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fraggle
Moderator

Posts: 4130
Registered: 07-00

Hi,

As I'm sure most of you are aware, we're coming close to finishing all the textures now. I'd quite like to do a "freeze" on the textures: ie. get all the textures finalised and out of the way. This will allow us to release a texture wad. Also, once the textures are frozen they can be removed from the daily builds (as there will be nothing new to see in them) which would help cut the filesize down a bit (freedoom.wad is now at over 5 megs)

I've been thinking about how to go about freezing the textures, and this is the best idea I've come up with so far. Its only an idea mind, this thread is for comments on it.

After we get the last of the textures, there will begin a 2-3 week freezing period. This will be for people to test the textures out and tweak them before the final freeze. After this, we will release a texture wad with all the Freedoom textures in: this will be uploaded to ftp.cdrom.com and other big sites. After this, only crucial changes (missing textures, incompatibilites etc) will be allowed, as this would entail having to release a new version of the texture wad.

There is also the issue of duplicated textures. These can be settled during the freezing period. I will ask Linguica to enable polls in the Freedoom forum: people can use the forum to start polls to vote for their favorite version of the texture. The author with the most votes wins and gets in the wad. Alternatively, we may be able to draw up lists of duplicates and have some kind of voting CGI, although that would be more complicated.
This is only my suggestion of course, I appreciate any comments.

09-20-01 01:01 #

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Julian Hope

Posts: 2469
Registered: 04-75

2/3 weeks is not enough I'm afraid.
If this is to make the textures official, we'd better wait more like 2 months. And make a big announce about the fact we're in the final stage for textures, to get people interested in fixing some.
The votes should take place AFTER the freezing period and BEFORE the release, so that everybody's got a fair chance to get included.

09-20-01 01:04 #

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fraggle
Moderator

Posts: 4130
Registered: 07-00

2/3 weeks is not enough I'm afraid.
If this is to make the textures official, we'd better wait more like 2 months. And make a big announce about the fact we're in the final stage for textures, to get people interested in fixing some.

You're probably right, actually. It is rather optimistic.

The votes should take place AFTER the freezing period and BEFORE the release, so that everybody's got a fair chance to get included.

Hmm, I see your point. However, there are probably only going to be a few textures that get changed, and there arent that many duplicates. If we make it two stage like that it is going to make it take quite a bit more time. Is it worth extending the time a lot for something that only affects very few, if any of the textures?

09-20-01 01:15 #

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cph
Junior Member

Posts: 208
Registered: 05-00

I'm not sure I see the point of a texture (and flat, presumably) freeze. If we're worried about the download size, then split the textures into a separate WAD and generate the snapshots less frequently (or not, but just say it's not necessary to update every day).

Personally I'm very much in favour of encouraging more revisions of textures, and even more alternative versions of textures. I'd rather have a range and be able to choose the best at the end. This is an open project, which means anyone can contribute, but it should also mean that contributing alone isn't a guarantee stuff gets included - we're out to make the best texture collection we can.

09-20-01 10:42 #

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captmellow
Junior Member

Posts: 219
Registered: 09-00

I agree re: choosing from a range of textures at the end.

I made a suggestion a few months ago re: having some kind of script allowing people to "roll their own iwad" by choosing components from forms, then having a script compile the iwad for download.

There were legitimate objections re: the server overhead for compiling iwads. Then a client-based alternative was suggested, at which point the discussion ceased.

I think it is worth exploring this idea further.

HOWEVER . . . for the time being, it is IMO necessary to freeze the textures. That way, energy will be diverted in a more expedient manner i.e. towards replacing other resources.

09-20-01 15:27 #

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geekmarine
Forum Regular

Posts: 689
Registered: 05-00

Okay, sorry to sound like an idiot, but I just want to check. Does this mean that a separate texture wad will be generated, like what we currently have with levels, and no textures will be included in the main download? I kind of agree that it would be a good idea, although I don't think we should just stop texture submissions. I like the voting system idea, although it will be hard to implement, and especially hard to make fair (multiple voting and everything). Oh well, I guess we'll figure this all out later or something.

09-21-01 02:50 #

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L�t
Administrator

Posts: 11799
Registered: 05-00

I'm not so sure about freezing the entire texture WAD, but I would suggest that once an aspect of the TC is complete, have a seperate and less-frequently updated WAD for it, i.e. a music WAD, a texture WAD, a sprites WAD, a graphics WAD, etc. with the "last revised" date next to them, and possibly a change log.

09-21-01 04:09 #

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Jon
Freedoom Bloke

Posts: 1166
Registered: 09-00

when textures are at 100%, and other areas of the wad are being focused on, I still think it would be useful to have a method of determining which texture goes in when an alternative exists, so that there can be constant improvement, and new problems could be tackled as we go along.

09-23-01 12:59 #

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fraggle
Moderator

Posts: 4130
Registered: 07-00

Well we dont have to stop all new texture submissions, infact on second thoughts it would probably not be a good idea. However, I personally (and I'm sure a lot of other contributors) would like to release a freedoom texture wad once all the textures have been replaced, and we'd definitely need some kind of finalisation to fix any issues and choose between duplicates before we do this.

09-23-01 17:27 #

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Doomworld Forums > Special Interest > Freedoom > texture freeze

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