Mapper Release Please

Hello guys.
Now that Nexuiz has forked into xonotic and svn has been replaced by git I don't have a game to map for. The engine and gamecode has changed quite a bit since Nexuiz2.5.2 but that's the latest build there is to download (as far as i know).

Please would somebody build something and make it available for download. It will not be a release, just something which runs.

It's kinda silly to have to compile the engine and game just to map.

I like the cut of your jib... whatever that means.

I've been fairly hopeless at all this git and compiling business myself. Not really my cup of tea. I just want to play with all the shiny new features and see what I can make out of them.

I don't think anybody got a build on windows yet and when i GIT in UBUNTU it chewed up my last 4 GIG of space and asked 4 more! I just want to play with ODE and portals. Well, back to Nexuiz for now.

Well, if you want to play with ode and portals you will need all of git. Do you have an external hard drive? You could build xonotic there.

I hope we'll be able to build nightlies soon, I don't see a reason not to, really. What it should contain:

- compiled progs, compiled engine obviously
- exx, trak5x, trak4x, facility114x texturepacks (plus other stabilized packs as we get some, like morphed's procedural pack? )
- map models AS DIR STRUCTURES STABILIZE, there seems to be no such structure yet (need tZork here? ) This means, no map models in the first nightlies unless mappers are ready to face severe breakage due to paths changing around
- shaders
- playermodels, sounds, 2d gfx and other data
- jpeg compression on textures/2d gfx up to a point where it barely is obvious that we use jpeg (80-90% ish quality, 20-30% on alpha maps?) This could make the nightlies around 100 mb each (with no maps yet of course), and hopefully also make the final release much MUCH smaller than what the Nexuiz 2.5.2 package was! I have tested this, and can conclude that jpeg artifacts should not be TOO obvious unless you really look for them
- no maps (nothing has been decided on yet, so no point in including any), just provide as separate pk3s
- forced dialog to select physics/balance configs to use until we have a stabilized default (?)
- neccessary sources to comply with GPL

Be prepared to make changes to your map as Xonotic develops further though: paths might change, stuff might get removed/added without prior warning. At this stage of development, having a bunch of maps broken really should not hinder important restructuring while we still can, so keep that in mind!

Be prepared to make changes to your map as Xonotic develops further though: paths might change, stuff might get removed/added without prior warning.

Right now Nexuiz is all I have. What is on your harddrive right now is better than what I got.
I'm sure nobody in the community expects something perfect right now, just something which is reasonably indicative of where xonotic is going. Toss in the new models and a simple map showing the new features which aren't supported in Nexuiz.
I want a tech demo basically. Add a portal and some physics to eggandbacon. Forget compressing textures, just drop most of them. Nexuiz had too many which were inconstant and incompatible with each other anyway. You keep them and you will get the same stylistic mess Nexuiz was.
Weapon balance is an issue though. I don't have a recommendation for that.

Be prepared to make changes to your map as Xonotic develops further though: paths might change, stuff might get removed/added without prior warning.

Right now Nexuiz is all I have. What is on your harddrive right now is better than what I got.
I'm sure nobody in the community expects something perfect right now, just something which is reasonably indicative of where xonotic is going. Toss in the new models and a simple map showing the new features which aren't supported in Nexuiz.
I want a tech demo basically. Add a portal and some physics to eggandbacon. Forget compressing textures, just drop most of them. Nexuiz had too many which were inconstant and incompatible with each other anyway. You keep them and you will get the same stylistic mess Nexuiz was.
Weapon balance is an issue though. I don't have a recommendation for that.

FYI: most of them WERE already dropped. Only eX, trak4/5 and a new facility114 set is there

I don't think anybody got a build on windows yet

I'm running Xonotic git on Windows right now, if that's what you meant. Though I'd have no idea how to package it for distribution unfortunately

A kind user also guided me into a git fed Xonotic on Windows and it was not even THAT hard either. I've nudged him on irc to see if he's up for making a post about it

Instead of a forum post, keep things central and ask him to write it in the wiki

I hope we'll be able to build nightlies soon, I don't see a reason not to, really. What it should contain:

- compiled progs, compiled engine obviously

The engine compile is currently holding it back (we have no build infrastructure yet). But this is in the works.

- exx, trak5x, trak4x, facility114x texturepacks (plus other stabilized packs as we get some, like morphed's procedural pack? )
- map models AS DIR STRUCTURES STABILIZE, there seems to be no such structure yet (need tZork here? ) This means, no map models in the first nightlies unless mappers are ready to face severe breakage due to paths changing around
- shaders
- playermodels, sounds, 2d gfx and other data

Already implemented. The "small" release build will not come with the nexcompat pk3 (and thus only contain approved textures), so it will ALSO be the recommended release for mappers.

- jpeg compression on textures/2d gfx up to a point where it barely is obvious that we use jpeg (80-90% ish quality, 20-30% on alpha maps?) This could make the nightlies around 100 mb each (with no maps yet of course), and hopefully also make the final release much MUCH smaller than what the Nexuiz 2.5.2 package was! I have tested this, and can conclude that jpeg artifacts should not be TOO obvious unless you really look for them

The release build script already provides JPEG and DDS as alternate texture formats (TGA will only be in a separately downloadable HQ pack), as well as a low-quality JPEG pk3. Could indeed make a release build containing only the low-quality JPEG pk3.

- no maps (nothing has been decided on yet, so no point in including any), just provide as separate pk3s

Automatically done that way by our development process.

- forced dialog to select physics/balance configs to use until we have a stabilized default (?)

Forget it, the code should be identical with actual releases.

- neccessary sources to comply with GPL

Actually not necessary (GPL just requires us to provide them SOMEHOW, not necessarily include), but will be of course included anyway, as they don't waste much space. However, maybe the QC sources will be part of the pk3 and no longer an extra zip file, not sure about that.

Be prepared to make changes to your map as Xonotic develops further though: paths might change, stuff might get removed/added without prior warning.

Yes, be prepared, but normally I don't merge in stuff when its paths are not final yet. This is also the only reason why we have no maps yet - we are waiting for someone to check and possibly finalize the paths, and describe the desired structure en detail.

I'm working on starting a nightly build release for Ubuntu, and a BitTorrent for Windows; Unfortunately, I haven't made much progress due to the confusing directory structure, and debbuild doesn't seem to like it very much (something with the makefiles). I don't think a nightly build is very feasible until further progress is made in the development of the game. When I make some more progress; I'll post it on Launchpad (I've created a PPA at the address below).
https://launchpad.net/~webadm/+archive/xonotic

Good job for making a ppa - I've already suggested distributing in deb and PPA form along with tar.gz (a stable and nightly PPA is only reasonable).
We'll prolly have to create a new PPA that's not owned by you though

Good job for making a ppa - I've already suggested distributing in deb and PPA form along with tar.gz (a stable and nightly PPA is only reasonable).
We'll prolly have to create a new PPA that's not owned by you though

I created a new PPA as well as a development team for Xonotic. Anyone is welcome to join; if the admins want ownership and/or admin powers, please notify me and I can set those up. I will change the owner to whoever the owner of Xonotic is; once that person is verified as the owner.
https://launchpad.net/~xonotic/+archive/xonotic


If no one else publishes to it; I will make the first release when all the paths are final and we have some actual maps to try out. Until some more progress is made in the game development, I don't see a point to making a release yet (too many things would change between releases, and upload time to PPA would currently be ridiculously time consuming).

+1 for the ppa idea, but it would be good to have a deb.xonotic.org domain, although I don't know about the bandwidth.

Why would you want a deb.xonotic.org domain? If you want to host the ppa there, that makes little sense.

I understand it may sound silly, but I prefer the idea of a self-hosted ppa.
I've noticed I tend to hesitate before including a launchpad personal ppa on my sources, it seems much more easy to me to trust someone with the competence to set up a website with a repo. It gives the owner a more professional look.
(Faulty logic? Nope, it's definitely irrational, I know - and maybe if it's http-based there may be the possibility to redirect to the real aunchpad repository...)

It's both cheaper and easier to set up a ppa on launchpad, I think that's the best idea.