Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

OpenMW's very own demo, template and game to show off everything that OpenMW is capable of.

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GeorgeTheWarp
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Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by GeorgeTheWarp »

So we need more devs. With so few devs as we have now, we'll probably never be done. So I'm proposing a few steps to get more devs.



[*] Do regular public consultation between devs and peeps interested in developping the ES, as forum posts. Regular forum activity will make the ES seem more active, and in turn bring more people to developping it, which will effectively make it more active. This also includes showing some activity on reddit and twitter (it can very well be only a bot, so long as there is activity), and making a facebook page. I will manage some of those, if you so desire.


[*] Showcase stuffs! This is essential to make the project seem alive, and to show off progress to lesser interested people. Obviously, this means regular (I'm thinking monthly) videos and weekly livestreams, weekly forum post showcasing models, animations, and game logic, and completing demos as quickly as humanely possible. What this means is lesser quality but faster development.

Unrelated note: I'm remaking the boat, it looks like crap because I didn't make the sides round...


[*] Change the ES Title to an actual game name. Why this is important is that it will make the ES seem more official, and a little bit more separated from OpenMW. While it is true that we are a subproject of OpenMW, our development team is vastly different from the one of OpenMW, as much as for individual goals as for simple personal opinions of the devs. The Example Suite (from my experience, at least) is mostly developped by junior game devs wishing to eventually cash in on the experience they had developping the ES, and having a general love for Bethsoft's games (Arena to even, yes, Fallout 4), while the OpenMW developpers seem to be more passionate about Morrowind than any other Bethsoft's titles. The ES development team seems to be a lot younger than OpenMW's, too.

Short thing short, the individual goals and types of people working on those two projects are different, and they should probably be marked as such, permitting to differenciate the two projects but also to make an easier comparison between the two. We must not mistake shorthair libertarians for longhair hackers.

The sole negative point I see in this differenciation would be the wouldbe lack of collaboration between the two project, which is already very present, since the ES' team wanted features rarely, if ever, get implemented first. Which bring me to the next point I have.

[*]: The ES must seem as sexy as possible to companies, indie or not, as the example suite, even if now differenciated, will also be a modern game example made with OpenMW, which in turn will increase interest into the very engine and will benefit us all. The GPL license chosen by the OpenMW team is certainly less attractive to big budget companies, and the only way to attract them is to showcase a big improvement over the proprietary competitor, which OpenMW by itself never will be able to do. This means that we must showcase features Morrowind never had, and this might include making a few pull requests.

As said a little bit back, I stated that the ES is a different project from OpenMW because of the different intents of the developpers. However, the differenciation made will have the symbolic meaning that the two project must collaborate in some way, which is already done for the side of the OpenMW team. Some OpenMW developpers do invest some time making us some models, which does further our goal.

However, the features we must definitively need to showcase (a new dialogue interface, snap to grid in the CS, dehardcoding skills and classes) will need some code to be done from our part if we want to move forward quicker. And while this is great for the ES, it is even greater to fulfill our own individual goals, wheter it'd be making a game or becoming a professional game modeler (unless you're just there for fun, it can happen...), and it is most necessary to do some of the heavylifting.

While this all sound cool, I expect very few of us to go as far as to do this, and I fully understand why. Learning to program is a dauntling task, and it certainly isn't for everyone. I can program, while I don't understand what I do at all.

And so, it is time... to make OpenMW-ES great again!
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psi29a
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by psi29a »

I'm going to have to disagree with the majority of what you typed. Sorry. :/

The ES is not a game. It is exactly what the name suggests and is the only Official OpenMW Project. If you would like to make a game, please do however! Just know that it won't be an official OpenMW project.

The OpenMW-Template and OpenMW-Example-Suite are tightly bound to OpenMW and OpenMW-CS, all of which is not motivated by money but out of a labour of love. That people want to use these projects to further their own end-game is fine, so long as they abide by the terms of the chosen licenses.

What I do agree on is the PR effort can help bring more developers wishing to help either altruistically or to further their own agenda. I'm pragmatic there. ;) We should be working with the existing OpenMW PR team, I know they are enthusiastic about the efforts too. We have reddit and facebook pages already! More information about our outreach programs exist on the wiki. This can include showcasing stuffs as you said.

