Getting Started

Discussion of all aspects of the game engine, including development of new and existing features.

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reddeed
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Joined: July 26th, 2015, 4:07 pm

Re: Getting Started

Post by reddeed »

I don't want to tell you what to or not to do, but personally I'd prefer if we could properly address these issues before jumping on SDL2 again. Also, I believe having the spritesheet (or as you call it: texture-atlas) feature implemented is a prerequisite for working on any kind of hardware acceleration.
Agree. I have an idea. We create some blank slate atlas of fixed size ( say 1024x1024). Every atlas will host images of some predefined size. Say, 1st one holds 128x128, 2nd one holds 256x256 and so on. An image will be hosted to the smallest sized slot it requires ( a 72x72 image goes to 128x128 slot for example). Although using such scheme will waste quite some video memory, it bypasses the problem of bin-packing and can be used for ad-hoc loading of images in the atlas. What do you think?

Edit: Fixed the quote.
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lipk
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Re: Getting Started

Post by lipk »

Sounds good. The overwhelming majority of Wesnoth sprites is 72-by-72 pixels sized so in fact even memory efficiency wouldn't be that bad.
Berenlut
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Joined: July 27th, 2015, 11:52 pm

Re: Getting Started

Post by Berenlut »

Hello,

I actually only found out of this game existence until last week, when a colleague of mine pointed it out to me. I haven't even finished the main campaign yet and I'm a very green player to say the least. But I have really liked the game, even to the point of sneaking a couple of minutes of launch at work to play a few rounds. So when that same colleague shared the post with me I jumped on board to come over and help in whatever I can.

I'm a Python developer by day, so maybe will start by checking things in that corner, but I will definitely help in whatever I can. I am currently downloading the code base and will start looking through the Python tools and the WML to familiarize myself with it.

Will jump onto IRC as often as I can.

My main OS is GNU/Linux, but I can setup a secondary machine with Windows for testing.

Glad to be able to help.
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jstitch
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Re: Getting Started

Post by jstitch »

vultraz wrote:Hello, capgelka and jstitch. You should join the #wesnoth-dev IRC channel on freenode and discuss the areas you'd like to work on. There are already a few other people looking to help on the python toolchains, so you might be able to coordinate with them. The gist of it is that the tools are a mess and could likely use extensive refactoring or replacement.

Thanks vultraz. To whom must I direct myself to ask for directions on help I may offer on the python things? I understood Elvish_hunter is the one maintaining the GUI.pyw tool, but also I may be mistaken. Or should I just shout there that I offer my help and that...?
Eru kaluva tielyanna
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vultraz
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Re: Getting Started

Post by vultraz »

Elvish_Hunter is the maintainer of GUI.pyw, yes. You can talk to him, or just ask a question in the IRC channel; likely someone with know-how will reply.
Creator of Shadows of Deception (for 1.12) and co-creator of the Era of Chaos (for 1.12/1.13).
SurvivalXtreme rocks!!!
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reddeed
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Re: Getting Started

Post by reddeed »

I just wrote a shell script to analyze the sizes of the images inside 'data/core/images'. Looks like there are freaking 6000 (approximately) 72x72 sized images! I've attached the result of the script.
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image_size_report.txt
(10.22 KiB) Downloaded 790 times
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Elvish_Hunter
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Re: Getting Started

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

jstitch wrote:I understood Elvish_hunter is the one maintaining the GUI.pyw tool
Indeed I am, and everyone is free to suggest improvements and make pull requests about it, as long as they know Tkinter (the GUI toolkit that I used).
Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
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dabber
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Re: Getting Started

Post by dabber »

vultraz wrote:Hey, Xara. You're welcome to maintain those campaigns if you wish :) The best way to get started would be to clone our git repo and then browse through the relevant campaign's files and see if there are areas that need improvement, either code-wise or aesthetically (such as facings), and submit a PR for any changes you come up with.
As aquileia said, we do go over pull requests before merging them, and will be more than glad to give feedback and help.
I really like this game, so I'll volunteer to do some work on Delfador's Memoirs. Ideally I'd like to do more, but I recognize that I don't remotely have the time. I'll try to quit messing with Legend of the Invincibles and spend that time on Delfador instead. I did previously modify Delfador's Memoirs on my own system, but I never got around to figuring out how to submit it.
It looks like I need to read and absorb this page, and the Git Crash Course it links to, but is there anything else I really need to read?
To just maintain/modify a campaign, do I really need the whole repository? It feels like I just need to test WML changes with the released version of the game.

