of explaining how to replace the code behind a mfc button with the code that works a wxwidgets button, i'll see if i can find that as well)

well...it's off to work....heh.....

jonas · Post by **jonas** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 5:17 pm

ah that would be awesome. Wxwidgets, is most certainly cross platform. Even if we have to recode the editors and other applications, Andycr's not going to have to do all the applications on his own. Won't you we need to make a new editor anyways, that isn't bound by some license somewere. I my self think it would be kind of fun to code a level editor. Yes fun. It would be a challenge I've never had before.