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Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 18th, 2009, 4:07 pm
by HealyHQ
Hello all. My name is Robert, and as you can see, I am new here. (So please excuse me if I ask any obvious questions. ;) )

Okay, so I've been playing around with PAS for a couple days now, and I have a few questions to ask.
The first one being: Where was the directory installed? :?

I tried finding this out for myself by reading the Wiki (which is a little barren, but that's okay), but the Wiki assumes that I compiled it myself in the home folder. Oh right, guess I should've stated my OS. I'm running Ubuntu 9.04. I didn't download the "usual" way I suppose. I actually found out about this program when browsing http://www.playdeb.net for a new game I could play. So yeah, the Wiki doesn't explain where everything was installed on my system since it doesn't take this into account. If anyone knows the playdeb.net guys, or whoever is keeping up with PAS on the site, I'm sure they would know. This is important, as I cannot access any of the configuration files to get my hands dirty with. :P This also inhibits my ability to put in my own models into the right folders for them to be seen by the application itself. Which essentially defeats the purpose of making my own game...if I cannot use my own assets. :(

Speaking of models and other resources, that leads me to my second question: What are the licenses applied to the standard resources that came with PAS?

By this, I'm talking commercial availability. Are any of the resources included free to use in a finished commercial (sold) application? Or are all of them merely stand-in resources until I replace them with my own? Which resources, if any, could be included in a commercial project?

Since we're talking commercial products, allow me to bring up my third question: When everything is said and done, the game/application is complete, art, scripting/gameplay etc. is done, how do I go about boxing all of this up into a distributable package, that others who do not have PAS installed, can use? That is possible, yes?

I would like to create a completely cross-platform application, which can be played on all major platforms - Linux, Mac, and Windows, and possibly a certain handheld device. (I'm planning on developing for the Pandora video game console soon. Don't worry too much about this one, as since PAS is open source, it should be simple for me to make a port for Pandora, as it runs on Linux itself.) :)

What I'm asking here is, is it possible to make a cross-platform, stand-alone application, that users can run? If this isn't possible, than I'm afraid PAS just isn't for me at this time. If this is possible, could you perhaps explain to me the process of doing so?

While using PAS I realized that it is based off the Cube 2 engine. This is ironic, as I play Sauerbraten (which is essentially Cube 2) a lot. (I love Multiplayer FPS's in my spare time. :D ) But as I recall, maps that people make using Cube 2, can only be played if the user downloads Sauerbraten as well! Which sort of eliminates the whole commercial aspect of it, does it not?

Realizing this, it kind of made me worried. But I remember reading something on this very board from Mike, saying he was planning on creating commercial games using PAS. If this is so, I would appreciate it very much to know how this can be done. :)

Thank you for your time, and thanks in advance for those that respond,
Robert B. Healy III :ugeek:


P.S. If you've climbed this far down my gigantic wall of text, allow me to thank you as well! :lol: My first posts on forum boards aren't usually this long, but I thought it'd be a good idea to hit a few birds with one stone while I can. :)

Re: Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 18th, 2009, 5:15 pm
by krazykyle
Well I'm not super knowledgeable with Sandbox, but i can help you with the directory question. Sandbox runs off the main folder (the one you get after extracting) and everything gets stores in that folder (Maps for example). Its nice because if I'm out and about and feel like creating something i can simply plug my usb stick into any computer and just run sandbox off the usb. Running off of a usb does lower the fps performance a little bit, but it is a very convenient feature.

-Hoped i helped a little :)

:Edit: I use windows/ sry I've had minimal exp with any Linux distro.

