Think Tank 3

Please add your discussion topics here. Create a title and a detailed description (this will allow the other to prepare them-selfs for the discussions). At the Think Tank you will be asked to open the discussion for your topic.

Proposals

• Orxonox V2 (patrick): Build systems: So far we used automake to build Orxonox. But as we all know, automake makes our lives harder than it should. Let's change to another system. Suggestions (please add more):
  • SCons
  • GMake
  • Automake
• Orxonox V2 (patrick): The game idea: If we take a third party game engine we are able to focus more on game-specific topics. Let's define a goal we want to reach over several years but more imporant: let's define a short time goal, that we will reach within the next semester. Let's work in iterations (each cycle creates a running game), let's focus on game development (instead of engine development).
• Orxonox V2 (parick): Development Style: I want to propose a development style that copes with many of our problems we had with the old orxonox. I suggest to create a detailed C++ style guide, to perform code-reviews and some other stuff I will present you at the think tank. Takes about ~20min.
• Orxonox V2 (who wants to do that?): Supported IDEs: We used kdeveloper so far, which did a very good job. But there is no version for windows. What strategy should be follow with IDEs?
• Orxonox V2 (x3n): World Entities: The World Entities are, at the moment, just a bunch of uncoordinated C++ classes. There is almost no hierarchy and many features are just a hack. We need to do a total rework of most of the WEs with a proper structure, abstract classes to define common functions and some deep thoughts about saving/loading abilities and network replication.
• Orxonox V2 (x3n): Math Classes: I've worked with the UnrealEngine and I was surprised by the easy handling of rotations. Quaternions are good for intern functions deep in the engine, but for gameplay-related functions they are unpractical. The UnrealEngine has a Rotator class, containing yaw, pitch and roll values. Vector(Rotator) returns a normalized vector pointing in the rotators direction, while Rotator(Vector) does the opposite thing. And we might consider to implement a BSP-Vector, whose Z-axis points to the top. But maybe we don't have to do those changes, because at least Ogre has already some rotating functions implemented. Let's think about trying to get support from the Google Summer of Code.
• Orxonox V2 (patrick): Community Building: Let's find out what Orxonox V2 needs to to in order to get a community. continuous builds, forum activity, news, blogs, posters, press, whatever comes to our mind. Let's define a minimal set we want to use in Orxonox.
• PPS (beni): Semester schedule: We have only 13 weeks and no christmas vacation between, and the new engine doesn't makes it easier too. And I think Blender-modelers should calculate more time for textures (at least 3 weeks) instead of 2 weeks.
• PPS (beni): More (self) teaching → more efficiency → better results: Since we have less time we should concentrate on self teaching. We give the students lots of information (wiki links and stuff) where they can learn by themselves. Like this we can save some time. It will cost us little time to prepare a "home lesson" but may bring us more independent students and therefore better results (students work more efficiently) and the PPS is going to be better. With those better results the convention is even more flashy and the students spread the word that you can actually learn something in the PPS.
• Content Creation (x3n): Textures: I'm sorry to say that, but our textures are crap. Look at ​that picture, it's from the Irrlich gallery, showing a random picture of a not really up-to-date looking game. But you know what? The textures of that spaceship looks ten times better then ours. I know it's hard to work with Gimp, I can't handle it too, but we definitively need better textures. I thought about "prefabs", small elements done by us (cables, pipes, engines, rust, …) that can be used by the PPS students to create more details on their textures. If they change size and colour and add own elements it should be possible to create a higher detailcount without loosing individuality.

Topics from the Forum

Owners: please add these topics to the 'proposal' section (with a nice description:D ):

• Physics engine and Collision Model (bensch)