Being familiar in Lua is a good start, if you also know JavaScript it'd be perfect, as both QuakeC and JavaScript are some sort of "simplified C".

I started making a wiki page about the QuakeC language (not yet covering its functions, as many other sources already do that), and I suggest you reading that for a start, and then trying to read through some Nexuiz source and try to understand it.

I'll later extend the wiki page by links to other resources, and some example code for "typical tasks".

http://ouns.bplaced.net/dev:quakec

I don't know if this will help but I will try to help as much as i can. Once i learn it. Perhaps you could teach me? (just suggesting) If so; only enough to help.

I don't have time at all to code for nexuiz right now, but i have a suggestion.

Create so "junior jobs". Small tasks that would be "nice to have" in nexuiz, that somebody new to the codebase could do. I think it would be a nice way to introduce them. And also for the others, a general TODO page is certainly nice, because especialy new people will hesitate to add new features if they don't know if they are really wanted or needed

Ok, here's an update (also I've just mailed all the people in the math department at MIT and a good number at NYU to see if we can find someone to make a better vis algo):

The ffxml files are all gpl.

Here's the email I sent in search of someone who could make a more efficent vis alorithim:

Topic:
Need help on a visibility algorithim.

Code: Select all

I was wondering if you could help on an algorithim problem? An opensource 3D game called nexuiz uses a(n) (also opensource) map compiler called q3map2 to compile it's maps into a BSP tree and compute visibilty and lighting. Currently the visibility stage uses an algorithim called "PassageFlow" to compute the visibility tables. The thing is, for any slightly complex map the time to compute visibility seems to rises exponentially. The original maps that this program was used for were fairly simple so this was not a problem and was not fixed. As this program is used for larger and more complex maps the problems increase greatly (2.5 day vis times are not terribly uncommon for large maps, even with large blocksizes set). Could you perhaps help to find or develop a more efficent algorithim?


The program's source is available through svn (along with the map editor) at http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/svn/radiant15/trunk/tools/quake3/q3map2/
and the visibility computing algorithims are in these two files:

http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/svn/radiant15/trunk/tools/quake3/q3map2/vis.c
http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/svn/radiant15/trunk/tools/quake3/q3map2/visflow.c

(On linux or other unix-like systems the command (svn checkout http://emptyset.endoftheinternet.org/svn/radiant15/trunk/ NetRadiant) can be used to retrieve the whole package, it uses the ./configure; make; system to build)

The devs of nexuiz usually are avaiable at http://alientrap.org/forum/ and there is a development forum in there (Divverent is currently the main developer). Everything is opensource and under the GPL.

I hope there is a better algorithim other than n^n for this problem :P



Please join the emailing campaign (see if you can get media, code, etc devs for nexuiz, you can use my mails ofcourse if you want or make your own).

Also, for what it's worth, I've made bumpmaps for some of my celing textures.

Div, or anyone else in the know, I got a response on the vis algo email. Could you email him back with the correct info. In the meantime I will try to respond
(here's the email I recieved):

From: "Peter Shor" <shor AT math.mit.edu>
Dear Miguel

First, it would help you to ask computational geometry people this
question. Second, nobody is going to want to go through the code to
understand what the algorithm has to do. If you could just tell us what
task the algorithm is supposed to accomplish, you would be much more
likely to get an answer.

Peter Shor

I would love to help on the coding part, but am currently struggling with a huge shortage in time. Hopefully things will change soon and I can attempt to be of some help.

What might be a good idea is to apply as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code (GSoC), which will likely run again in 2009. More information can be found on http://code.google.com/soc/2008/

I doubt we have the needed number of active people in our team to also mentor students in a GSoC project.

Obviously, we DO have a severe lack everywhere.

I got a 58 on my calculus test (calc 1, 2nd test of 4 or so). I went to every extra help (twice a week, 2hrs each time) and did my homework.

I got a 58 out of 100.

This, I believe, shows that I am far too stupid to contemplate programming for nexuiz. So here's my coin in the hat of "not going to help because of some excuse but posting here anyway to tell everyone".

58

Maybe that should be my signature.

HELL! I even looked into the quake C code a bunch of times (including today) and can't make heads or tails of it. The only code I understand is my own perl, C, and PHP code. All other code I have no idea what is going on.

I got a 58 on my calculus test.
58.

What now? Did you say you got 60 on your test?