I hope I haven't rained too much on your parade, I like the effort really but as always... it comes down to doing something other than typing about it. We still have an issue tracker full of things to work on. :D
GeorgeTheWarp
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by GeorgeTheWarp »

psi29a wrote:The ES is not a game. It is exactly what the name suggests and is the only Official OpenMW Project. If you would like to make a game, please do however! Just know that it won't be an official OpenMW project.
It might not be a game, but a lot of the peeps behind it want to make it a small game, albeit a demo, as to showcase all features. And it might be preferable to distance it from OpenMW on that regard, as showcasing only new OpenMW features is not as far as we might go as if say, we added a new GUI and stuffs like that. Of course, that will take a bit more time, but it'll showcase that it is possible, and relatively easy to do so to both interested developpers and companies alike.

Please note that the example suite would be the first demo showcasing the capabilities of both OpenMW and the hackability of the engine, that way. Of course, we might as well never do any changes to the base code, but it might be good to some collaboration between the two projects as to make company crave for OpenMW.
psi29a wrote:The OpenMW-Template and OpenMW-Example-Suite are tightly bound to OpenMW and OpenMW-CS, all of which is not motivated by money but out of a labour of love. That people want to use these projects to further their own end-game is fine, so long as they abide by the terms of the chosen licenses.
I never spoke of a change of license or said that OpenMW-ES isn't related to OpenMW. However, I stated that OpenMW-ES is mostly motivated by the goals of learning to make a game by junior to intermediate 3D modelers (the most active member is Destined2Die, which clearly stated that it was his goal, and my goal is the same.), and I think that treating it more as a game project for shorthair libertarians that just hate education is better than treating it like if it was an hacker work-of-love project, which it clearly isn't. Of course, there are people with all sort of horizons working on the ES, including hackers, but the ones who made the project progress so far as it did weren't hackers, but actually shorthair capitalists. This differenciation in the project is essential if we want to bring more likeminded developpers, who seem to be a lot more active, as they have a final goal along with this initial one, and it'll benefit both OpenMW and the ES team.

Now, you might be wondering how. Simple, the higher exposure to video game devs will eventually (not now, maybe not soon, but eventually) showcase the capabilities of a modern open source engine (OpenMW), and in a style of game not often touched. (Bethsoft style rpgs)
psi29a wrote:What I do agree on is the PR effort can help bring more developers wishing to help either altruistically or to further their own agenda. I'm pragmatic there. ;) We should be working with the existing OpenMW PR team, I know they are enthusiastic about the efforts too. We have reddit and facebook pages already! More information about our outreach programs exist on the wiki. This can include showcasing stuffs as you said.
I am well aware that this program exists, but it will continue to bring leet hackers to the ES team without the differenciation, who usually are only sporadically interested in 3D modeling and texturing, at least compared to the more active peeps behind the ES. While this is all great, it might be better to bring people likeminded with the more active developpers, as to increase the activity of the ES. It doesn't mean less activity on OpenMW's side, as the most active peeps behind the ES rarely, if ever, touch to code anyways.
psi29a wrote:I hope I haven't rained too much on your parade, I like the effort really but as always... it comes down to doing something other than typing about it. We still have an issue tracker full of things to work on. :D
Of course I know we need to do something! I always speak against peeps doing nothing to help projects progress and complain about shit. And if you noticed, I did more to help the ES (albeit without effect, as I still am shit at modeling... fucking sporadic shit) than most of the OpenMW team did as a whole.

However, modeling with a broken laptop is not very easy now eh? And without a GPU on my desktops, I can't do shit. I'll eventually buy my computer (in one or two weeks, depending on the budget I spend), with a recording card as to help the PR action progress, and a gpu, obvs.

I know that you have this leet hacker philosophy, but this time we're speaking of two very different mindsets for the "sub"project and the project. We're essentially comparing libertarian shorthairs interested in video game development as a goal to make moneyz to hackers who simply love Morrowind and earlier bethsoft titles, and that are willing to put in effort without or with very few return. And we should accomodate to those different mindsets by differentiating the projects, and therefore sending the proper mindset to its proper accomodating project.

Anyways, I hope I didn't burst you leet bubble.
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by psi29a »

GeorgeTheWarp wrote:Anyways, I hope I didn't burst you leet bubble.
Not at all, I'm pretty shit at modeling as well. As for Peeps, every time I read it, I think of the little marshmallow birds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peeps So you have short-haired capitalist Peeps, libertarian Peeps and so on... I have no idea what you're on about, but that's fine. :)

It is nice to have push-back and reasonable response without things getting heated.

