I recommend that the next CCN Community project be an AI engine.

I was going to wait to start talking about the next community project, but I think it ties in nicely with Bible Dave. However, I dont think it necessarily should be all in python. (which i believe still needs AI implemented. Am I wrong?)

I noticed the talk of AI in the other thread, and it looks like there's some interest here. We may be able to turn out a quality chunk o' code. (Open source, of course)

Unlike a game, its hard to say when its "finished" and suchness, so I recommend the following: we define a "feature set" goal, and a timeframe based on when these features should be fully implemented.

P.S. (Should it just be AI or should we try to toss some other things in there as well?)

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

In Christ,
Jari.

------------------
Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

@jari. Well, i think i see where you're coming from. You wouldn't want something you worked on to be used in the creation of a game you don't approve of?

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

------------------

mgiht as well be graphical, in which case the prettier the better.

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

------------------
All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

------------------
"Be nice to the nerds because later on, you'll be working for them" - Bill Gates

Hopefully it can be done more easily than a full code rewrite in each of the languages.

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

I don't think I would participate unless the programming was in my ball park. As I am a novice programmer and there wouldn't be any other jobs besides programmers, like Kiwi pointed out.

I also agree with Jari, we should concentrate on a Christian game as a team, because that's what separates us as CCN from like Coders Workshop or even Blitzcoder when it was still around, or GameDev.net. We are not here just to make games but to glorify God most importantly. Otherwise you could just go to any community and start a project there, they wouldn't have to be Christians.

------------------

[This message has been edited by lava (edited March 16, 2006).]

I guess an AI engine was a bad idea for a community project since it doesnt actually require the whole community. Moderators feel free to delete this thread I guess.

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

------------------

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

------------------

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

Christian game makers need people with skills, people get skills by practice.

------------------
-- All that is gold does not glitter,
Deep roots are not touched by the frost,
The old that is strong does not wither,
Not all those who wander are lost.

quote:

---

Originally posted by crazyishone:

@jari. Well, i think i see where you're coming from. You wouldn't want something you worked on to be used in the creation of a game you don't approve of?

---

That too but the point lava agreed on is my major concern.

------------------
Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

---

Originally posted by simon_templar:
I think an important aspect of such projects that some of you may be over looking is practice.. programming AI might not be an entire game, and it might not be an out reach, but working on stuff like that will give you valuable, and I might add necessary experience if you are going to go very far into game development as an indie.

Christian game makers need people with skills, people get skills by practice.

---

That's a positive point of view but could there be enough interest and motivation to do research and learn? It maybe that the inspiration for creating a tool isnt high enough to complete the project.

In Christ,
Jari.

------------------
Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

"Nay-sayers" and the like are perfectly welcome, as its not my job to moderate. But I'd rather not give up after a few people saying we shouldn't do it.

Very few people here already have the knowledge to program a robust AI engine. Thats why I think it would be fun... "Oh hey guys, i think if we reworked that function to do this (........) instead, it will work better"

For those who don't think they want to be involved in the coding of the engine itself, you can help code the "demos" I talked about. We will need something to show for.

Artists and webdesigners will be needed if we plan to have a site. Anything of quality deserves its own site, and we certainly shouldn't put something out with the CCN name if it sucks.

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

quote:

---

Originally posted by crazyishone:
Or you could look at CCN like this- rather than a bunch of people making Christian games, its a bunch of Christians making games.

---

I think this is a good way to look at it, Crazyish.

I agree with you, I don't think the next project has to be an explicitly "Christian" project -- but I like the idea of creating some small, finishable games that give something to the Christian community -- that is, quality entertainment that helps parents in their parenting rather than something that they fight against.

So I'm happy either way -- making either stuff that's branded as Christian or something that's just a quality game.

In Christ,
clint

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

quote:

---

Originally posted by crazyishone:
my only intention was to create a good AI engine.... thats it. No other motives, not for Christians, not for Satanists, not for cows. For game developers.

---

Sounds like a good idea.

------------------
All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

quote:

---

Originally posted by crazyishone:

For those who don't think they want to be involved in the coding of the engine itself, you can help code the "demos" I talked about. We will need something to show for.

Artists and webdesigners will be needed if we plan to have a site. Anything of quality deserves its own site, and we certainly shouldn't put something out with the CCN name if it sucks.

---

I guess could help with models for the demos. But I don't want to make any promises. And I couldn't program the models themselves unless this engine was done in Blitz3D and I doubt that will happen. So I would probably make models and send them to a programmer.

------------------

[This message has been edited by lava (edited March 17, 2006).]

Also @ Crazy: I love the comment about the cows .

