Mirror Worlds Main Server

Ports

Currently being developed on GNU/Linux systems: Debian 8.6, and Xubuntu 16.04. It is expected to work on most GNU/Linux systems.

Package Dependences

nodeJS

yui-compressor (optional, build-time only)

Installing

It builds and installs using GNU make and bash. In a bash shell, from the directory with this README file is, run:

./configure --prefix=/INSTALLATION/PREFIX && make && make install

where /INSTALLATION/PREFIX the directory to install all the installed files. Running make the first time will download files from the Internet via npm and wget.

See:

./configure --help

for more configuration options.

Running the server

The Mirror Worlds server is installed as mw_server in the directory PREFIX/bin/. Run mw_server --help for help.

Developer Notes

On file structure

Making nodeJS applications that use many files requires a planning the for the file directory structure. No matter how you lay it out there will always be give and take. ref: https://gist.github.com/branneman/8048520

1. We decided to keep the installed executables directory (bin/) free of any files that the user does not directly execute. We use the fact that NodeJs resolves symbolic links to full file paths in __dirname to lib/ where we keep all the code.

2. We decided to keep the test running of the programs not require that the package be installed. The structure of the source files is close to that of the installed files.

3. We decided it have the package installation be automated.

Profiling

• https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/simple-profiling/

Finished:

• socket connection
• chat function
• 1st and 3rd person views
• avatars added
• changable avatars
• small environment events

Future Milestones:

• Enviroment Watch List so that environment is always up to date
  • need to have multiple scene events
  • probably need some other kind of event besides turning on a light
• New Avatars (more compact and less warthoggy)
• Increase Efficiency (some lag with multiple users)

Bugs:

• When a new user connects and there are already users in the scene, the new user isn’t seeing where everybody really is at first. All other users are being rendered from the spawn location
• Random semi colon in the middle of the x3d scene
• Headlights on avatars (should be fixed when we add new avatars)
• Teapot needs a material

Thoughts and Ideas:

• Abstract Factories in Node: http://thenodeway.io/posts/designing-factories/