2.14 Development ?

Battle of Britain "Wings of Victory"
new reply
Fred901
Airman
Posts: 39
Joined: 16 Dec 2018, 14:18

2.14 Development ?

Post by Fred901 »

Hi all,

I would like to know why the BDG stopped the development of patch 2.14?

rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by rogeroger »

Real life commitments I guess. The BDG patches were not official patches as far as I know, but created by by the community.

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by PV »

We had several coders expressing some interest during the 2.13 development, but that seemed to peak during
the disappointment over the Il-2 initial release, and subsided rapidly with the appearance of the community modding
effort for repair of CloD. As you will know if you followed the 2.12 & 2.13 development, Buddye retired from coding, and
two27 has had health issues. There has been no activity on 2.14 for quite some time. To illustrate, the Beta testers
sub-forum, which became the de facto BDG development forum, hasn't had a new post since Mar 2018, and the post
below that topic dates from Dec 2017. I am just a terrain modder, and since I retired from my job in late 2017, and
moved to a different province in spring 2018, I have spent the better part of the time since getting my new situation
together, a much longer and more frustrating project than I expected. I am plugging away at a small terrain mod, as I
have mentioned recently, but it has not been a high priority. Looking at the Beta Forum, it seems clear the enthusiasm
for continuing BoB2 development is waning. I intend to be around, and puttering on, indefinitely, but substantial work
on the code will require skilled and interested people to spend the time, and that seems to be in short supply at the moment.

Fred901
Airman
Posts: 39
Joined: 16 Dec 2018, 14:18

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by Fred901 »

indeed, the game has less interest for the community. Yet it is very interesting even if the graphics are outdated. I have quite a lot of photographs of the English aerodromes dating back to August 1940, taken by luftwaffe reconnaissance. maybe that would interest you?

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by PV »

Rogeroger is the is our most recent active object builder, he might be interested. My skill is just in polishing the accuracy of the geography.

rogeroger
Staff Sergeant
Posts: 271
Joined: 13 Aug 2016, 15:04

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by rogeroger »

Post them, I would certainly like to see them, as would many others who are interested in this era that visit the site. :)

Fred901
Airman
Posts: 39
Joined: 16 Dec 2018, 14:18

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by Fred901 »

it will take a little because I'm on vacation. I will post them next weekend. 8)

Vox
Airman
Posts: 45
Joined: 23 Apr 2019, 13:40

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by Vox »

I had a chance to fly last night and was impressed by the improved campaign , terrain, graphic etc. Shows lots of hard work

BDG. Can anyone one describe-briefly the develop process used in the past? How was all the work from different people talents brought together?
Re: Code. From what I gathered the game' s source is C/C++. I assume Two27 compiled the code then linked the necessary libraries and resources to build the exe? Tools? visual C++ , Visual studio IDE??

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by PV »

Basically, BDG has been simply an amassing of interested volunteers, who each contributed what
they had time and interest to offer of their skills. Over the years we have had quite a large number
of people pass through, but not many were coders - you can see the whole contribution history here:

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7510

(That shows both the paid staff at Rowan and A2A, plus the intervening BDG volunteers, who were at
work on BoB1 prior to A2A's release of BoB2 in 2005.)

Stuff was accumulated, and patches were released as we had a collection of completed projects to add.
I used to try to improve one region of terrain per patch, sometimes got in two. Mostly the patch releases
were driven by successful accomplishment of some bit of code improvement. I don't know a lot about the
coding process, but I know the preferred vehicle was MS Visual Studio 2005, and there is an SVN which
requires a login, and A2A retains rights to the code (the original Rowan's BoB #1 had a public release of
the source code, but packaged with an arcane copyright agreement which was nothing like a simple GNU-
style Open Source agreement, and the A2A BoB2 code built over that was never publicly released, and
ultimately A2A secured the BoB1 rights which Empire (who published Rowan's BoB1) had retained; all of
which is to say that while BDG coders are free to contribute to the project, there is nothing to prevent A2A
from making subsequent use of their work without compensation. For most of our coders, this was not an
issue, but one or two folks who had worked as compensated coders for A2A declined to provide concrete code
assistance to the BDG, which is really only reasonable.)

Non-code work done prior to BoB2, and incorporated into it, theoretically remains the IP of the BDG folk who
produced it, but that just means it could be used elsewhere if we chose, though most of that, being artwork,
has been superseded in subsequent patches. I was just learning the terrain engine when BoB2 was produced,
so almost nothing of my terrain work went into the initial release of BoB2, but if a subsequent commercial
release were to occur using the stuff I've produced in the last decade, I would be OK with it.

Putting together the patches was not trivial, it would take several weeks to assemble all the component bits.
My terrain files were probably the easiest part, just six files to update. The object models, and textures, and
other such things all had to be assembled and various lists and references tweaked and updated, then the completed
package would be tested for a few weeks to check for problems. The final release package of the patch would
be the entire program fileset, minus any files which we had never amended. Eventually the patched files amounted
to well over 50% of the original (while boosting the total size to about 4x the original).

Does that cover it all?

Vox
Airman
Posts: 45
Joined: 23 Apr 2019, 13:40

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by Vox »

Thanks PV. Your description of BDG's development process and history is helpful and I'm sure other players will find it interesting too.

Re: Coding. Reading back through posts I saw that two27 was looking forward to the next patch. I'll keep checking back on the forum to see if he or someone else surfaces to lead programming the effort again - maybe I could help.

User avatar
PV
BDG
Posts: 5188
Joined: 13 Nov 2004, 08:21
Location: Lost in the tundra, Canada

Re: 2.14 Development ?

Post by PV »

Hey, we'd love to welcome anyone interested in contributing to the coding effort. Basically, if
you see some aspect of the program you'd like improved, and have the ability and are comfortable
with volunteering, access is mostly a matter of demonstrating interest and persistence. Also,
we've had some people meet the code and metaphorically run screaming at the size and sparseness of
documentation. But as well, we don't give out access to the code too freely, as at one point it seemed
we were getting people who may have wanted access purely to mine the content for ideas, and
rapidly disappeared as soon as access was granted.

new reply

Return to “BOB2 General Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests