DNT fork

[rogerdv]

Ok, I guess it is time to officially announce it and ask for help before I continue spending time on this. I decided to fork DNT (http://dnt.dnteam.org/) and I have been working on it since a few months ago, mostly fixing design, thinking the plot and learning Torque. Still there is not much actual code. Why I dont have any code after a couple of months working? Well, currently I dont have PC at home, all my work is done during work hours (8 AM to 5 PM), I have to split that time among actual work (sometimes), learning and writing (yes, I write novels). There is not much I can do to change that situation, except for hoping to find some golden coins in the bus stop (and yes, that actually happened in my city, I just got there an hour after it happened).
Well, no more complaints:





What do I need?

1- Developers with Torque experience. Or with masochistic tendencies. Warning: Im not responsible if after 1 month using Torque you decide to kill youself or abandon your current life and become a monk. Seriously, if you know Torque, but dont have time to code, you are welcome as mentor.
2- Artists! DNT currently has a hughe amount of art, but mostly organized in a way that was very useful for previous engine, but quite a mess for the newcomer (models are in a place while textures are in another. All textures are named texture.png). File names are in portuguese. Portuguese is a sort of spanish badly pronounced... some times. Other times, it is an unknown word. I have spent hours opening file after file to actually figure out what is it. There are models in the game that i still dont know where they are. Also, even when I appreciate the great effort done by the team, I think that a fork using a commercial grade engine deserves to put the bar a bit higher for quality.
The project needs at least one UI artist, one concept artist, environment modellers and creature modellers. Experience with low-poly modeling is mandatory, also you must be able to provide texture maps, including normal maps. Blender is the preferred tool, but for animated creatures, 3d max is admitted (Blender collada exporter makes a mess with animations).
Before you mention Opengameart, the answer is no. Even when you can find useful stuff there, it is not enough to build a game.
3- More artists: musicians, writers. If you have played DNT and have an idea for a quest, drop me a message.
Thats all. Needless to say, that any donation that can help me rebuild my PC or motivate some local artists (have a few here, but everybody is trying to bring bread to the table instead of spending time of free projects) is welcome. Now, it is time to go back to Torque.

[c_xong]

Sound great, I support all attempts at reviving dead projects, go FOSS!

Where is your fork? Can you put it somewhere like github where we can see how it's going?

[Julius]

Hmm, I am a bit skeptical (but don't be discouraged by that). Changing engines is usually a good way to waste a lot of time. Do you think that the one awesome feature of Torque, i.e. the build-in outdoor level editor, will be really helpful for your DNT fork? Indoor or area with lots of man made structures on the other hand are not really that great to build with Torque.

[rogerdv]

Complex areas are not easy to build. It takes time, using torque or unity (yes, I even thought about using unity), or whatever.
@c_xong, still no git repo, I just have a basic prototype that doesnt works too well. I was planning to wait for Torque3d 4.0 to start the actual project, but seems that 4.0 will take a year to arrive, I have seen plans to release a 3.6 and 3.7 before that. Also, I want to secure an artist first, or I will be working for nothing.

[charlie]

@rogerdv I would advise against waiting - for Torque 4.0 or for an artist - before you start putting your prototype in an accessible format (e.g. github).

1) Artists are more likely to join a project that exists and they can see already taking shape, even if said shape is rough
2) Think of SCM as save points - you can go back if you want, or if you lose your computer then you haven't lost your work
3) The work of an open source game dev is usually a lonely job; it is best to assume you'll get no help, and just plug away and see any help as a bonus

[Julius]

I gave it some more thought, and I think the idea to revive a 3d isometric FOSS RPG is good (and besides DNT, art from PARPG: http://blog.parpg.net/ could also be used).

However I think Torque3D is a terrible engine choice for it.

If I was you I would take the 0 A.D. engine for the following reasons:

1. Most of the vital camera, character/enemy pathfinding and AI etc. stuff is already implemented (RTS are really not so different from top down RPGs)
2. It uses a build in browser engine to run the scripts and UI AFAIK, so all that vital interface and inventory stuff will be much easier to created based on available Javascript libs for interactive websites.
3. Lots of high quality vegetation and terrain artworks already in the game, and some of the buildings could maybe also fit into a post-apocalyptic setting with some re-skinning
4. Great level editor (ok that is true for Torque mostly too)
5. Proven multiplatform (while torque 3d's Linux port is really experimental still).

But I guess that is just my humble suggestion

[charlie]

Ugh, PARPG and the self fulfilling dead project prophecies... if you want to kill your project, keep declaring it dead. Eventually it'll die!

[farrer]

rogerdv, some advices/sugestions :

A) Maybe you should just port the graphic engine to something like Ogre3d, as most of the gameplay is fully implemented at the current DNT engine; It should be a simpler task than porting everithing to a new game engine;

B) As charlieg said, libre-gaming programming is, for the vast majority of projects, a lonely task. Help will happen when the project get some momentum;

C) OGA is a great place to get resources. DNT use a lot from the models and textures from there, it's not so hard to find some "gold coins" on their submissions;

D) If you like, you can use the sourceforge DNT project, just send me your sf user and I'll put you as the new DNT manager; Having an SCM is a very important thing. Believe me: hard drives could burn and, most important than that, with an SCM you could easily revert some bad approaches that often we programmers do;

E) About the texture files you couldn't find: feel free to email me those ones you didn't find and I'll answer you where they are. Basically, DNT have 2 folders types for models: "blender/" where you'll find the .blends of all models and "data/models" where lies the models in the game format (some cal3d, some .md5) and the textures:

Here's a quick description of "data/models".

building -> usually buildings ;
junk -> junk, wastes and some broken objects that proliferates on a post-apocaliptic world;
natural -> Nature things, as dead trees, rocks, etc;
objetos -> some objects
objetos/ammo -> ammunition for guns
objetos/armas -> guns and weapons
objetos/banho -> bath-likes
objetos/books -> books
objetos/geral -> general objects like furniture, musical instruments, etc;
objetos/icex-> some school like objects;
objetos/industrial -> some industrial objects;
objetos/itens -> botles, money, healkit, etc
objetos/paints -> some paints
objetos/tumbas -> cemitery objects;
objetos/vinyls -> Long plays to your vitrola;
personagens -> characters, NPC or playables
street -> street related, like poles, etc
tiles -> Borrowed from Open Dungeons Danimal made and posted at OGA;
vehicles -> broken cars, a Bus, etc;
warns -> some signs.

If you didn't see yet, here's some info that could help: http://dnt.dnteam.org/wiki/HomePage and here's the Doxygen of DNT code: http://dnt.dnteam.org/docs/codedocs/annotated.html

Feel free to ask me for something you didn't understand in DNT. I'll try to answer as soon as I can.

Good luck!

Farrer

[c_xong]

Software projects are risky, large ones more so, and open source ones even more. I agree with what everyone else has said; unless you already have a dedicated team with a proven track record of completing projects, it's best to think small.

Personally I prefer an Agile approach; have a small core game that is compelling, and incrementally add features, avoiding large, big-bang changes. This means it's easy for volunteers to work on small pieces of work that they enjoy, and you don't require long term commitment from them.