Developer Fund


Creature XL said:
You didn't get what I was on about.
I did not say that the pandora has no 3d power.
Neither did I :)
Creature XL said:
It has a lot of it, it can render millions of polys per second :)

What I was on about is: WHO is gonna make use of it. Maybe I underestimate most guys here and there will be great games with great graphics. I just judge from the homebrew I have seen for GP2x. I am not an artist, I am programmer so maybe we should join forces :)
There's some pretty good open source stuff out there, if you want to look. And yeah, I wouldn't mind doing some work with a good programmer. Could you give me a link to some of your projects?
Creature XL said:
I have seen smooth 3d scenes on a 16MHz 68030 (which has very slow RAM). So I imagine that the gp2x could some cool 3d stuffs aswell. For the GP2x there is this gpu940, which does SW rendering on the 2nd CPU. However, AFAIK, no one has used it. Maybe its to diffucult to make models or scenes for a 3d game? I have no idea.
There's a BIG difference between writing a demo with one or two objects and writing a 3d engine that's good enough to support a whole game. And yes, it has been done; both egoboo and payback have 3d graphics
Creature XL said:
To make one point clear: I just want to remind all who expect high-end 3d-games, that it is lot of work to do. It is much more work then a puzzle game. I don't want to offend anyone.
Don't worry, you're not offending anyone ;)
 
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hey

Kyosys said:
can we make the donation seperated from the payment?
Hehe, I think it's about time someone responded to this question.

Anyhows my guess is that you will have the ability to donate just yourself at any time and separately from a purchase, but I dunno.

cyas
 
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QUOTE
To make one point clear: I just want to remind all who expect high-end 3d-games, that it is lot of work to do. It is much more work then a puzzle game. I don't want to offend anyone.
Yea, I agree.

Anyway, not that anyone cares but It'll be my top priority to develope homebrew SGX games when i get a Pandora, though not neccessarily 3D. At the moment 3D artwork is probably beyond my capabilities. Initially they'll be small, but pretty, minigames... until i get a decent grounding. Then i'll write a 2D lighting engine, like my fixed function dx8 one:



I'll probably try to make a multiplayer Top Down shooter with the lighting engine.

I hope others, are similary motivated in regards to the SGX. [/rant]
 
yosh64 said:
Again, as I've already said I don't get why people have a problem with the beta access. There is nothing stopping the developers from releasing beta versions on their own websites or whatever.
Just don't call it a "donation". Its paid access, not a donation.

yosh64 said:
I will leave it at that as I don't think it needs any more justification.
I don't think it needs any more justification to express that a donation made so that a person can have access to something that they wouldn't otherwise be privy to is not, in fact, a donation at all.


yosh64 said:
Hmm, I don't understand... I think alot of folks may come here screaming their heads off about what is fair and what is not, or rather what is legal and what is not legal, and I wonder who of these same people will go download roms illegally and play them.
Well, it seems the game here is to insinuate that people that have beliefs different than yours are somehow morally corrupt. Well I'll throw one back at you: I think a lot of people that don't have an issue with tying a donation directly to access of restricted content probably have no idea what it means to actually donate anything. They've probably never truly donated anything in their lives. A donation is not something given with the expectation of receiving something, either directly or indirectly. (No, giving money to a dev in exchange for coding a program that will benefit you down the line is not a donation, even if it is money pooled together into a community beforehand.)


yosh64 said:
Sorry to even bring this up, and I hope this doesn't spark any off topic discussion. I mean it's nice that people have concern about such issues, but do you care because you want everything for free? do you care for the welfare of the producers of the pandora? do you care for the fair trade of those who purchase the pandora? anyhows I dunno.
But you still did bring it up. No, what you *really* want is to accuse people that think differently than you of being cheap and selfish. I won't speak for anybody else, but I have already said I'd pony up twice the proposed amount to a general fund to pay for better software. First off, its 20 bucks. If that is a meaningful sum to you, you probably shouldn't be spending your money on a little gadget like this in the first place. Second, the "welfare of the producers of the Pandora" come on. If this thing is about making money, they could charge $500 and make a great profit off it, I thought they said it wasn't about the money? "The fair trade of those who purchase the pandora" what does that even mean?

While you are standing there on your moral pedestal, take a moment to remember that the top 10 most wanted applications for this system will most likely be emulators, a traditionally grey moral area that at best is seen as legally questionable and at worst downright shifty (I'm not saying I have any problems with emus, but I'm not the one claiming moral superiority.)

yosh64 said:
But yea, personally I think it's a nice idea.
So do I.

I just don't have any pretense of calling it something that is isn't just to help it fit into this idealistic little hyperverse known as "opensource" "freeware" "community development" or whatever you want to subscribe to.

Now I am not belittling opensource or anything like that. I have given software of sorts away for anyone that wanted to do anything they wanted. I have helped alpha test a lot of software for various community endeavors, I respect people that code for free and I respect people that code for money. I do get a bad taste in my mouth whenever someone wants to stand on high ground by insinuating that their way is somehow "better".

yosh64 said:
I also think people must be careful when they say they are paying for devs. I think rather you are paying for devs to spend more time and put extra effort into producing their software.
Your paying devs to develop software either way. Whatever semantics you choose to explain it by won't change that.