What was meant by "submit a PR"?
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vultraz
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Re: Getting Started

Post by vultraz »

Hey dabber. No, you don't really need to read more than that. By 'submit a PR' I mean a pull request. Once you clone the gir repository - you do need the whole thing since we keep the data and source in one place - and create a fork of it, you can push changes to your fork and use it to create Pull Requests so we can merge your work. Hope that helps. :)
Creator of Shadows of Deception (for 1.12) and co-creator of the Era of Chaos (for 1.12/1.13).
SurvivalXtreme rocks!!!
What happens when you get scared half to death...twice?
scream
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Re: Getting Started

Post by scream »

Hi All,

I'm 20-year veteran software developer (not much C++ or Python unfortunately) and 11-year? Wesnoth player. I've dabbled with WML a few times, but never been satisfied with my work. I'd like to start by working on a campaign (Dead Water?), and ramp up from there as I get my footing.

My question is: There are only 13 item-group=campaign bugs in the bug tracker several of which are fixed, in progress, or ready to test. Are there lots of unreported problems for the mainline campaigns? If so, how do we co-ordinate our efforts?

Steven
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zookeeper
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Re: Getting Started

Post by zookeeper »

scream wrote:My question is: There are only 13 item-group=campaign bugs in the bug tracker several of which are fixed, in progress, or ready to test. Are there lots of unreported problems for the mainline campaigns? If so, how do we co-ordinate our efforts?
Since most mainline campaigns are pretty bug-free at this point, the campaign maintenance jobs mostly aren't really that much about fixing outright bugs than they are about tweaking balance, polishing up rough edges, improving scenario mechanics (getting rid of landmines and tomato surprises, for example), making sure maps utilize new terrains when applicable, and that sort of thing. Most such issues never reach the bug tracker, so it's largely up to the maintainer to autonomously find things that could be improved, and to keep an eye on the scenario feedback threads to see what people tend to find too easy/hard/annoying/unclear/etc.
galneon
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Re: Getting Started

Post by galneon »

I'm not a developer. As such I apologize for taking up space here, but I have to add something which I think was overlooked in the call for help, but which I consider very important to generate broader appeal and thus exposure for the game : gamepad support. As far as I can tell, gamepad support is currently broken, and if it works at all, it isn't sufficient without menu/dialog support. As I said in the second thread I linked, I think it's important to reach out to the growing HTPC crowd, especially now that Wesnoth has aspirations of Steam distribution (think Big Picture mode). If the game becomes more portable in years to come, Wesnoth could even be playable on consoles.

Wesnoth is a perfect fit for gamepad play, as were its precursors (Masters of Monsters, Dark Wizard, etc.). I know it would increase the game's profile. Perhaps someone reading may be interested in taking up the torch?
bweep
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Joined: July 31st, 2015, 11:59 am

Re: Getting Started

Post by bweep »

Note that although the game engine itself is written in C++ (C++03, to be specific)
Is there any chance you will move to allow c++11 any time in the near future?
Jagreen
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Joined: July 31st, 2015, 5:32 pm

Re: Getting Started

Post by Jagreen »

Im a C & C++ developer, i can help for Windows or Linux version.
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vultraz
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Re: Getting Started

Post by vultraz »

bweep: if there were enough people to help us transition and test the C++11 code, we would be open to it, yes.

Jagreen: any specific area you would like to help in? You can look at the EasyCoding and NotSoEasyCoding wiki pages to get a feel of some of the available tasks.
Creator of Shadows of Deception (for 1.12) and co-creator of the Era of Chaos (for 1.12/1.13).
SurvivalXtreme rocks!!!
What happens when you get scared half to death...twice?
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