Discussion points for bi-monthly meeting

[dezGusty]

Hi guys,

these are just some discussion points for the next Summoning Wars meeting.

Some things should be clarified with regards to the next release of Summoning Wars.

For the current release:
- Technical operation: A merge should be performed between the active branches (only 2 should be active as far as I know):
  - default
  - gussoundtest
  - (maybe material-system-056)

- A management decision: A previous branch has been left hanging (material-system-056); this branch is making use of the Ogre RTShaderLib to provide somewhat better shadows. But, while the shadows look ok in the surface levels, they look strange in the underground levels.

Preparation for the next phase of development (mostly project management decisions):
- Choose a new project tracking tool to assist the technical development
- Define how the integration between the tracking tool and the project code shall be performed (E.g. guidelines for commit messages; restrictions of commit/merge without a proper issue in the tracker, etc.). A tutorial, or guide should also be created to allow developers to set-up a working IDE rather quickly.
- Define how the resource files (music, sounds, 2D textures, 3D textures) are to be integrated for development. (E.g. A separate repository?)

(All decisions can also be postponed; but of course it would make sense to have them sooner rather than later.)

[fusion44]

Great list!

There are quite some resources dedicated to how to use mercurial and similar dcv systems on the net.
For example one with a high level overview can be read on this wiki: https://codebeamer.com/cb/wiki/32120
With an article that goes more into detail: https://codebeamer.com/cb/wiki/33573

I have only skimmed over these articles. I'll read them tomorrow.

[Jorge Avila]

Agree, also, this branching update could be an opportunity to separate the sumwars package system (separate sumwars and sumwars-data)

[fusion44]

Another topic we should decide on is if we want to participate in Google Summer of Code this year.
This mainly is a topic between me and dez because we are the only programmers around here.

[dezGusty]

Hi guys,

As not everyone was able to attend, here's a summary of the decisions that were made during the meeting on 2014.02.09:

1. Merge of branches:
This is to be postponed until CEGUI 0.8 shall be delivered with more Linux distros.
The sound related changes need to be tested for standard C++ compliance.
The branches shall be merged. We shall support CEGUI 0.8 moving forward.

2. The changes from the material-system-056 branch shall be partially implemented; the shadow system needs to be turned off by default, as the lighting system is not yet designed to be configurable and the underground levels look funny.

3. Redmine has been chosen as the new tracking tool. It has already been set-up.
You might be able to access it here: http://85.25.66.224/projects/sumwars/activity
Soon, the link to the old Mantis tracker on this wiki shall be replaced with a link to the redmine tracker.
Decisions on the details (rules, guidelines) for using Redmine for code and / or resources has been postponed.

4. We shall not participate in the Google Summer of Code. We need to strive to improve the project first, making both the code and the overall project clearer first.

[Jorge Avila]

Great, I feel comfortable with those decisions too, seems that was a very productive meeting, congrats!


Step by step we'll go forward. See you at next meeting!

[fusion44]

Hey all,

next week, we have an upcoming meeting again. I'd propose some points to discuss:

• next step in content creation (dwarfen mine?)
• usage of Redmine for content at the example of the mine
• play test event for next release 0.5.8

Anything I might have forgotten?

[dezGusty]

We would need an assessment of how the art team is using the repository and how we can get their art into the game.