Introduction ------------ Before trying this software make sure that you have browsed through the FAQ (http://www.majik3d.org/faq.html) and understand that the software is available only for testing -- playing the actual game is not yet possible. As the game is available for testing, we mean it too and expect you to give us your feedback and bug reports. It is also strongly recommended that you join the mailing lists and share your opinitions with the other users and help the new users when they have problems, or even join the development team if you feel like you have the potential to do so. If you find a bug that has not been answered in the FAQ do report it immediately to majik@majik3d.org or directly to majik-users mailing list (so the other users could see it too) and do not wait that someone else will do it, they may not. Also, if you have anything else to tell, just tell it! http://www.majik3d.org/archive.html is the address to join the mailing lists. It would be good to at least join the majik-announce so you will get announcements of new versions directly to your mailbox. You will not receive any other crap by joining -announce, except an occasional call for a convention. Release Notes for 0.4.0 ----------------------- It has been a long time since last release. We all have been quite busy with one way or another. The codebase has also been under extensive changes. The 0.4.0 release was meant to provide a solid base for further development and it should have the landscape, sky and the movement fully working so we could concentrate on more fun things in the future. This release is really a bare base without anything too fancy. The 0.4.x releases will then fix the bugs and add improve the existing features, such as making a better landscape texturing engine, try to make a real forest with a crystal as a landmark on the middle of it and a chatting system the users could use for real. This release doesn't support vertex coloring in the landscape and thus it doesn't work too good for those without a 3D acceleration. It might be however fixed in the future. A brief list of the most important changes since 0.3.0: * New physical-based sky model (introduced in 0.3.1). * Rewritten landscape code, for increased performance. * Rewritten server code, now relying even more on Python. * Some internal code clean up and a lot of bug fixing. * 1st person mode (introduced in 0.3.1). * New movement code, for less bandwidth usage. * New smoother camera. * The landscape's texture is now dynamically generated by the code, resulting in a more realistic texturing that takes the landscape's shape in account. * Some fir trees are now scattered around. * A new player object with a face. Currently known bugs and features include: * Because of PLIB, sky is not fully visible unless you disable fog. This should be fixed in forthcoming plib releases. * Terrain looks blocky because it's always in it's lowest detail level. The error approximation function used to select the LOD level hasn't been coded yet. * The visibility in the landscape code is not yet controllable. * Win32 version crashes when you press 'ok' in about box. * The texture generator is not as good as it could be, but it is a start. Installation ------------ If you have got a pre-compiled binary version of the game the installation should be fairly easy. You have already unpacked the archive, now you just have to execute the executable. Before you rush to see the client in action, you might want see if you can change something in the configuration file. This is a recommended step to do if you do not have or can't use 3D hardware acceleration. It is easy, just open the "majik3d.ini" ("majikrc" in the UNIX version) file and replace 1's with 0's if you want to disable some feature. For example by disabling textures and setting the screen size to 320x200 you can get a nice boost in the speed. After you are satisfied with the configuration file, you just have to open the "majik3d.exe" (UNIX users do "./majik") executable either by clicking its icon in the same folder as is this README file or alternatively type its name in your DOS box, shell or wherever and a new window should open, asking you to enter your name. If not, then you have a problem and should call for help, if you can't find the answer in the FAQ. The Windows version supports all the 3D hardware accelerators that are fully OpenGL-compliant. That means almost all accelerator cards should work, except perhaps the most popular ones: Voodoo 1 and 2. The Voodoo 3 works fine. The UNIX version does support even these if using Mesa compiled with glide support. For the UNIX versions make sure you have all the required libraries installed correctly. If you are unable to run the pre-compiled binary, please consult the next chapter and compile the sources by yourself. Compiling the sources --------------------- You should be able to compile these sources on any platform supported by the Mesa 3D library (http://www.mesa3d.org) or OpenGL with minor or no changes, but these installation instructions apply only to the UNIX-like environments that include the GNU tools. 1. Make sure you have all the required libraries installed with their development SDKs. You can get the libraries from here: ftp://ftp.mesa3d.org/mesa/MesaLib-3.0.tar.gz ftp://ftp.mesa3d.org/mesa/MesaDemos-3.0.tar.gz http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/plib/dist/plib-1.0.20.tar.gz http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glut-3.7.tar.gz You do not have to install Mesa if you have a real OpenGL support in your box (SGI for example) and you do not need to get glut-3.7.tar.gz if you install MesaDemos-3.0.tar.gz because it includes the GLUT. 2. Compile the sources: $ ./configure $ make 3. Execute the binary as instructed in the previous chapter. Playing the "game" ------------------ As said above, you can't play the game yet. You can only walk around, talk to strangers and to run away from evil bugs who are trying to crash your client. You might however want to know how to even do that, look below: 8, = move forward 4, = turn left 6, = turn right 2, = move backward x = exit w = wireframe mode = hide/reveal menu bar = open a prompt to talk = 3rd person = 1st person = take a "screenshot" You can use mouse in 1st person mode to turn around. -- Tommi Leino / Majik 3D project namhas@majik3d.org http://www.majik3d.org