Torque 3D Community Edition Discussion Thread

#301 Hey everyone, is there any anticipated timeline for moving the CE towards open source? I've got a good deal of experience as a cross-platform C++ programmer, with a Mac focus, and would like to contribute but I've been hanging around on T3D 1.0.1 (I'm licensed up to 1.1) for a long time because of the Mac support. Of course, this means until the CE opens up to non-1.2 owners I can't contribute anything directly.

In the mean time, I have a number of resources (several Mac platform specific) which I've uploaded over the years, and I think many of them will be useful all around: http://www.garagegames.com/community/resources/authorID/71885

#302 Also, apparently, there's a paging glitch in the forum software, because I couldn't navigate to my previous post from within the topic until I made this one.

#303 Thomas@ I think its a licensing issue for either version ... CE or the beta mac port. Both are still tied into the pre MIT license.

Maybe GG can clarify?

Just want to be sure we're following the rules --

#304 From what Michael said in the other (MIT repo announcement) thread, it seems like he's working on a sideways merge as soon as the Mac port develops a little further (though it isn't clear from his post *how much* further that entails). Realistically, my course load is too intense this semester for me to have much hobby development time anyway, which is why I was asking more about general timelines than about specifics.


I'll be happy to contribute as soon as time and licensing issues allow.

#305 Currently, through email and chat, there is much debate on the future of the CE. And some users would like to see the CE with the official GitHub.

So i guess it's time to do a bit of clarity on topic.

The CE is and will remain a project of the users. (It is not my personal project.)

But personally, i prefer to keep the CE with a number of closed user. The only members of the community GG (Including users of older versions and other products).

The license will certainly be adapted to MIT, and the download is open to all.

I'd like to know what the community wants.

#306 I agree with you Alfio.

#307 @Alfio, I would like to know, with clarity as you say, why do you prefer to keep it close to a range of users.

So far, either the arguments have not been convincing (fear alone is not an argument) or not explained at all.

#308 I think everyone wants to see them merge, in some manner ... at least to open up access to all via the MIT license.
[edit: I believe this is what Alfio just said, it will be available for all to download]

But there is no reason it needs to be "write access" open to just anyone ... that should be restricted to Alfio, Michael and whom over else from people in this community.

Just like the Git version, there needs to be a couple people like Alfio & Michael who "manage" it as well as those who are contributing via updates.

#309 @Novack

As stated on several occasions, give the right to speak to anyone, is to see 2000 tickets concerning requests not related to the spirit of the CE. Ie make the engine more fast, stable, and adding features for general use.

The CE was born for optimize the engine, and not to create a game. This way of thinking is learned by those who use the product for a long time.

#310 I would agree that there's a strong case to be made for limited write access for most projects like this. Let the qualified coders prove their mettle through interaction with the main devs and build up the trust to be given write access.

Good game engine development is lower level and requires deeper knowledge of programming techniques than does implementing game logic on top of an existing engine.

#311 @Thomas

From this point of view, the CE is much more permissive of the official GitHub repository. No programmer of the community is left out. Since the early days we pushed the programmers of the community to ask and have the right to apply your changes (see for NavMesh or the new Particle System).

#312 @Alfio, I have not been part of the email or chat discussion, so consider myself updated exclusively on what happens right on this thread.

That being said, I agree on your point.

The question would be then, how you catch as time passes, the new capable developers for the CE who were not retail owners. A thread could be created on the public area? So there could be controlled participation.

#313 One question that I think we need to ask is if anyone who has actively participated in committing code to the CE repository has any issues with their code additions being released in a MIT version port?

#314 @Frank:

I've just read through the backlog of comments in this thread concerning your work on the TorqueScript VM. If you're requiring an optimizing compiler with Tail-Call Elimination to prevent a stack overflow, this suggests you're making inappropriate use of recursion (for C++ anyway, in Scheme it would be fine since Tail-Call Elimination is required by the language spec) in some context that would be better expressed as an iteration. I haven't seen the structure of your code yet, so I don't have any comments beyond that.

As for how the opcodes are generated, I have a pretty solid grasp of that from my work on the TorqueScript plugin for Komodo Edit. If you're interested in that stuff, you should take some time to learn the lex/yacc (or flex/bison) toolset and something about Abstract Syntax Trees. But it probably doesn't need much fiddling. There's a simplified implementation in Python with my Komodo Edit plugin though, so you're welcome to browse that if you're interested and feel more comfortable with Python.

#315 It's nice to see that still discussing technical issues. :D

About technical issue, i wanted to discuss another aspect behind the CE project.

The structure of the services behind the CE (trac, subversion, apache), allows me (and Michael Hall) to manage user groups with different access to the svn repository folders. So the ability to not allow users to download some folders that other users are part of other groups, can be downloaded freely.

This is to allow plugin developers to have their own group in the repository of the CE, and to allow only users of their choice (for example, those who have purchased the plugin), to also download their plugin folders during the checkout of the repository.

Ie:
The user A is part of the GENERAL group, and user B is part of the GENERAL and AFX groups. The user A, when make the chekout/update for the repository, just download everything is free. But when user B will download from the repository, it will download also the AFX plugin directory.

This aspect, until now unexplained, would make it easier and less problematic, the distribution of plugin/addon/packs whit the last release of the CE, and avoid annoying merge to the end user. ;)

#316 Alfio@ I'd like to assist with merging the Apple OS port into this CE version, but am holding off as not to re-do work you may have already accomplished ... as it sounds like you have already started merging it as well.

So would like to be able to help you on this -- rather than just wait until you to do it all yourself. Can you share what you have merged already, so I can try to assist? either in the main branch or a side branch ?

At the least, I could work on getting it to compile on Mac OS X and see if there are any other issues besides just getting OpenGL to work. Just testing the openGL code on Windows isn't sufficient validation ...

Most the the changes I found in comparing the previous versions with the Mac Port, suggest the port itself was not complete in a couple areas. In addition, there were numerous changes made in that port which didn't seem necessary to fix just the openGL stuff ... so would be helpful to see what you thought was applicable or not as well.

#317 Yes, of course, i can commit the changes made so far, avoiding the addition of the binary this time. The current problems are varied:

• Color profiles for textures
• PrePassManager not working correctly in AL and OpenGL
• All GL shaders need to be revised (including some passages of the ShaderGen)

I give clean up the code, remove what is not needed and do a commit.

#318 Great Alfio, waiting for a link/git when you're ready. I've tried to pm you but it's not possible?

#319 Alfio@ That would be a great start to work from, thanks for all your efforts!

#320 Jeff, i'm sorry if i have not done the commit, but i'm about to finish the changes to make the AdvancedLighting running.

As you can see in the screenshot, i still have a few minor problems. XD

<<----- Something has gone wrong XD