Spring RTS Engine

He used to post here often, then he disappeared.
Can anyone fill me in on what happen?

Drama. Not your business

just search for Argh´s posts with the search function and you might get a rough picture of what went down.

LordMuffe wrote:just search for Argh´s posts with the search function and you might get a rough picture of what went down.

The last time he had posted was 2010, didn't see his posts of "I'm leaving" thing at a quick glance.

The reason for Argh's permanent ban is (free quote from memory) "constant douchebaggery and being wrong". He had one or two previous recorded warnings from some months/years before.

His second-last post, the day before:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24742

Based on the dates the refered thread is likely:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24704

To understand the context:
Did you ever notice how in "Feature Request" people make very silly topics?
There are actually guidelines for requests to be sensible, realistic etc, but think nobody reads that.
Made up example would be something like:

Allow trees to move in the wind! Reason: That would look nice. Here is how to do it: The tag can be named isWindMoveFeature.

Things were you just know that it will not go anywhere because it is way too vague or big. (big="make pathing like in this video" or "make the GUI look like in starcraft")
Argh would reply "Lua it!" and post a Lua. If you request some engine-thing like this today, that is how excactly how it usually goes too.
But 4 years ago it was the other way around. The club could not even handle because the request was clearly for an engine feature, not a Lua.

Was there any particular reason for asking?

Maybe he is just wondering if lately any progressive movements took place.

He's the only dev that I can think of that sell his game using the spring engi, so I'm scratching my head on his disappearance.

well, his P.U.R.E forum is quite dead (that on his wolf games page), and I never heard anything new after his first post regarding his new project ( was some space game in unity i think )

i was quite sad when he left, since his tutorial for making a 3d model and getting it into spring was the one i learned from.

I tried to get him back not that long ago, he was banging on about some 'revolutionary' way of rendering terrain, when kloot ripped it apart and I said I was just the messenger he got pissed off with me for being 'two-faced' and threatened legal action etc.

He is a few bits short of a byte, which is a shame because he is a talented artist.

FLOZi wrote:I tried to get him back not that long ago, he was banging on about some 'revolutionary' way of rendering terrain, when kloot ripped it apart and I said I was just the messenger he got pissed off with me for being 'two-faced' and threatened legal action etc.

He is a few bits short of a byte, which is a shame because he is a talented artist.

Sheesh, sounds like a guy who can't handle criticism.

I take a nipple. And to be honest, most guys doing this stuff, can be quiet "difficult".
You need to be a mental "Rhino" to go on such lonely walks, have some thick plates on your skull to cushion away the blows and the ability to not look up all the time, realizing how much work still lies ahead (while still having plans for how to do that work).

And most guys who do that kind of stuff, get hired by companys, and do it for a living. :)
So, yeah, will to put up with stuff scales with time_invested.
Some holes are holier then others.

And yes, every dev reading this, thinks about somebody else.
:)
Allmost like a family

LordMuffe wrote:well, his P.U.R.E forum is quite dead (that on his wolf games page), and I never heard anything new after his first post regarding his new project ( was some space game in unity i think )

I think that is part of the reason pure died. He released it but there was not a lot of activity on his part that was visible to the larger internet community. I fee like if he kept it up he could have eventually gathered a great deal of momentum

Super Mario wrote:

FLOZi wrote:I tried to get him back not that long ago, he was banging on about some 'revolutionary' way of rendering terrain, when kloot ripped it apart and I said I was just the messenger he got pissed off with me for being 'two-faced' and threatened legal action etc.

He is a few bits short of a byte, which is a shame because he is a talented artist.

Sheesh, sounds like a guy who can't handle criticism.

That seems too harsh and mispresentive.
First look at:
something about terrain (scroll for more pictures) http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 40#p453988
So he did not just "bang on about some 'revolutionary' way": he actually did it. It was not just rambling.

That was revolutionary - no need to put it in inverted comma.
There have not been many other attempts at alternative terrain rendering.
From top of head I can only think of one similiar thing: zwzsg's map Hexfarm, which was 2 years later.
(Maybe two, if one counts the textured rectangle that some maps call "lava" as terrain.)

Imo it does not matter how hackish it was or what problems it had or why it was a dead-end.
(Da Vincis helicopters in their human-powered form were also a dead-end, that does not make them less revolutionary.)

"kloot ripped it apart" imo must be seen context of time. An engine-dev in 2013 says that a modder in 2009 made something hackish. That is a bit like a NASA tech saying that the Wright brothers 100 years ago had no idea what they were doing. Of course many of their assumptions were wrong, just like Argh maybe was.

There is a special form of topics: The blabla-topics: Topics that only few forum peoplepersons really understand or worked on but everybody else has an opinion too, hence the blabla.
Example topics might be: pathing, performance, MT, map rendering, graphics.

Argh's bullshit claims in blablabla-topics were at least based on his attempts to do something, it was a technical approach and made sense in a way - even if outcomes were maybe wrong. To me seemed like he was well aware how hackish some stuff was:
("my crappy orkish demo code, which is doing all sorts of Things That Shall Not Be Named (seriously, it's almost Cthulu-esque evil, awful hacks)"
No matter how hackish, still a million times better than posters who based their claims on nothing or whose contribution to discussion was super-bla like "XY is all fucked up."

tl;dr ^-- still a better approach than shouting "I request god to give me wings!" while making pinguin noises

In hindsight one can say that some ideas turned out to be quite accurate and his approach was quite "modern."
For example making more use of shaders and Lua - both for game physics and for graphics.
Importantely he was not just an "idea guy", or some parrot who just joins the circlejerk chorus of "Lua it! Lua it!" without understanding - he actually did some of these things.
(Of course he was not only one, others did those things too etc blabladisclaimer)
But still: That was in a time when there was still strong pushing for more engine-side stuff.

I always thought PURE looked pretty cool

nice effects, polished game. Argh was dedicated , hardworking, and a better game dev than 99% of guys on these forums who talk shit about Argh. Shame he got banned TBH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUJy57bak8k

Never said - stop it picasso, you are doing stupid stuff. And i was doing stupid experimental stuff. None of my maps remains, but he was interested in new stuff, instead of preventing recent advances.
No matter where he is, i hope live smiles at him.

9heart wrote: 99% of guys on these forums who talk shit about Argh.

all zero of them? No one is talking shit about the guy.

Nevermind the drama, that clip looks good and it's from 2008.

PicassoCT wrote:I take a nipple.

Not to derail, but I actually reviewed a German colleague's bachelor thesis on serial communication not long ago and he thought the term was actually "nipple" instead of nibble and spelt it this way all throughout the document a couple dozen times. Made for an interesting read.

MetalSucker wrote:Nevermind the drama, that clip looks good and it's from 2008.

Argh was one of the best at capturing moments in video and screenshots. in game the experience was very different. Not trying to take away from that, I think it is a testament to how good the guy was at producing media, it is a talent I wish I had