a3kyle {l Wrote}:Like I said I'm in the early design stages but some of my goals for students in my course would be:
- to understand how collaboration happens on a global scale
- to understand how open-source development works (parameters, limitations, freedoms, etc)
- to learn and apply the tools used to collaborate with your team (things like GitHub, I'm imagining)
Hi, a3kyle!
I think that the first three may be answered by any collaborator (including myself). I assume that there are many people who take part on this forum that can help you. Do you have an interest to know the personal experiences of non-developers too? Maybe, you should post this topic here (
https://forum.freegamedev.net/viewforum.php?f=10) and complete your knowledge with replies posted by voluntray contributors like me and others who wish to help you.
You can find, also, a lot of information about open-source development browsing outside. Maybe, this:
https://opensource.org/faq (this is the basics, but it's always good to remember).
https://opensource.com/life/14/6/12-cha ... e-projectshttps://gamedev.stackexchange.com/quest ... e-projectshttps://opensource.com/article/18/5/art ... -no-devopshttps://opensource.com/article/17/5/wha ... evelopmenthttps://www.quora.com/Why-arent-there-a ... urce-gameshttps://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.02327.pdf (this one is more related to softwares, but the principles are valid for games too).
https://opensource.com/article/18/5/cul ... ation-teamhttps://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Richard ... entals.phphttps://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Richard ... _Later.phphttps://www.infoworld.com/article/26123 ... money.htmlhttps://www.networkworld.com/article/29 ... games.htmlYou may know that there's a certain level of "bigotry" on communities for OS games (:lol: ), since many members are fanatic by totally free and open softwares. I can see this here, on STK, where some people give a side-eye to objects that are made on proprietary software for 3D modelling instead Blender. This may even cause the rejection of a contribution, depending on the level of mind of a developer.
Well, it's funny how day after day the control of the "freedom" falls in the wrong hands. For example, the heaven for free hosting, now, belongs to Microsoft (aka Bill Gates, the World's richest man in the official list):
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/tech ... uting.htmlThe last one is answered here:
https://supertuxkart.net/Community. Have you seen already the guidelines?
https://supertuxkart.net/Texture_Guidelineshttps://supertuxkart.net/3D_Model_Guidelineshttps://supertuxkart.net/Music_and_SFX_GuidelinesBasically, it's that. The person who wants to contribute has an idea (a track a kart or a song), read the respective guidelines and starts working on his/her project. Some come here to get more detail or suggestions before starting. Some other just know (or imagine to know) how doing the right thing and start in silence until the point that his/her work in progress track, kart or song may be tested or heard by this community. Sometimes the personal projects fail due to lack of time (I have 5 different tracks to finish) or even skills or project management. Eventually, some tracks, karts or songs are rejected for not fitting the game style or the personal taste of someone who can decide what becomes part of the official game and what goes to the add-ons. All depends on the needs of the game.
The tracks are thematically free, I believe. In other words, you may start your own track based on your main motivation (eg. you may desire to drive the karts in a scene that has resemblance with some known parts of your country). Since that there are not rules like "don't start making a new track on snow, on deserts, etc., you are free to try if you have time. However, new tracks are intended to replace the old ones. In general, tracks of the same theme or environment. Eg. The first track is a candidate to replace the old "Green Valley".
As a contributor, I can tell you that, one of the main difficulties is to fit the art to the game style, because it definition's is a bit vague, inaccurate and may cause confusion, since It's "realistic, but not much", what's weird to define. In general, in my contributions, I tend to do something between "Coilbook" and "Thomas and friends" in terms of graphics. I think that this is the style of the game as desired by the leaders. So, the art maybe be not as simple as "Farmees" and not as realistic as "Assetto Corsa", "Far Cry" or "Sniper Ghost Warrior". My reference is "Giant Machines 2017", that I like and I have on my Steam.
The karts, in opposite side, are limited to mascots of other open source projects. For instance, I think they don't need another new kart at the moment (even if in my opinion, 3 karts should be replaced by other mascots). So, a new project could result in waste of time by the part of the person who try to collaborate. Maybe the same about the songs. There are two official composers (Krobonil and OzoneOne) who are used to compose song tracks according to the game style. New songs are desired and created specifically for new tracks. I doubt someone may will be successful if he appear here and say "Hi! I'm a composer and I want to contribute to STK. Take a look at my SoundCloud and choose one or more of my songs to your existing tracks".
Wait for other replies (better than this mine). Maybe another contributor may help you with more specific information.