Re: 3D modellers [Was: Re: Texture mapping]

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Hmmm - I thought I'd surf over to the Me3D home page to see how they are
getting on.

I was disappointed to see that their web site hasn't been updated for over
a year - and one of the email addresses of the authors doesn't work anymore.

I emailed the remaining author - but after 24 hours there has been no reply.

I downloaded the code - and it won't compile with modern GTK/GLIB code...
and it seemed like it would take significant work to make it do so.

I suspect Me3D is dead.   :-(

...so perhaps we *should* try to do something with my PPE program.

Erik wrote:

> > Well, if there were enough helpers, I'd be prepared to lead - but I'm not
> > starting another one-man project (which Tux_AQFH is - and PLIB *nearly* is).

> I would be interested in helping...

Well, I just spent the evening getting PPE to compile and run again - I'll
post the sources and announce the possibility of starting a project to finish
(or rewrite) it.

If there are enough people prepared to help, I'll lead the project until
someone better comes along.

> ...but my skills are limited and my time even
> more so. In mid december, I should have a lot more free time to donate to what
> I feel are worthy endeavers. I may be mistaken, but I beleive large open
> projects are usually comprised of a small group of core developers who are long
> term, and a huge flux of one shot coders who do the bulk of the work, but are
> with projects for very very short times.

Well, on projects I have worked on (and run), I'd say that the core workers
write nearly 100% of the code and the vast number of onlookers contribute
*tiny* bug fixes and enhancements that probably never make up more than a
small percentage of the resulting code base.

> I was following xracer, only worked on
> two issues, and only got one to the point of submitting a patch. While I was
> following, several people came, several people went, there were only a couple
> main voices. Rich did an aweful lot of work, but there were a lot of patches
> flowing in... That's where the strength of open source comes in, lots and lots
> of people contributing single small peices that come together to make a
> superior whole... :)

Yes, bugs get found with alarming speed.  The code I have in the public
domain is amazingly reliable compared to closed-source stuff I do at work,
mainly because of the thousands of vocal testers out there.

> I suppose I should draw a conclusion from this rambling; I
> think waiting until a largish developer base is built to even begin isn't going
> to work. Group a small handful, plan out the framework, and open it up to
> public abuse/evolution?

I agree that it's good for a project to get something going as fast as possible.
It gives people something concrete to talk about and gives the impression
that this is guaranteed to be a viable project since it's only finishing off
something that's already basically working.

> I'd be happy to help when and where I can, but my
> biggest success to date is basically a dressed up gtk+ telnet program for mud
> games, I don't have the experience or background to contribute too much.

The best thing about joining these projects is that you are guaranteed to
learn a lot!
 
Well, my web server seems to be down right now - so I can't post the code
tonight...I'll announce something as soon as I can get it up somewhere
accessible.

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1@airmail.net (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker@hti.com      (work)