Re: [kidsgames] Just Subscribed.

[Kidsgames Project Coordinator - Jeff Waddell <jeff@smluc.org>]

Hello Steve,

On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Steve Baker wrote:

-->Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 04:46:13 -0600
-->From: Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>
-->Reply-To: kidsgames@smluc.org
-->To: kidsgames@smluc.org
-->Subject: Re: [kidsgames] Just Subscribed.
-->
-->jeff@smluc.org wrote:
-->
-->> -->  Tux_AQFH is a kids game (it was written for my 7yr old
-->> -->son - Oliver - who ended up doing a fair chunk of the work
-->> -->on it!) - but it's not what I'd describe as 'educational'.
-->> -->(Although writing it was considerably educational to both
-->> -->Oliver and myself!)
-->> -->
-->> 
-->> Would like to tell us some more about that experience.
-->
-->Well, you did take a while to answer.  Oliver is now 9 years old!
-->

You make me look worse than I am...as he was I think nine when you posted
the original message that I responded to....

-->This came about because I write flight simulator software to
-->earn my daily crust.  That means I'm "into" 3D graphics.
-->

Great!

-->Until relatively recently (about 18 months ago), there was no
-->reasonable way to do 3D graphics under Linux.  When 3Dfx released
-->GLIDE to Daryll Strauss so he could port it to Linux and David
-->Bechiarelli did a port of Mesa (the OpenGL clone) onto GLIDE, 
-->it suddenly became possible to write 3D programs on my PC at
-->home and get decent frame rates.
-->

YEAH!!!!

-->I played a bit to learn how to do this stuff under Linux and
-->built a 3D version of "Tux" the Linux penguin that just rotated
-->on the spot as a kind of screen saver.
-->

Sounds intriguing.

-->Oliver (like most boys his age) was a fanatical video game
-->player - and had just finished Mario 64 on Nintendo 64 (which
-->is a GREAT 3D game).  Suddenly he realised that:
-->

I like the water, and how the sound flows with it, well done.  Only played
it 3 or 4 times though, don't actually have one...

-->  "Daddy does 3D graphics" == "Infinite supply of free 3D games"
-->
-->...which turns out to be *FAR* from reality.
-->

:)  There you go bursting a young man's DREAMS!!!

-->I pointed out that according to the credits, Mario 64 was written
-->by a team of about 100 people over about 5 years!   For Daddy to
-->spend ~500 man-years writing a new Mario'64 was NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
-->

:)

-->Still, I changed my spinning Tux so you could drive him around a
-->flat ground plane using the keyboard - then added the joystick,
-->then some 3D terrain - and it began to become obvious that it
-->would be possible to build some kind of a game in perhaps a man-year
-->of evenings.

Cool.

-->
-->Pretty soon, Oliver got frustrated with the S-L-O-W pace of development,
-->and I decided to rope him in to the effort.  He wanted a house for
-->Tux to live in - and so I showed him how to build one using the AC3D
-->model editor.  Well, to cut a long story short, Oliver is now pretty
-->good at throwing together models quickly.
-->

So has he made any of the TUX AQH levels?

-->Well, about a year into the development, we announced the game on
-->Slashdot and my website took 150,000 hits in one day with about
-->15,000 people downloading the game in that first day alone. Since
-->then, we've had about 50,000 downloads - mostly for Linux - but
-->also for MacOS, Windoze, IRIX, Solaris and BSD Unix.
-->

Awesome!

-->I'd originally planned to get one level of the game working perfectly,
-->and hope that out of those 50,000 Linux users perhaps a dozen of them
-->would get in and build more levels.
-->

Perhaps they will.  If I had the hardware I might even try to build one...

-->This would fulfill the desire to have a free video game that would
-->never end - since new levels would be constructed as fast as we could
-->solve them.
-->

Now that DOOM and Quake have come into being "free", there seems to be a
lot of "developer drain" as they put resources there instead.  I don't
know if that is good or bad...?

-->Regrettably, the number of significant contributions to the Tux game
-->hovers around the zero level.

Don't despair!!!!!  Perhaps they love the level that is there so much it
has not occurred to them to make there own.  As a "kids" game the
"serious" gamer's won't go near it yet I think.  And kids don't have the
skills (Oliver excluded) to make their own levels, or have already done so
and are happily playing them without realizing they need to send those
levels to you.

--> Not one single person has contributed
-->anything significant to the game at all.  I'm at a loss to explain
-->why.

There are many possible reasons, a couple given above.

-->
-->However, I havn't given up - and I'm gradually producing more levels.

GREAT!!!

