GETTING START idea

O Ilusionista

O Ilusionista

Captain 100K
Guys, I have an idea to share and I would like to hear some opinions: A GETTING STARTED topic/center and better manual.

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One thing that has always left me curious is how the engine can be almost as old as Mugen, but the community and number of users without unbelievably smaller, even with the engine being superior to Mugen in many ways (and inferior in others but not Is the subject here) and been able to run in way more platforms.

One of the things that, in my understanding, is the cause of this is the lack of organized information about the engine and how people can get started. For example, we do not have an OFFICIAL manual, with all the correct and documented information. We have that version that is in DCEmulation but even with all my effort (and other people like Bloodbane and White Dragon) in updating it, there are still things missing - examples are missing.

The idea of a single-page manual is good, especially to have a local version on your machine. But it does not meet our every need. There are people with a hard time understanding, especially when they do not speak the language of the manual (even though I think it's the obligation of anyone who accesses the internet or deals with a programming language that at least understands English).

So what are my ideas?

- Try to reactivate the wiki. I'm trying to convince Damon to put the Wiki online again and update it, with new information and more examples. PROBLEM: This was taken offline because people did not help. We are a community, and that means that we must help each other, not just ask and complain. A lot of people just want the content ready, without the slightest effort and if something goes wrong (which is bound to happen), start complaining and blaming the engine, developers, moderators, users, father, mother, dog ... Excluding himself. So for this to happen, we need help.

- Make a "How to start" topic, something official, where we would gather all the information necessary to start in OpenBOR - link of the last engine, BOR mod link (or NeoEditPack or something similar), useful tools link. For this, again, we need help.

So, what are your opinions, guys?
 
Yea I think Beastie had this idea before i remember him making topics on this and atlas with a bunch of links to the right areas.. Good idea but I will say this, I think openbor is a lot more organized than mugen.. That mugen wiki is so hard to understand and navigate.. But I do agree that we could make it more easier and understandable.. I would rather have an updated script library with more descriptions on how you can use the scripts etc..
 
Good idea but I will say this, I think openbor is a lot more organized than mugen.. That mugen wiki is so hard to understand and navigate..
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While my idea is not to make an OpenBOR x Mugen war, I can tell you that this is not true AT ALL. Mugen Wiki is not an official thing. The Mugen Official Documentation is pretty clear and documented, way more than OpenBOR.
There is no undocumented stuff someone put on the engine but saved the info for himself ;)
 
Hi. The only things I learnt of openBor is to set levels (without the position of the panel) and something in building characters, the moves, a bit of selecting, a bit of titles.

Not yet well understood animations and use of scenes: this is very important for be able to create what we think. I like this engine more then mugen and I believe it would be a good idea do something like mugen utilities.

Another important step would be update old games to video 1 resolution and maybe the only thing I would be able to try.

I think I will not use scripts ever, and so many other people who want to try openbor... ;D Do you think you will write C++ manual? I don't hope so.
 
My idea is to gather the info and put examples in the wikia. All the questions you made already have answers on the manual or on the forum.

Do you think you will write C++ manual? I don't hope so.
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OpenBor doesn't use C++. It uses a stripped down version of C.
 
I'm for this, and I'll see about starting up a new wiki.

On the community side of things, it kind of makes sense that Mugan has a bigger community. There are a few big reaons for this.

  • OpenBOR 's primary genre is a a far less popular niche than Mugen's. One on one fighters are the same now as they were 15 years ago, just more bells and whistles. Beat em' ups are a different story. Streets of Rage has "evolved" into Devil May Cry and that's what the public wants. Classical beat em' ups are a niche market at best. Granted you can build a fighter with OpenBOR and replicate everything Mugen does - but it would take a ton of script and be a massive headache. Why not just use Mugen? That's what I'd do. End result is Mugen has a MUCH bigger potential audience.
  • When OpenBOR and Mugen first came out, they were two VERY different animals. I don't mean this to knock on any of the past developers, but the simple truth is that until SX and Utunnels showed up, OpenBOR was a severely limited engine in every conceivable aspect. Over the years it has "outgrown" Mugen in terms of potential, but the reputation has long since been cemented.
  • Mugen's community has a very, VERY bad reputation. As I understand, it's gotten much better over the years - but just like how OpenBOR has a bad rep as an engine, the Mugen community's rep for childish behavior still sticks. SX and myself specifically geared our forum policies to squelch that sort of stuff here - and I don't just mean being strict. Our policies on storing, sharing, etc. are built around making sure none of the issues that divide the Mugen folks can take root here. We're a small knit group, but its quality over quantity.

