Slashdot Mirror
OGRE GPL'ed 3D Engine
Steve Streeting writes "Version 0.99b of OGRE (Object-oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) has been released! OGRE is a well designed, flexible and easy to use 3D engine released under the GNU Public License. This version adds highly customisable, scriptable particle systems, generic billboard support, compatibility with VC.Net, performance improvements and various bug fixes."
Judging from the screenshots, the engine is very capable, as it can even render Quake3 maps rather well. The problem is, does the open-source community have the artists needed to take this and make it into a playable and interesting game ?
sorry for my own ignorance... I misread what the thing was actually supposed to do. :-) Perhaps art would be an issue though.
Seeing as though the GPL types are typically quite left-brained... I am wondering how well this thing will be utilizied.
I wouldn't get those hopes too high.
Heh. The first thing I thought of when I read the headline was the Ogre wargame from Steve Jackson. Just showing my age, I guess.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Here's the sourceforge link. Does anyone know if this works on Linux? It's listed as windows only on sourceforge.
Crystalspace: http://crystal.sourceforge.net ?
Could this be something to beat DirectX?
When combined with a lot of other libraries, possibly, but DirectX has many functions beyond just 3d rendering. OGRE seems to compete with Direct3D, not with DirectX as a whole.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
OGRE is a well designed, flexible and easy to use 3D engine...
I hope this doesn't compete with my badly designed, rigid and difficult to use 3D engine I have been working on.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Judging from screen shots and feature lists it's pretty much on par with Crystal Space. Although the latter doesn't have built in support for Q3A levels. (Would have been a nice way to compare them otherwise.)
I do know that some game engine courses at my uni use Crystal Space as the engine of choice. (But I haven't taken that course yet.) Seems like lot's of fun in any case.
It uses Direct3D (and OpenGL) to display graphics. This is something you would use in case you didn't want to build your own game engine. (Which is quite a lot of work, or so I've been told. ;-)
It can use a veriety of different other libraries as well.
Erm, it *uses* Direct3D as best I can see... If it didn't then where are the drivers to use the hardware acceleration going to come from?
OpenGL and Direct3D and are only real interfaces hardware manufacturers support. All this provides is another layer on top of D3D...
What I would really like to see is hardware 3D acceleration actually _working_. What I mean is that , these days, virtually every videocard supports accelarated 3D graphics. So far, however, I have not been able to take advantage of this, because either the card supports only Dircet3D (may it burn forever), or there is no OpenGL driver for Linux. Now you can blame me for buying the wrong hardware or even using the wrong OS, and rub it in my face that a UNIX-like OS is not for playing games, and I fully agree with that, but there is another option. How about a standard implemented in hardware, like VESA did for 2D graphics? OpenGL 2.0 seems to come a long way, but isn't out yet. Besides, I think OpenGL is extremely hard to implement efficiently in software. Any 3D engine just fails to interest me as long as my 256 MB RAM Duron 900 with `3D card' running Linux performs worse than my 486 DX2/66 with 16 MB running DOS with no such thing as 3D-acceleration. Now that comparison is slightly exaggerated, but sometimes I really feel that way.
---
``The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.''
-- Taken from http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/freebe/
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This will no doubt do wonders to the speed and usage of GNOME.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Having never had the math skills to handle 3D graphics, just looking through the documentation for Ogre and it all sounds... well, easy.
Setup a scene, add some objects, add a camera object and point it round with a few simple methods!
[)amien
Seriously? I'm curious, I want to know more.
Comprehend?
Did you get that from a Thesaurasus (sp)? Lol. Weird how ppl abuse English in the name of correcting it.
In the real world, the great majority of installed cards have accelerated OpenGL working for them under Linux. Even all my laptops just came with graphics cards that give me accelerated OpenGL, and I wasn't even looking for that.
If you really have some very old or obscure graphics card that either lacks drivers or is software-only, you can buy a usable, supported card for under $50.
As for software implementations being inefficient, that depends on what you mean by "OpenGL". Today, you can implement OpenGL features in software that required high-end hardware a decade ago. Of course, if you want today's high-end OpenGL features, you do need today's high-end hardware.
And it works in linux too.
I can imagine so. Not only because you can probably consider all individual map- and texture-makers working in an "almost open-source" environment already. Sure, there might have been some debate recently over who owns mods created for a specific game, but on the whole game designers seem to encourage this kind of behavior by not restricting mod creation too unreasonably. We can only hope Verant doesn't become a big player in moddable games.
Some might say some open-source games to be fairly pretty already. Admittedly, there aren't many open-source 3-D games out there, but the more people can use a 3-D engine the better they get -- like pretty much anything -- so we have only good things to look forward to.
Well, we also have bad things to look forward to until then, but we've always had to deal with this anyway.
This now concludes our broadcast day.
Why should I use Ogre instead of CrystalSpace for my project? What advantages are their to either one? Which is easier to work with?