-->However, it's become evident that the AC3D modeller that Oliver and
-->I have been using is somewhat inadequate to the job of building
-->Tux levels - and perhaps that explains why I've had no help (but
-->perhaps not - I don't think people have been trying to build new
-->levels and failing - they just aren't interested in offering their
-->time).
-->

Considering most people I know DON'T have 3d hardware I think it hardly
surprising that they aren't making more levels.

-->So, my current project is 'Pretty Poly Editor' - a polygon-level
-->3D editor that should be PERFECTLY suited to building 3D models
-->for Linux-based OpenGL games.  Once Prettypoly is working well,
-->I'll return to finish Tux.
-->

I noticed that sourceforge has about 5 different 3d editor projects going,
I wonder if they could either be merge or otherwise help each other?

-->Meanwhile, Oliver is now a "Harry Potter" fan - and like most
-->fans of that wonderful series of books he *desperately* wants
-->to grab a broomstick and play Quiddich.  He built a Quiddich
-->arena and all the various balls (Quaffle, Bludgers, Golden-Snitch)
-->- and now he and I are getting into the coding.

This sounds really COOL.

-->  This is a
-->networked game - but it'll never see the light of day outside
-->our home because I don't want to get sued by the author or her
-->publishers.
-->

What you need is an AGENT... Too bad I don't know any.  Maybe LokiGames 
could help?

--> 
-->> -->  It seems to me that someone with the right background in
-->> -->education could quite easily add teaching elements into
-->> -->Tux_AQFH to make a spin-off educational game based on it.
-->> -->
-->> -->  We showed Tux_AQFH at Oliver's school ("Family Math Night")
-->> -->and >300 children played it. On that basis, it's pretty
-->> -->safe to say that even with a regular 'gamepad' joystick,
-->> -->it can be played by Kintergarten through 10years old...
-->> -->at least.
-->> -->
-->> 
-->> Great... I haven't got to see it yet as I don't have OpenGL hardware...
-->> 
-->> :(
-->
-->Well, you can *see* it using software-only Mesa - but the frame rate
-->will be about one frame every three seconds on a 266MHz PC - nearer
-->one frame per second on a state-of-the-art PC at 600MHz or so. 
-->

fast machine here at the moment is an AMD K6 225MHz PC without hardware 3d
accleration I'm afraid I would just being torturing myself, not to mention
the kids....

-->To play it though - you DO need 3D hardware - although even a crummy 
-->little Voodoo-1 will run it at 30Hz - and those can be picked up
-->second hand for about $20 here in the Dallas-TX area.
-->

I'll look around, I priced Voodoo 3000 or whatever at the local stores and
that's $150 or more... Southern Missouri.

-->> -->I've been thinking about hacking something into Tux_AQFH
-->> -->to drill Oliver on his multiplications tables...but I
-->> -->just don't know enough about the educational stuff to
-->> -->know what would work.  By the time I get it done, he'll
-->> -->have the tables down cold anyway... :-)
-->> 
-->> Yes he probably will, but THINK of all the other children who won't;
-->> besides Oliver can help get it done and I think that would be something HE
-->> could be proud of.
-->
-->Well, yes - but between thinking that this might help him and
-->actually getting around to doing it, he learned his multiplication
-->tables - so it's unlikely that I'll be doing this.
-->

ok.

-->Whilst it's nice that other kids might benefit - you'll understand
-->that my efforts are going to be focussed where my son can get the
-->most benefit.
-->

ABSOLUTELY.....
 
-->> -->  I also act as consultant for the FlightGear flight
-->> -->simulator project...they are a major user of my PLIB
-->> -->engine.
-->> -->
-->> 
-->> Sounds cool.
-->
-->One recent development on FlightGear that may be of interest
-->here is that the terrain generation tools and the 3D renderer
-->for that terrain are about to be split off into a separate
-->project called 'Terragear' (http://terragear.sourceforge.net).
-->
-->They have tools that can take real-world digital map data
-->and turn it into a 3D model.  You can download terrain models
-->for just about anywhere in the world from the FlightGear
-->web site (shortly to be moved to the TerraGear site) and
-->'fly' over them.
-->
-->If you want to fly over Mount Everest - or down the Grand
-->Canyon - or over Antarctica, you can.
-->
-->Seems like there would be some educational value here somewhere
-->now that the terrain rendering engine is a separate library
-->that could be incorporated into some new program.
-->
-->

WOW!!! The possibilities!!!!!  :)  "Tommy's breakfast" flying at you....

Brings a whole new meaning to "video toaster"...

-- 
Jeff Waddell
jeff@smluc.org

Kids Games Project Coordinator
main website at http://smluc.org/SIA/kidsgames/


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