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Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby SpiderMack » 29 Aug 2018, 20:23

Hi,

Skyline development is very slow, it supposed out of beta but many essential things needs to be implemented or fixed
(https://support.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/).
The majority is at 0% completed, and most have been submitted long time ago.
This makes me not choose Skyline and instead pick up something else.

Skyline would need participative development people, it is possible with open source on GitHub.
This is the solution that was recently adopted by Game Guru 3D engine and it has boost up it's development in unprecedent speed, and people bring new features.
This is a way adopted by UE4 allowed it to boost it's development a lot, without contributors it would never get so much bug corrections and would never be as complete as it is.

I think Skyline needs to find new ways to get it's development lot more active, even on Steam without regular work on essential features and regular updates, users perhaps will not stay using it.
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Re: Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby cassius_b » 29 Aug 2018, 23:47

Not too many people are reporting bugs as far as I can see.This forum is very quiet. I think more discussion should be encouraged, maybe have a general discussion section..
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Re: Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby SpiderMack » 30 Aug 2018, 08:36

I agree there is no more bug report, forum is very inactive, that's not great.
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Re: Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby SolarPortal » 30 Aug 2018, 17:49

A lot of the discussions are in discord where it is more active.

Plus we have been working through the lists on the support site and we are getting there.
Also developing a game using skyline

and no to open source...

I think Skyline needs to find new ways to get it's development lot more active, even on Steam without regular work on essential features and regular updates, users perhaps will not stay using it.

Have you seen the past few releases. many features which you wanted. Also we are updating skyline almost every week, its a little slower this week as we have had a new member added to our family..

@spidermack, if you dont want to use skyline, that is fine, unfortunate but fine. We work better with positive attitudes though.
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Re: Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby SpiderMack » 30 Aug 2018, 23:55

SolarPortal wrote:A lot of the discussions are in discord where it is more active.

Plus we have been working through the lists on the support site and we are getting there.
Also developing a game using skyline

and no to open source...

Have you seen the past few releases. many features which you wanted. Also we are updating skyline almost every week, its a little slower this week as we have had a new member added to our family..

@spidermack, if you dont want to use skyline, that is fine, unfortunate but fine. We work better with positive attitudes though.


It's you saying i don' t want to use Skyline not me (Why would i had spend so much time beta testing and creating so much bugs reports) :roll:

These days i checked the bugs page and it was still not updated, it's not good to not mark bugs tasks completed, at least put them completed when they are completed, it's the way to it and it's better for users see things tagged as complete.
(It's not features i wanted, you could let down some because you are the developer that decides what to do, but many i put are very common features anyone making a 3D game will expect and want).

The few news i seen was about terrain or the animation events was small work topics, i didn't seen any big release or some blog showing the last progress in past months or telling many on the bug pages was completed :shock:

The forum is like CryEngine one, no one seems to use it, if you don't put in big title on the forum people should use Discord , it's also a lack of communication with users that could come to forums instead of Discord.

Well, that's good news Skyline is actively developed and improved.


About open source , this was the main subject no ? :lol:
No ideas or opinion about getting more people on board helping ?
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Re: Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby SolarPortal » 31 Aug 2018, 00:44

These days i checked the bugs page and it was still not updated, it's not good to not mark bugs tasks completed, at least put them completed when they are completed, it's the way to it and it's better for users see things tagged as complete.


Bugs which are completed are marked as completed and email to the original poster that they are done.
See
https://support.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/index.php?events%5B%5D=2&fromdate=&todate=&event_number=-1&project=2&do=reports&submit=

And as for the news, we post regular changelogs with all releases: each of these can be found on the main site news page:
https://aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/news

A link to these are posted on the main forum section for "Skyline releases".

About open source , this was the main subject no ? :lol:
No ideas or opinion about getting more people on board helping ?

well, its because no is the answer in a nutshell. We have mentioned over the years numerous times that a c++ SDK would be made at some point, but this is a lot coding and we dont have the time or the demand from users.
You can already make new plugins using the editor plugins and code them in lua. Thats as close to addins as you can do atm.
As for our main source base, no we wont be making it open source.

