Milestone 1

[RonHiler]

Yes, I know it's been done. It's probably even been done this exact same way (using a custom a/p with DirectShow to drop frames onto a texture). I wouldn't be surprised if Bioshock uses it to do their monitor screens in game. But I've never had this tech before. It's a fun new toy to play with

[RonHiler]

Well, basically I'm done with Milestone 1 and in my opinion, it looks pretty sharp. There's just one little wrinkle. I thought of a feature it might be nice to add to the selection screen, nothing major, mind you, just a small touch. I figured it would take me an hour or two to put in. Well, as it turns out, there was a complication, and it's not so easy to add.

This is a thing I will have to tackle at some point, but it isn't really necessary for M1. Then again, if I do it now, it's one less thing to do later on. I'm still undecided on whether or not I'll get it in now or later. I guess it really depends on how long it will take. Mod 5 just came out for DDO, and I do need to work on the character planner a little bit to get it up to date, but I don't want to do that before I release the M1 version of MD.

Guess we'll see how it goes...

[Strike]

I recommend getting Milestone 1 finished and out the door, if you're taking votes

IMO, Feature creep + "complications" + other projects == Later.

But I guess we'll just see how long it takes....

[RonHiler]

I recommend getting Milestone 1 finished and out the door, if you're taking votes

IMO, Feature creep + "complications" + other projects == Later.

But I guess we'll just see how long it takes....

Aye. I'm going to go ahead and start the classes needed (in fact, I already have). But if it starts to get out of control in terms of amount of time being taken up, I'll let it go and deal with it in Milestone 2. So far, anyway, it's going pretty smoothy. But again, we'll just see how it goes.

I want to stress this is NOT a feature creep type of thing. This absolutely positively MUST be in the game at some point (it's a sound thing related to wave files, and I don't want to get into a technical discussion about it). It's only a question of whether to do it now or to do it later, it's not an addition

I intend to stick to our design doc pretty religiously in order to avoid the whole feature creep thing. While admittedly, parts of the DD are incomplete, it has a full description of all the major interface screens and a full milestone list overview, so that should keep things on track even as the rest of it gets filled out.

[Pix]

If it wasn't scheduled for M1, adding it now, when M1 is otherwise basically done, it's feature creep, of a sort. Add a new milestone, M1.1, consisting solely of this feature, call M1 done, and then add new code.

[RonHiler]

Pfff, that's just nonsense, Pix.

For one thing, this is an unexpected complication. So even if the DD went into that sort of detail on what specific classes would be added when (which it most certainly, and deliberately, does not), these set of classes would be nowhere to be found in ANY of the milestones by virtue of the fact that it is an *unexpected* requirement. It's exactly in these sort of occurances that low level DDs break down. It would have to be added somewhere. Unexpected complications happen, there's no getting around them no matter how carefully you plan. This is why the MD DD is a "high level" DD. It's keeps things on track without shackling us.

For another, these new classes can easily be catagorized under Milestone 1 by virtue of the milestone summary for M1, which goes:

"Basic Windows Initialization, DirectX Initialization (D3D, DInput), AVI player, R&J Cyberware Logo Avi File, Display Logo screens, Show Load Screen, Show Selection Screen, Fonts, Pushbuttons"

(highlight added). The addition that you are speaking of as "feature creep" is trivial. It's to make the buttons make a noise when the cursor moves over them or they are pressed. And yes, that wasn't necessarily in my head when I wrote the M1 list. But again, the list is not there to shackle us, it's to keep things on track. This is an entirely minor addition (literally maybe a dozen lines of code in total) which I feel will add significantly to the pushbutton class. I'm going to just go ahead and reserve the right to make these sort of additions even when they are not in the milestone list if A) they are minor and can be easily done and B) they add a significant improvement.

Now, in the version of the DD that you guys have (version 1.0), sound is not mentioned at all in the detailed M1 list. That was an oversight on my part, and I added it as one of the first things I changed in the second version (and I felt that was okay because it's still consistant with the milestone summary[1]). It was always my intention to have sound working in M1 (if for no other reason than for the AVI files).

Further to that, I had already programmed a DirectSound class before even tackling the AVI player stuff, although it wasn't being used (and still isn't, since DirectShow uses its own internal coding to run the sound through DirectSound).

So I have plenty of evidence on my side that sound was always meant to be in M1. At this point it's optional because the original purpose was to have sound for the movies. But to be sure we'll also need sound in game for other things.

The unexpected complication is for that to work I need to load and play a wave file. It turns out loading a wave file into a directsound buffer is entirely non-trivial, and apparently I've never before done that before (contrary to what I'd thought).

That's why I say eventually we are going to HAVE to have that functionality, to load up wave files into DSound buffers. Either now or later, doesn't really matter. I kind of prefer now, since A) technically I meant to have sound completely working by the end of M1, B) it's one less "base class functionality" sort of thing I'll have to do later on and C) it fits even less well with future milestone summaries than it does with M1. But as I said, if it gets too messy, I'll drop it until later.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you trying to keep me to the DD. If you ever think I'm going too far off of it, please do call me on it. But I honestly don't think this is one of those times.

[1] BTW, the milestone summaries are, at this point, pretty much locked. They are central (IMO) along with the interface descriptions to the purpose of the DD, which is to keep progress moving forward without feature creep. While I may change the detailed milestone lists from time to time (like I did with adding direct sound to M1 from DD1.0 to DD2.0), I should NEVER add or delete anything from those lists that is inconsistant with the corresponding milestone summary. If I do, I would (again) encourage you guys to call me on it.

[RonHiler]

Alright guys, the sound classes are essentially done. Works and everything, which is a big relief given the nasty code needed to load Wave files We have our first in-game sounds, which are clicky type sounds on the buttons.

I'm going to add a few minor utility functions to the classes that I think would be useful to have around, and clean up some of the graphics on the load screen. I may be able to finish up today and put out a release, but more likely it'll be some time tomorrow.