Face it, this whole idea is just a pooling of money to pay devs to make software for the device. I have no problem with that if it results in better/more software than pure generosity by devs can generate. But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck don't call it donations.

Anyway, I looked back and craigix never really asked for people's opinions about this, and as it seems few other people care about views that are different than theirs, I'll bow out of this thread and leave it up to the rest of you.

And Chad likes cheese.

-Suntan
 
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hey

Adventus said:
QUOTE
To make one point clear: I just want to remind all who expect high-end 3d-games, that it is lot of work to do. It is much more work then a puzzle game. I don't want to offend anyone.
Yea, I agree.

Anyway, not that anyone cares but It'll be my top priority to develope homebrew SGX games when i get a Pandora, though not neccessarily 3D. At the moment 3D artwork is probably beyond my capabilities. Initially they'll be small, but pretty, minigames... until i get a decent grounding. Then i'll write a 2D lighting engine, like my fixed function dx8 one:



I'll probably try to make a multiplayer Top Down shooter with the lighting engine.

I hope others, are similary motivated in regards to the SGX. [/rant]


Yep, those shadows look pretty cool. Although I noticed each object only casts a single shadow and not one for each light, which isn't unsual for games, hehe. Are they dynamic? or static? Judging by their hardness I say they are realtime dynamic shadows ;).

Most of those shadows look pretty hard, with no penumbra region, but I do see one with a soft edge.

The game seems completly top down, and none of the objects have any perspective, so maybe the objects don't have any depth which makes me wonder about the shadow technique a bit. Anyhows all the shadows look consistently sharp and because the objects look to all be the shape of basic primitives makes me think they are using some form of volume shadows. But I dunno as I can't see if objects are able to cast shadows on each other or just the ground plane. If they are only cast on the ground plane then this would help performance alot. The other thing that makes me unsure is that I think it takes alot more performance to produce soft shadows on shadow volumes.

So yea I dunno, I can see alot of potential for optimisations and the possible use of many techniques for shadows in such a game and so I find it hard to figure how they are done just from these screenshots.

Hmm, if you actually knew the number of lights in a scene then an indicator to the technique used may be found by looking at the number of light renders (shown in top left of screenshots), but I dunno.

Is that game completly top down? where the view never changes? if so then I guess you could come up with a nice fast scheme for doing nice shadows, otherwise things could be tricky to do fast. Well depends on alot of things.

Hmm, if the shadows/lights are static then I guess they are just using lightmaps, otherwise they could be using shadow mapping or shadow volumes, which require a bit of power and even the pandora would struggle for a decent amount of shadows. Well you would probably get better performance with the shadow mapping technique for shadows, assuming the gfx supports doing them in hardware.

Hmm, but their are alot of issues with graphical artifacts or anti-aliasing and such when it comes to shadow mapping as it is done by rendering the scene from the viewpoint of each light and when it comes to rendering from the camera you transform each fragment into the coordinate space of the light (I guess you could do it the other way around also, hehe) and check if the value in the zbuffer is closer to the light, if it is then the fragment will be in shadow, so it depends on the precision of the zbuffer, although there are alot of techniques to improve things.

Anyhows I myself would like to create a realtime raytracer for the pandora :), then ya get really cool shadows and such, although it can take alot of performance to get nice soft shadows with raytracing as you need to spawn a heap more rays for this, but nevermind. One thing raytracing has to advantage on the pandora is that it has a smaller screen :), and as the dot pitch of the screen appears quite small I would try and get away with making the resolution half of the natural resolution, which I think will still look fine.

cyas
 
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hey

Suntan said:
But you still did bring it up. No, what you *really* want is to accuse people that think differently than you of being cheap and selfish.
@Suntan: I didn't accuse anyone of anything, I was just making a general observation and trying to promote thought, and I take great offense that you dare try to put words in my mouth and accuse me of such things.

I am not sorry of what I was trying to say, I thought I made my point clear and if not then I am sorry.

Suntan said:
Just don't call it a "donation". Its paid access, not a donation.
I don't agree, and so we have a different opinion. In actual fact I don't agree with anything you have said, I guess everyone sees things how they will.

Anyhows I hope we can put this to rest, I hope I have made clear my words. I understand what you are trying to say, but I just don't agree.

cyas
 
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Apparently your opinion differs from Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster's as well. A donation is defined as "that which is transferred to another gratuitously." Gratuitous is defined as "given without an equivalent or recompense." When you make a 'donation' in return for something, by definition it isn't a donation.

You can't just use 'oh, well that's my opinion' as an excuse to claim whatever you want. I could advertise something for sale for twenty dollars, and charge thirty. My opinion of the definition of twenty is just different from the dictionary's opinion or the commonly accepted opinion. That doesn't mean I can't be sued for false advertising.
 
BigTruck said:
Apparently your opinion differs from Mr. Merriam and Mr. Webster's as well.
Is it the law's opinion?