Now I can build a virtual 3D woman on my linux system. THANK YOU. I have had sex only once in my life, and that was when I was in mid 20's (No Joke). I LOVE technology! I almost had to buy ALIAS|Wavefront or Softimage[god forbid]!
Good to see people are still trying to re-invent the wheel again
there are over 600 3d engines out there in various stages of completion, yet none of them are " really good(TM) "
3d engines have been done to death
so why can't developers focus and colaborate on making 1 really good engine and make it "perfect" instead of fragmenting into their own little GPL projects that are nothing more IMO than a waste of time ?.
I guess time is what programmers waste best
Uh, what's the problem? 'Comprehend' is a perfectly cromulent word.
Doubtful. It is difficult to implement efficiently in software. Otherwise you'd see a hell of a lot more games using OpenGL over DirectX.
I'm no fan of DirectX at all (or windows for that matter) but it is easier to work with (please don't reference any 1990's Carmack postings either, it has improved significantly since then).
I easily get 2x as many FPS in shooters that use GL instead of DirectX. This alone should make the game developers switch to OpenGL (not to mention it opens platforms like OS X and Linux with little changes).
Just my thoughts 1 cent or so...
You know what I'm looking forward to? I'm waiting to see the USA
drop a dozen thermonuclear bombs on as many Muslim Arab cities.
Does that bother anyone else?
Almost all artists hate computers because most are not as technicly skilled as the programmers that make the engines.
Which is why the real beauty behind games like Unreal, Quake , etc... are in the people who write the tools for the artists. Without good easy to use tools, it doesn't matter how good your engine is.
I can't read it now because I think it is slashdotted... or my ISP sucks, one of the two. I have started looking recently for a graphics engine to create a demo world for things ranging from physics programing experiments, to an 'object fitting room', to a world to display some architecture and landscape files I am working on. Will this be a good place to start? I have looked a bit (but not much yet) at the CrystalSpace engine, and it is very nice indeed. But I am not really into the graphics myself. Graphics is just another tool for me as I focus on the physics, AI, economy (for some 'games'). So is there a good API for this and perhaps already a component based object library in place? I would love to use something like this as the cornerstone of a rendering suite to test my little evil contraptions :)
Also, assuming anyone actually reads this and understands it... if anyone knows of a good programming and resource referrence for what I am describing I would appreciate any leads. Thanks
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
Bitter?
Oh man....I live and work in South Korea...if the US tromps them, I'm in danger of my life!
I'm also looking forward to the day when MS shuts down Transgaming, the NTFS Linux kernel driver, and the Samba project. That will be sweet!
but they sell it rather well.
When people see a game box with bad graphics on it they assume it to be old and dated. Not so with shiny new 256-bit blast processed graphics (who remembers blast processing)!
Anyway, the point is that graphics are not supposed to do anything for the game except sell it. For an independent style game, it is more important to have good gameplay rather then have picture perfect graphics. Unless of course you plan on selling a million copies, then it had better have good graphics.
Remember a little game named Doom? The reason that it sold more copies then any other game before it was the fact that it had the best graphics combined with all the features other games had..
Other games had networking , other games had shoot em up action, other games had good AI. Doom just had it all and then some. for the time, this is 1993 we are talking about.
Am I the only one who sees OGRE and thinks of giant tanks?
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
It looks and sounds great, but I'm not too fond of Free Software that only builds under a Microsoft compiler. Let's hope that linux port comes before 1.0.
Some of which have undoubtedly been covered in various posts, but hey. :p
:p Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay.
:)
This is good for open source gaming.
Ahh, the question of whether there's enough graphical talent in the open source community to pull off a game. This obviously breaks down into two points. First, graphics do not make a game. Gameplay makes a game. While I must state that I don't find that much I like being produced by Squaresoft, I have many die-hard Squaresoft fans, who more and more often are now telling me faults of Square's newer games. They're degenerating into psuedo-movies, not games, and frankly, movie studios will always do movies better. Flashy graphics do not make a game good.
If that's not enough, I point to Contra. Everyone I know who was into gaming during the 80's and has a good grasp of computers has a NES emulator and that game. Those people I know who aren't into computers that much are amazed and start bugging me if they see me playing it.
The second point.. Browse themes.org. Look around on theme creators' websites. They tend to do a lot more art than just theming. The question of whether or not the talent is there should never have been asked.
I've also heard the 'problem' that open source games tend to take years to make it to a really playable release. I don't see the problem with this. Current day gaming companies either rush it out the door or put it off for months and years at a time.
From that, it's logical to see the lengthy development time of open source games as a problem! But, we have a distinct advantage which nullifies that problem. Most open source games are out there in 'beta' form, being played by plenty of people. These people give input back to the developers, and often start contributing ideas, code, graphics, music and other work. These people, even if they just have the ability to spew a few ideas at the guys in charge, will have more interest in the game. (And this is indeed one of the primary benefits of all open source development - that you, the user, have easy access to developers!)
