Meeting:2009/02/28

[edit] Results

We'll stick to the Rio de hola concept and improve it step by step.
Due lack of manpower we won't try to turn it into a full-featured game at this point.

We agreed on creating a proposal article for editor improvements.
The FIFE-based 3rd party game developers will contribute to the article in case they have specific editor-related needs.

Audio module: The engine doesn't handle a large number of emitters gracefully, even if they aren't in "hearing range" - icelus volunteered to take a look at the problem. Assigning priorities to emitters/sounds, so that important nofifications aren't dropped would be a good feature.
Build system: interested stakeholders will create a proposal how to improve the FIFE build system. Possible options are:
- Improving the current scons scripts. What does not work well ATM?
- Adding support for additional build systems.
- Replacing scons with a superior alternative.
- Yonibear__ wants to implement a working CMake system, we'll check back, when that works ... and see if we switch.
Maploader: vtchill creates a proposal how the maploader could be improved and lists pros and cons of a C++ and Python maploader.
Renderer: no support for actual 3d models.
Renderer redesign: a volunteer creates a separate article at the wiki featuring the following information:
- Issues of the current rendering code.
- Profiling logs.
- Proposals how the renderer could be redesigned / improved.
UTF8 / gettext: Phoku creates a branch for UTF8 support and will report back in a month about his findings.

Blender scripts: introduce example blender scripts into trunk/utils/blender that can be customized by other projects to render their isometric graphics. Zero-Projekt team offered their help.
Proposals: Introduce a proposals category where all kind of engine improvements are investigated before being presented to a bigger audience.
Meetings: we've agreed to reintroduce monthly meetings again. The following guidelines apply:
- List of topics is compiled at the Meetings page.
- Speakers should create a proposal beforehand if they would like to discuss a specific topic so that discussion can happen on an informed basis.
- After each meeting results will be compiled at the specific meeting article.
- After each meeting a new poll will be created at the forums to find a date for the next meetings that most developers can attend.
SVN structure: christoph creates a proposal how the SVN structure could be changed to avoid long checkout times due Rio de hola size while avoiding having a separate repository for the FIFE clients.
Website: rename the blog to either:
- FIFE development blog.
- FIFE game engine blog.
Time budget of the developers:
- wenlin: about 5 - 10 hours per week.
- vtchill about 10 hours per week.
- icelus will try to contribute to FIFE.
- chewie will try to contribute to editor development with feedback from Zero-Projekt.
- barra is working on PARPG and will help me with translation work if needed.
- the other developers are currently short of time.