I wish it were summer already so I could have more time to contribute... being an engineer on a full class load makes it hard to help much. Though hopefully by the time I can help I'll understand a lot more concepts, especially with vector stuff.

ai wrote:What now? Did you say you got 60 on your test?

I wish!
I got a FIFTY EIGHT (58)
Lower than even a 60!
You don't want a stupid person like me mucking in code do you?!

Note: I went to 4hrs of extra help per week... and I still got a 58. That mean's I'm ////real//// dumb.

Good thing we're moving towards LED lighting, I wouldn't be able to brighten an incandecant lightbulb for sure.

take_this_cup_of_poison wrote:I wouldn't be able to brighten an incandecant lightbulb for sure.

P = V^2/R

Apply a larger voltage

merlijn: could you implement func_door_rotating in nexuiz. Quake3 has it I think (is gpl). It would be a fairly quick thing to code.

Man I wish I was better at programming so I could help

Chandler wrote:Man I wish I was better at programming so I could help

Start playing with the quakeC code and learn. No one here really leaned programming in the classroom. It was learnt by doing. So if you want to be better at programming than start programming in nexuiz. You'll get better at programming. I leaned to program perl by asking on IRC.

You can too.
So do so please.

take_this_cup_of_poison: I could probably schedule in an hour or two around christmas. And I would have a bunch of features that I consider to be a bigger priority.

divVerent: Well, this project is not going to run itself. Whether it is on pure voluntary bases or by getting paid by google isn't going to change the fact that coders will need guidance. IMHO there wouldn't be any loss in applying for GSoC, at the minimum it would give Nexuiz an impulse of open source people looking into it. You can then decide if, how many and which student proposals the Nexuiz team will be mentoring. You can obviously pick the students that you feel are able to work mostly with documentation, and a community mailing list.

To everyone who wants to help: Do it! There is piles of work to do, pick a bug or feature that you are particularly interested in, start digging in the code and try to make some sense of it. Try to solve the problem, test it and create a patch. Reading a patch for the regular developers is a relatively simple task, and they can comment on how you can improve the code or commit your work.

The best piece of advice I can give is to just dive in and try stuff. You are going to make mistakes, and you will have moments where you feel it is never going to work, just don't give up. In this process you will learn a lot of valuable things, and help the wonderful FOSS community .

"They" "Regular developerS"
You mean "Regular developeR" and "He" right?
Nex only has one regular dev right now (Div) and a few contributors (you can count them on your hand). I don't think he wants everything delegated to him. He said he'd leave if everything keeps being demanded of him. That is what is happening in this thread:

"I'd LOVE to help, but NO, I am NOT going to" is all the responses (including mine).
Nex will die I suppose. Those who can help won't. Those who can't won't learn. Both have enough time to post long posts on the message board though .

I guess a videogame is not a fun project. I've tried to find more code devs but there just isn't anyone interested no matter how many people I contact.

merlijn wrote:take_this_cup_of_poison: I could probably schedule in an hour or two around christmas. And I would have a bunch of features that I consider to be a bigger priority.

divVerent: Well, this project is not going to run itself. Whether it is on pure voluntary bases or by getting paid by google isn't going to change the fact that coders will need guidance. IMHO there wouldn't be any loss in applying for GSoC, at the minimum it would give Nexuiz an impulse of open source people looking into it. You can then decide if, how many and which student proposals the Nexuiz team will be mentoring. You can obviously pick the students that you feel are able to work mostly with documentation, and a community mailing list.

To everyone who wants to help: Do it! There is piles of work to do, pick a bug or feature that you are particularly interested in, start digging in the code and try to make some sense of it. Try to solve the problem, test it and create a patch. Reading a patch for the regular developers is a relatively simple task, and they can comment on how you can improve the code or commit your work.

The best piece of advice I can give is to just dive in and try stuff. You are going to make mistakes, and you will have moments where you feel it is never going to work, just don't give up. In this process you will learn a lot of valuable things, and help the wonderful FOSS community .

merlijn wrote:The best piece of advice I can give is to just dive in and try stuff. You are going to make mistakes, and you will have moments where you feel it is never going to work, just don't give up. In this process you will learn a lot of valuable things, and help the wonderful FOSS community .

