Release time

Development directions, tasks, and features being actively implemented or pursued by the development team.
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charlieg
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Release time

Post by charlieg »

Proposal: prepare a release

1. Decide on a feature freeze date and branch for 0.5.1
2. Decide on a list of pending items that should be checked in for the freeze
3. Do #2 for #1, drop features that do not get done in time
4. Prepare 0.5.1-rc1
5. Announce it, upload it to SF.net, warn that the release is not final; testers needed
5a. Users hitting significant bugs? Fix 'em, release -rcX, back to #4
5b. No signifant bugs? Release 0.5.1 final.
6. Profit!

Release early, release often. :wink:

You can always release 0.5.2 quickly after 0.5.1 if new features arrive. There does not have to be the traditional 2 years wait between releases, so don't panic if things are not ready yet. SVN is a big improvement, by most accounts, over 0.5.0 and klauss seems to be sorting out the shader issues that have plagued a few users with older tech.
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Re: Release time

Post by ace123 »

Agreed about the release early/release often.

I've had a few people talk to me about getting a release ready. I may not be actively participating, but I am definitely interested in helping pass on the torch for releases.

If you need some help with something, or want to know how to build code and/or want me to build release binaries, send me an email or gtalk at patrick.horn gmail.com

Are there any active threads about the upcoming release or bugs which need to be fixed?
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

There is a release thread I started but its fallen down in the posts a bit. Im still trying to get stuff together for it. I was hoping someone would have a nice 3d cockpit we could use for the llama at least but I dont see that happening.

Deus sent me some nice new asteroids I would like to get in the game but still scratching my head on exactly how to get them in or were.

Last piece of the puzzle is getting win7 64bit to run I guess before we release.. I would also like to see a working mac binary but I see that as being almost impossible at the moment. If we had donors it would be nice to get a 2-3 year old mac so we could get the ball rolling in that department too. Oh well, some things cant be helped.
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Re: Release time

Post by charlieg »

Don't wait.

Win64 is covered by Win32. Worst case scenario is it runs fine, just not as a 64bit app.

You can always make a follow up release 0.5.1.1 or 0.5.2 with additional features and platform support.
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Re: Release time

Post by klauss »

I think we should release whatever platforms work, and work hard to get the platforms that don't fixed.

We're having issues with the new shaders and some drivers, we're ironing all the wrinkles there with help from travists and log0, but perhaps, if we have a decent-enough solution, we should release a beta or alpha.

If it's only bugs, we can work them out in our way towards 0.5.1 final.

How goes the process of building a linux binary release? I never built "generic linux" stuff. Tar balls are a bit easier, but still I don't know the tiny details - like whether "make install" works - and whether it should work.
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pheonixstorm
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

charlieg wrote:Don't wait.

Win64 is covered by Win32. Worst case scenario is it runs fine, just not as a 64bit app.

You can always make a follow up release 0.5.1.1 or 0.5.2 with additional features and platform support.
The problem is vs 32bit doesnt run on win7 64bit, at least I have not heard of anyone able to successfully running 32bit vegastrike under 64bit windows 7
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Re: Release time

Post by Boaal »

Would it make sense to just random generate the asteroids within set perameters (accounting for not spawning them in the middle of a planet and such)?
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Re: Release time

Post by log0 »

The problem is vs 32bit doesnt run on win7 64bit, at least I have not heard of anyone able to successfully running 32bit vegastrike under 64bit windows 7
I am running vegastrike trunk compiled as Win32 on Intel and ATI hardware(with the latest fixes) on Win7x64. The remaining issue is to get the sound to work. Is there sound on WindowsXP 32bit?
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

sound works on a 32bit OS so 64bit (at least win7 64bit) does not seem to run at all. I have loaded the game at the main menu in win7 32bit with no problems and the sound plays. For whatever reason running the 32bit vs binary under win 7 64bit is a no go. I dont know if this issue is just with windows 7 or if xp and vista 64bit editions will encounter the same issues or not.
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Re: Release time

Post by log0 »

OK, guys I've fixed the sound issue installing OpenAL from: http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ ... Items.aspx. This means I can play vegastrike on Win7x64 with max shaders and sound.

