[Xsera] Other Xsera

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[Xsera] Other Xsera Read, discuss, and be merry.

#26 adam_0

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Posted 23 November 2008 - 10:42 AM

gavin83209, on Nov 22 2008, 09:30 PM, said:

Ah. Does the source contain much in the way of playable content? As hinted at below, Tiger and Xcode 2.5 will not compile the Xsera prototype.

I'm currently working on making a demo that will allow the player to move, warp, fire, and destroy a Gaitori Carrier. It may or may not have energy, shield, or ammo limits, or anything drawn on either side panel. The demo will not be publicly released, but I'm sure a video will be released showing stuff off, or else why would I be making a demo?

As to why it doesn't work with Tiger and Xcode 2.5: the current minimum build requirements are Leopard and Xcode 3.0, but I'll ask about lowering those specs.

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#27 gavin83209

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Posted 23 November 2008 - 12:15 PM

Thank you very much.

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Ares X

#28 eveningtoast

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Posted 24 November 2008 - 03:50 PM

gavin83209, on Nov 21 2008, 10:18 PM, said:

Thanks to the devs for working so hard on this. That was about the shortest creation of an Alpha I have seen. In the future, would it be possible to use the 10.4 Universal SDK and GCC 4.0? Thanks, either way.

I agree, it's really great that this has progressed so far so fast. I keep hoping that one day I check back here and I see an update that says we got an alpha.

-eveningtoast

#29 redsteven

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Posted 25 November 2008 - 12:48 AM

adam_0, on Nov 23 2008, 11:42 AM, said:

As to why it doesn't work with Tiger and Xcode 2.5: the current minimum build requirements are Leopard and Xcode 3.0, but I'll ask about lowering those specs.

Does that refer to what you need to compile the app? Or to potentially run it?

#30 Tycho

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Posted 25 November 2008 - 07:39 PM

redsteven, on Nov 25 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

Does that refer to what you need to compile the app? Or to potentially run it?

build==compile

though i don't know if you need leopard to run it. it shouldn't be too hard for them to get it to run under 10.4.10, but anything before that probably wouldn't be supported.

but it's a good question. what will be the end requirements to run xsera?

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#31 prophile

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Posted 26 November 2008 - 02:32 PM

Probably at least OS X Leopard, PowerPC or Intel, or a Windows machine newer than about 2002 running XP or greater. Linux specs still an unknown.

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#32 eveningtoast

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Posted 26 November 2008 - 06:41 PM

prophile, on Nov 26 2008, 01:32 PM, said:

Probably at least OS X Leopard, PowerPC or Intel, or a Windows machine newer than about 2002 running XP or greater. Linux specs still an unknown.

Here's a question... the game is coming as a whole, correct? We are not going to require it be licensed by Ambrosia right? Or do people need to have a legitimate Ambrosia key?

#33 adam_0

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Posted 26 November 2008 - 07:20 PM

eveningtoast, on Nov 26 2008, 03:41 PM, said:

Here's a question... the game is coming as a whole, correct? We are not going to require it be licensed by Ambrosia right? Or do people need to have a legitimate Ambrosia key?

It will be freeware. We can't legally sell it, as Ares is Nathon Lamont's brainchild.

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(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#34 redsteven

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Posted 28 November 2008 - 01:03 PM

adam_0, on Nov 26 2008, 08:20 PM, said:

It will be freeware. We can't legally sell it, as Ares is Nathon Lamont's brainchild.

yup, no Ambrosia key required.

#35 JacaByte

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Posted 28 November 2008 - 01:16 PM

I see oncoming legal issues; Xsera, logistically, will have all the components that the fully registered version of Ares has, correct? If the scenario is included with Xsera, then we'd be giving out free copies of a game that was meant to have a registration cutoff. Effectively, we'd become software pirates, except the software would only work on OS X instead of OS 9.

You're right, we can't legally sell it as it's Nathan Lamont's intellectual property, but if it includes the same scenario, missions, etc as Ares Classic then we can't legally distribute it either, as freeware or otherwise, without Nathan Lamont's and AmbrosiaSW's permission.

This post has been edited by JacaByte: 28 November 2008 - 01:17 PM

#36 prophile

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Posted 28 November 2008 - 05:41 PM

Lamont licensed out all the media under a CC license (by-nc-nd): the "attribution" clause makes sense, that just means we have to credit Lamont, and the "non-commercial" clause means we can't sell it.

The "no-derivative-works" clause is a huge pain in the arse because that means we can't scale the sprites up, but that's a can of worms we can get onto later. The fact is, however, that Xsera is freeware, so we're not violating Lamont's Creative Commons license.

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#37 redsteven

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Posted 29 November 2008 - 03:56 PM

The "open source announcement" for Ares is located here

#38 Sundered Angel

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Posted 29 November 2008 - 05:42 PM

prophile, on Nov 28 2008, 10:41 PM, said:

The "no-derivative-works" clause is a huge pain in the arse because that means we can't scale the sprites up, but that's a can of worms we can get onto later. The fact is, however, that Xsera is freeware, so we're not violating Lamont's Creative Commons license.

I may be incorrect, but from reading the announcement I believe that the "no-derivative-works" clause only applies to the movies.

