Spring or not ?

[RVM]

Hello,

I have some question about SpringRTS, more specially about coding part.
I will do a "little" RTS game and for this moment I work with Orgre,CeGUI, Boost, Raknet and other library. But it take a lot of time to have an alpha or playable demo...
Now I have found this engine, and I don't know if it will pass to my need.

My goal was to have a RTS game with Client / Server architecture, Win/Linux compatibility.

And I have some question :

Can I work with Spring without lua ? (or other scripting stuff)
Is it simple to add feature to this engine (like Irrlicht or Qt)?
What about shader ? (full support of glsl ?)
What about network ?

Thank you to enlighten me,
RVM

[smoth]

why do you do some reading first instead of expecting all answers to be handed to you.

[KaiserJ]

My goal was to have a RTS game with Client / Server architecture, Win/Linux compatibility.

spring is a good choice then!

Can I work with Spring without lua ? (or other scripting stuff)

you can, but beyond unit basic TA-style unit behaviors and gameplay, you would need lua in order to add your own things. it is possible however that additional scripts have been created for other projects that could be adapted to suit your needs

Is it simple to add feature to this engine (like Irrlicht or Qt)?

well sure, but you would have to use lua (if indeed you mean gameplay elements by "features")

What about shader ? (full support of glsl ?)

in recent years i've seen custom shaders for various spring games; bumpmaps, animated channels etc.

sounds like spring might be right for you; but it may be helpful to a) try out some of the games for yourself and b) state you intentions more clearly (exactly what TYPE of feature or shader would you like to add?) then some of our friendly developers can comment more directly on your plans exactly

welcome!

[RVM]

why do you do some reading first instead of expecting all answers to be handed to you.

Well I will say why :

I have read forum rule, some post, I searched with google and read documentation :

Not word about dedicated server, I have see lobby server in many different direction (native to spring // develop by user) but no more...
In FAQ section and Dev section they ever speak with Lua and not without.
For C++ I found a wrapper (old deprecated and new) but it was for AI.

I think that the Feature page need more precision about the Engine it self.
=> Supported format, supported shader, Particle System, IA specification, GUI etc..
See Panda3D Feature page, or Irrlicht.

I have read other post like 'Some question about' but I don't have found my answer or not totally.

Is it simple to add feature to this engine (like Irrlicht or Qt)?

well sure, but you would have to use lua (if indeed you mean gameplay elements by "features")

Feature like in Video Player, changing Gui system, file protection, physics

What about shader ? (full support of glsl ?)

in recent years i've seen custom shaders for various spring games; bumpmaps, animated channels etc.

Terrain texturing shader, shadowmaps, Parallax Mapping, SSAO etc...

RVM

[smoth]

I have read forum rule, some post, I searched with google and read documentation :

Not word about dedicated server, I have see lobby server in many different direction (native to spring // develop by user) but no more...
In FAQ section and Dev section they ever speak with Lua and not without.
For C++ I found a wrapper (old deprecated and new) but it was for AI.

I think that the Feature page need more precision about the Engine it self.
=> Supported format, supported shader, Particle System, IA specification, GUI etc..
See Panda3D Feature page, or Irrlicht.

I have read other post like 'Some question about' but I don't have found my answer or not totally.

thanks.

[PicassoCT]

why do you do some reading first instead of expecting all answers to be handed to you.

Well I will say why :

I have read forum rule, some post, I searched with google and read documentation :

Not word about dedicated server, I have see lobby server in many different direction (native to spring // develop by user) but no more...
In FAQ section and Dev section they ever speak with Lua and not without.
For C++ I found a wrapper (old deprecated and new) but it was for AI.

I think that the Feature page need more precision about the Engine it self.
=> Supported format, supported shader, Particle System, IA specification, GUI etc..
See Panda3D Feature page, or Irrlicht.

I have read other post like 'Some question about' but I don't have found my answer or not totally.

Is it simple to add feature to this engine (like Irrlicht or Qt)?

well sure, but you would have to use lua (if indeed you mean gameplay elements by "features")

Feature like in Video Player, changing Gui system, file protection, physics

What about shader ? (full support of glsl ?)

in recent years i've seen custom shaders for various spring games; bumpmaps, animated channels etc.

Terrain texturing shader, shadowmaps, Parallax Mapping, SSAO etc...

RVM

It depends. If you do want to make a RTs - youre right here. Spring has some stuff a lot of the other "Engines" lacks- including a growing set of tools (Toolbox) and if you dev for a while, you realise how much of a value that actually is.

SpringDevTeam is quite excellent (and demanding that level from contribooters- thats why we are still here, and others are not :).

However, if you think about a rewrite of the engine for your own game- well its never wrong to be ambitious. But gameengines are complex. And while spring has some quite nice features (Behes implementation of ROAM- various shadders in Zero-K) - there are also areas neglected (AnimationSystem) and there is the problem, that you got with hundreds of touchy people working on there projects, there is rarely a piece of newground, where not someone has allready placed his toes.

Expierincing some trouble with "hardcoded" features in the past, the decision to "out-source" everything not needed into the lua-system or onto the graphixhardware is currently the main agenda, so if you aim to add some C _|_ _|_ feature to the engine (like a harcoded interface) - you are moving against the stream. But there is still space- for a lot of features. PhysixSimulations on the GFX Hardware, Shadder Miracles and the pure joy of gamedesign.

+ No censors, and no company who decides its time to shot the severs down. Lookin forward to what that glowing iron will be after the hammer.

[Google_Frog]

Your current question seems to be:
I have an arbitrary project, can I use Spring in a specific way to achieve it?

Would a better question be:
Here is my project idea, can I do this with Spring?

What are you trying to do and why do you impose those restrictions on your solution?

