On Week 41

skyjake

skyjake:

Last week I was making gradual progress with completing the implementation of a Qt-based replacement for SDL_net. Currently work on the libdeng2 side is complete, but because the new low-level network code behaves slightly differently when compared to SDL_net, some additional work is required in the engine's network code to adapt to the revised APIs. From now on data is always transferred in finite blocks and reception notification occurs only when a complete data block has been received; with SDL_net the receiver could not be sure that a complete message had been received.

I also spent some time writing a Quick Guide to Amethyst, our old documentation processor that we're planning to use again in the future to generate docs in different formats.

This week I might be busy with work related things, but I plan to continue updating the network code if and when I have a chance.

danij:

Over the past week I have continued development on the new Doomsday Windows Installer, which is now shaping up nicely. This installer now features a localized interface with support for a handful of languages in addition to English (currently Danish, French and Romanian). More languages will be added over time as their translations become available (Finnish, Japanese and Korean are distinct possibilities). I also implemented an optional install feature for Doomsday's audio plugin components and improved the Add/Remove programs and shell integrations (adding support/update links, high quality graphics etc).

In addition to working on the installer I continued work on the automated release scripts for the Windows platform in an attempt to resolve some of the current logistical issues. Thus far this work has resulted in a revised release script which works around a significant slowdown issue which resulted in release builds taking upwards of ten minutes to complete (on my development system, at least). This process now completes in under a minute.

Over the coming week I hope to wrap up work on the new Doomsday Windows Installer. All that is currently missing is; a mechanism for silently installing the Visual C++ runtime, a button to launch the Doomsday Frontend post install and a checkbox to optionally install a shortcut to the desktop. When these features are implemented we can then merge this work back to the master.

I will look into implementing the new features I talked about in previous updates (e.g., optional uninstall of user configuration files) at a later date, as I need to get back to work on ringzero.

gary

Sorry for all the questions, but...

1) Is there much more to do before 1.7.0 or has most of the work been done for that?

2) Is it me or has there been a lot more progress this year than other years? Seems that a lot more is getting done this year.

3) Also, is ringzero another name for the main part of 1.7.0?

4) What is left to do for ringzero?

5) Will support for normal maps be added?

6) Will a change in the engine be implemented to make terrain more realistic instead of blocky? I recently noticed that is one reason the Classic Doom terrain and buildings sometimes look unrealistic. Also, no hills or bumps on the ground and usually blocky walls, floors, and ceilings. I don't know the term used for that kind of stuff. But a term I just coined for it is 'environment polycount'.

skyjake

gary wrote:

1) Is there much more to do before 1.7.0 or has most of the work been done for that?

I assume you mean the next stable release (1.9.7). I wrote a breakdown of the status in the previous week's update. On the whole it's definitely shaping up but there is still a nontrivial amount of work left.

gary wrote:

2) Is it me or has there been a lot more progress this year than other years? Seems that a lot more is getting done this year.

Progress has indeed been a bit better this year, but partially your perception of this is affected by our new weekly reporting practices. We certainly were doing things before March but were keeping quiet about it.

gary wrote:

3) Also, is ringzero another name for the main part of 1.7.0?

ringzero is DaniJ's working branch in the codebase. In addition to bugfixes there is the ability to run the engine without having any game plugin loaded. We are planning to include that in the next stable release.

gary wrote:

5) Will support for normal maps be added?

Eventually yes, but not for the next stable release. This will have to wait until we start work on revising the renderer. (Which we very much look forward to.)

gary wrote:

6) Will a change in the engine be implemented to make terrain more realistic instead of blocky? I recently noticed that is one reason the Classic Doom terrain and buildings sometimes look unrealistic. Also, no hills or bumps on the ground and usually blocky walls, floors, and ceilings. I don't know the term used for that kind of stuff. But a term I just coined for it is 'environment polycount'.

This is on our roadmap as surface/model decorations. It is part of the plans for the revised renderer.