Re: Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 18th, 2009, 5:39 pm
by Hirato
since you're using ubuntu, you're quite likely to have a package manager such as synaptic or kpackagekit present, you should be able to coax them into revealing directory information (ie, where sandbox is installed) (the commandline commands for this are eluding me)
if I had to take a guess I'd say it's in /usr/share/games/
if neither of te above work, you can try and use the locate command: locate sandbox

The standard content license at present is assumed copyrighted, with a license of sandbox exclusivity. In the end the content is subject to what the various license files say (ie, public domain, CC-BY-SA, etc)
the source code is zlib/libpng
which takes us to the next question, a fair chunk of sandbox's content can't be used commercially, this is something we intend to tackle for the 2.5 release.

as far as packaging goes, you'd just zip up the files you've added or created or modified in the process, and share it about; if the users don't have sandbox you'd include a copy of sandbox.
if you like to make it standalone, you'd just zip up sandbox, your stuff and all (though you'd perhaps want to cull it down to the used assets only)

and as far as sauer goes, you're correct as the people zipping those maps up just include their maps, and the files they've added; not the whole sauerbraten package (which for the people who already have sauer would just be stupid :P)

this should at least answer most of your questions :P

Re: Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 18th, 2009, 7:23 pm
by HealyHQ
@krazykyle

Yeah, as I said before, I didn't download this the 'usual' way. If I had extracted it myself, then of course I would know where I put it. Haha! :lol:
I installed it via a .deb file. Which is pretty much to Debian/Ubuntu what an install file is to Windows. Except, I would know to look in the C: directory in Windows. In Ubuntu however, it could've ended up in a variety of places.

That is interesting about the, uh...portable-ness, of Sandbox! Being able to run it off USB is a very nice feature that I was not aware of. Thanks for sharing that with me! :)

@Hirato

You were absolutely correct in saying it's in /usr/share/games/ ! That's exactly where it was, thank you! :D

After reading that, I went ahead to look through the directories, and kind of make myself at home there, figuring out what goes where and all. While looking through the packages folder, I found the models folder, which answered my question about licenses/copyrights. Most of the folders in the models folder has a helpful little txt file that explains how the models can be used. And it confirmed my suspicion that I'll have to replace most of them.

I look forward to the 2.5 release! That's good to hear that you're trying to make it as "truly free" as possible. Kind of like how RPG Maker resources can be used in commercial games. As long as the game was made with it of course. (Yes, I used to dabble in that program. I think it's pretty well known amongst kids looking for an easy way to express themselves creatively via RPGs...I actually learned quite a bit by using programs like RPG Maker. :) But of course, I'm all "grown-up" now (quoted this because I'm still pretty much a kid at heart :P ) and wish to do something a bit more, ya know?)

Hmm...I am a little disappointed as I was right in thinking that those who wish to play a game made by Sandbox will require Sandbox itself...but that's okay. I'm going to look past this and mess around with it a little more. Even if I don't use it to create any games, it is still much fun to play with! (Like I said, kid at heart. :lol: ) Heck, if I learn enough about the map-making process in Sandbox, I might even be able to contribute a map for others to play with as well. That would be fun! And a great learning experience to boot! And it would be neat to see others playing in it, and commenting about it, and even modifying it to be even better! That is the whole point of open-source, afterall. :D

Re: Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 18th, 2009, 8:57 pm
by Obsidian
Oh my, that's a long post, and it isn't an argument! I'm shocked. :lol:

As for some info about licenses, there's a way you can see individual file licenses quickly -- it's contained in the code analyzer data generated, located here: https://www.ohloh.net/p/platinum-arts-s ... ses/latest

I couldn't say which files are licensed under the GPLv2, but I can say that those files would probably keep your game from being commercially distributed due to licensing conflicts -- you wouldn't be able to prevent redistribution without obtaining a license for that copy of the game.

Re: Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 19th, 2009, 3:01 am
by Hirato
ohloh just assumes GPL for the files which don't specifically specify a license; and this is false as has been stated many times
The content has various licenses, but the code is zlib/libpng; for a fact, not a single line of the code is GPL!

Re: Looking for the folders, commercial Q's...oh, & Hi!

Posted: October 19th, 2009, 9:12 am
by Mike
The main way to go for making your own game is putting in your own content that needs to be replaced, new splash screen and whatever else you want to change. You're not going to be able to avoid shipping your game without the engine, that would be crazy. So in essence you're distributing Sandbox, except it wouldn't really be Sandbox anymore, it would be your game. Take care.
-mike