There are two things I'd like to know, and please all coders great and small.
1. What kind of programming challenge do you envisage being feasible for a possible Sumea programming challenge?
2. How many hours of work should each programming challenge consist of approximately, and what kind of investment of time can u put in?
Personally, I'm not sure I could spend more than a few hours a week on any programming challenge, and to code anything substantial takes more than a few hours, so I think some form of challenge every month or maybe bimonthly would be good from *my* point of view.
However, if other people have more time to invest in this, and want more frequent challenges opinions would be nice.
As far as what the actual challenge should be, I think it would be good if it wasn't in anyway "interactive" in terms of the final product. I'd also like to see each challenge build upon contents of the previous challenge, and also maybe steal a bit of help from the artistic challenges?
I?m not too sure about writing shaders, the tech that most people have is pretty limited atm so I'm not sure how many people can write good shaders. I think most would have a geforce2 mx which seriously limits what we can do as far as shaders go.
Maybe something that doesn't rely too much on tech would suit everyone a little better, like a physics challenge.
Maybe water dynamics or mesh deformation...
Actually that is true not everyone has Shader Capable cards. so maybe that is aiming a little high, I do like your idea of Physics simulations, they can be quite fun.
Creating realistic fluid effects and cloth simulations and the like, would be a good challenge, Though we have all scene a cloth effect or two.
I say yeah to realistic Physic Simulations as an alternative being that shaders are not as easily available for everyone.
Get the Physics simulation to interact with a 3rd party object say, a box or a sphere.
[8D]
I think that sounds like a great idea. good show LavaMonk[B)]
0xBaaDf00d
It's good to hear that people may want a competition involving physics effects, I've been waiting for you guys to come up with that one on your own.
So that I'm not going down the wrong track here, I thought I'll briefly outline my idea for the competition.
The finished product will be a basic old-skool demo. It will be in 3D - but the segments of the coding competition will, in general, have nothing really to do with polygon pushing, or much in the way of lighting etc.
The idea for the "demonstration" was going to be a reasonably parametrically generated scene. It's hard to describe without pictures, but basically it results in a "showdown" between two elite combat soldiers that involves some fancy pyrotechnics and particle/physics displays. Some of the effects that I was going to attempt to make you guys model would be things like immiscible fluid interactions, flammable liquids, combustible gases and of course some simple physical object interactions. The advantage of a "demo" is that I can include some very basic effects that the less experienced coders/less maths savvy coders can do. Things like basic particle effects, some landscape generation algorithms and things like that.
Other things that may get included could be some basic path finding collision detection or whatever else.
Anyone want to shoot down that idea before I go too far with it?
It's true that most cards don't support hardware pixel and vertex shaders. In OpenGL, I think there's software support for both of them (Quake 3 used pixel shaders), and in DirectX there's software support for only vertex shaders, so in that regards vertex shaders aren't much of a problem, but pixel shaders rule out DX programmers who have an older card.
And yeah, physics sounds kewl :)
There's a tonne of cards that support hardware vertex/pixel shaders. I'm soon to purchase my second pixel shader capable card.
I'm personally not sure whether or not to include shaders in the demo, because they are quite nice/good looking bits of tech, but again, they don't work on everyone's system very nicely - I can't add anything to that subject that hasn't already been said.
All versions of vertex shaders can be done in software comforably (ie. it won't run like crap). The Geforce4MX series apparently use software vertex shaders, but fake them as hardware in the caps (which is good for me, because NOLF2 won't run without "hardware" shaders ;)
Pixel shaders CANNOT be done in software. Quake 3 "shaders" are the equivelent of DirectX Effect files, they just setup the Texture Stage States and blending modes, etc. You can do alot in the Fixed Funtion Pipeline, it's still programmable to an extent.
Maitrek: I think the final demo should be left open, to allow for creativity. The modular idea is good though, it's a good way to code :)
If we aim for GF2MX compatability, everyone will be happy. That doesn't mean that you can't have pixel shaders as an extra where supported ;)
I'd like to clear up that I'm not the ring leader here.
If people like that (basic) idea - and I can get a feeling of alot of agreeance on it, then I'll continue to set up the necessary details and organise the coding challenge. If it's an unpopular framework, then someone else carry the competition along, because for me personally, I'm not willing to set up a competition framework and spend lots of hours on setting that up if no one really wants to do it that way and I get zero participation.
AS it stands at the moment, it looks like someone else will have to push their idea of the competition and carry that alonh, and back up their opinions with some work.
CG will be old tech when we finally decide on a challenge. :)
Maitrek, I suggest you only work on a framework for yourself, because anyone worth their beans can whack up a framework pretty quickly.
If you want to make it a bit fairer, you could do what the ludum dare 48 hour challenge does and make people submit their frameworks to be approved before the competition.
That is all.
Scott.
By framework I don't mean tonnes of code to help people out (although there surely would be some that I'd have to do) - I mean the idea and concept behind the competition and it's over all setup. If people don't agree with my idea for the competition, then I'm not going to run around trying to make someone else's idea of the competition happen.
Well Honestly guys it seems like just getting an agreeance on a style to do this with.
I am all for a Water Simulation, That sounds fun. but anyway it is up to the group as a whole to decide, I would just like to put forward a realistic water sim as the challenge.
[8D]
NE Way Back to Work..
Quaternions no Octernion
Headach
0xBaaDf00d
I agree water sim would be cool, what didn?t i suggest that to start with... oh well that just proves its a good idea.
Throw a bunch of stuff into the water and watch it float/stink and then throw in a grenade, now that?s a challenge.
I know there are a few water dynamics pages off the io physics page, they'd make some good reading. If we decided to do water dynamics that is...
I'm just putting the idea out there, again.
Maybe we should get everyone to post ideas and then we'll have a vote on which one to go with.
Hi Guys,
Just thought I'd put this as another physics option,,
One of my co-workers suggested it to me so i will put it forward.
Rope Simulation.. or web simulation...
Put ropes out and creaete attachment points to walls roofs etc..
than drop objects in to the ropes.. or attach objects to the ropes etc.. watch the effects.. sounds fun... make ropes Snap.. get objects tangled etc..
0xBaaDf00d
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Cleave, Maime, destroy all that oppose that that is
good and righteous in this world.
Not quite true. a basic understanding of physics or particle systems should get a rope simulation happening honestly.
However it is just an option for the programmer challenge. Which i think would be easier to implement then the water dynamics but as i said I think it is just an option.
0xBaaDf00d
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Good Code, Bad Code,
I'm the Code with the Gun.
Blood ROX
But you are egotistical 0xBaaDf00d. And quite a comedian. ;P
Theres nothing wrong with a physics challenge... chances are that if you code games you're going to have to do physics at some point. If you haven't done it before, then the competition would be a good chance to hone your skills.
I like the rope idea better now. You could do some interesting things with that.
Scott.
rezn0r: Word. Except for that console app bit. I finished writing console app games 5 years ago :P
The idea of having lots of little mini-competitions winding up in a big competition which uses all the components you wrote in the previous competitions is a good idea. Reusability of code is an important thing in cutting down development times, and with incentive to write the best component out there we could very well see some really cool shit happening coding-wise.
And don't start the competition until I get my computer fixed :P I probably won't get first place in any of the competitions, but it will still be fun seeing how well my code compares to everyone else's.