Slashdot Mirror

QuaveringGrape writes "After a few years of Python I've recently been trying to expand my programming knowledge into the realm of compiled languages. I started with C, then switched over to C++. A friend and longtime OpenGL programmer told me about NeHe's tutorials as a good step after the command-line programs started to get old, but there's a problem: all the tutorials are very Windows-based, and I've been using Linux as my single platform for a while now. I'm looking for suggestions for tutorials that are easy to learn, without being dumbed down or geared towards non-programmers."

Niklas Wahrman writes with this "motivational story on how a student and part-time developer was able to take an idea and turn it into an Android project and then port to iPhone for commercial release in less than a year. In the article, he focuses on how to get a game done — a problem many independent developers face. During the development of the game, Asterope, he took a lot of screenshots from many of the development stages that show how the game gradually came to life."

ikol writes "After over a year of delays, the OpenGL ARB (part of the Khronos industry group) today released the long-awaited spec for OpenGL 3.0 as part of the SIGGRAPH 2008 proceedings. Unfortunately it turns out not to be the major rewrite that was promised to developers. The developer community is generally furious, with many game developers intending to jump ship to DX10. Is this the end of cross-platform 3d on the cutting edge?"

GameDev.net reports that Cryptic Studios (makers of the Massive title City of Heroes) has released a powerful animation tool under the GPL. Called CrypticAR, for Cryptic Animation Rig, the software will allow animators to bring 3d models to life via a toolkit of scripts and rigs. "'Our goal is to foster a community of animators by providing them the power to generate animations without having to worry about supporting a toolset. Since we were already developing the rig for our core technology team, we decided to release it to the public under the GNU GPL,' said Shayne Herrera, Art Development Director for Cryptic Studios. 'We feel that the development and gaming communities will benefit greatly from a professional tool like the Cryptic AR.'"

Superpig writes "GameDev.net has just launched their annual Four Elements contest. Participants are given just under six months to make a game based around four elements: this year, it's Emotion, Economics, Emblem, and Europe. Any tools or middleware can be used, provided it's all legal. The prize pool looks a bit thin at the moment, but in past years they've had folks like ATI and SoftImage donating mid-contest, so it'll probably pick up as time goes on."

Superpig writes "GameDev.net has just launched their annual Four Elements contest. Participants are given just under six months to make a game based around four elements: this year, it's Emotion, Economics, Emblem, and Europe. Any tools or middleware can be used, provided it's all legal. The prize pool looks a bit thin at the moment, but in past years they've had folks like ATI and SoftImage donating mid-contest, so it'll probably pick up as time goes on."

Superpig writes "GameDev.net has just launched their annual Four Elements contest. Participants are given just under six months to make a game based around four elements: this year, it's Emotion, Economics, Emblem, and Europe. Any tools or middleware can be used, provided it's all legal. The prize pool looks a bit thin at the moment, but in past years they've had folks like ATI and SoftImage donating mid-contest, so it'll probably pick up as time goes on."

GameDev.net has word that Ultima series creator Richard Garriott is set to recieve the Lifetime Achievement award at this year's GDC. From the article: "Son of Skylab and Spacelab astronaut Owen K. Garriott, Richard took an interest in computers at a young age. He began programming games in high school and produced his first published game, Akalabeth, at the age of 19. While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Garriott began developing one of the most successful, longest-running game series of all time: Ultima. Garriott and his brother formed Origin Systems, Inc. to begin publishing their own games, and the company was acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1992."

GameDev.net has a wrap-up from Nintendo's busy week. They touch on the release of development kits, production delays for the DS Lite, and the ongoing DS vs. PSP war. From the article: "It seems Nintendo, who have in the past tended to rely heavily on first-party games, are eager to elicit support from third-party developers. According to some big-name developers who have had their kits for some time there have already been several versions of the kit: the first was just the console and a wired controller, while the second had a few minor tweaks and the third a boost in CPU power."

Gamedev.net reports on an analyst forecast for the game industry's 2006 health. A previous analysis that the industry would have continued growth through the year is 'out the window', with forecasters judging this to be a slow year for game purchasing. From the article: "Pachter notes that during the three-month period leading up to the heavily anticipated November 22 Xbox 360 launch, console and PC software sales in the US were down 21.6 percent. Believing that consumers were holding off on making current-generation purchases in favor of waiting for next-gen products, Pachter thinks it's a trend that could repeat itself, specifically when Sony announces a launch date for the PlayStation 3. Currently Pachter expects that system to arrive in October, meaning the industry's transitional slump could last until late 2006"

The Game Developer's Rant session held at the GDC continues to reverberate through the industry. GameDev.net and Greg Costikyan's site have more details on the session itself, while Terra Nova's original thread on the subject has been followed up by an open letter to the participants from Matt Mihaly of Iron Realms Entertainment. From Matt's letter: "Anyway, please, just stop the whining. Stop telling people about how horrible the games industry is. Stop telling them that they can't succeed without radical industry changes. It's bunk and you should know better. Are you intentionally trying to discourage people from getting into the industry?"

