Character Creation

[lgromanowski]

With the upcoming exterior and GUI implementations we have all ingredients we need to make the character creation process fully playable in OpenMW. I am currently working on the missing scripting functionality. Therefore I suggest we add character creation to the 0.09 roadmap.

With the upcoming exterior and GUI implementations we have all ingredients we need to make the character creation process fully playable in OpenMW. I am currently working on the missing scripting functionality. Therefore I suggest we add character creation to the 0.09 roadmap.

I think this is reasonable. It's about 10:30am, I woke up late, but I might throw my files in after cleaning them up today just to give an idea of what I'd *like* to get done by the double-o 9. Considering how short the list is, I think we can afford right now to throw a few new things up on the task list.

Today I also plan to take results from questions and throw them into my guide. That's my task today.

annnd...*looks at wiki*...Push.

I didn't get much in the way of substance into my work this week, due to Real Life, but (unless I forgot something) I have all the classes that the game will require in terms of windows and messages - it's now a matter of getting it filled in, which means I can start getting some knowledge now that I can get the job properly laid out in front of me.

I didn't enforce style yet, but that will happen. I'm a newbie programmer, so I welcome anything constructive that can help me do a good job or get a jump on getting the job done.

A strong start, between wiki and code, with some patience and study I'll get more done over time.

EDIT: Ummm...did I do it right? I don't see the files on my fork on github...
pwd....well, that looks right...
...hmmm...

Do I have to send a pull request, too? I can't see my files on github.

I don't see anything on github. They have a problem with one of their file servers currently. Its either that or you did something wrong.

Sorry, but think I didn't pay enough attention to what you are doing and I may have missed an important point. AFAIR you haven't been able to build OpenMW yet, right? So the new code would be untested, even uncompiled? I don't want to sound harsh, but I think if you can't build then you can't really contribute code. I at least don't have the time or the energy to work with completely untested code.
I think someone else was trying to get the build process working on Windows (athile?). I suggest you two put your heads together and try to sort it out.

btw. the github server problem seems to have gone away.

I don't see anything on github. They have a problem with one of their file servers currently. Its either that or you did something wrong.

Sorry, but think I didn't pay enough attention to what you are doing and I may have missed an important point. AFAIR you haven't been able to build OpenMW yet, right? So the new code would be untested, even uncompiled? I don't want to sound harsh, but I think if you can't build then you can't really contribute code. I at least don't have the time or the energy to work with completely untested code.
I think someone else was trying to get the build process working on Windows (athile?). I suggest you two put your heads together and try to sort it out.

btw. the github server problem seems to have gone away.

Well, From what we were discussing before, as long as I update from the master branch, that means as long as I'm not making any mistakes, it means I can at least make updates myself.

You're right, though. I admit that I wanted to get something up because of the coming weeks, and should at least make sure it would compile.

That's why everyone has a fork, though. If it's broke, I'll fix it. I changed nothing, only added files. (so if they need to be removed that's easy enough) In the meantime, only thing standing between me and compiling is Getting Cmake to stop giving me flack about OIS when I have it.

As I said with the release build thread, I need to understand the job ahead a little better, otherwise I'm not very useful to athile. I'm not even really fully aprised of what problems the windows build has other than you have to build it for a different platform that may have all sorts of differences. (VS and not mingW or other.) and no one has windows except me and athile apparently.

In short - need more communication and guidance.

I'll tell you what, I'll start the windows build thread and see what emerges. (in fact, we should have a sticky for each current task in the roadmap) It's a little embarrassing to have to ask all the questions and look outright incompetent to everyone, but we all start somewhere, and I gotta learn somehow.

IIRC it was an OpenAL problem, not an OIS problem, that got in your way. Right? The picture in the last post of your original cmake thread is gone.

Obviously you can push to your fork whatever you want. You probably should try it again, just to make sure you got the procedure right. There is still nothing on github from you.

I just uploaded a fresh screen.

Yeah, but if you look, it happens when it comes to OIS, then starts talking about OpenAL without saying anything else. I've tried a few ways of telling it "this is where these directories ware" but it doesn't like the include directory, and there are no library files in that directory. All you get is source from them.

The installer installs an install file to an openAl directory that looks exactly the same as the installer.

EDIT: git push origin master returns "everything up to date"

You haven't pushed anything to github yet. So it seems you made a mistake somewhere. A
git status
might tell you what is going on.

You haven't pushed anything to github yet. So it seems you made a mistake somewhere. A
git status
might tell you what is going on.

"git status" shows me all the files I added under "untracked Files"

Read a git book. Seriously. You are missing basics here. This is a good one: http://progit.org/book/

Read a git book. Seriously. You are missing basics here. This is a good one: http://progit.org/book/

Look, I appreciate the help. You've definitely help me a lot since I've started. But I want to kinda clear up something that I find concerning. I'll definitely take a read of it, but I think you should put yourself in my position for a second and try to see things from my perspective.

