TA3D

Here is a list of things that aren't done yet, so if you want to help, here is what you can do:

• *internationalization -> we need translations for more languages (soon we`ll get ttf-style fonts support)
  *create 3D models for all the sprites in TA's resources (trees, rocks, map features, coursor and other)
  *create high definition textures
  *create a free set of data to have a free(as in freedom) playable mod -> would be great if it was compatible with TA to make mods work with it
  *improve Artificial Intelligence
  *write/update documentation (FAQ, game manual, installation instructions, ...)
  *test everything and fix bugs
  *help others on the forums
  *port TA3D to other platforms (BSD, MacOS, Solaris, ...)
  *add support for replays
  *implement loading/saving multi player games (almost done)
  *advertise (making videos, screen shots, talking on forums, ...)
  *we have video capture, add sound capture to the audio module
  *add support for resource/units give system between players
  *add support for units experience and hp/dmg/acc and so on increase
  *implement a Lua based skinning system

just done in current SVN:

• *implement loading/saving single player games
  *add support for multi-player
  *add support (i suggest leave just this one) for extended build menu and big buildpics
  *add support for single player campaign mode
  *add support for shields (at least the shields we've tested seem to work)

We have a powerfull 3DMeditor in ta3d package, that allows models conversion, adding transparency, animation, shaders and many other usefull features. Documentation about 3DMeditor will be soon.

The purpose of this Topic is to show the list of all the things we have to do, if some are missing or if something doesn't have to appear in it any more then feel free to post here, but beware that we'll keep this topic CLEAN and posts will be removed as soon as they become useless

A 0.5.0. test 10 suggestion.

In multiplayer lobby when clicking on the created server should be displayed creator`s version of TA3D. I`ve seen several servers lately, but couldn`t join because of version difference (as it seems to me)

you could see version differences ? in fact it only displays matching versions, but currently only the 0.5.0 TEST branch has multiplayer support ...

Then it was a bug - there was 2 different servers and I was unable to connect to any. Game setup screen appears for 1 sec and then disconnect and I return to multiplayer lobby.

grr, we'll a popup to display a message saying what happens in that case

Some of your Todo list's are already done in Spring RTS which is GPL so you can salvage stuff for it no need to code for it IMO
"*add support for resource/units give system between players
*add support for units experience and hp/dmg/acc and so on increase"

Unfortunately engine stuffs are very code dependent, so it's difficult to reuse things from another engine. We're mainly interested in reusing any free piece of game resource to make a free OTA resource set since it should be more or less compatible. What is interesting in Spring code is the way it handles OTA compatibility .

as off like those CEG,Healing etc depends on other scripts stuff too? hm i thought they were sort of "stand alone" or however you would name it and they are written in C++ IIRC

*implement loading/saving multi player games (almost done)

How is that?? Loading/saving is for campaigns only. Or are you really talking about making a pause in multi-players game then continuing it later?

slogic wrote:

*implement loading/saving multi player games (almost done)

How is that?? Loading/saving is for campaigns only. Or are you really talking about making a pause in multi-players game then continuing it later?

Yes, exactly. Have you ever play multiplayer in Starcraft?

Guilty, i played SC in multiplayer mode. But i never thought about stopping the process & continuing it later.

Since SC MP games can last for a hour or more - saving game sometimes does look like the perfect feature

It can be very useful during a LAN-party for example, when it's pizza time you just save the game in case it crashes for no obvious reason while eating pizzas :p.

Saving can also be interesting when the game crashes, it may be possible to save the game state and load it to continue playing (or for debugging purposes it'd be great too )

loading/saving multi player games
well, is this a replay?
I mean, do it save all action?

Not exactly.

Replay is about replay watching.

Save/Load is about saving and loading.

"Replay" could be expansive. You have to save a lot of things. Or a "bullet-time" like replay for the last X seconds
But still it may be costly.

Writing all the network sync data that is produced during a multiplayer game should be enough to have a replay .
Currently TA3D dumps all its network traffic to a file (to run a few tests on these data, like compression, etc...), overhead is quite small .

However those replays would be quite big.

Maybe you can do it as they do in Starcraft? Record interface inputs, like mouse clicks, buttons pressed and so on. They emulate the player and his actions during replay viewing?

no it would not work as easily as this because of the engine not being totally deterministic

I prefer net packed, this give a possable that one day a 3rd party addtion out, for replay TA-demos

for size, compression will reduce 50%, and maybe some elemt that used for checksum or somethings beable to delete in demo files, what used for multi-play modify (maybe sync)

For record input, I can finshed window's work , but it maybe no need.

Balthazar wrote:Maybe you can do it as they do in Starcraft? Record interface inputs, like mouse clicks, buttons pressed and so on. They emulate the player and his actions during replay viewing?

It is impossible since the IA is not predictable (at least not completely). But we keep the idea for perhaps the next major version.

We could record AI decisions too but we would still have problems with the engine not really being deterministic : just looking around introduces entropy because of some special effects using the cached random numbers, and network stuffs are much worse regarding entropy.

We could save all orders ("move to 3,7", ...) but it would require a better code design.

oh yeah~
All orders

All "atomic" orders. Those given by the real user, and those generated by the IA. It would considerably reduce the memory footprint and the date to store on disk.

Indeed but we'll also have to store some key events such as unit creation or destruction, units deciding to auto-attack an enemy, forest fires and find a way to make paths repeatable, etc ...

Of course there is no much problems in campaign/skirmish modes but in multiplayer you have no guaranty you can replay the game if you only store orders/events as they are given chronologically (because of synchronization problems).

we can record in script dispatch or some nearly where.
I mean record in order execution code