My best guess is that the lib/dll in vegastrike trunk is outdated/broken. It might be a good idea to update all windows libs to recent versions.
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

I will double check trunk, but I believe it IS the latest, if not the latest installer for openAL is in there
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Re: Release time

Post by log0 »

svn says that the OpenAL32.dll from installer is different from the one in trunk. I had another look at the win32/bin dir. The wrap_oal.dll is missing.
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

As far as I know wrap_oal.dll wasnt listed when I ran dependency walker. At least I didnt see a reference to it.
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Re: Release time

Post by log0 »

You'll get no sound without it. I guess you will find a wrap_oal.dll in your System32 directory. This is where it is placed by the installer. More info: http://connect.creativelabs.com/openal/ ... ndows.aspx
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

its possible it is required by openal.dll then as I did not (that i can recall) check that dll for dependencies.
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Re: Release time

Post by Deus Siddis »

pheonixstorm wrote: Deus sent me some nice new asteroids I would like to get in the game but still scratching my head on exactly how to get them in or were.
You mean the asteroid models already converted to bfxm, right? Just making sure, since you don't need to worry about xmesh tweaking or mesher conversions; that part is already done.
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

More of creating the xml files for them. Tempted to use astergen since thats what its for.. but would also like to do it by hand. Then theres getting it into units.csv... fun fun.
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Re: Release time

Post by Deus Siddis »

Well an interim solution might be to only change the units.csv model references to point to the new models, and just let asteroids spawn in the existing patterns.

Because the spawn patterns will always look weird until the game supports asteroid belts, rather than the current asteroid balls. :)
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Re: Release time

Post by safemode »

astoroid belts are sparse to say the least. Compared to the rest of space they aren't, but locally, a VS should would have barely any interaction with any asteroids. So, to make them somewhat functional in the game, we have to create artificially dense asteroid fields. This would be impossibly dense to simulate on the scale of a belt. A better solution needs to be made or asteroids just need to be removed as a form of obstacle in-game.


Also, has any further thought been put into how to distribute releases? Distros need us to create a means of patching current data sets for subsequent releases because a 700MB zip every time we want to make an update isn't going to cut it.

The last idea was an updater app that would utilize the vegastrike webserver to retrieve a list of changed files (generated via svn) from their local release to the latest release on the website. Then it would simply http GET the files (maybe have a apache setting to compress on the fly). This would require us to have only 1 copy of the VS data set and binaries on the webserver (the latest version) and we would need to run an svn command and parse the output to create our lists between each previous release and the newest (shouldn't be hard to automate that in a script).

That would be the recommended route. Then maybe have full zips on torrent that we can all host (those who have decent bandwidth). Separate data and bin packages of course.
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Re: Release time

Post by klauss »

Many rpm-based distribution methods include "diff packages".

In the case of this release, though, I don't think there are many unchanged files - due to the rename, DDS compression, and a lot of changes that have happened in the meanwhile.

vs 0.4.x there probably isn't anything massive that didn't change.
vs 0.5.0, I'm not sure, but still, a lot changed.
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Re: Release time

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:astoroid belts are sparse to say the least.
There's two things to consider though:

1) This is an assumption that mainly comes from knowledge of our own Asteroid Belt, with the Kuiper Belt being the only other if I'm not mistaken. We don't have enough examples to know how dense an asteroid field can be. Out there in some other solar systems, there might be belts much denser than our own. For any number of reasons-- a larger gas giant than Jupiter ripping stuff apart from farther away, more matter orbiting around a gas giant, etc.

2) As you said, a sparser field would be better for performance reasons, but also it wouldn't necessarily make for less interesting game play either. For example, asteroid mining or finding hidden bases/artifacts might be more interesting in a larger and sparser field, and the denser dust cloud could do interesting things to your sensor and visibility ranges and reliability, plus smaller rocks could give you a better sense for you velocity.
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Re: Release time

Post by ghoulsblade2 »

adding asteroids : take a look at these text-based files : (in data/units/)
./factions/neutral/AFieldJump/AFieldJump
./factions/neutral/AField/AField
./factions/neutral/AFieldJumpSparse/AFieldJumpSparse
./factions/neutral/AFieldThin/AFieldThin
./factions/neutral/AFieldSparse/AFieldSparse
./factions/neutral/AFieldBaseThin/AFieldBaseThin
./factions/neutral/AFieldBase/AFieldBase
./factions/neutral/AFieldBaseSparse/AFieldBaseSparse
./factions/neutral/AFieldJumpThin/AFieldJumpThin

they make the asteroid fields around the wormhols (AFieldJumpThin) and are probably the place where the player most often meets asteroids ingame.

they have entries like

<SubUnit file="asteroids" x="-8129.053223" y="-2198.680908" z="-933.322571" />

this file="asteroids" probably refers to asteroids__neutral in units.csv
which refers to "Mesh {asteroids.bfxm;;}" in "Directory ./factions/neutral/asteroids
" ->
./factions/neutral/asteroids/asteroids.bfxm
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Re: Release time

Post by klauss »

The XML units no longer serve any purpose.

units.csv is all that matters, those xml files are dead.
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Re: Release time

Post by pheonixstorm »

units.csv points to those files.. so I dont think they server no purpose as were in units.csv are the fields defined?
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Re: Release time

Post by ghoulsblade2 »

klauss wrote:those xml files are dead.
doh, remove them then, or at least move to some "obsolete" folder =P

next attempt, correct me if i'm wrong :

units.csv : id = AFieldJumpThin__neutral column Sub_Units :

Code: Select all

{asteroidsPriv;938.0;938.0;938.0;0;1;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;580.0;0.0;1518.0;0;0;1;0;1;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-1518.0;-580.0;0.0;0;1;0;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;1518.0;580.0;0.0;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-938.0;938.0;-938.0;0;1;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;0.0;-1518.0;-580.0;-1;0;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-1518.0;580.0;0.0;0;0;-1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;938.0;-938.0;938.0;0;0;1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-938.0;938.0;938.0;1;0;0;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-938.0;-938.0;938.0;0;1;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;938.0;-938.0;-938.0;0;0;1;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;580.0;0.0;-1518.0;0;1;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-938.0;-938.0;-938.0;0;-1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;0.0;-1518.0;580.0;1;0;0;0;1;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;0.0;1518.0;-580.0;-1;0;0;0;1;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-580.0;0.0;1518.0;0;1;0;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;1518.0;-580.0;0.0;0;0;-1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;-580.0;0.0;-1518.0;0;1;0;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;938.0;938.0;-938.0;1;0;0;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroidsPriv;0.0;1518.0;580.0;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}
units.csv : id = asteroidsPriv__neutral column Sub_Units :

Code: Select all

{asteroid5;-219.188646699;434.550621455;-743.955856173;0;0;-1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid7;-317.04732344;-665.817091452;106.114107672;0;-1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid4;-216.006100393;549.391759566;-389.285933031;0;-1;0;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid6;505.667348311;677.683269184;186.214947799;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid0;312.434593174;-665.479084605;112.365007701;0;1;0;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid6;-694.996516604;-82.452111981;-82.759001982;0;1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid4;384.297524866;-422.704743284;-206.825766599;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid7;732.395900579;-462.292452737;-201.405196702;0;1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid2;537.553880644;363.500140834;-426.065336974;0;0;-1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid6;384.109440208;-207.871004029;202.381405574;0;0;1;0;1;0;180.0}{asteroid5;517.536645717;-335.966536222;69.2004056939;0;0;-1;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid7;-389.540204265;614.32047476;262.237155788;0;1;0;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid0;-560.124647914;-339.407295989;-519.243245984;1;0;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid1;-125.730750459;297.034235172;257.278834884;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid6;450.121421856;41.1136596505;-180.11431494;0;1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid7;240.823151333;852.929500262;48.6730836707;1;0;0;0;1;0;180.0}{asteroid5;-241.184773653;837.206416497;-14.0405754957;0;0;1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid3;-33.3351963603;179.500204071;681.842409463;0;-1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid5;-57.1867355467;348.640916221;478.307464407;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid5;511.690502515;-10.4195029382;700.289790193;0;0;1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid5;-374.84246787;-75.5443150581;810.421168381;0;0;-1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid6;539.417891041;484.741731384;-484.399033473;-1;0;0;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid6;117.152049043;200.984199701;-402.806754525;-1;0;0;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid5;236.030462175;-408.540562855;-232.487748628;0;0;1;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid6;-509.34133356;212.07600682;-245.541097626;0;0;-1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid1;833.856765996;-35.4934690168;-155.557717756;1;0;0;0;1;0;180.0}{asteroid4;281.122989448;620.437712609;-584.691422828;0;1;0;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid3;26.6576377945;-254.138653747;712.489404754;0;0;-1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid1;-582.902014167;-232.044666878;67.9694240541;0;0;1;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid5;-539.756128145;49.9493416385;456.057503593;-1;0;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroid6;633.392871323;517.557113355;-110.543969925;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid2;-379.303017657;-177.814852987;-115.595839667;1;0;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid1;383.916348467;477.488449086;-354.322206344;-1;0;0;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid0;213.876757316;110.096864419;-648.398194501;0;0;1;1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid4;-281.590426893;816.498350357;-208.667008341;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid2;518.058204122;-156.5521677;-714.697231762;0;1;0;0;0;-1;180.0}{asteroid2;423.49810243;237.062632874;62.7776035259;0;1;0;0;0;1;180.0}{asteroid2;123.371115773;190.923348528;-269.980756544;0;0;-1;-1;0;0;180.0}{asteroid0;-443.401031736;-370.08366446;621.342081113;1;0;0;0;-1;0;180.0}{asteroid2;-277.323942571;-447.927447542;108.090514652;0;0;1;-1;0;0;180.0}
units.csv : id = asteroid0
Directory factions/neutral/asteroids
Mesh {roid2.bfxm;;}
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