The forum is like CryEngine one, no one seems to use it, if you don't put in big title on the forum people should use Discord , it's also a lack of communication with users that could come to forums instead of Discord.

We monitor the forum every day waiting for a post and are posting on the forums, discord allows quick chat that would not really have place on the forums as it can be quite sporadic, as for what can be is already added to the forum.
We appreciate all your ideas and thoughts as well as everyone else's and act on them to the engines best interest in the vision we seek for skyline.

We are working on features the engine needs, have physx 3.0 on the side being integrated, new editor designs, workflow improvements and are close to needing improved navmesh in our own game too, so that is pretty close to being reworked.
the end game has been massively improved as have projects.
Lots been done, lots to do and we will get there.

As for gaining more people, we are already working on this and promotion for skyline at this point is slow and steady until we know for sure that the engine gives whats expected and works well while doing it. But as mentioned many times, it is slow going, but the engine is capable of far more than you give it credit for.


p.s. this topic is also very similar to:
https://forum.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2337&p=12560#p12560
https://forum.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2330&p=12486#p12486
https://forum.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2288&p=12240#p12240
https://forum.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2151&p=12099#p12085
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Re: Should Skyline adopt open source ?

Postby SpiderMack » 31 Aug 2018, 12:31

SolarPortal wrote:Bugs which are completed are marked as completed and email to the original poster that they are done.
See
https://support.aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/index.php?events%5B%5D=2&fromdate=&todate=&event_number=-1&project=2&do=reports&submit=


Searching for completed, there are three only. Most are at 0%.
And i never got any mail about a bug completed, only mails i had is about a on going bug discussion.

Once Skyline will be on Steam and you'll get thousand of users on Steam, staying many months without any communication on blocking bugs you could loose many users.


SolarPortal wrote:And as for the news, we post regular changelogs with all releases: each of these can be found on the main site news page:
https://aurasoft-skyline.co.uk/news

A link to these are posted on the main forum section for "Skyline releases".


Latest release on " Skyline releases" points to a 404 error
skyline-release-v1-1-0-3

SolarPortal wrote:well, its because no is the answer in a nutshell. We have mentioned over the years numerous times that a c++ SDK would be made at some point, but this is a lot coding and we dont have the time or the demand from users.
You can already make new plugins using the editor plugins and code them in lua. Thats as close to addins as you can do atm.
As for our main source base, no we wont be making it open source.


I was meaning open source, as a way to let people also make bug fixes and participate in the 3D engine development.

There is no coding, you continue to develop the engine, but you put all sources on Github.
Anyone could join, make some bug fixes, improves the editor or bring new features in some branch before approval and merging on the main branch.
This is a way some 3D engines adopted (Gameguru, UE4), it helps a lot because this really speed up engine development main developers have more time to work on bigger things.
This helped a lot Gameguru for example that got a new boost on development after many years of stagnation.



SolarPortal wrote:We monitor the forum every day waiting for a post and are posting on the forums, discord allows quick chat that would not really have place on the forums as it can be quite sporadic, as for what can be is already added to the forum.
We appreciate all your ideas and thoughts as well as everyone else's and act on them to the engines best interest in the vision we seek for skyline.

We are working on features the engine needs, have physx 3.0 on the side being integrated, new editor designs, workflow improvements and are close to needing improved navmesh in our own game too, so that is pretty close to being reworked.
the end game has been massively improved as have projects.
Lots been done, lots to do and we will get there.



Those notes could have been posted on the forum somewhere.
I didn't know there was Physix 3.0 coming, or Skyline editor getting more improved.

It's hard to guess if features are worked or not when the bugs and features page is never updated.
Perhaps the bug page is not so usefull.

I suggest to put some big Discord link directly on forum header to tell people it should be used instead of forum.
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