So if there's a push toward community development does that mean that the code is going to be open sourced (under whatever license)? How does one go about getting into the codebase and submitting code?
Community development meaning certain volunteers from the community are granted access. NOT open source.
OK, so how would community members contribute if they wanted to? I'm not going for anything big, but when I've got free time I wouldn't mind looking through code and submitting bug reports, algorithms, or whatever.
I guess what I'm really looking for is a jumping off point from which one can help make ns2 better.
Edit:
Also, by 'open source' I just mean 'can I get at the source'. Not GPL or some other license.
So if there's a push toward community development does that mean that the code is going to be open sourced (under whatever license)? How does one go about getting into the codebase and submitting code?
Community development meaning certain volunteers from the community are granted access. NOT open source.
OK, so how would community members contribute if they wanted to? I'm not going for anything big, but when I've got free time I wouldn't mind looking through code and submitting bug reports, algorithms, or whatever.
I guess what I'm really looking for is a jumping off point from which one can help make ns2 better.
This only applies to the engine code. The hole ns2 gameplay code is avaible opensource at your ns2 folder under ns2/lua and core/lua, feel free to look through it. If you find anything interessting post it here in the forum or contact one of the CDT members
That being said most of the game already is open source. (...)
Is it really open source? If so, with what license does it ship?
It was my understanding, that the source is just "accessible" for people that have the game.
Last time I checked it wasn't open-source, but only source-available, yes.
Unexpected and very awesome news guys. Does this mean we can finally get that simple server browser/main menu that was a mod so very long ago? my god how I want that so badly!
I have a question.
What are the protocol to elect some mod to be official ?
I'm not talking for me but for some mod that i think necessary. Like Name on minimap. Stuff like that. But i do understand some aren't interested some other would strongly disagree for this mod or that one. How would you / who, decide of that kind of things ?
I'd probably suggest making a forum post. That would be the best way to let us know you wanted it. If we can't / won't, we'll likely give you a heads up as to why.
I have a question.
What are the protocol to elect some mod to be official ?
I'm not talking for me but for some mod that i think necessary. Like Name on minimap. Stuff like that. But i do understand some aren't interested some other would strongly disagree for this mod or that one. How would you / who, decide of that kind of things
If there is something so good it belongs in vanilla, we'll know...
Also, by 'open source' I just mean 'can I get at the source'. Not GPL or some other license.
Then say Source-available , because Open-source means there is a licence granting some rights to other people.
While a source-available do not have the same rights and is more closed (even though the sources are available).
PelargirJoin Date: 2013-07-02Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
edited May 2014
As far as I know, first person is enable on public servers. There's only third person on NSL Modded servers, but I don't really know if that lag still occurs actually. But yeah, that would be nice to fix this lag, third person isn't really interesting as spectator or even to cast NSL matches. Duties unclear for NSL Referees because of that by the way.
I know Dragon told me he didn't change that on the mod because first person still causes lag, I have no idea if that's right or not.
Being one of the people to first discover the lag issue.. I think that it's pretty simple to test.
First person spec someone with two other people in the server. Alt + tab.. then your ping shoots up and the person you're spectating starts jittering.. if that still happens then it's still bugged.
SebMelbourne, AUJoin Date: 2013-04-01Member: 184576Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Retired Community Developer
Do we even know what conditions this issue happens under? Is there a threshold of ping that you can be under to use FPspec? Is is ok to use with < 100 ms or not?
It's pretty interesting how everyone screamed so hard for FPspec and then was like meh after it got disabled for all the comp games lol
Just a quick note, @Matso will be joining the community dev team and working on bugs and stuff Just got to get him set up and he should be good to go. You should start seeing his work if 266 goes down well and we can do a 267.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to have first person back. Aside from it always being 'a little off,' it was a great and entertaining feature. As for an actual threshold, I am not sure. We discovered it during a drill session one day and reported it but never really took our analysis farther than that. If I remember correctly it has to do with how the first person system was coded for specs and would take close to a complete re-work of the code to fix it.
At this point, I doubt it will be a high priority... but if someone can make a fix for it, I am sure we will all be grateful.
Great move by UWE. Don't think I've ever seen it done quite like this before, where the game is pretty much about to become an official mod of itself. Its a strange place to be, but an interesting one. I've ended my NS2 run just short of 1k hours but I find myself revisiting the forums anyway. Says something about the game I suppose.
Good luck, its going to be a bumpy ride, but I look forward to seeing what you fine folks come up with.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited May 2014
While i don't know the details or the actual code and am just speculating:
I believe first person spec can be done in a way that it's not any more taxing on the server network wise (since each spectator is still considered a player slot given the bandwidth required) and yet provide a smooth first person spec experience. (instead of the jittery, laggy, broken one we have now)
If you delay the data being sent, and make it so its not exactly "real time" or instant, then i believe prediction and interpolation could do the rest of the work.
I've been told that it is already predicting and interpolating, and that the issue is the 30 fps 20hz limit imposed on it, but to increase it would cause further strain on the network traffic that is already congested... so why not just delay the stream and basically retell history by smoothing out between the data points? I don't see a problem with having a 1 or 2 second delay even if it means a smooth viewing experience worthy of FP spec.
I could be way out to lunch here with this suggestion, though..
While i don't know the details or the actual code and am just speculating:
I believe first person spec can be done in a way that it's not any more taxing on the server network wise (since each spectator is still considered a player slot given the bandwidth required) and yet provide a smooth first person spec experience. (instead of the jittery, laggy, broken one we have now)
If you delay the data being sent, and make it so its not exactly "real time" or instant, then i believe prediction and interpolation could do the rest of the work.
