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At Reddit I found a post by nbohr1more regarding help with GPU skinning. He asks for coding or funding. I believe this is a great idea to outsource developments that either can't be solved by the TDM team alone or are for some reason currently not in focus.

It's great because although I have no tech background I can still help by donating (which is great), and I wonder why this idea wasn't posted in The Dark Mod Forums yet (at least I did not find it, so apologies if it was).

Isn't that something to have in this 'I want to help' section? Isn't that something that should be advertised more here in the forums?

Or I am just ignorant and you do that already for years? :mellow:

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I posted this in the engine development thread but I suppose that the "I want to help" forum is a pretty good place too. I've been careful to indicate that the funds do not go directly to the TDM team but instead are reserved for coders working on the vanilla Doom 3 GPL code. I also posted a thread at TTLG. I will be adding my own small funding contribution when I can convince my wife (probably Xmas).

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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The whole idea is to attract (external) developers after all. So, yes, it should be highlighted that the funds are for the developer and not for the TDM team (although that would be cool, too. I mean this forum alone does incur some costs, right?).

 

Is this ticket at Bountysource a first test balloon to see how it works out? And are some developers interested yet? Since I have no background, is this GPU skinning a more or less minor issue or would a programmer need a 3 days of coding for that? What I want to ask is, from TDM teams's perspective, can the job be done for a hundred bucks or is it work worth a month's salary?

 

Sorry, I am afraid, my real life job dictated the questions...

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Yeah, it's a test of sorts. Perhaps I should call it a wishing well too. Thus far only one developer has merged the BFG renderer into vanilla Doom 3 but he hasn't released his work. This is partly a carrot to get him to do that if nobody else steps forward. As for how long it would take? Tr3b said it took him about a month to port the whole renderer and 2/3rd of the BFG renderer has already been ported so if someone is as skilled as Tr3b then it will take 1/3rd of a month.

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Here's the bounty link for replacing the script interpreter with a JIT:

 

https://www.bountysource.com/issues/3139677-feature-request-jit-for-script-compiling

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Well, even if I didn't open these, anyone else could. Bounty source actually automatically indexes all open issues at Github for all open source

repositories. So the bounty source ticket would already exist even if someone just added it as a problem ticket at Github.

 

If someone posted TDM sources to Github and opened a ticket there it would have the same implication. The onus is on Bountysource to prove

their "bounty" model for open source development is legitimate and does not incur a violation of the GPL. Thus far, most of the FOSS community

thinks they are in the clear.

Edited by nbohr1more

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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I'm going to post all the TDM issues on Bountysource, then apply to fix them. ;)

 

Yeah, and I'll post all my models on Turbosquid for 5$ apiece and people can pay for the ones they want to see added to the mod. :)

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I'm going to post all the TDM issues on Bountysource, then apply to fix them. ;)

Yeah, and I'll post all my models on Turbosquid for 5$ apiece and people can pay for the ones they want to see added to the mod. :)

Who would have imagined that a team who build a whole game around stealing money could have so impure thoughts...? :huh:

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Who would have imagined that a team who build a whole game around stealing money could have so impure thoughts...? :huh:

 

I'm not entire sure if that was in jest, or serious :)

 

Anyway, asking some people to contribute to the mod dircetly (by giving their time, expertiese and work) has worked in the past (heh, TDM is at 2.02 already :) I see no problem in asking somebody else to contribute money into a pool, so more work can then be bought with it. It's just one more level of indirection, and if it means one developer can feed his kids for one day, and TDM gets a new feature, where is the problem?

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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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This particular line of contribution takes the whole debate about getting "team consent" out of the picture. Here we are not

paying for TDM as a product but instead we are (optionally) paying for an outside party to improve the Doom 3 engine

with the hope that this work eventually is included in TDM.

 

Though, I think it's fair to say that the whole bounty idea could probably be extended directly to TDM itself. And I guess that could

be seen as a conflict of interest (etc) but that (again) would be on bountysource since they think that this contribution model is

legitimate and they facilitate it.

 

So... anyone daring enough to post a bug-tracker link at bountysource ? :ph34r:

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Collect your bounty when you close the ticket?

 

Or gain a fix from someone outside the team who collected their bounty.

 

Given the mixed feelings about this, I wouldn't open a direct tracker against TDM but there's nothing to prevent anyone else from doing this as I can tell. If the team outright rejected fixes from bountysource contributors the outside parties could create a TDM fork where such work is allowed. If such a thing happened, would you refrain from looking at their sources for fixes out of principle? A tough choice but a valid one.