Quote

In 2008, Nathan Lamont released the original source code to Ares under the GNU GPL 2.0, and most of the media under the CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

The Ares Source Code

The media (text, images, sounds, and music) are distributed separately. Not all media from the original commercial distribution is included. Some sounds have been intentionally excluded.

The Ares Media

The movies are available under a more restrictive CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license.

The Ares Movies

My reading of the above is that all media save the movies fall under the CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, which specifically allows you to "remix" the media for use in other projects. This strikes me as entirely workable - it's unlikely we would have wanted to remix the movies in any fashion, and most video players can upscale the resolution without altering the underlying file.

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#39 JacaByte

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Posted 29 November 2008 - 05:59 PM

I'm saying the fact that it is freeware is what could make it illegal. Assuming it contains the same scenarios as the original Ares, then it could be considered an illegal version of Ares because, while it's true that it would not run on OS 9, the player would immediately be able to play through the entire game for free, whereas with the prior version the player would have to pay for such features.

#40 prophile

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Posted 29 November 2008 - 06:14 PM

Sundered Angel, on Nov 29 2008, 10:42 PM, said:

I may be incorrect, but from reading the announcement I believe that the "no-derivative-works" clause only applies to the movies.
My reading of the above is that all media save the movies fall under the [url=CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license[/url], which specifically allows you to "remix" the media for use in other projects. This strikes me as entirely workable - it's unlikely we would have wanted to remix the movies in any fashion, and most video players can upscale the resolution without altering the underlying file.

Well observed: that makes life easier. However, the NC clause applies to both licenses, so we'd still have to release as freeware even if we didn't want to!

JacaByte, on Nov 29 2008, 10:59 PM, said:

I repeat, we are not using the original code, we are using creative commons-licensed media only. That is perfectly legal.

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#41 adam_0

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Posted 30 November 2008 - 12:39 AM

prophile, on Nov 29 2008, 03:14 PM, said:

Well observed: that makes life easier. However, the NC clause applies to both licenses, so we'd still have to release as freeware even if we didn't want to!

... although we (the developers) will still have rights (to reuse, take from, etc) to the code we make, correct? Because that's really what concerns me...

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(x)enos. Awesome in a can. Without the can, though.

#42 Captain Bob

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Posted 30 November 2008 - 02:14 AM

The original source code is under the GNU GPL. Part of that license dictates that new modifications to the code, i.e. the code you guys write, also be compatible with the GPL. So yes, everyone will have the right to reuse the code you make, at least in other GPL projects. The only thing you're really giving up is the exclusive right to the code, since anyone can use it if they follow the rules.

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#43 prophile

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Posted 30 November 2008 - 08:49 AM

Not correct. Since we're not using any of the original code, we do not have to comply with the GPL. All the Xsera source is licensed under the 3-clause BSD license, which is much more permissive, but the copyright belongs to the people who wrote the source - currently, Adam, LANS and myself.

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#44 Captain Bob

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Posted 30 November 2008 - 12:55 PM

Ah. Then it seems you're being more ambitious than I thought. Luckily it doesn't seem to be slowing you down at this point.

I'd concluded some time ago that writing an engine from scratch was a contributing factor in DoI not getting the momentum it needed on the coding side. You do have the advantage here that people can be excited about Xsera because they know what it will be like. DoI is going to be EV-like, but will not be using any content from the EV games.

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#45 Two Jacks

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Posted 30 November 2008 - 03:41 PM

DoI?

Edit: Whoops, just read your signature.

This post has been edited by Two Jacks: 30 November 2008 - 03:42 PM

#46 Sundered Angel

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Posted 30 November 2008 - 06:54 PM

Captain Bob, on Nov 30 2008, 05:55 PM, said:

Right. Because the team already has the content available, they can focus exclusively on the code in the initial phases. Once the new engine's up and running, updated content can be considered. There are significant advantages to this approach, not the least being the fact that it'll be faster to get something playable out the door, and having something playable out the door is hugely beneficial to attracting additional development talent.

I was most interested in the recent progress report regarding a JIT Lua implementation. When you said you were coding the game logic in Lua, my immediate question was "what about performance?", but it seems that question may have been answered before I could even ask it.

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#47 prophile

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Posted 01 December 2008 - 08:14 AM

Lua performs very well on its own, and key files are already compiled at runtime into a cached Lua bytecode form, but LLVM will allow for runtime code generation tuned to the architecture of the target machine.

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#48 redsteven

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Posted 02 December 2008 - 12:12 AM

prophile, on Dec 1 2008, 09:14 AM, said:

... LLVM will allow for runtime code generation tuned to the architecture of the target machine.

Does this mean self-optimization of the software regardless of OS and hardware?

#49 prophile

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Posted 02 December 2008 - 01:35 PM

As long as it's supported by the LLVM backend, yes. (This includes pretty much all modern hardware)

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#50 Grenth

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Post icon Posted 02 December 2008 - 04:57 PM

I have a question , will Xsera [the engine itself , not the Ares scenario that it will be running] support the use of 3D models

If not the initial release , then maybe in a later version?
I ask this because i think it would be cool for people with more powerful computers.

This post has been edited by Grenth: 02 December 2008 - 04:57 PM

The secret is that Ares is only as small or BIG as the individual's creativity.Now you can modify Ares' built in scenarios, play scenarios made by other Ares fans, even create your own custom scenarios for Ares! The universe is limited only by your imagination! SC2 Star Battle-Armada Online-Allied-Command