PR for STK

[hiker]

But what to is essential, is to define, who you wan't to attract to join this community?

• developers
• designers
• players
• money

Well, we actually have some money for donations. We are considering a few options at this stage: perhaps a track contest (with prize money), GSOC.

Main need would be experienced coders and designers. Work for coders has already been described, and while I agree with Auria's list, some of the tasks are difficult, but can easily be broken into smaller and easier pieces. Online voting for addons is a first step towards networking (since it needs a login to a server, which can later become the lobby). Also more different game modes and other goodies (powerups, or make use of the new 'put hat on driver' feature which I have added, but which is not really used), ...

Nearly all tracks should be more 'alive' - as mentioned elsewhere moving things makes tracks more interesting and challenging. Perhaps add conveyor belts somewhere (which imho can be done for now with reduced zippers - but I am happy to add more support for this). It often works the other way round: artists have an idea, and we then try to support this. Adding features and waiting for someone to actually use this is not really a successful model (e.g. we have a cannon feature like the ones in MK Wii, but it's completely unused).

To all the new people who make their way to the forum: we would be glad if people help with improving the wiki.

Cheers,
Joerg

[heyda]

I tried to signup on the wiki but got this:

No such file or directory in /home/project-web/supertuxkart/htdocs/mediawiki-1.16.2/includes/UserMailer.php

Can anybody confirm this troubles?

[antoine]

Hey,

I got an error message as well during my first attempt. It resolved itself on a second attempt.

[heyda]

Now worked for me, too. But I don't get any mails to confirm :/

[heyda]

I started an page for all of your ideas (in PR in general, competition, tutorial, ...):
http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Promotion

Would be great to see you all contributing ideas and add specific tasks for different skills of coders (e.g. newbie: not that familar with C++, very few /no experience in teamworking on FLOSS projects ...).

BTW: I updated http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Spiele/SuperTuxKart with fresh screenshots and explaining the new features.

[Funto]

Well, we actually have some money for donations. We are considering a few options at this stage: perhaps a track contest (with prize money), GSOC.

What about the Blender Foundation? They sponsored Yo Frankie! and STK is hugely Blender-based...

[Auria]

Hmm maybe we can try our luck, but I think the blender foundation prefer doing their own thing over sponsoring existing projects

[heyda]

To my experience fundraising prices isn't that a problem, as everybody loves games and STK is like SuperMarioKart (so what I would call mainstream). This results in a lot of possibilities:
- hardware vendors: driving wheels, gamepads, ...
- 3d printing providers: manufacturing the winners karts in metal (www.shapeways.com) or an 8bit styled medal
- commercial Linux distros: Money
- ...

Or simply ask your community (and everybody around demoscene, linux gamers, ...) to fundraise money aka crowdfunding (but then, it should be transparent for what reason you need the money exactly)

[antoine]

@heyda
Good work.

We should try to get an article ready for blenderartists and put out a challenge to their community. It would be relatively easy to update the tutorials (like blender as an level editor) into a series. There are a lot of possible challenges; Improve Tux's model and kart, best new track, best improvement to an existing track. For tracks, we could request that the artists incorporate hiker's requests (use the cannon, use jumps, ramps). We could also ask they make a track using the assets from Yo Frankie! which are under the CC license. There could be a sign in the level that says, "Try Yo Frankie!" as cross promotional for blender game engine.

[heyda]

Please keep in mind, that Blenderart has very detailed instructions on how to layout the article.
So the big question is: Who feels ok to write it? Feel free to use the wiki to setup a plot where the community can comment it.

Same for updating/restarting video tutorials, who can do video editing?

[S@f]

Hello everyone !

Here is the new moddb page. http://www.moddb.com/games/supertuxkart

In Google I have typed "Supertux Kart moddb", I found a Supertux Kart page, but not the new one.
Indeed there are two Supertux Kart pages, the new one you have created and the old one from 2007...
How can we fix it? Have someone the right to delete the old one?