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Here we are not

paying for TDM as a product but instead we are (optionally) paying for an outside party to improve the Doom 3 engine

 

There is a grey area here, but the issue was never about paying for TDM as a product on principle. That was only a problem because there would be no fair way to distribute the money among the people who did the work. Some people would always feel like they weren't getting their fair share. A system where other people are getting payed to do what some of us chumps have been doing for free does not avoid that problem at all.

 

If such a thing happened, would you refrain from looking at their sources for fixes out of principle?

 

The real question is if such a thing happened, how motivated would people be to continue to work on tough problems for free? Why would someone tear their hair out trying to implement soft shadows when someone else got payed to solve a problem with the renderer? Trust me, the day we start paying someone to rig new AI models will be the day I stop doing it for free.

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True, but this system abstracts any kind of partitioning of funds to the public. If the public decides they want a new Werebeast AI rather than a bunch of new steampunk assets then the maker of the Werebeast is rewarded for obliging the public demand. Anyone can play this game. As long as its an open source project and its a desired feature or fix.

 

My interest is primarily in attracting developers will skills that TDM's team doesn't currently possess, renderer experts. So my trackers are more akin to your proposal of hiring an outside developer to add shader effects etc. And really, I could probably rename any of my trackers to "please hire Robert Beckebans to optimize TDM's renderer". Maybe he'd even do it for free if we had TDM sources on Github where he could tinker more easily... Not to be a nag, just sayin'

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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(...)

The real question is if such a thing happened, how motivated would people be to continue to work on tough problems for free? Why would someone tear their hair out trying to implement soft shadows when someone else got payed to solve a problem with the renderer? Trust me, the day we start paying someone to rig new AI models will be the day I stop doing it for free.

 

Well... just thinking loud, and I am aware I am not a team member... How motivated would people be to work on a tough problem that they cannot solve themselves? I (now) absolutely understand the premiss that TDM must be free of money as otherwise the whole idea might go to hell, but still... as far as I understood, Bountysource should only solve 'unsolvable* problems'. It should not be about 'normal tasks'.

 

On the other hand: I'd say it should be possible to have a consentious decision in the team about using Bountysource, but I understand that the TDM team is not a clearly definable group of people, but developers come and go as they please. So developers could drop out, fetch the bounty, rejoin the team and create jealousy.

 

The most interesting question is still unanswered: What happens to the solution, if somebody solves the problem at Bountysource?

 

*definition needed...

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as far as I understood, Bountysource should only solve 'unsolvable* problems'. It should not be about 'normal tasks'.

 

Yes, that's the grey area I spoke of. There is definitely a valid argument for paying people to do things we don't otherwise have the ability to do.

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Not on the team, none of my business, but I think the admirable thing is the anarchy of TDM as a team. People work on it for the shared vision, not for need. The game works fairly well, pretty much perfectly. Yes, its sluggish here and there, but mapping know how has shown to make most limitations "work-aroundable". In my opinion, solely as a player, art would be the priority, as far as bought assets would go. A werewolf, new AI, animations. The game works and there are no fatal bugs. We have experienced and talented gameplay coders in Grayman, Obs, etc. As far as I know, Springheel is the only artist on the team. So if I were to buy outside work, it would most likely be art, if only because it has immediate impact on missions, and there are some things that are very important and missing. Not a lot, by the way. But like said many times, it would suck for greebo to be working hard on manking a zombie from scratch, animating it (arcturus helped as well, possibly springheel too), just to see someone with no investment in the game getting paid to do comparable work. Though nbohr1more's initiative is well intentioned, I would probably, if it were me, perhaps aproach these things a bit more as a private endeavour, perhaps taking the time to contact the contributor personally, making the case, instead of opening a "parallel market" of sorts that might or might not result in this type of grey area thing. So if someone were to aproach the team and propose buying a model and donating it to them, that would be debated upon, it would probably be seen simply as a time saver, a jump on the work list, not a treading on someone else's toes. There are Wanted forum posts detailing things that are needed for the mod, perhaps its just a matter of aproaching skilled individuals and looking for their help directly, instead of waiting for the odd chance they might get to know the mod and decide to focus work upon it.

Edited by RPGista
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Setting aside the effect on motivation, I'd be afraid that coding work done by freelancers would require even more prework and follow-on work by existing developers before it'd be compatible with the project and no longer causing bugs. It'd cost too much to pay every contractor to spend 100 hours familiarising themselves with the existing framework. It's a problem I face at work all the time. Contractors left to their own devices will produce something that looks shiny but that needs a lot of work to implement it into current architecture. I solve that where possible by specifying the interfaces and outputs carefully, and by keeping an eye on the work in progress but that doesn't fit the freelance model well, and it still needs a volunteer who does know the game architecture to provide the detailed requirements, and test and implement the new code.

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