[AF]

Things of note that most people starting threads like this want to know:

• Most custom stuff is done by lua
• You can use C/C++ but be prepared to fork the engine
• No native IK support is in the engine, if you want to animate your stuff with some variant of IK you will need to implement it yourself ( do give back the code if you do, many people would like to see this )
• If you're looking for animators and modellers, you're in the wrong place. People skilled at producing content for this engine will already have their own projects and likely do not have the time to finish those to their own satisfaction, nm yours
• Said people are very helpful however, they will help you make you game, but they will not make it for you

Network wise we have luasockets for lua, but if you're working in C++ there'll be some socket provisions in there, I'm not sure on the APIs precisely.

GLSL is possible, we have lua code that uses it in the APIs, and it's used in the engine itself. Again, if you're working in C++ I know it's possible but I don't know what provisions have been made for it, ask an engine dev.

As for QT/Irrlicht, it's doable. Spliff integrated the ASSIMP library not long ago, so he would be the one to talk to on integrating other libraries, but any current engine developer is more than capable of determining the cost of such an integration.

GUI wise most UI kits are built in lua, relying on the engine for font rendering and GL APIs. There are several rival setups, the one most seem to be focusing on at the moment is called Chilli.

Also:

Some people will disagree with me, but the majority do agree that our sites documentation is pitiful. Our wiki is barely upto date, and most people just read the engine code for tags etc. That's not to say you won't find useful things in there

[PicassoCT]

having the pity to read some--- ahem professional documentation the last few days.. well our docu aint that bad. Get your hand on some hardware manuals AF.. there is what i would call bad docu. 1500 sites, and reinventing names for everything as they go along.

but yes, if we had a way to extract info out of the irc-channel (face it, thats were most of the advice is given.. and auttransfer that into QA .. that would be neat

[SwiftSpear]

Can I work with Spring without lua ? (or other scripting stuff)

What? Of course not.

Is it simple to add feature to this engine (like Irrlicht or Qt)?

No, spring is fundamentally an RTS engine. You have to go through other people to actually modify the engine. It's set up to make fairly conventional RTS games reasonably easily. Although we have a significant heads up when it comes to heavily responsive animation systems in comparison to most other engines out there. It's easier to make a standard RTS in spring than in Unity for example.

What about shader ? (full support of glsl ?)

Not really. You have some control through Lua if you're willing to use it. I find it absurd that you're willing to work with GLSL but you're not willing to learn a simple lua scripting system.

What about network ?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Mods can't really easily edit the network system. It's fundamentally a simplistic non-symmetrical client server system with little to no prediction. It's functional, but I'd shy away from trying to make it work for an FPS game, for example.

[AF]

...

Nonsense, anyone can fork the code on github and add their own code, it's opensource!

[PicassoCT]

Im so sick of this- we have to apply for devs.. it should be the other way around.


Have you filled out the application form A38, else we just cant handle your request.. im very sorry..

[SwiftSpear]

...

Nonsense, anyone can fork the code on github and add their own code, it's opensource!

No, I'm well aware. Spring isn't a particularly easy engine to work on if you really want to touch the guts though.

Asking to develop in spring without lua is a bit like asking to develop in unity without using unity script. The Lua is in place to make game development easy and plugging into the engine painless.

So ya, I misspoke, you CAN work directly with the engine, but in order to ensure your changes are compatible with future versions of the engine you have to work with the spring developers, where as stuff you do in Lua spring development takes much more responsibility for ensuring will continue to work with the next engine patch. Lua is documented better than any given section of the spring engine codebase for that reason as well. More people will be able to help you with Lua problems than engine guts problems too, there are sections of the engine base that haven't been well understood for a long time, since the developers that built them moved on.

[PicassoCT]

there is sort of a map on the c_|_ _|_ code of the engine code though.. but be carefull, its old.. papyrus.. ah, there it is, right under "Here might be monsters".. and that tentacle thing.. guess thats to represent git. Or cthulu. Actually the same thing.

[AF]

...

Nonsense, anyone can fork the code on github and add their own code, it's opensource!

No, I'm well aware. Spring isn't a particularly easy engine to work on if you really want to touch the guts though.

Asking to develop in spring without lua is a bit like asking to develop in unity without using unity script. The Lua is in place to make game development easy and plugging into the engine painless.

So ya, I misspoke, you CAN work directly with the engine, but in order to ensure your changes are compatible with future versions of the engine you have to work with the spring developers, where as stuff you do in Lua spring development takes much more responsibility for ensuring will continue to work with the next engine patch. Lua is documented better than any given section of the spring engine codebase for that reason as well. More people will be able to help you with Lua problems than engine guts problems too, there are sections of the engine base that haven't been well understood for a long time, since the developers that built them moved on.

You're making a whole tonne of assumptions here

Clearly if you or I were to modify the engine to have code specific to yours or my game then it would not be official spring, and it would be a game specific binary.

As such any notion of it being able to play against people with official spring binaries is patently absurd and silly. TA Kingdoms and OTA were based on the same game engine, but that didn't stop them having different codebases. You don't see people laugh and pour disdain on Cavedog for the two not being compatible with multiplayer do you?

More over, why would he want his custom binary to be compatible with those that play BA/Evo/etc? Surely why would players want that when they can just use the official spring binary? Why would his binary even be in the spring install dir?

Clearly you're still working off of the old 1 install to rule them all, 1 community to find them, 1 forum to bring them all and in the darkness bind them" paradigm

[PicassoCT]

Actually i made some lighthearted assumptions i could contribute something to the engine.. well... guess what.. almost all things necessary are either done- or moved to lua- and reading through that thing on github- man you have to be good to keep up with that thing..