Re: [Adonthell-general] 0.4 mini demo....

[Alexandre Courbot]

> This would let us artists practise making 0.4 gfx. That in turn might
> highlight some problems (you never know, there might be some. Some of
> our ideas that sound good in theory might turn out to be rubbish in
> practise or we might discover things we just hadn't thought about yet)
> with the way we plan to organise and name our gfx and stuff like that.
> This will in turn help us when writing the gfx dox.
> 
> It will probably help the coders too since we can already start looking
> for bugs'n'stuff. Also we can begin testing the editors too.
> 
> How much 0.4 code do we have at the moment? What already works (if
> anything?) and how long do you recon before we could make a little house
> for the player to walk (and jump :P) around in?

I'm totally for a mini-demo idea - for the same reasons than you. But
let me explain where we are on the code side! :)

For now, 0.4's code is in a state... Oh my. The Hindenberg, Titanic,
Ground 0, I don't know which one illustrates the best! During the IRC
meeting, we thought it might be better to restart the CVS module from
scratch. We still have some code that work, and it will of course be
moved.

As for what works, I'll be reworking the graphical layer during the next
days/weeks, then I'll start some map work again. Actually I'll probably
rewrite the engine from scratch - while the little demo I made wasn't
that bad, it isn't adapted at all structurally speaking. So don't worry,
I'm used to it anyway and it shouldn't be too long to get something
basic working!

My mistake before was to give nothing for the artists to work with, and
I'm perfectly aware of that. So along with the graphical and map rework
will come some editors - and real ones this time. WxPython has proven to
be a great choice for the GUI, since I have a nearly functionnal
animation editor already. This will allow you to work with any graphical
format (not only PNM) and to have some fun animating your work. As the
map advance will come map oriented editors, of course. All the editors
should be easily available to all platforms, and I should even be able
to produce a Windows binary myself.

So in the short term, will be available:
-an animation editor
-a better framework for programmers to work with
-a great, working GUI system that support TT fonts (made by Jol)
-the items/inventory system (thanks to Kai)

In the longer term, the basic map engine should start to work, with an
optional network layer for multiplayer games, and so on.

What is the most important to me is that the artist side get some tools
to work and get familiar with as soon as possible, so you can have some
fun with them and get some material ready to test my map engine with! ;p

Sounds fair?
Alex.
-- 
http://www.gnurou.org