[antoine]

I typed "Supertux Kart moddb", I found a Supertux Kart page, but not the new one.
Indeed there are two Supertux Kart pages, the new one you have created and the old one from 2007...
How can we fix it? Have someone the right to delete the old one?

I don't have access. I can send a message to moddb, but they are probably pretty busy with the 10,000 other entries.

[hiker]

I typed "Supertux Kart moddb", I found a Supertux Kart page, but not the new one.

Sorry, I have no idea who created the first page either.

Indeed there are two Supertux Kart pages, the new one you have created and the old one from 2007...
How can we fix it? Have someone the right to delete the old one?

I don't have access. I can send a message to moddb, but they are probably pretty busy with the 10,000 other entries.

I'd try to contact them. It's in their interest as well to have no duplicated (and up-to-date) games in their DB.

Cheers,
Joerg

[hiker]

There are a lot of possible challenges; Improve Tux's model and kart, best new track, best improvement to an existing track. For tracks, we could request that the artists incorporate hiker's requests (use the cannon, use jumps, ramps).

Well, those were just meant as examples. That might not fit every track, and we don't want tracks to be overloaded. Though it would be good (imho) if all tracks had some kind of animation happening (which does not necessarily have to have an impact on game play).

Also not sure if 'challenge' is the right approach - sounds a bit like: "You are too stupid to do that". I am not against it, we should just be careful with the wording

We could also ask they make a track using the assets from Yo Frankie! which are under the CC license.

Though the textures might need to be resized. Textures for a movie have different requirements from textures for a game. There are also some add-on karts based on the blender movies.

There could be a sign in the level that says, "Try Yo Frankie!" as cross promotional for blender game engine.

A certain exchange of advertising would be nice indeed. I actually liked the ads for tuxpaint we had in STK in tux tollway.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Funto]

hiker: just note that Yo Frankie! is not a movie but a game made with Blender Game Engine or CrystalSpace (both versions exist)

[antoine]

Well, those were just meant as examples. That might not fit every track, and we don't want tracks to be overloaded. Though it would be good (imho) if all tracks had some kind of animation happening (which does not necessarily have to have an impact on game play).

Also not sure if 'challenge' is the right approach - sounds a bit like: "You are too stupid to do that". I am not against it, we should just be careful with the wording

Noted.

There could be a sign in the level that says, "Try Yo Frankie!" as cross promotional for blender game engine.

A certain exchange of advertising would be nice indeed. I actually liked the ads for tuxpaint we had in STK in tux tollway.

I agree. I will download tollway and check it out.

Though the textures might need to be resized. Textures for a movie have different requirements from textures for a game.

Yo Frankie! was the game made by the Blender game foundation. I doubt it used the ones from Big Buck Bunny (the blender movie that Yo Frankie! was spin off of).

I liked your idea of a plane with a flag behind it (or was it writing with smoke?) promoting something. That same plane could be in other levels with different messages like "Made with Blender", "Made with Bullet Physics", etc. A level with a train could be cool and the traincars could act as billboards for other open source projects used in the making of, or related to, STK.

[ctdabomb]

is there anything we can do here? http://www.lgdb.org/game/supertuxkart
and here is a little something for the blenderart magazine, but it's not good enough, and someone will have to make it better

[heyda]

Nice to read For the driveline section, I would personally prefer a first very simple example to be completed and than showing all posibilities, as they can be quit complex.

[antoine]

That was a good read. Great work ctdabomb. Who wrote the original? I will look over it and see if I can find any grammatical error. I'm not familiar with making tracks, but it would be good to learn. Would you mind doing the same for karts? Maybe in the next issue we could have the kart article. The major thing that could be improved is replacing the low quality drawn tracks with something nicer.

[hiker]

Good read. I'm not familiar with making tracks, but it would be good to learn. Would you mind doing the same for karts? Maybe in the next issue we could have the kart article. It would be nice if we could replace the low quality drawn tracks with something nicer. That's a great. Who wrote the original?

