Seamless ATs

[ç i p h é r]

http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=29098

What I was asking is if you could submit your source code directly to our subversion repository. It's a version control system we're using to maintain all ALFA scripts. This way, we'll never lose the data if we lose one person and we can always go back versions if we introduce something really bad.

What you'd need to do, AL, is download and install a subversion client (tortoise integrates right into the windows shell so it's quite nice), setup a local repository on your end, synch up your local repository with the main repository on sourceforge (to get all the source files), then add and commit your code to it. Initial syncs can be rather lengthy, the update can be interrupted midstream. If this happens, just keep resyncing until you're up to date before doing anything else. The subversion guided tour in the link above will give you all the info you need to understand how to work with subversion.

And if you haven't already, read the conventions here - the last two posts in particular:

http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpbbforum/ ... hp?t=27887

[Grand Fromage]

You'll need to tag your seamless AT exteriors as pXXXpYYYpZZZ, where p/n denotes positive/negative coordinates, and each area is "5" in size.

so, an example grid:

p050n045p000 p045n045p000 p040n045p000

p050n050p000 p045n050p000 p040n050p000

p050n055p000 p045n055p000 p040n055p000

I have to say that this seems needlessly confusing for a couple reasons.

A) Why change the number by five when moving one area? One area should be a change of one in the coordinates.
B) The numbers are backwards. If I'm reading this correctly, the positive end of the X axis is left. That doesn't match any coordinate system I'm familiar with.

[AcadiusLost]

so, an example grid:

p040n045p000 p045n045p000 p050n045p000

p040n050p000 p045n050p000 p050n050p000

p040n055p000 p045n055p000 p050n055p000

Bah, just wrote up the grid example in a hurry, should be as above, standard directions, positive coordinates increasing north / east.

The increments of "5" come out of the desire early on, to have "Global ALFA coordinates" for things like calculating caravan costs, scripted teleports, tree stride, etc. Since different teams may be on different scales, this allows teams to vary them up if they need to.

The grid increment is an int constant in the header of the acr_areatrans_i.nss, changing it to "1" would give a more intuitive grid if that's what folks are going for, though I was under the impression we were planning to overlay a grid on a map of faerun and divvy up at some point. It's overridden by a localInt on the area as well, so if a server team wants to, they can work on their own scale to their heart's content without modifying the script package.

And Cipher: I'll d/l the client and look into those posts, the versioning and code repository stuff seemed a bit over my head last time I looked over it, maybe it'll make more sense when I've got something to submit, but I'm currently just not fluent in the opensource lingo. Been a long time since I had my coding classes, this stuff wasn't on the syllabus back then, heh.

[ç i p h é r]

And Cipher: I'll d/l the client and look into those posts, the versioning and code repository stuff seemed a bit over my head last time I looked over it, maybe it'll make more sense when I've got something to submit, but I'm currently just not fluent in the opensource lingo. Been a long time since I had my coding classes, this stuff wasn't on the syllabus back then, heh.

Let me know if you have any questions. It's not complicated, just takes getting used to like anything else. If you can script, you can bloody well learn how to work with subversion.

[AcadiusLost]

Found this:

Exterior areas:

Name: <location name> - <location detail> <[grid reference]>
Notes:
<[grid reference]>: 8 chars
i.e.: Waterdeep - South ward [x05y08]

Tag: <grid reference>_<area type>_<name abbreviation>
Notes:
<grid reference>: 6 chars
<area type> 3 chars
<name abbreviation>: 5 chars
i.e.: x05y08_cit_sward

ResRef: <grid reference>_<area type>_<name abbreviation>
<grid reference>: 6 chars
<area type>: 3 chars
<name abbreviation>: 5 chars
i.e.: x05y08_cit_sward

Where:

<area type> is the first 3 characters of the area type (ie des = Desert, for = Forest, inn = Inn, etc).

Which seems to suggest we've gone to jusy x and y, 2 digits each, which seems unworkable for global alfa coordinates. Did we can that idea entirely, and everything is based on each server's own internal grids? I can rewrite my tag composition and prediction functions to reflect this, if it's written in stone.

Is anyone planning on using grids of seamless areas, or is this likely to be more wasted effort?

[ç i p h é r]

Don't worry about that post. That's for blueprints. Read the others though.

p.s. In fact, that's not even relevant anymore now that we've created guidelines in the wiki. I'll link to the articles to eliminate redundancy.

[ç i p h é r]

Have you had a chance to fiddle with Subversion yet AL? Any questions? Any problems?

[AcadiusLost]

Tried a few times, but having a hard time making sense of it- got as far as being able to download the trunk and branches of the repository, though, so I'd call it progress, I guess.

I'm sure there isn't much to it once you're used to it, but I'm finding it a major hurdle currently.

Has anyone checked in with Hialmar about his Seamless system? His is the one documented on the wiki, though I'd been under the impression that it wasn't being pursued at the time that I coded mine.

[indio]

I haven't really followed this, so forgive the presumption. I've always been a fan of seamless transitions, but I can't see myself using them this time around. I don't have enough exteriors to justify using one if it is a ball-breaking exercise to create one. This is the sort of thing I should have said months ago of course, but I haven't really followed the thread. Apologies. That said, if you'd like me to help test it, or check Hialmer's out, let me know.

[AcadiusLost]

That was a concern of mine as well, though in the case of my scripts, the work is already done, so it's not much extra effort.

If tiled exteriors become available, these may be more important- but they may get use in any case: quite a few folks have complained about the big flashy AT markers in the OC in terms of PW immursion.

Not a priority to test I'd say, Indio- I think one or two of the build projects now are going to try it out, I'll see how it plays.

[ç i p h é r]

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. If you're connecting to the repository, you're doing good! Since the NWN 2da hak files are up there, it's a far larger download than it needs to be, so it'll take you a little while, and probably a few tries, to get it all on your machine. Thereafter, it's much more manageable.

Once you've synched up, all you need to do is learn the basic commands. Typical usage as follows:

1. SVN Update (make sure all your files are in sync before you begin editing - simplifies merges). Assuming you're using TortoiseSVN, this is an option in the popup menu (right click on the file).
2. Edit the file(s) in question. If you save your edits to a file in your working copy, then you'll notice a little red + icon attach to the file(s). Any time you see this, it means you have work to commit to the main repository.
3. Once you have a version that compiles, SVN Commit the modified file(s) to the repository. Again, it's an option in the popup menu.

Be sure to update frequently, especially before editing any new files. This will prevent you from having to deal with messy merges.

[AcadiusLost]

For anyone who tried these out, somehow the include didn't get pulled along by the NWN2 erf export somehow. So, I've uploaded another verision, same code, just put the include (with the bulk of the code in) back where it was supposed to be.


[edit: took these down until I can rejigger a few things, should have a complete version up later this week.]