I've definitely felt that way but in the modeling world. With doing the flag models, with doing other things, some thing I even stopped working on altogether. But what I have planned now I'm not going to give up on. However, this month I just don't have any time for Nexuiz, I recently realized I need to concentrate on the competition I'm in (which is due the last October). After that I'll get more time.

take_this_cup_of_poison wrote:Those who can help won't. Those who can't won't learn. Both have enough time to post long posts on the message board though .

Well, the amount of effort it takes to participate on a message board:

[---]

The amount of effort it takes to learn QuakeC and get involved with development of a video game:

[---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]

So, it's not a fair comparison there.

I've heard a few people mention being interested in learning QuakeC and helping out with development. I think it turns out to be more difficult than people would hope.

Who else was developing Nexuiz before Div took over as the primary developer?

Most people generally tend to have higher priorities. I'd be more than happy to help, I just dont have the time now my course has started back. Nothing I do is related to coding anything ever. The most coding I do is putting formulas into excel so I can analyse things.

In saying that, the reason I map is because its a skill I learned the very basics of a long time ago. Also gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that im giving something back. I'd like to learn to model, but its all about time again.

Sepelio wrote:Also gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that im giving something back. I'd like to learn to model, but its all about time again.

When I map it gives the the warm feeling that I'm inflicting something. It's... nice.

Excuses excuses.
Me learning perl, php, some python, and some C was easier than participating constructivly on a message board.

Dokujisan wrote:

take_this_cup_of_poison wrote:Those who can help won't. Those who can't won't learn. Both have enough time to post long posts on the message board though .

Well, the amount of effort it takes to participate on a message board:

[---]

The amount of effort it takes to learn QuakeC and get involved with development of a video game:

[---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------]

So, it's not a fair comparison there.

I've heard a few people mention being interested in learning QuakeC and helping out with development. I think it turns out to be more difficult than people would hope.

Who else was developing Nexuiz before Div took over as the primary developer?

Me learning perl, php, some python, and some C was easier than participating constructivly on a message board.

I understand your passion to want to spur interest in Nexuiz development, and I'm not trying to discourage anyone from trying to learn a programming language, but let's be honest about it. Nobody is going to take you seriously if you make insane statements like that. Learning a programming language is FAR more complicated than having an online discussion. You even admitted that you have difficulty with programming.

Learning the basics of any (mostly) sane programming language isn't that hard if you happen to have some "hacker" mentality.

The part that takes work is understanding the system you try to modify. "Just" knowing the language doesn't mean one can successfully maintain the system.

So any "just learn the language and go fix something" statements aren't helping - getting into the game logic isn't exactly a trivial task (there are tougher tasks, though), so let's not downplay the effort needed: If you like the game, like a challenge (a challenge which isn't too overwhelming) and have robust (not necessarily stellar) skills in programming you may *enjoy* working on the game code. It *can* be a rewarding experience, and that's how things *should* be.

Just a small update. I've been studying studying QuakeC and have a better understanding (by no means a good one yet) of it now. I stopped at vector functions which I couldn't come to understand, and am now studying vector maths for 3d computer graphics.

Ohh, and is it O.K to use http://www.inside3d.com/qcspecs/qc-menu.htm as a learning source? From what I gathered Nexuiz doesn't use QuakeC in it's first incarnation?

Well, that was just to let you know I haven't given up learning.. yet. Anyhow, I learn at my own pace so don't expect anything much too soon.

You can use that reference, but not everything it says is still true. As Nexuiz has no monsters, all the monster moving functions are not used, so you can skip that part from the doc you found.

I'd recommend you to read that reference you posted, and then go to

http://ouns.nexuizninjaz.com/dev:quakec

before writing any code, so you see what changes in the QuakeC language have been done (as we use the fteqcc compiler and do make use of its improvements).

I would like to become a developer but the one thing i can do is mapping and this not really good
but in 11 jears when i have study ill become programmer XD
but may i find someone who can help you

I have expressed an interest in designing website graphics, promo art, etc.

So to recap this discussion:

Div: I'm the sole code dev, everyone else has left, I can't do this by myself, if more people don't dev I'll leave.

EveryoneElse: I would LIKE to dev, Some of us are even CAPABLE of deving... but nexuiz is not on any radars of importance and can go to hell and die. Oh and here's a list of DEMANDS for "the devs" (Div0) to implement! Thank's for the free beer!!!111

What will likely be next?
Maybe "I see that no one cares about nexuiz enough to take any time to help develope it, so I will not develop it further either, good by KIDDIES. Enjoy desecrating the corpse as you couldn't RESPECT the living."