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Developer FAQ

Is Cafu right for our game of genre "..."?

Variants of this question include:

  • Can we use Cafu to make a MMORPG?
  • Is Cafu fit for our 3D strategy game?
  • Will we able to implement our car racing game with Cafu?

While we would love to provide you with a clear and authoritative “yes” or “no” answer to these questions, that is easier said than done:

When you ask one of these questions, you usually have a clear mental image already on how your game should look like – an image that we don't have, because often we know way too little about your project: your plans, your team, your skills (modelling, mapping, scripting, programming, …), your deadlines, etc. Not knowing what you really want and if you're ready to – for example – writing material shaders or making changes to the C++ source code is what makes this question difficult to answer.

However, there is an alternative that is much better than any statement we could make: Familiarize yourself with Cafu, try it yourself, and evaluate if it is right for your needs.

For example, download and run the latest demo. Explore the TechDemo map. Then try making a small map of your own, or edit one of the included maps in the editor. Browse the scripts and source code. If there are problems or questions, ask.

Not only will you become familiar with the Cafu details, you will also be able to form a very competent opinion about Cafu's suitability for your project.

Where are the Visual Studio project files?

In the development of Cafu, an important consideration is the build process that turns the source code into executable programs. This build process is a challenge in its own right, because it must work

  • on all supported platforms (currently Windows and Linux, soon MacOS, too),
  • with several compilers,
  • in several variants (32- and 64-bit; debug, profile and release),
  • possibly in multiple combinations of the above on the same computer,
  • in changing environments (e.g. variable number of game libraries),
  • flexibly, robustly and easily configurable for our fellow developers and users.

Achieving these goals with Visual Studio solution files on Windows (and possibly Makefiles on Linux) is a maintenance nightmare that borders on the impossible. For these reasons, we have chosen to use SCons as the build system for the Cafu Engine. SCons meets the above requirements, and it can still be used automatically and conveniently from most IDEs and Text Editors.

Alas, we realize that having true Visual Studio project and solution files (and similar native files for other platforms) would still be nice to have. We therefore started looking into these programs:

These all look very promising, but each has problems of its own, and until today nobody ever finished a complete, working solution. If you would like to help improving the situation, it would be very welcome. Until then, please use one of the solutions described in IDEs and Text Editors.

What is the maximum number of network players?

There is no hard limit built into Cafu, but the general rule is that in the worst case, updates of everyone must be distributed over the network to everyone else. That means that the overall network load (on the server) roughly climbs with the number of players squared.

Fortunately, the Cafu network code is able to cut the network load significantly in many cases:

  • Each network message is very small from the beginning, and additionally compressed.
  • The Cafu server knows “who can (potentially) see who”, and optimizes all cases where updates would be sent that cannot be observed by the receiving client.

With these features, Cafu can handle a large number of players in a single level all at the same time. We have demonstrated that connecting 8 clients over the internet is possible without problems (and with some bandwidth left) – and that was several years ago over a slow ISDN (64 kbit/s) Internet connection.

How do I locally clone the Cafu source code repository?

When you start working with Cafu, picking up the source code from a compressed archive or from the Subversion repository is sometimes not enough:

Many developers prefer to manage their project in their own version control system, but also wish to integrate the latest changes (e.g. bug-fixes and new features) from the official Cafu repository into theirs from time to time. The synchronization of the projects code with the original Cafu source code should be as convenient and automatic as possible.

One way to achieve this is to use Git:

Our plan is to provide an official Cafu Git repository at a later time. Until then, you can use git svn, a very good bridge between Git and Subversion. This tool allows you to use Git for your own project and at the same time pull changes from the official Cafu Subversion repository.

This set of commands imports the entire Cafu Subversion repository into a local Git repository:

> git --version
git version 1.7.9.msysgit.0
 
> type authors.txt    # You have to create this file in a text editor!
Carsten = Carsten Fuchs <carsten.fuchs@cafu.de>
 
> git svn clone "https://srv7.svn-repos.de/dev123/projects/cafu" -s --authors-file=authors.txt cafu_git 

Please refer to the Git documentation for more details. See this forum post for Cafu on GitHub.

How do I start a new game (MOD) project?

This is now explained in its own section in the documentation: See Starting your own Game for details.

How do I dynamically reload the map script in-game?

While you're developing a script for one of your maps, it can be a very helpful shortcut to reload the map script while the game is running, without interrupting it. This avoids the normally required cycle of leaving and re-starting the map.

As a preparatory step, add a function like this to your map script:

-- This function reloads and runs this script again.
-- It is useful for working with and testing the script "online",
-- i.e. while the game is running and without reloading the map!
function reloadScript()
    -- Adjust the path in the next line as required!
    dofile("Games/DeathMatch/Worlds/BPWxBeta.lua");
    Console.Print("Reloaded the map script.\n");
end

Then, at the Cafu in-game console, enter

runMapCmd('reloadScript()')

to dynamically reload the script.

In theory, you could combine these two steps into one, using something like runMapCmd('dofile(“…”)'), but that is even harder to type than the version above, and less flexible. (We realize that the entire runMapCmd(…) business is not optimal. Suggestions for making this more convenient are welcome.)

Note that if you use this technique, it can be helpful (but is not required) to understand how it works: The map script “lives” inside a Lua state that is initialized together with the map. (The in-game console has an entirely separate Lua state, which is why runMapCmd(…) is needed.) The above commands essentially run dofile(…) in the context of the maps Lua state, which in turn re-runs the map script.

Where can I learn more about 3D programming or game engines?

There are many available resources regarding 3D engines and related their subjects, both online and offline in the form of traditional books and papers. The following list is neither complete nor up-to-date, but we hope that it serves as a starting point for your own investigations into the matter:

  • http://www.opengl.org
    The official OpenGL website, and the first place to search for information about OpenGL.
  • BSP-FAQs
    Introductory information about BSP trees.
  • “Computer Graphics, Principles and Practice” by Foley, vanDam, Feiner & Hughes.
    Some say this is the bible of computer graphics – and it's true. It covers nearly everything there is to know. An excellent reference, but have a look into the table of contents before buying it.
  • “Radiosity and Realistic Image Synthesis”, Michael F. Cohen and John R. Wallace. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, California.
  • “Radiosity. A programmers perspective.”, Ian Ashdown. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, N.Y.
  • “Zen of Graphics Programming, 2nd edition” by Michael Abrash.
    Most of this book is about low level DOS graphics programming (outdated now, but good nonetheless). The final chapters are a collection of Abrash's articles that appeared in the “Dr. Dobbs SourceBooks” series. They contain information about BSP trees, span sorting, etc.
  • “Programming in Lua, Second Edition” by Roberto Ierusalimschy. The first edition of this book is also available online.
general/developer_faq.1351856750.txt.gz · Last modified: 2013-01-07 12:07 (external edit)