All of those things aside, I do want to see us grow, and I agree on instructions. As I told O' Ilusionista, I'm doing a lot of code work right now, but that's all the OpenBOR time I have to give. I just finished a final, and I'm going to try and make some video tutorials to help out. We need to help people not just with OpenBOR, but with some basic game design principals in general. Sprite making, the difference between lossless and lossy compression and how color tables work, design theory, and so on.

We also need a very comprehensive script guide - not on syntax and such, basic C tutorials better than anything we could ever do are everywhere. But we do need to explain the functions that OpenBOR provides, and how to integrate within modules. I notice the gap is often times is not the code itself, but just knowing how you get it into a module and executed.

I could add a lot more, but this is already TL;DR for most people as is.

DC
 
O Ilusionista said:
Thanks DC.
It would be good if you could restore the old wiki, so we don't need to start it from the scratch.
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Sadly, I doubt I can do that. Might be able to dig up some old articles directly out of the database and paste them here and there, but the wiki itself is too out of date to run as is. By the time I worked to restore it, we could just as easily get a newer, better one going.

DC
 
I personally tried bor very early, and was initially very disappointed about the level of customisation. I started my first bor project during this era and cancelled it shortly after. I was already "good" with mugen at this time. Then I tried some more advanced stuffs far later by tweaking the gem that is BB's Crime Fighters. then I discovered Openbor was full of possibilities, by reading the customisable elements on the manual. I tried most of these elements and created my own "game system", something between fighting games and beat em ups.

These last weeks I restarted learning more mugen stuff, by reading all the new manuals.
This helped me a lot, and Im really motivated to create something new with mugen.
You cannot avoid beiign motivated with a complete manual giving you some explanations about everything with exemples and all. This mugen manual (english) even make me understanding some "logic / math" stuff I never understood in my own language in the past. Just magic.

All of that to say a manual can really help a lot of guys around to be motivated on making stuffs with openbor. even just trying to make some simple demo.

It's true that a manual is hard to build with the regular new versions of openbor popping every time. Since every new build seems to adjust modify add features and delete make unstable some others. A doc cannot exhaustive this way. But sure it would help.

The community is very good IMO, but the difficulty to access to explanations about regular features and even script with explanation make it very "elitist" for some people I think.
I personally consider you guys like gods, wince you can code advanced systems with this engine. This understanding is definitly out of my league, unless I could access to some effective documentation manual.

I'm sick of seeing elements I made years to add to a project becoming even more broken/buggy/unavailiable with any new build. And having no possibility to understand what happens. I have the feeling I disturb every skilled people here, asking for help for elements I will never understand by myself without some official text support.

Since I'm here since the early days of both Mugen and Bor, I like both and tried both.
Both are really good and full of possibility, but if I was a newbie just trying to code characters to create some action/fighting game, the lack of information/help would make such a guy dropping openbor.