If you have the chance to make it to the Windy City in the near future, the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry is playing host to the exhibit entitled "Game On". The playable gaming extravaganza will run through September of this year, and covers almost the entire history of video games. From the article: "Visitors to Game On will be able to play more than 100 games that illustrate how far games have come both artistically and technically, and see how the video game phenomenon has influenced aspects of popular culture around the world."

Early in September, some of the luminaries of the mobile gaming and mmog industries got together for the Austin Game Conference, an event organized by the Austin Game Initiative. Running concurrently with the Game Conference was the Women's Game Conference, a get-together focused on women in gaming. Over the past two weeks there have been a number of good reflections and observations put forth on the experience of both conferences. Show Director Chris Sherman sat down for an interview with Gamespot. Gamedevnet has a wrap-up of the whole event, as does the Guardian. TerraNova has observations on The BigWorld Middlewear suite, and a mmog specific wrap-up. For those interested in wireless, IBM has an article about mobile gaming. There are discussions of the Women's Gaming Conference as well, from MemoryCard's parting thoughts and the Guardian's one day overview.

Cryect writes "Earlier today it was announced by Creative that they would be adding in EAX 3D sound support to Doom 3, and that they had come to an 'agreement relating to Creative's patented shadowing technique [also known as Carmack's Reverse in some coding circles] and id's cutting-edge 3D graphics DOOM 3 engine.' This seemed somewhat suspicious, almost as if id was being pressured, and a quick email to John Carmack from Reverend @ Beyond3d got this reply: 'The patent situation well and truly sucks... It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3DLabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users...' There's also some possible prior art [PPT link] to Creative Labs' patent, from a 1999 talk by Nvidia's Sim Dietrich."

Cryect writes "Earlier today it was announced by Creative that they would be adding in EAX 3D sound support to Doom 3, and that they had come to an 'agreement relating to Creative's patented shadowing technique [also known as Carmack's Reverse in some coding circles] and id's cutting-edge 3D graphics DOOM 3 engine.' This seemed somewhat suspicious, almost as if id was being pressured, and a quick email to John Carmack from Reverend @ Beyond3d got this reply: 'The patent situation well and truly sucks... It was tempting to take a stand and say that our products were never going to use any advanced Creative/3DLabs products because of their position on patenting gaming software algorithms, but that would only have hurt the users...' There's also some possible prior art [PPT link] to Creative Labs' patent, from a 1999 talk by Nvidia's Sim Dietrich."

Thanks to Ron Gilbert's weblog for pointing out a GameDev.net article discussing the topic of "Designing Games for the Wage Slave" . The author explains: "We balance on the knife's edge between our glorious time-squandered youth, and the commitments of inevitable middle age... If games can adapt to the needs of the working gamer, they can find a lucrative niche." He goes on suggest practical tips for game developers, including 'Don't Waste My Time' ("Make every moment count. I don't play games to punish myself. I play them to be entertained, rewarded, and challenged"), 'Curiosity Killed The Cat...' ("Constant death was a necessity in the days of video arcades... Now, in the comfort of our lounges or offices, what reason is there to keep dumping us out of the game we bought with our hard earned cash?"), and 'I Need Help' ("Make any necessary information available from within the game.")

after writes "GameDev.net is reporting events at the Game Developers Conference 2004. The coverage of the conference spans five days, and the first day is complete already. It has plenty of pictures of some of the activities. Finalists of the IGF are also posted with some amazing pictures. Also, an interview with Iain McNeil of Slitherine Software. More updates come on a day-to-day basis, so check it out."

after writes "GameDev.net is reporting events at the Game Developers Conference 2004. The coverage of the conference spans five days, and the first day is complete already. It has plenty of pictures of some of the activities. Finalists of the IGF are also posted with some amazing pictures. Also, an interview with Iain McNeil of Slitherine Software. More updates come on a day-to-day basis, so check it out."

after writes "GameDev.net is reporting events at the Game Developers Conference 2004. The coverage of the conference spans five days, and the first day is complete already. It has plenty of pictures of some of the activities. Finalists of the IGF are also posted with some amazing pictures. Also, an interview with Iain McNeil of Slitherine Software. More updates come on a day-to-day basis, so check it out."

after writes "GameDev.net is reporting events at the Game Developers Conference 2004. The coverage of the conference spans five days, and the first day is complete already. It has plenty of pictures of some of the activities. Finalists of the IGF are also posted with some amazing pictures. Also, an interview with Iain McNeil of Slitherine Software. More updates come on a day-to-day basis, so check it out."

after writes "GameDev.net is reporting events at the Game Developers Conference 2004. The coverage of the conference spans five days, and the first day is complete already. It has plenty of pictures of some of the activities. Finalists of the IGF are also posted with some amazing pictures. Also, an interview with Iain McNeil of Slitherine Software. More updates come on a day-to-day basis, so check it out."

Sadburger writes "Saw this over on GameDev: 'Thomas Warfield of Pretty Good Solitaire is reporting in his most recent blog that: 'My company has received the following letter from a law firm claiming to have a client that has patented computer solitaire. And by extension, all computer card games. I am not kidding.' Patent law strikes again...' Anyone know a good patent lawyer?" Someone alert the educational sector, since at least half my programming classes involved solitaire, poker, or blackjack.

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to GameDev.net's excerpt from the new Chris Crawford On Game Design book, in which the famed strategy game creator and writer of The Art of Computer Game Design discusses the development of his classic '80s cold-war strategy game Balance Of Power, from initial concepts ("A game, like a story, must have a conflict") through execution ("Polish, polish, polish! Take a minimum of six months after alpha for polishing.")

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamedev.net article called 'Shareware Amateurs Vs. Shareware Professionals'. The article, by shareware game developer Steve Pavlina, starts: "Why is it that some shareware developers seem to be hugely successful in financial terms, growing their sales from scratch to generate tens of thousands of dollars in income, while the vast majority struggle to generate even a handful of sales? The answer can be found by exploring the difference in mindsets between both groups."

death00 writes: "GameDev has an interesting story about the success of Garage Games Torque engine (the engine behind Tribes 2). I especially find it interesting to see the number of developers working on high-quality games based on the Torque engine. The basic premise is that Garage Games gives a full license of the Torque engine to a team for a project for $100 USD per developer. The only caveat is that you must publish any finished works through Garage Games. Perhaps id software might consider doing this with the Quake III engine once the Doom III engine comes out. From my understanding, the Quake III engine currently licenses for significantly ($250,000 USD) more than that. Instead of waiting 2 more years and GPL'ing the full source, why not license it for cheap after Doom III comes out, then GPL later?"

death00 writes: "GameDev has an interesting story about the success of Garage Games Torque engine (the engine behind Tribes 2). I especially find it interesting to see the number of developers working on high-quality games based on the Torque engine. The basic premise is that Garage Games gives a full license of the Torque engine to a team for a project for $100 USD per developer. The only caveat is that you must publish any finished works through Garage Games. Perhaps id software might consider doing this with the Quake III engine once the Doom III engine comes out. From my understanding, the Quake III engine currently licenses for significantly ($250,000 USD) more than that. Instead of waiting 2 more years and GPL'ing the full source, why not license it for cheap after Doom III comes out, then GPL later?"

richcoder writes: "GameDev.net has posted an informed article discussing the benefits and drawbacks to using either Direct3D or OpenGL in a game. I've already made the decision to go with OpenGL for my next project, but it looks like Direct3D is gaining ground. Especially in the area of making it simpler to code support for new video card features."

Mark 'Nurgle' Collins contributes the piece below on some of the factors which undeniably influence the state of Linux games, espcially for developers hoping to make money by selling them. I haven't been there in a few months (been hooked on various Free games instead), but I know I bought Quake III Arena from dedicated shelf space at EB -- so Mark's optimism can't be that far off the mark.

As a follow up to an article that appeared on GameDev.Net GameDev.Net last year, I've decided to update it and note some of the changes in the industry that have occured, from the news of several developers forming in-house porting teams to Microsoft's stance on opening parts of DirectX. In the original article, I explained the lack of developers interested in developing Linux titles -- their disinterest left the task to a few companies that were established for the sole reason of porting Windows titles to Linux (namely Loki). Since then however, several larger developers have formed in-house teams to port their titles to Linux. That means companies such as Creature Labs, (currently porting Creatures 3 to Linux, should be out very soon), which probably once considered Linux to be so niche that only a group of complete idiots would try and make money out of developing games for it.

Of course, there is always a group of idiots, and those idiots were Loki. By convincing larger developers to outsource the porting, they demonstrated that there is a market on Linux, albeit not a very large one. But how large is the market? According to John Carmack (For cave dwellers: John Carmack is the "big guy" at id software), sales of the Linux version of Quake III Arena were worse than bad, but is that a suitable example?

Like many examples of the poor sellers blamed for the lack of new Linux games, the Linux version of the product was released after the Windows release, but the datafiles were compatible with various other operating systems. With patches and downloads for the other platforms freely available on the Internet, why would should people wait a few months to get the latest gore-fest when they can buy the Windows version, reboot, and play on another platform until the binaries for Linux become available?

The sales figures that the skeptics quote should never be considered of any merit until a few games are released for Linux and Windows simultaneously.

