Blog about you!

[GameMonetize]

I'm sharing this here because it is all about you

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/eternalcoding/archive/2015/11/12/hints-for-successfully-managing-an-open-source-project.aspx

[Dad72]

Are many true. Create projects is one thing, but to lead them with a community is another. That is what is most difficult. I think you need to know to surround himself with a team as well, which is not always simple.

 

Thank you for all your DK advice and share your experience.

[Wingnut]

Hi guys!  Nice piece, DK!   I think it might be wise to add a little section about the power of LIKES and the power of getting Deltakosh to say "HUGE!".

 

Getting a "HUGE" from Deltakosh... is the most delicious puppy chow on the entire planet!  

 

I have seen ALL of us give LIKES for basic accomplishments... to users who look like they could use some puppy ear scratching (a pat on the back for getting started with BJS)... and this is HUGE (and highly honorable and filled with humility).  Likes and "thanks" and "HUGE" is what I live-for... and it bonds the community into a family.

 

Dad72 and I once PM-talked about LIKES... and possibly adding more kinds of LIKES.  (like the code solution, or like the fact that someone replied, or like the post because its topic was cool, etc, etc.  Maybe add multiple like buttons to the forum.)  *shrug*

 

I think "likes" carry a TON of weight on the forum.  They keep folks motivated and experimenting-onward.  In USA kindergarten, it is called "show'n'tell"... and it's a wonderful forum "energy" that got REAL SWEET when the playground came alive.  Every "like", every "wow", every "HUGE"... faery-dusts ALL of us.

[jerome]

So true, Wingy !

 

@DK, what you don't know yet ... is there is another HUGE puppy peak upcoming on your happiness/time curve in third year

[ozRocker]

The culture here has been good.  No one is condescending to others and no one (not even the high achievers) acts like they are so much smarter than everyone else (even though its clear that some of you guys are WAY smarter than me).  I bet there's many times when you guys just want to yell at someone and say "Why didn't you check the documentation first??" or "That's been asked 1000000 times already!!" lol

[jerome]

@Wingy : you are right... when coming onto this forum, the first thing I check is if there is a little red square in the upper right top of my browser window.

And if it is one... this makes my day

 

@ozRocker : I often read a post and say to myself "pffff, that's been asked 100000 times already", and, the very next second, I ask to myself "but what was yet the f$*%+ng answer ?"

[Wingnut]

hah!  (What was the answer?)  yuh yuh yuh, been there.  Forum search after forum search... hours of "dammit".  Sometimes I go into Puppyzilla mode and blame Mozilla and Deltakosh and Khronos and everybody EXCEPT the bug in my code.  heh.  Been there, done that.  Purse dump!  Blame Deltakosh for the crappy week I've had.  (Deltakosh dons his combat helmet)

 

This is a strange/unique situation.  Many of us are not only learning a great webGL framework, but we're also learning geometry... AND Javascript... and maybe some HTML.  Its really a miserable situation, yet exciting as it comes.  When we see the playgrounds and other great results... we MUST continue to seek it.  It's too cool. 

 

To get back on subject a bit... BJS often gets blamed for a "weakness" in geometry knowledge and/or Javascript knowledge... but I don't see how this can be avoided.  BJS is actually "spearheading" the user's learning of Javascript and geometry.  So, quite a few forum questions are related to those two sub-subjects.

 

It's an unusual situation.  Other open-source projects may not accurately mirror this one, because WebGL, and the unique people we have here (artists and techs and mixtures thereof)... might not be attainable with other projects.  Ours is a weird one. 

[MasterSplinter]

Hey from DC,

 

wpdildine.github.com

 

Just wanted to say DC aime Paris!

 

Be safe!

[jessepmason]

One day I will be a SUPER USER! ... for now I am just a plain old regular user

[Temechon]

Thanks MasterSplinter. We need all the support we can have.

[ozRocker]

I plan on contributing more to the Unity3D exporter.  Once I have time I will get around to studying the .babylon file format and the existing C# code.  Being a Babylon.js contributor would look very good on my resume when I'm seeking 3D dev work.  Imagine turning up to an interview and saying "Have I heard of Babylon.js?  Hell yeah bitch, I WROTE part of it!"

[JCPalmer]

Oz,

I do not know the first thing about Unity3D, but know the first key beyond studying the existing exporter is studying FileLoader.ts.  .JSON format is just a glorified CSV with tags.  .babylon file format is not important.  Triangulating between those 2 files is the way to success.  Ask yourself, what else can Unity3D produce that FileLoader will accept.  Once you got all those, maybe modify FileLoader to accept new stuff that you can produce.  Every source system has different strengths.

 

One thing I am positive that your exporter is not producing right now is meshes with variable bone influencers (1-8).  Not even a production Blender exporter is doing that yet.

 

One other thing you might consider is refactoring the exporter such that you make multiple passes, if it is not already designed that way.  It alone will not add functionality, but can add maintainability. If everything is addressed in one shot, the complexity of doing more & more will become a limiting factor.  Define C# objects (Meshes, Light, Materials, Textures, Bone, Skeletons, Shadows, Submeshes, Animations, etc) whose constructors does everything required to get things ready (vertex reordering for mult-materials, Y-Z axis swapping, etc).  Have a function like toSceneFile() in all of them.  First pass will iterate thru the Unity3D objects making collections of your BJS friendly object.  The 2nd pass goes thru those collections to actually write out the file.  I am able to do much more complex things like deal with Procedural textures & the cycles render, shape keys, variable bone influencers, because this OO design makes it much more manageable.

 

Good Luck.