I've been told that it is already predicting and interpolating, and that the issue is the 30 fps limit imposed on it, but to increase it would cause further strain on the network traffic that is already congested... so why not just delay the stream and basically retell history? I don't see a problem with having a 1 or 2 second delay even if it means a smooth viewing experience worthy of FP spec.
I could be way out to lunch here with this suggestion, though..
Delaying it from being sent won't fix much? Are you describing a sort of "replay" system? If we don't have the first person data arriving at the same time as the rest of the network data about the players, then it won't mean much. Seeing a "replay" of only what the marine did without seeing the opponents he was shooting or his player location at the time is worthless.
why don't we just make it so the mod only forces you into third person if your ping is greater than like 100? i assume the issue with alt-tabbing is because your ping always shoots up to like 250.
It's already available in pubs KMG. There is no reason to risk any game interference in a comp environment, so it will stay disabled. It's already hard enough to track people like Packetloss-zebroe and the like.
Delaying it from being sent won't fix much? Are you describing a sort of "replay" system? If we don't have the first person data arriving at the same time as the rest of the network data about the players, then it won't mean much. Seeing a "replay" of only what the marine did without seeing the opponents he was shooting or his player location at the time is worthless.
Why? If the laggy, jerky symptoms are a result of improperly predicting in real-time? (that is my assumption)
I am not talking about 30 seconds here.. i am thinking 1000 ms/ 1 second.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
While i don't know the details or the actual code and am just speculating:
I believe first person spec can be done in a way that it's not any more taxing on the server network wise (since each spectator is still considered a player slot given the bandwidth required) and yet provide a smooth first person spec experience. (instead of the jittery, laggy, broken one we have now)
If you delay the data being sent, and make it so its not exactly "real time" or instant, then i believe prediction and interpolation could do the rest of the work.
I've been told that it is already predicting and interpolating, and that the issue is the 30 fps limit imposed on it, but to increase it would cause further strain on the network traffic that is already congested... so why not just delay the stream and basically retell history? I don't see a problem with having a 1 or 2 second delay even if it means a smooth viewing experience worthy of FP spec.
I could be way out to lunch here with this suggestion, though..
IIRC, from what BrianC told me, first person spectator is a bit of a hack - you do not get to see the game from the POV of the spectated player. Instead, you basically just place the camera at where your client interpolates where the spectated player is and looks, which means it gets updated at 20Hz (network update rate) rather than the move rate (30 Hz).
Getting it right (ie, true first person spectating) would require a fair bit of engine work - you would need to send the ACTUAL move from the server to the specator and use it as input at the appropriate time.
Comments
I guess what I'm really looking for is a jumping off point from which one can help make ns2 better.
Edit:
Also, by 'open source' I just mean 'can I get at the source'. Not GPL or some other license.
This only applies to the engine code. The hole ns2 gameplay code is avaible opensource at your ns2 folder under ns2/lua and core/lua, feel free to look through it. If you find anything interessting post it here in the forum or contact one of the CDT members
@turtsmcgurt oh you
Nah can't wait for 266.
I'd probably suggest making a forum post. That would be the best way to let us know you wanted it. If we can't / won't, we'll likely give you a heads up as to why.
If there is something so good it belongs in vanilla, we'll know...
While a source-available do not have the same rights and is more closed (even though the sources are available).
i forgot about this, first person spec is so damn important. so so damn important.
actually is there a mod that puts first person spec back in? i don't care if it lags people.
I know Dragon told me he didn't change that on the mod because first person still causes lag, I have no idea if that's right or not.
First person spec someone with two other people in the server. Alt + tab.. then your ping shoots up and the person you're spectating starts jittering.. if that still happens then it's still bugged.
It's pretty interesting how everyone screamed so hard for FPspec and then was like meh after it got disabled for all the comp games lol
At this point, I doubt it will be a high priority... but if someone can make a fix for it, I am sure we will all be grateful.
Good luck, its going to be a bumpy ride, but I look forward to seeing what you fine folks come up with.
I believe first person spec can be done in a way that it's not any more taxing on the server network wise (since each spectator is still considered a player slot given the bandwidth required) and yet provide a smooth first person spec experience. (instead of the jittery, laggy, broken one we have now)
If you delay the data being sent, and make it so its not exactly "real time" or instant, then i believe prediction and interpolation could do the rest of the work.
I've been told that it is already predicting and interpolating, and that the issue is the 30 fps 20hz limit imposed on it, but to increase it would cause further strain on the network traffic that is already congested... so why not just delay the stream and basically retell history by smoothing out between the data points? I don't see a problem with having a 1 or 2 second delay even if it means a smooth viewing experience worthy of FP spec.
I could be way out to lunch here with this suggestion, though..
Delaying it from being sent won't fix much? Are you describing a sort of "replay" system? If we don't have the first person data arriving at the same time as the rest of the network data about the players, then it won't mean much. Seeing a "replay" of only what the marine did without seeing the opponents he was shooting or his player location at the time is worthless.
I am not talking about 30 seconds here.. i am thinking 1000 ms/ 1 second.
IIRC, from what BrianC told me, first person spectator is a bit of a hack - you do not get to see the game from the POV of the spectated player. Instead, you basically just place the camera at where your client interpolates where the spectated player is and looks, which means it gets updated at 20Hz (network update rate) rather than the move rate (30 Hz).
Getting it right (ie, true first person spectating) would require a fair bit of engine work - you would need to send the ACTUAL move from the server to the specator and use it as input at the appropriate time.
Not impossible, but not really easy either.
Can't those 20hz updates be smoothed out / interpolated further? (forsaking the time it's delivered to the viewer)