I'm starting to get upset now because this situation is what I'm working to eliminate everywhere I go at school, and in places like projects like this, where communication and most available, though restricted, but unused.

You want people for this project, correct? You want help? Okay? We're not making this easy on ourselves, and a statement like that, right or wrong, is not inviting to people, and doesn't solve much other than outing me as a newb, which isn't that spectacular, and maybe avoiding having to fill me in. No one likes seeing that.

- We have a wiki that doesn't even outline the correct instructions for what someone is to do at any level of participation with this project. Now, we can say it's all a WIP, and I'm actively working on getting the information and knowledge to fix that myself (even if I have to take a beating), but it takes time. Nonetheless, it's a high priority. I'd say it's a higher priority than any of the current coding tasks. It's that important. Otherwise the most active and experienced coders are going to be on their own with no help. Who wants to work in that?

- It doesn't make any sense to practice any kind of approach that doesn't seem inviting to beginners or the inexperienced. You just told me I should have done my homework before coming. What you are saying is entirely right, and I've admitted it several times now. I'm not experienced. This is humiliating enough for me, but do you see me working to make up for it, even correcting it? Even making something positive out of it? Yes.

So, with that off my chest - I can understand that we're all here voluntarily, and that spending our time to inform each other, aprise each other of developments, and even provide support for devs and users alike may distract us from our real lives or from doing work which requires more focus like coding may seem like a waste, but it's a part of any project for any group, and aside from support that is already written (which we didn't) every bit of help we give each other is beneficial and necessary, and shouldn't be looked on as a waste.

So - I'll go read it, and I'll post when I think I found out what to do and have given it a try.

On one hand I agree with you Star-Demon, this is an open source project and needs all the help it can get. Those coding should disseminate their knowledge of what needs to be worked on to other programmers and what needs tested to those who aren't coding.

On the other hand there is a difference between asking for some guidance and learning to do something, and wanting clear step by step instructions to do something.

If your trying to learn github and are having problems compiling the project, yes asking for help is ok. But if your trying to get Zini to tell you step by step directions for every problem you encounter, it will get wearing. Zini has been doing the majority of the coding it seems for a while and I personally don't want him slowing down to have to help you, especially if its taking him away from coding.

Compiling source code can be very difficult for a beginner and visual studio doesn't make it any easier. And I may as well be a beginner. But why not set up a dual boot linux/windows set up and compile it on linux? Every time I tried compiling a linux project on windows it was a disaster. So I'm using fedora and I was able to compile the source code just fine. Even on linux, though it took me a couple of days and lots of trial and error because I didn't know how to use Cmake.

Zini, keep up the great work and don't slow down for anyone.

One final statement from me and then hopefully we can get back on topic.

@Star-Demon: UnfoundedBros summed it up pretty well. It is perfectly acceptable to ask for a bit of help here and there. We all do that once in a while. I am even willing to help out someone less experienced a bit more. We all started somewhere once.
But in the end I see this help as an investment and I expect it to be paid back to the project eventually, preferably with interest. Considering that I could have implemented most of GUI system myself (based on Nico's MyGUI groundwork and probably excluding map and container stuff) during the time span I have spend providing support for you, I start to become a bit sceptical about getting my investment back. Wouldn't be the first time, that this happens to me.
I have to admit that in this situation your request for help on a topic that has plenty of readily available information pissed me off a bit. I don't think I was overly harsh and I won't apologize for it.

I hope this topic is finished now. If you want to continue discussing it, I suggest you take it to PM. But I would really prefer if we could just get back to coding.

@UnfoundedBros: A move to Linux certainly makes sense. I really can't understand why anyone would want to work on Windows, especially for coding. But our target audience consists mostly of Windows users, so we actually need at least one active Windows developer for porting and packaging.

I understand what you both are talking about. Aside from what I said, it probably would have been more polite to simply post the link with the message that it was a good read for people in my situation, and that it probably should be added to the wiki. (Did that myself yesterday.)

I'm not going to argue about the rest of it. We're all, of course, in a technical field, which is inclined towards this kinda thing - I definitely find it to be one of the sour parts of it.

@UnfoundedBros: A move to Linux certainly makes sense. I really can't understand why anyone would want to work on Windows, especially for coding.

Because it has a 90% market share, and all of us aren't professional programmers.

Everyone here has a real life. Including our users and potential contributors.

Me? I prefer to talk things out. I'm coming to find that it's a big liability in Computer Science unless you are management. It's kind of depressing.

I have add "Character Creation" to the milestone for 0.09.