------------------
1 Corinthians 15:58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (NLT)

Tired of loosing your work for all eternity? Jesus Saves! You should too :P (liek every 1 1/2 seconds) This is a message from teh save the data foundation, and from (CTRL + S): Because da data is y00r future. Maybe.

I mean, I guess there could be a way aroudn this, but the again how many of us know anything abotu C/C++? Because that's probably what you want to go with if you're going to make a library-and again, if you're not going to make a library compatability will be a huge issue.

Dont get me wrong, Im all for learning new things- I wouuld LOVE to learn the C++ syntax while writting a DLL for an AI library and have the support of the communitie's vetarans in C++ to help me out, (as I am a noob in C++ field but Im axious to learn), but... is this a project that will include ALL of the community, or just coders? or just advanced coders? or just a certain 3D engine that maybe only some of us use?

Heck, if it was for coding... I would LOVE to have the community project be to write a DX9 3D engine in C++. We could split certain parts like sound... particle engine, drawings, the IDE, and tons of stuff to certain groups in the community... BUT... again, not all of us are coders.

------------------
"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

Note: with DLL's, yes functions can only "return" a value, although its best if you return weither or not that function failed or not, and why. You can always get information back through the parameters, nothing messy, just as long as it's named well.

eg. [C++]

bool DoSomethingCool(Vector3 *out_newVector, Vector3 in_someValue);

I would recommend doing a game. That way everyone can get involved. Although I this is the "Christian 'Coders' Network" :P hehe, I always take the micky out of animators. I'm new here so I don't know if you guys/girls have made a game before, but it is a big undertaking (i don't wanna sound all up my self, but reality needs to be mentioned, anyone else who's done it before would also mention this). Plus to make a publishable game could also be a great way to get another great christian game out into the great world.

Whats really stopping the CCN publishing a community project?? Proceeds going to christian games communities (CCN / International Christian Game Developers Association (ICGDA))?? I'm not worried about making a publishable game or anything, be good to get christians interested in games programming and experience.

Hopefully I havn't said anything out of line (or offended the artists/animators), I would like to help on any projects that you all work on as a community. AI Engine, awesome idea & project, might just been too narrow for the community as a whole, working it into a game could help. A broader project such as a game/toolset/graphics engine would be a community project (mainly to include the artists :P Coders could handle a C++ 3D AI Engine/Library easy :P).

God Bless

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 76:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

I think it would be nice to make a game that got cedit for the intelligence of its enemies.

Personally, as the number of 3D modelers here has grown quite a bit, I'd like to make a 3D game . We could use Ogre3D for the gfx, particles, etc. We'd code our own AI engine, and unless somebody wanted to code our own, we could use one of the many existing sound engines. (Want to make sure we get one where theres not just ambient sound supported, but directional and stuff like that.)

I'm aware that alot of people here only code in blitz... I think I may have thought of a way to get them involved, but I'm not entirely sure yet. (So its not worth saying). But I do know that most of the blitz guys are also good webcoders and designers (FM and some others), and some are good artists in 3D and 2D (Lava...).

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

AI was a problem with the last project I worked on. We did a 3rd person action adventure (bit of comedy) kids type robot game (uni final project). We had basic squad guys who pretty much just followed you round. The enemy could kinda get through doorways, but still some issues.

I know FMOD and OpenAL both have a listener, so you can have 3d sounds. Don't know about their licences though.

Oh hey, if you want I can do basic rope physics system :P I started getting good at a "Constraint Based Verlet Integration Physics System" which can pull off a fast rope system rather quickly (hard part is aligning a mesh to it, which i was able to get done). also can be used for an awesome real-time grass chunks (highest count i got it was with 6,800 blades of grass with 6 segments each blade of grass, running smooth, 3d too).

What are the specific AI that people would want to show off?? maybe a game will just merge out of it.

2D/3D?
Pathfinding?
Navigation Meshes?
Boids (fish/swarms)
Squads?
NPC (wandering/waypoints/chat)?
how about something online??
Neural Networks?
Genetics?

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 76:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

Kynapse is a very powerful AI middleware solution. Check out their feature set for the type of things you could look at duplicating. And while you're at it maybe you could try solving the frame problem.

http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/course.des/cis479/projects/frame/welcome.html

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 76:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

Say we have 10 levels. Its a single player game, and its 5v5. You and your 4 squad mates, and the 5 man enemy squad. If we can develop a system that will allow the npc's to learn what works, what doesnt, etc, the game will progressively get harder until at the 10th level it should be quite a challenge. ( I believe Ereon was talking about AI bots that learn, and had an idea for it. Should talk to him)

To make it feel substantial, and that the npc's were making decisions that made sense, we'd need environments at least 50-75 % destructible. Since the levels could be fairly small urban type deals, it shouldnt be too much of an issue.