This is done alot. When you donate money to cancer and you get one of those cool 'Live Strong' bracelets, it's still a donation, no?
But does it really, really matter?
It's not like you're going to receive anything of (monetary) value. I don't think people are going to want to pay an extra £10 just for access to a few betas, they're going to want to do it to support the developers. Could be wrong though
EDIT: Wrong quote
 
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hey

@BigTruck, we are all free to see things how we will.

from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/donation
QUOTE

1. an act or instance of presenting something as a gift, grant, or contribution.
2. a gift, as to a fund; contribution.



from http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=donation
QUOTE

S: (n) contribution, donation (a voluntary gift (as of money or service or ideas) made to some worthwhile cause)
S: (n) contribution, donation (act of giving in common with others for a common purpose especially to a charity)



from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/donation
QUOTE

1. The act of giving to a fund or cause.
2. A gift or grant.



I am sorry to bring this up, I think it's kind of foolish, a definition is just someones interpretation and inside we know the true meaning.

But just to get you to think a little more then think about how many charities offer prizes for donations?

For he who donates for the reward, it is he who is at fault, as he has donated from his greed and not from his heart.

Thankyou

cyas
 
Anyone still concerned about the supposed misuse of the word "donation" needs to step back and consider what it is they're actually rallying against. This whole proposal is being made in the spirit of the community. If you're going to get bogged down in whinging/semantics then perhaps that spirit is a little lacking in your corner.
 
You do realize that all three of those dictionaries linked have in the definition of 'gift' a clause about it being without compensation, no? I will grant, however, that sometimes there are 'gifts' given in return for a donation, such as donating to NPR. However, no one in their right mind would spend $50 or $75 or whatever it is for a tote bag. The donation is obviously to benefit NPR. $20 probably would be a somewhat reasonable price for beta access, so whether or not it's really a 'donation' depends on whether or not someone is giving for the purpose of helping the community or just because he or she wants beta access. Technically and legally 'donating' just for access probably would be acceptable, but only as a loophole.

And I would give $20 whether or not there's beta access. I'm just arguing semantics because I'm bored and waiting for this blog update. :p
 
@yosh64 You misunderstood, I wrote the lighting engine in the pictures about a year and a half ago. :)

Its Optimised for Pure 2D and uses NO SHADERS.... Fixed Function, I only used blendmodes. It's truely a horrendous bit of programming (actually, one of the very first things i programmed) but some of techniques i developed are pretty nifty. I'll rewrite it from scratch for Pandora, using shaders and probably a 2d variation of brute force stencil shadows.

To answer your questions:
- Purely ortho 2D.
- Shadows are rendered on top of objects (not just the ground), an arbitarily assigned z determines if a shadow is above or below an object.
- Dynamically rendered, However multiple types of static casting are supported.
- Objects are casting a shadow for each light.

Bit off topic here, but eh.
 
All these years I thought I was donating to veterans but it turns out I was buying a fake poppy. On Red Nose day I was buying a stupid plastic clown's nose and not helping relieve grinding poverty, as I had imagined. The RNLI and Barnado's have been selling me lapel badges - I was not making donations at all.

So the only charity seems to be the church collection plate - those buggers never give you anything in return.

I think we should all write to the charities commission and have the charitable status of all these institutuions revoked.

Thanks for exposing this wicked tax evasion fraud, Sunblock.
 
Fawny Kate said:
So the only charity seems to be the church collection plate - those buggers never give you anything in return.

I think we should all write to the charities commission and have the charitable status of all these institutuions revoked.

<sarcasm>

Ahhh not so. You can get preached at, sing songs and pray to the big guy/gal and get to sit on really uncomfortable seat's, then go away safe in the knowledge that you've kept your local preist in the manner in which he/she has become accustomed - it's kinda like the Big Issue for the clergy. :)

</sarcasm>
 
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saboteur said:
<sarcasm>

Ahhh not so. You can get preached at, sing songs and pray to the big guy/gal and get to sit on really uncomfortable seat's, then go away safe in the knowledge that you've kept your local preist in the manner in which he/she has become accustomed - it's kinda like the Big Issue for the clergy. :)

</sarcasm>
Yep, if salvation had a beta release, that would be it.
 
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Fawny Kate said:
So the only charity seems to be the church collection plate - those buggers never give you anything in return.
You're getting the cracker and the grape juice, but I guess you don't have to donate to get them.

To all those who think a donation system that rewards donators is somehow immoral or illegal or "not really donation", I refer you to my previous post which refers you to the rest of the donation-accepting world. Many charities offer a gift in appreciation of a donation. That doesn't mean you can't write it off on your taxes. You can erect the worlds biggest wall of semantics if you want, but thanking a contributer with a free gift is perfectly legal and acceptable.

I think it's time to get this thread back on track. Forget about "Should we do this" (the overwhelming majority are on board with the idea, so that question is already answered) and concentrate on "How will we do this?"
 
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chad78 said:
I like cheese.
I like turtles!

(Why every interesting topic goes into offtopic flaming or just simply stupid endless discussions?)
 
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