Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Diaspora => Topic started by: TESLA on December 08, 2009, 09:19:27 am
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Just wondering are people still alive around here?
Its been very quiet around the Diaspora forum for a while.
Hows everyone doing? Ready for Christmas? How is work progressing? No one bitten by rabid monkeys?
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It's been a little quiet but work is still progressing. Got some nice stuff going on in the internal which we'll be showing off eventually.
Most of the work going on at the moment has to do with tabling and balancing. Necessary, but it doesn't result in pretty pictures unfortunately.
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and waiting on a good SCP build with the gliding AI and that awesome stuff.
i suppose it will only be a couple weeks after sufficicent build is made that we will see a 1st release, or at VERY soon(tm) afterwards
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There's more to Diaspora than the build.
Every new official build brings us one step closer to release though.
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Free hookers and booze to the first dev that leaks me the game!
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Free hookers and booze to the first dev that leaks me the game!
LOL
well... you might get something else leaked at you :p
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Even FreeSpace fans can get some.
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Well, the silence is a little disconcerting. I can undertsand that the coding doesn't give us much to look at for updates, but surely some new models are still underway, or the texturing of the models for the R1 release? What about news on the whole launching/landing issue?
Happy Christmas, everyone. :)
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Hey, I like to read about coding...
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Well, the silence is a little disconcerting. I can undertsand that the coding doesn't give us much to look at for updates, but surely some new models are still underway, or the texturing of the models for the R1 release? What about news on the whole launching/landing issue?
Happy Christmas, everyone. :)
Actually, you assume some things wrong, so I'll try to set the record straight. See, once we release pretty pictures of a ship, that ship usually isn't done by a long shot. Sure it looks nice on the shots but there's usually a ton of work to be done on it to get it ready for the game. I'll give an example - the Prometheus was only recently exported to it's final version. Yea, the model and texture have been done for ages, but porting it with proper collisions, all LODs, debris, destroyable subsystems? That was all done in a final version of the ship very recently. Is it good progress? Damn straight. Is it something new we can show pictures of? Not really, even if it did get us closer to being ready for release. And that sort of thing has to be done for every ship, station and object before we release. Now, for R1, art-wise, we're missing a few things but most of the stuff simply just needs to be finalized in this manner, and that is something we're working on right now. Like I said, it doesn't produce pretty pictures but at some point, you need to hold off on making new stuff and make sure the old stuff is finalized and ready for the final game if you ever mean to release. So, have faith and patience, because we're really trying to get you the best game we can make.
Also, merry Christmas everyone!
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Yea, the model and texture have been done for ages, but porting it with proper collisions, all LODs, debris, destroyable subsystems? That was all done in a final version of the ship very recently. Is it good progress? Damn straight. Is it something new we can show pictures of? Not really, even if it did get us closer to being ready for release.
Not that I want you to waste too much time on screens when you could be finishing R1, but explosions are eye-candy too.
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Hey, I like to read about coding...
For those who would like to read about some Diaspora related coding updates, over the holiday break I reimplemented part of the OS X build process (http://svn.icculus.org/fs2open?view=rev&revision=5740).
This small change doesn't affect the conversion of human readable source code into computer executable binary code; but does improve an integral step necessary for us to produce a clean build for testing. And without testing, we won't get a polished product out the door for R1!
An Info.plist (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/ConfigFiles.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20002091) file contains text metadata used by the operating system to understand the application. It is bundled with the application as a final step of the build process. The FS2_Open SCP engine previously used two completely separate Info.plist templates, but this gave an opportunity for error, was unweildy, and wasn't going to scale easily in future.
We now use GCC's (the OS X compiler) preprocessing feature (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/DeveloperTools/Reference/XcodeBuildSettingRef/1-Build_Setting_Reference/build_setting_ref.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40003931-CH3-SW153) to dynamically produce the final Info.plist file as required by each Build Configuration.
All trunk builds following r5741 will also have been built using this new feature, another example of the Diaspora team giving back to assist all other FreeSpace 2 Open players and modders. :)
Merry Christmas!
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Neat. ;)
A little off-topic, but what are the major barriers preventing Mac OS FSO from being just the same in terms of quality as Windows FSO? It's mostly graphical, is it not?
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... A little off-topic, but what are the major barriers preventing Mac OS FSO from being just the same in terms of quality as Windows FSO? It's mostly graphical, is it not?
They are in most ways equivalent. You've correctly identified graphics (in particular GLSL shaders) as the most prominent difference.
The older shader code (I'll call it the taylor version) had performance issues with GLSL shaders on OS X - almost certainly due to some oddities in the Apple drivers. The newer shader code (I'll call it the Hery version) hasn't gone through the same extensive testing on Mac OS X, because I am currently using an older Mac laptop while my new one arrives. In the next week I'll be doing some more thorough tests, and see if the issues still remain.
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Thanks for the update. As I said, most of what was being done behind the scenes and doesn't make for big updates. What was worrying was the lack of discussion on progress except for the translation thread. :)
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I've been fiddling with a First Cylon War proto Viper design based off the J7W1 Shinden.
(http://server3.uploadit.org/files/clippa-ShindenJ7W116.jpg)
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Ah, nice...
Why not just use an actual TOS Viper, though? :drevil:
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frak the TOS viper, use the ACTUAL mark 1 design they made for the new series.
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LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE)
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frak the TOS viper, use the ACTUAL mark 1 design they made for the new series.
What's the difference between the two? From what I saw the two are quite similar. I'm sure there are some differences as there have been so far with every re-imagined TOS ship, but the mk1 viper looked pretty similar to the TOS original to me.. from what I can remember anyway. Not an expert on this ship, really, so feel free to enlighten me if you got some nice refs :)
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I concur. I thought it was exactly the same. In fact, I usually refer to the TOS Viper as the Viper Mk. I.
The only other Viper Mk. I I'm aware of is from that XBox game which looked absolutely abhorent. And so did that Viper...
...And why not? The TOS Viper looks freakin' cool...
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I've been fiddling with a First Cylon War proto Viper design based off the J7W1 Shinden.
I think it is safe to say that you are the MAN! A Viper based off the Shinden? Fantastic! Better than a Viper based off a P-39 or a Raptor based on a Mosquito!
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Well the Shinden is 75% of the way to being a Viper as is so... :D
But while I might draw up blueprints that doesn't mean its going to make the final cut. Even if she does she won't see action till we roll round to the 1st Cylon War anyway. I figure it can either be a forerunner to the MK I or a nice bird for the Corps.