I think that article needs some massive overhaul before it would fit the target audience of blender users. It needs an intro stating how our pipeline works (from blender directly to stk with no in-between step). Then it probably should focus a bit on using blender features (our panels etc) and that we use python scripts to export data files in the format we need. Perhaps some feedback on what was easy to do, what was hard (e.g. frequent changes of the API causes us to more or less having to update the scripts with each new blender version). Then not a simple example (I don't think that they would be interested in publishing a 'how to' manual), but instead some screenshots from a more complex track, showing e.g. drivelines and other settings.

This article would be a very good start for a tutorial ... but imho a tutorial should just be on the wiki (easier to make sure everyone has an up-to-date version of it, and to cooperate with more people). Perhaps splitting this into several pages/tutorials: first a simple one with just a track and a simple white plane to drive on, then e.g. add items, add more modelling, ... Ideally this would be written while actually designing a track - so we could include the full result at the end.

Work on a good tutorial could perhaps be discussed in a separate thread (and/or done in the wiki) - first decide on how many tutorials and the content of each. Then the work could perhaps be split - one person doing the modeling and producing several .blend files (from various stages), others describing the process, taking screenshots etc. This way not all the work would sit with the artists, simple blender skills for the screenshots would be good enough to do the rest.

Cheers,
Joerg

[antoine]

I think that article needs some massive overhaul before it would fit the target audience of blender users. It needs an intro stating how our pipeline works (from blender directly to stk with no in-between step). Then it probably should focus a bit on using blender features (our panels etc) and that we use python scripts to export data files in the format we need.

Okay good ideas. They want to showcase scripts that extend Blender's functionality.

Perhaps some feedback on what was easy to do, what was hard (e.g. frequent changes of the API causes us to more or less having to update the scripts with each new blender version).

It's a community run project. I'm not sure how much the foundation helps it, so it might not be the most effective place to talk about the problems that result from API changes.
There are no size limitations for articles. The largest and smallest editions were 96 and 30 pages respectively. I've only actually looked through two editions and the biggest articles were about five pages long. If we want to keep it short and sweet the STK article could get people started with part 1. and then hyperlink to the next section available on the wiki.

[antoine]

Here's an image I edited for raising awareness.

[hiker]

Good idea - just one thing I am not entirely sure of: it might give the impression that you can easily design your own tracks, karts and items (i.e. come with a special editor). While it is true that it can be done (it's open source after all ), we might give a wrong impression. Also it should state 'Split screen' multiplayer, since otherwise (I'd suspect) people expect to get online gaming.

Maybe less text/features to list?

Cheers,
Joerg

[Arthur]

Yeah, the text is a little hard to read with so little spacing. Better to make it shorter and have more space between each item I think.

[antoine]

I couldn't fit split-screen multiplayer on one line, but I'll figure something out. I also agree that it's a wall of text.

What stands out about STK is that a user's content can actually make the game better.

In Modnation Racers/LittleBigPlanet Karting/Zero Gear have specials kart editors and some have track editors, but I think you're limited to what's included in the editors. Modnation Racers and LittleBigPlanet Karting are only available on consoles.


With SuperTuxKart, if you have enough skill, your work will get in the add-ons, or as part of the core game itself. That will be exciting to hobbyists or people starting out learning about game development. I'd like to emphasize that modders can start learning both game design theory and tools like Blender and Gimp while they mod STK.

So maybe "Play your custom made karts, characters, sfx, music, and powerups in game *"

*assembly required

I keep downloading new tracks and I'm so impressed by them. If the fairy land track had some music it would be my favorite so far.

KartRider is a free to play, hugely popular Kart racing game in Korea. Of the fifty million people here, one in four has played this game.
I wouldn't recommend trying to download it as it apparently contains some kind of malware or so sayeth AVG. I'm going to eventually start work on completing the Korean translation of STK.

youtu.be/zpafxLrvvfM