Many people seem to be under the delusion that publishers wouldn't be interested in Linux games, but this isn't the case. Granted, many of the publishers who are prepared to venture into the world of Linux are usually associated with budget titles and/or long dead platforms, they seem to have faith, and with shops such as TuxGames offering a wide range of Linux title, it seems there is a market after all.

But what about the developers? Well, it seems that many of the larger developers aren't prepared to take a chance on Linux, with companies stating that there are too many complications when developing with Linux, such as the lack of DirectX-like APIs.

Sure, we have OpenGL, but with the release of DirectX 8, the cross-platform API just doesn't cut it anymore. Lacking universal support for vertex and pixel shaders, developers are forced into the situation where they can either reduce the quality of their titles by ignoring the improved features that the newer releases of DirectX offer, or by ignoring Linux.

Unfortunately, many developers choose the latter option, instead of thinking about writing clean code which allows the operating system to be accessed only through an abstraction layer, reducing development times for ports as well as allowing the programmers to change the lower-level code without breaking anything.

In a recent discussions with Tony Cox, head engineer of Microsoft Gaming Relations, he informed me that Microsoft is currently looking at ways of opening up parts of DirectX, with the aim of getting the technology onto non-Windows platforms.

When we originally discussed the issue, he was refering to getting DirectPlay support for the PlayStation 2, but in later discussions he mentioned that they may allow 3rd party developers to do the work for them, including Linux support.

With the ever increasing commercial interest in Linux, from both publishers and the developer studios themselves, it is only a matter of time till shelf space in your local EB is dedicated to Linux.

Mark 'Nurgle' Collins contributes the piece below on some of the factors which undeniably influence the state of Linux games, espcially for developers hoping to make money by selling them. I haven't been there in a few months (been hooked on various Free games instead), but I know I bought Quake III Arena from dedicated shelf space at EB -- so Mark's optimism can't be that far off the mark.

As a follow up to an article that appeared on GameDev.Net GameDev.Net last year, I've decided to update it and note some of the changes in the industry that have occured, from the news of several developers forming in-house porting teams to Microsoft's stance on opening parts of DirectX. In the original article, I explained the lack of developers interested in developing Linux titles -- their disinterest left the task to a few companies that were established for the sole reason of porting Windows titles to Linux (namely Loki). Since then however, several larger developers have formed in-house teams to port their titles to Linux. That means companies such as Creature Labs, (currently porting Creatures 3 to Linux, should be out very soon), which probably once considered Linux to be so niche that only a group of complete idiots would try and make money out of developing games for it.

Of course, there is always a group of idiots, and those idiots were Loki. By convincing larger developers to outsource the porting, they demonstrated that there is a market on Linux, albeit not a very large one. But how large is the market? According to John Carmack (For cave dwellers: John Carmack is the "big guy" at id software), sales of the Linux version of Quake III Arena were worse than bad, but is that a suitable example?

Like many examples of the poor sellers blamed for the lack of new Linux games, the Linux version of the product was released after the Windows release, but the datafiles were compatible with various other operating systems. With patches and downloads for the other platforms freely available on the Internet, why would should people wait a few months to get the latest gore-fest when they can buy the Windows version, reboot, and play on another platform until the binaries for Linux become available?

The sales figures that the skeptics quote should never be considered of any merit until a few games are released for Linux and Windows simultaneously.

Many people seem to be under the delusion that publishers wouldn't be interested in Linux games, but this isn't the case. Granted, many of the publishers who are prepared to venture into the world of Linux are usually associated with budget titles and/or long dead platforms, they seem to have faith, and with shops such as TuxGames offering a wide range of Linux title, it seems there is a market after all.

But what about the developers? Well, it seems that many of the larger developers aren't prepared to take a chance on Linux, with companies stating that there are too many complications when developing with Linux, such as the lack of DirectX-like APIs.

Sure, we have OpenGL, but with the release of DirectX 8, the cross-platform API just doesn't cut it anymore. Lacking universal support for vertex and pixel shaders, developers are forced into the situation where they can either reduce the quality of their titles by ignoring the improved features that the newer releases of DirectX offer, or by ignoring Linux.

Unfortunately, many developers choose the latter option, instead of thinking about writing clean code which allows the operating system to be accessed only through an abstraction layer, reducing development times for ports as well as allowing the programmers to change the lower-level code without breaking anything.

In a recent discussions with Tony Cox, head engineer of Microsoft Gaming Relations, he informed me that Microsoft is currently looking at ways of opening up parts of DirectX, with the aim of getting the technology onto non-Windows platforms.

When we originally discussed the issue, he was refering to getting DirectPlay support for the PlayStation 2, but in later discussions he mentioned that they may allow 3rd party developers to do the work for them, including Linux support.

With the ever increasing commercial interest in Linux, from both publishers and the developer studios themselves, it is only a matter of time till shelf space in your local EB is dedicated to Linux.