Atahualpa has been constantly asking when he can demo the Template and Example suite, considering that we have something now then it is a perfect time as any to get on the good PR train and toot our horn a bit. It makes sense to do that because the Template and ES are official projects. If you would like to do additional PR above and beyond what is planned, awesome, do it. :)

That the ES resembles a game is fine, I mean it is a game engine after all. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though, it isn't a full game. Keep it simple stupid. Keep it practical. Keep it open.

Now once the ES has an established base, I think it is perfectly acceptable at that time to fork the ES off and make it a full game if anyone wants. That was one of the goals of the project, to give an example. At that point however, that new forked ES would no longer be an OpenMW official project.
GeorgeTheWarp
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by GeorgeTheWarp »

psi29a wrote:
GeorgeTheWarp wrote:Anyways, I hope I didn't burst you leet bubble.
Not at all, I'm pretty shit at modeling as well. As for Peeps, every time I read it, I think of the little marshmallow birds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peeps So you have short-haired capitalist Peeps, libertarian Peeps and so on... I have no idea what you're on about, but that's fine. :)

It is nice to have push-back and reasonable response without things getting heated.

Atahualpa has been constantly asking when he can demo the Template and Example suite, considering that we have something now then it is a perfect time as any to get on the good PR train and toot our horn a bit. It makes sense to do that because the Template and ES are official projects. If you would like to do additional PR above and beyond what is planned, awesome, do it. :)

That the ES resembles a game is fine, I mean it is a game engine after all. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though, it isn't a full game. Keep it simple stupid. Keep it practical. Keep it open.

Now once the ES has an established base, I think it is perfectly acceptable at that time to fork the ES off and make it a full game if anyone wants. That was one of the goals of the project, to give an example. At that point however, that new forked ES would no longer be an OpenMW official project.
It's great to hear about PR possibilities. As for title change, it can certainly wait, it was merely a suggestion.

And I do agree that the ES, if it needs to be forked (dead development, bad management, stuffs like that. Issues we are certainly not a target of right now, with only 2 active members in the development team), would need to be forked once the ES has made some kind of progress. The ES right now IS making progress, but by far not quick enought, therefore this suggestion. I didn't mean to try actually change anything, I only really wanted to show off that the ES community and the OpenMW community are related yet different. As for the rest, it can wait.

I'll probably be making FO4 mods for a while, when I do get my computer, so I might as well spread the word on the nexus.
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Atahualpa
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by Atahualpa »

psi29a wrote: Atahualpa has been constantly asking when he can demo the Template and Example suite, considering that we have something now then it is a perfect time as any to get on the good PR train and toot our horn a bit. It makes sense to do that because the Template and ES are official projects. If you would like to do additional PR above and beyond what is planned, awesome, do it. :)
Something to showcase? *sigh* Finally!
If you want some PR through our YouTube channel, I'd propose the following: After the release of OpenMW v0.40.0, I'll be able to produce a separate video covering the Template Project and the Example Suite. Release it a few weeks after the release commentaries -- well before interest starts to fall -- and many people will watch it. The follow-up video would be the new FAQ video. (If you need more time to work on your projects, I could easily switch the release order.)
NullCascade
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by NullCascade »

Is Windows still a barely supported development environment for this project? I remember wanting to work on it before, but OpenMW was not self-contained and was a major PITA to get going. If developers give up on setting up the environment, it's not a good sign.
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psi29a
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Re: Bringing more (and less sporadic) junior devs

Post by psi29a »

I believe this is the wrong thread for your question, as this has to do with the Example Suit (and Template) development (meaning modeling and texturing and working with the OpenMW-CS) and has nothing to do with working on OpenMW itself.

I'll answer anyway:

Windows has good coverage these days. Check out the wiki and there is even a thread dedicated to stream-lining the process.

While it is a easier on Linux than on Mac which is by far easier than on Windows, the later has been automated with scripts these days. We run appveyor with every pull request that comes into github and that sets up and tears down a working windows environment to build OpenMW in under 15 minutes.

Microsoft still has a ways to go to make WIndows a easier platform to develop with/for.

So at this point,it just depends on your attitude. :)
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