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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - ROM Hacking - ABSTRACT - Community Project Considerations |
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Guy Perfect                   Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6289 days Last view: 6287 days |
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| The purpose of this thread is not to propose that the community undertake a project of any kind, but rather to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.
In lieu of VL-Tone's work with a Super Mario 64 editor, ideas have been tossed about regarding open-source and a community effort in an editor project. In order to keep unrelated discussions from the editor's dedicated thread, I created this one. This is for discussion of the potential for the community to create software under an open-source mindset. In particular, this deals with the idea of software development as opposed to making modifications to a game. thegeek brought up the idea that this community has a good amount of knowledge and technique in terms of hacking ROM data and creating editor software, but the talent is sparse and unconcentrated. If a community project were to be undertaken, then the overall effectiveness, thoroughness, and quality of the result would very much surpass the capabilities of any one person. As for everyone else, who would not necessarily participate in the project, having the source code of the editor at hand with ample documentation and real-human resources for clarification would enable anyone to add their own extensions for their own personal needs. Modifications made to games would not have to be restricted to the capabilities of editor software or the hacker's ability to modify the ROM himself, but creating just the right extra features to existing tools to better suit individual hacking projects would far better increase the potential for productivity and perhaps even user skill. As a community effort, any given project would not be bound to a single author; thus, the ramifications of releasing the source code to the public involve a far lesser risk. - Source code theft is virtually a non-issue, as the true origin of the code would be obvious to anyone who had half a mind to look it up. All that a lackey will be able to achieve is a download that's blatantly a rip-off and has sorely-outdated code. - Newcomers and lesser-skilled members of the community can find a way to participate where their efforts will not go unseen. This is also a good way for these members to have an exemplar of how to work with all this stuff. - A psychological barrier will be avoided, as the credit will be attributed to the community (albeit individual contributors will have their contributions duely noted). This can prove to be an asset to Acmlm's Board's reputation as well as help to keep users from looking up to (or down on) one another. Personally, I feel that a community project would be a healthy thing to experiment with, at the very least. To my knowledge, no such project has ever been attempted in this community (though I may be mistaken), so doing so would at the least give us something to learn from. (edited by BGNG on 06-29-06 12:02 AM) |
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Leno_jr  90   Since: 05-14-06 Last post: 6475 days Last view: 6475 days |
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Group projects have been proposed many times, and most of the time (just about everytime) it has failed with nuclear fallout. Besides, you're preaching to the wrong crowd. You should bring this up with the collection of n00bs over at the SMW hacking forum. 
Long story short, unless the collection of the group is actually into being a team player then it's doomed to fail. This board has no chance of getting a group of team players together. At least not the rom hackers.  |
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Xkeeper Took the board down in a blaze of glory, only to reveal how truly moronical ||bass is. Since: 11-17-05 From: Henderson, Nevada Last post: 6287 days Last view: 6287 days |
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Originally posted by Leno_jr Of course there can be. BMF and I (though I'm waiting for his graphic set, d'oh), FuSoYa and Zero-X (...), and I'm sure others... It's hard, yes, but not impossible. There are still good people here. |
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thegeek Newcomer Since: 06-27-06 Last post: 6521 days Last view: 6521 days |
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| Nice summary BGNG, I don't have much to add.
Though I'm not a very experienced rom-hacker, I know some x86 asm and java, I also know a fair bit c/c++ and some script-languages.( I'm currently getting a master(5yrs) in programming/computers ) I would very much like to participate in a community-project, and though I agree it will be hard to get a group of good developers, we only really need a few hardcore programmers. The whole point is having everyone contribute a little. My suggestion for a game is still mario 64, primarily because I really enjoy it. Hacking a more advanced game such as oot would be cool, but it would also require a lot more work to actually create anything playable. |
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spoondiddly Newcomer Since: 06-20-06 Last post: 6396 days Last view: 6396 days |
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| An open communtity project would be spectacular. It solves the one huge issue of N64 editor development - not knowing a bloody thing about programming 3D stuff. The GE editor SubDrag and I (zoinkity is my usual handle) has been hindered greatly by not having any directx or opengl experience. Thankfully most aspects of stage setups can be straight text or checkboxes, but to actually model anything...
So, what I propose instead of a mario64 editor is a more generic N64 model editor. So far, all the N64 games I've seen use the exact same mapping code but simply change the point table layout and other such nonsense. Guess it would be a little like dezaemon3D or that 64DD game... |
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thegeek Newcomer Since: 06-27-06 Last post: 6521 days Last view: 6521 days |
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| No doubt there is a lot to consider when doing 3d development, but it seems to me that if we just made the code a little modular we could do some of the relatively easy stuff first. Also, I really don't see the point in actually making a true 3d modeller, we could just import models created in another program.
Trying to write a 3d modeller from scratch is a lot of work, and it's really not needed, there are lots of good and free programs that do that job pretty well already. An easy to use modeller that would be ideal for a low-poly games (such as all games for the n64) is http://www.wings3d.com/. |
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Kejardon Shyguy  Since: 05-21-06 Last post: 6288 days Last view: 6287 days |
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Originally posted by Leno_jr I work fine in a group.
Problem is, most of my skills work best alone... I could do a lot of work in figuring out how the rom works and explaining it (I'm getting *really* good at that), but other than that, I wouldn't be able to help code an editor. I can easily write plenty of asm code, but I think that's a fairly common skill around here anyways. And I'm not very good at commenting my assembly.  |
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Guy Perfect Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6289 days Last view: 6287 days |
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| As a last-minute thought, I decided to use my latest project proposal as an invitation to attempt a community project. Check out this thread for more information. |
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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - ROM Hacking - ABSTRACT - Community Project Considerations |
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