school-only network

[2020]

ed passed the buck to me
thinks i can come up with a splash screen based on his graphics...
i'll see what i can do...
urgle

EDIT:
he did do them
i just misread his message

so there are several options on what to call this

i don't like the double letters
but i am going for the
tron school
or
fortress
the yellow one
just because....

[2020]

what do we need for the new client to work?
1
a splash screen
[done]
fortress settings
floor map etc
[done?]
2
master server
[comguygene offered a server in france i think
as well as one for the us in case any us schools join...
is this still ok?]
3
forum for authentication system
[do i have to create one
before this client is ready?]

thanks
david
aka
2020

[Z-Man]

Yeah, that's all that is needed. Additional masters can wait, as can the authentication forum. I put up a test build:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/armage ... a20100220/
You'll note several things:
- rebranding isn't complete. It's totally missing on the Mac, and has only been internal on Windows. Just the source and Linux builds are completely rebranded. I called it "Fortress School" as full name and 'fortschool' as short name. I'll either hack in the remaining rebrandings with brute force or do it properly later.
- art credits are missing. You collected it, basically, so you take care of that I only did technical modifications. Like merge the four moviepack wall textures into one, picked the scaled down model over the original, bigger cycle, resized textures to powers of two. Scaling of the rim wall texture left the lines blurry. You may want to redo it from scratch. I went with the red title, because the yellow one looks quite horrible, the color conversion is far from complete and clean.

I made a new cycle trail texture, very basic, to match the title screen. I like it better than the blotchy fort moviepack texture, but you're the director, so you pick.

I made fortress physics the default, they work OK and the bots seem to like them.

Now, I have to say I really don't like the fortress moviepack floor. The walls are all right and don't disturb regular play, but the colored, long lines on the floor are far too easy to confuse with cycle walls (or rather, cycle walls can conveniently hide between them). I also don't like how it looks as the menu background. Of course, we can hardcode that one to black.

TL;DR: Your job is to get the art together properly. Mine is to handle the rebranding.

[compguygene]

Their is no need for additional masters to start. I can still gladly provide gameservers.

[2020]

thanks
z-man

i am a little confused :s
i am not sure what i can check
since i only use mac os x...

@compguygene
what's preventing us sticking a pointer in the client for a new school-only master?
the benefit being that if schools set it on their servers
they can immediately play against one another
rather than having to ask the IT people to reload a different version...

wrt rebranding
"fortress school" or "fortschool" is fine
shall i ask ed to produce a splash of that?
wrt art credits
i shall get ed's credentials
and who was the guy that produced the green fortress we are using?

wrt moviepack floor
yes the colours can be a little distracting
but i found they are really good when describing where to split etc
i'd like the colours toned down a little
but someone produced a blue version and it was just too dead...
i got used to the lines across the centre
but then again i use smartcam

ok
can't say much more than that...
except the odd thing on the os x version...
(like strange user keys and white floor)

btw
who are TL and DR?

so
how far away are we from getting a pc version nailed down?

[2020]

finally!
i have one teacher nibbling
but she has passed on the links to downloads to the normal AA version to her technical staff
and she says she can't find how set up the fortress mode
HENCE
the reason why we need a school-only version with fortress settings as default

also
she was at pains to impress the importance of a closed system
since she must ensure that the chat is between the kids
hence the need for a school-only master server

so...
what link should i give?
and are we good to go?