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

haha, nah tis cool. one of our assignments was to do squad AI for a team of 4. Something to look into for squad AI is blackboarding, great for a leader with followers type situation. Its were u have like an imaginary blackboard (list) that has all of the commands issued by the leader and other alerts or so from other team members (such as enemy spotted). each item in the list has a priority. and when the leader dies, next bot steps into place (or for humor they act like their moral is very very low so they act all "shoot first ask questions later" and start shooting anything that they spot :P haha)

a nn (neural net) and genetics makes things interesting for squads, cause if you do training. you'll most likely be training them on a specific map. they'll get used to the map, then when you change the map on them, they loose a bit of intelligence, so previous maps tactics might/might not fail for the new map.

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 76:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

So we were browsing through a very large stack of CD's that they had, and there were actually more computer games than audio CD's! We picked up a couple of music CD's (Chant and Trio) as well as a classic edition of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. It got me thinking about how good of a job Carmen Sandiego did at teaching kids about geography. I also remembered an old choose-your-own-adventure book that I used to read as a kid (anyone else read those too? I was addicted to them) -- and iirc, it was called "General K's Victory Tour" or something. Basically it was a time-machine set in Biblical times. It made me wonder if we could do a game kind of like "Bible Dave and the Great Treasure Caper", where an evil artifact collector has been stealing Biblical artifacts from history so that he can put them in collection. You get alerted to what the collector stole, and you have to follow him through Biblical history/geography to track him down and recover the artifacts.

I dunno', just a thought. Sadly, it wouldn't offer too much expertise as far as AI or physics-engines or whatever -- it would be more of a project in mission design, storywriting, graphic design, sound, and a healthy dose of learning how to maximize the "fun factor" in an educational game.

Just thinkin' out loud.

Cheers!

--clint

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

------------------
"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 76:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

I've actually been looking for an opportunity as such

------------------
"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

[This message has been edited by pabloaiz (edited March 21, 2006).]

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

--D-SIPL

------------------
"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler

does anybody like my idea? lol...

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

@buddboy ::: sadly i've never read that book. Its about book burning and government take-over, right? sounds good...

------------------
"I bleed black tears"

Will the emo kids be my friends now?

------------------
"Be nice to the nerds because later on, you'll be working for them" - Bill Gates

------------------
quit posting on CCN? not yet. I havn't been driven off yet.

Blitz
Other (Java/C++/Pascal/other) Unassisted
Other Assisted

So like Assisted would mean that some type of middleware (such as an engine or a library) has been used to create the final project. And possibly do that to Blitz, but like anyway Blitz is just an engine (sounds much like Unreal Editor Engine).

Note: where I say 'other', that would have to be a language like C, C++, Java, Assembler, Pascal, etc. This is as I do not really count Blitz as an actual Programming Language... mainly as it is the tool you use to generate your program from. If this sparks anything from the Blitz guys, then, well too bad :P haha, kidding, just don't let it guys :P. It'd be like someone else using 3D Game Studio or some other game authoring tool.

And so people can team up, but like if you have like more people it is taken into consideration and it would have to be a lot better then if it was just one person.

I think if we can get some decent ideas for competitions this could turn out pretty awesome...

Ps. Hope no Blitz dudes got offended, just that it is more of a game authoring tool like 3D game studio rather then a programming language, at least to my knowledge, if it isn't then let me know, don't go all crazy and stuff, just in a nice calm text reply say... "oh actually blitz is classed as a programming language" and list why.

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

I'm not going to argue by spamming the thread, but as I have said before, everything besides pure binary is an "engine". ASM, C++, etc, would be engines as well. Blitz just doesn't allow much low-level commands besides through a DLL.
I really want to see one person in their right mind use C++ without a library. Exactly, that is where Blitz comes into play.

------------------
"Be nice to the nerds because later on, you'll be working for them" - Bill Gates

------------------
proverbs 17:28
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

proverbs 25:7
open rebuke is better than secret love.

www.gfa.org - Gospel for Asia

www.persecution.com - Voice of the Martyrs

------------------
"Be nice to the nerds because later on, you'll be working for them" - Bill Gates

[This message has been edited by firemaker103 (edited March 30, 2006).]

quote:

---

everything besides pure binary is an "engine". ASM, C++, etc, would be engines as well

---

I'm actually one of those guys who has done some messing with ASM (x86) graphics (wrote a 200 line asm Bresenham type line algorithm). And I don't class using say C++ and OpenGL or DirectX as using an engine. I know that OpenGL and DirectX are Graphics API's, but like you still have to write the code to create an engine.

