Our project is well under way and is moving a long at a good clip. I agree
with John that attempting a "project" with everyone here would be an
excercise in frustration, because of the different ideas on gameplay and
design. However I think there is a lot to be gained from collaborating on
many of the things needed by anyone making a game of this sort. My team is
already organized in terms of CVS, message boards, etc. and have just
finished completed our first multi-user demo and are working on more
enhanced multi user capability. Since I am just one member of that team, I
have to make sure I don't slow down or hinder the development effort. I
have produced a lot of generic packages and would be happy to contribute
them to the Java3d effort. It would also be good if we could in anyway
divide up some of the research so we arn't doing exactly the same thing at
the same time.
While a package might be somewhat generic, there is a big difference in
effort in building a completely generic package and building one that is
somewhat generic and somewhat specific to a project. For example, my
terrain packages are in com.xith.java3s.geometry.terrain Within this I have
several packages HeightMap, HeightMapLoader, Mesher, Texturizer, etc. All
these packages talk interfaces, so for example it is possible to build a new
implementation of a Mesher, or Texturizer. But when you look at some of my
implementations, there will be dependancies which make sense from a project
point of view, but not necessarily from generic point of view. Any example
is the implementation of HeightMapInterface called HeightMapArray. It has a
method called getY(float x, float z) which is used all over the place, but
most importantly it is used for terrain following. Well this calls a
utility method written by one of my team members which can determine which
of two triangles a point falls within, and then can calculate the proper
intersection of the (point/line) with the proper triangle.
The point I am trying to make is this. It is a huge effort to keep a fully
integrated source code repository on a single project, let alone a open
contribution thing like we are talking about here. I propose that we agree
to contribute code to the repository as a reference to each other and allow
people to use and modify the code, with the understanding that improvements
to the code be made available to us all. (I think the Mozilla license
handles this). I would be happy to contribute my code as a reference, but
would probably not have the time to make it completely generic, nor would I
have the authority to include any of the server code (although perhaps the
comm code if the license holder is in agreement). You would be able to use
some of the code as is, but some might make references to code I can't
release. My involvement would probably be directly proportional to the
energy of the group and the contributions of members.
Dave Yazel
> ----------
> From: John Wright[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Reply To: Discussion list for Java 3D API
> Sent: Monday, October 02, 2000 8:59 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [JAVA3D] Everquest
>
> Ok, obviously there is huge interest in writing MMORPG games in Java
> 3D. I've received a few direct emails about this already (over and
> above the people I've already been communicating with about such
> worlds).
>
> Before we spam the Java 3D mailing list to death with our ideas let's
> organize and we can do our own mailing list (although it wouldn't
> surprise me if 90% of the J3D mailing list is interested in doing this).
>
> Send me direct emails and I'll compile a list of us. We can then start
> kicking around design ideas. I can host some webpages for this on my
> server if that will help. I don't know if any of you have seen "World
> Forge" that has been trying to do this using C. They've been trying for
> a long time (obviously design by committee is slow and has it's
> drawbacks).
>
> Since we are each likely to have our own priorities and ideas about how
> such a world should function I propose that our goal be to develop
> common code designs (like actors, terrain generators, collision
> detection routines, etc) that will be publicly posted. We can then each
> customize these to produce the games we individually wish to make. So
> let's not fight too much about specific details but rather solve the
> basic problems common to all our designs.
>
> I did create my own paper and pencil set of rules for FRPing in the
> early 80s but that has nothing to do with my company (Starfire
> Research). My company name originally came from my interest in
> sub-atomic nuclear physics back in the mid 70s. My company since then
> has been primarily software development and desktop support (with some
> custom building of PCs).
>
> So let's take this to our own list before Sun and the others get irate
> at us swamping this mailing list.
>
> - John Wright
> Starfire Research
>
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