Again, I have respect for both and their communities
 
I don't know why this community didn't grow as big as Mugen's but I agree that we need tutorial for getting started on modding
Not sure where to start the tutorial though
 
O Ilusionista said:
Good idea but I will say this, I think openbor is a lot more organized than mugen.. That mugen wiki is so hard to understand and navigate..
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While my idea is not to make an OpenBOR x Mugen war, I can tell you that this is not true AT ALL. Mugen Wiki is not an official thing. The Mugen Official Documentation is pretty clear and documented, way more than OpenBOR.
There is no undocumented stuff someone put on the engine but saved the info for himself ;)
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Oh it's not I have been in both communities and I can say from my experience it is a lot easier to learn bor at least the basic stuff... MUGEN has that wiki where unless you know what your doing its hard to put it together.. But apples to oranges good idea either way... I do think this needs to be done with mugen too lol :P 
 
It's exactly the lack of documentation that is keeping openbor away from newcomers. Check the Openbor manual, for example. It's outdated, written in old code and I don't see much people using the new syntax code implemented in 4183 even now.

I really love the dedication of people here and the receptivity. Got a grip of the basics really quickly by reverse engineering a few mods and messing with the neo edit pack, but like some words I've heard (For example, DC's reasoning in regards to Remap stuff), newcomers will face a myriad of problems with the engine, and not everyone has the patience to trial and error, which is a defining part on the process of handling openbor.

There are many things I've discovered on my own, either by accident, by messing up with the user-made tools, or else by just keeping the manual in check everytime a doubt popped up.

And once again, when people are facing outdated documentation, and with new builds being released at little time intervals, I'm sure they ask themselves, "Why am I going to do something in this software, if the coding I did will be obsolete on the next build release?".
 
Check the Openbor manual, for example. It's outdated, written in old code and I don't see much people using the new syntax code implemented in 4183 even now.
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The last update were made in December, so it's not that outdated. But yes, there are some problems on the manual.

For the new manua, it will need some of the devs to help us and review it.
 
could this new tutorial be a colaborative project.
Something like, taking the previous base, correct it.
Then any people here can add elements on it even "hidden ones", but still have to be validate by some skilled person like DC, BB... ???

I'm pretty sure 75% of the possible projects of openbor disapears by the lack of solid manual documentation. (Just give a look at projects area in the forum) And I don't coult the persons who don't even start because of this lack of information.
 
I think the CronoCrash would release a oficial VIDEO TUTORIALS on youtube. I see some peoples doing videos tutorials on youtube (and like Ilusionista said,  some of them  teach  wrong thinks) So if have a OFICIAL VIDEOS TUTORIALS YOUTUBE CHANNEL it would increase the acessess to engine.

For exemple, I learned about openbor by Daniel tutorials on youtube, 5 simple and basics videos, i could make a char/Stage!

People prefer videos than text, is more interactve and dinamic  ;D If Crono make this, others peoples should not have to do  ;)

For exemple:

 
sorry to be negative but we've tried this before, no one really helps or even supports it.  several others went down this road before and no one who could really help ever showed the slightest interest.  People would rather flex their epeens and give negative opinions than than actually help.    I can count on one hand the people who helped in the past, none of which were experts of openbor.  O Illusionista is one of the few to have cared about this and despite all his efforts and after a few years being here, this is still a major issue.

this only works if the real gurus step up and share the knowledge, instead of just talking down to people and waving their dicks around....
 
People would rather flex their epeens and give negative opinions than than actually help.
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I am aware of that. Some people do prefer to rant them help. Its natural of human being.

O Illusionista is one of the few to have cared about this and despite all his efforts and after a few years being here, this is still a major issue.
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Thanks. I am just trying to get more info. Because an engine with no information is a dead engine. If we want to continue to exist, we should start to document things.

this only works if the real gurus step up and share the knowledge, instead of just talking down to people and waving their dicks around....
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Beastie, with all respect I have for you, I would like to require you to NOT say this again. Many people may not know the origin of this, but some people (which includes myself) do know what you are talking about. You have NO IDEA of how much damage you could did with your bitter words. But I am aware of it and its not good.

Please, do not bring personal differences to the forum again. If you want, go and talk with the person you have differences. Again, I really like you and I don't want to take any unpolite action.

Thanks.
 
Okay first of  O Ilusionista, I'm all for this :D.  And  Theoz.. thats a great idea, Also to follow this ... has anyone made an Offical Youtube page for Chono Crash or Beats of rage?
 
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