What I would class as using an engine would be someone using an actual game engine (say Irrlict), or rendering engine (say OGRE), physics engines (Novodex, ODE, Newton, etc.), network library (Raknet) or some other 3rd party engine. As these engines/libraries are mainly just wrappers around the component (such as physics), which allow you to concentrate on the content rather then how it works.

Theres a huge different between using C++ and DirectX, and just using Irrlict to create a game.

Thanks for clearing up Blitz though, found their website, looks like we'd have to split Blitz also into the "assisted/unassisted" like in the Other group, as there are a fair few 3rd party libraries for it. But I do still think that Blitz and Other both need to be seperated.

The main thing for "assisted/unassisted" is to help give people who would enter something that is just their own pure code/engine to get a fair shot, so that they aren't competing against people who are say lucky enough to be rich and buy the "Unreal Engine 4" or something crazy.

So as I can see it we need 4 fields...

Blitz unassisted
Blitz assisted
Other unassisted
Other assisted

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

Other would be like...

C
C++
Java (possibly J2ME?? should it be open to mobile??)
ASM
Pascal (if theres anyone old like me who still knows this )
VB (dunno bout including this...)
C# (again, should this be allowed...?)

I think those are the main programming langauges people would code in...

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

------------------

[This message has been edited by Ereon (edited March 31, 2006).]

I would suggest using C++ and a free, fast 3D engine like Irrlicht. It's not only free but works on Linux and OS X as well as Windows. I just finished a simple first person shooter using Irrlicht, check it out here if you haven't: http://steveth45.net/blog/ . I would suggest using freely available, cross-platform libraries for everything except AI. You don't want to take too much on at one time. That way, we could develop a game, and a physics engine and not reinvent the wheel.

By the way, I used Audiere for the sound code, it may only support volume and pan for each sound, but I wrote a function that takes a listener and object locations and calculates pan and volume based on that. Use headphones to play the game on my webpage, and you can hear it.

We should write the AI code in C++, for speed. AI is supposed to do a lot of calculations and I don't see it practical to do it in C#, Java, Python, or any kind of BASIC. For other parts of the game, it's not as hard as you may think to link code between different languages.

------------------
+---------+
|steveth45|
+---------+

[This message has been edited by steveth45 (edited March 31, 2006).]

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

------------------
"kinda makes ya wanna treat me with more respect, huh?"

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

So I guess so far me and firemaker103 will be a team? Any other B3D users?

------------------
"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

------------------

------------------
"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

*Or boredom. Whichever comes first.

------------------
"Be nice to the nerds because later on, you'll be working for them" - Bill Gates

[This message has been edited by firemaker103 (edited March 31, 2006).]

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

Then we vote on whose game is the best (no team can vote for their own game )
Good idea?
if so, ill start a topic and organize the teams

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

------------------
A Game to combine all Games A Game that grows upon itself But A Game that ultimately in the end makes and forces one to ask themselves "Why?"

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

I think we would probably need to decide on what genras all the games need to be, or can they be of various genras? If they can, judging might proove a little more difficult.

------------------
"I want to know how God thinks- everything else is a detail..."-Albert Einstein

------------------

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

--clint

I vote for the board/card game community project.

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

But as its a community project, not the Crazyishone project, I'll go with the flow.

I think we should go with a slightly more challenging style of cards than just solitaire. Perhaps one like poker where we can integrate AI.

Whether its a full community project, or a competition, I don't really mind. My basic view is that if there are able teams, better products will result. Conflict fuels advancement. But either way is cool.

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

------------------
"kinda makes ya wanna treat me with more respect, huh?"

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

[This message has been edited by luke (edited April 02, 2006).]

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

------------------

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

------------------

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

quote:

---

Originally posted by buddboy:
yah, i would like to do the teams... but it looks like everyone else wants to do something else!

---

...and that's the reason why CCN Community Projects were born, to gather all those available to work on one small goal because everyone before was so fragmented.

------------------
In the stock market, you must buy high and sell low...Wait! That's not right!
--------------
Yes, I can be intelligent at times!!

quote:

---

luke
don't you get it, if we have teams the board game guys(geeks) can have their own team, the AI guys(nerds) can have their own team to, and the FPS guys(cool) can also have their own team

---

this wouldn't be a comp. People would choose the FPS for sure (if it was up to standard that is). How could people vote??

Anyway, I like the idea that it's a community project. Splitting it into 3 different teams with 3 totally different projects, wouldn't really be a community project.

I recon we just reconsider what we will do as a project. Seems like enough people don't really want to do the board/card game, so how about something else?

------------------
"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

Startup Christian Games Company Producing Mobile/PC Games/Tools

------------------

[This message has been edited by lava (edited April 04, 2006).]

------------------
Omnia Vos Estis Cordatis

Competition ensures quality.

------------------
quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.