One thing I will note is that I don't believe this will help commercial gaming on Linux. I admit, I'm not terribly competent with the finer points of the GPL, but from what I understand, a company couldn't use this while keeping the rest of the game closed source. If I'm wrong, ignore this, because damn - it'd be great for companies wanting to expand to Linux.
Awww... did someone have a rough day at the office? Perhaps your boss and the mailboy rammed you up the ass a few too many times? Poor little guy... lashing out like that for no real reason.
D-I-C-K-H-E-A-D
Ummm.. how is the parent post redundant? It was the first freakin post! How could that have already been said? And how is it a troll? wtf is up with these message boards? Now this could be a troll... but the parent definately was not.
:-/
It is things like this that make a good user want to go bad.
A significant amount of work has been done on mods to the Quake, Unreal and so forth engines by people who work in their spare time, which goes to show that as long as the base engine is competently done, there are more than enough people to pull off some amazing things.
Of course, many of these mod makers haven't embraced open-source development, keeping their work to themselves mostly in pipe-dream hopes of repeating the success of CounterStrike as much as preventing other mod teams from ripping them off.
Aye, if anything this is something to beat Id or Epic.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I could be completely wrong, but aren't Ogre and direct3d completly different things? Isn't comparing these things sorta like comparing openGL and the quake 3 engine?
I was sure someone else would find what I was missing. Actually I find this to be a very exciting thing. Great for aspiring game developers that want to learn w/o paying the master (MS or SGI).
I've been watching this project as its been moving along, and I must say its quite the posterchild for what can be done, I hope more people support it and help with development, until recently its been steve alone, now the development team is getting a lot bigger, I hope more people join in to make this a great engine.
Oh and with linux support, its being done Thomas 'temas' Muldowney of Jabber fame, so it won't be long.
www.blossoms.com
Enjoy!
Hi. Those guys were on our side. Our side fucking lost.
Ok. I've read the post. I've scanned (10 seconds) the linked site. I read my normal filtered comments (4+). And I have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE as to what the %$!# this is about. Is it cool? Does it suck? Is it going to do anything for me? Who knows. Who cares?
Can we please get a bit of a better post, eds? I mean, this isn't even as useful as a freshmeat posting, which at least tells you what the hell is being updated.
I'm probably interested, but I don't think a story saying click here or here or here or here is very useful.
>> the monsters I can imagine in my head are a lot more interesting than the cheesy commercial graphics that kills the imagination.
Does CLI based UT sound all that appealing though? I mean obviously there are times when graphics are important; they just have to be made in such a way that they _add_ to game rather than ditract from it. I game with realistic, consistent graphics is more immersive. Seem deal with the physics (maybe not realistic, but the physics should be consistent and intuitive, otherwise you'll have players getting frustrated when something doesn't work the way it's "supposed to").
hgh
A lot of people claim that the glory days of Slashdot have been lost. Have they? Let's examine the facts.
The average Slashdot troll spends all day looking at this man's asshole, and spends the rest of his time trying to find new lubricants in his mom's medicine cabinet to lessen the burning chaffing from cronic masturbation.
If a normal person was as lame as that, they would quickly realize how empty and meaningless their life had become, and they would eventually shoot themselves in the head.
Ogre is a "high-level scene graph engine". This is a level above a standard 3D rendering API, like OpenGL, but a level below a general-purpose game engine. Unfortunately, while high level scene graph engines seem plausible, they're not very useful.
There are quite a few of these things. SGI Inventor was the first major one. Apple had one in Quicktime 3D. Direct-X has one, but Direct-X is mostly used as a low-level drawing API. One was announced for OpenGL (it was called Farenheit) when SGI and Microsoft lost interest, it didn't really bother anybody.
You need a low-level graphics API to abstract different types of hardware. That's the real job of OpenGL and Direct-X. You might want a full game engine if you're building a game, and you can get those from a number of vendors. But mid-level APIs just aren't all that useful. You have to do things their way, but they don't do enough of the job to justify the trouble.
> The Ogre source is made available under the GNU Public License (GPL), which basically
> means you can use it however you like as long as you include all the source code if you
> distribute a product using it. At a later date I may also release a commercially licensed
> version which allows closed-source programs to use it, probably mainly targetted at shareware
> authors. THe core version of Ogre will always be available under the GPL though. See the
> downloads page for full licensing terms.
Amen brother.
I REALLY believe that everyone who writes GPLed code, should ASK for money in one way or another.
OSS authors need to make it clear to every one that they expect their share of the pie, should
you make money off of their efforts.
Along with the screenshots, the manpages, and mailing list, OSS authors need to provide a big
fat button, which links to a page with an explanation on how you should send them money, if you
ever decide to use their code in closed source software, or even donations if you are one of
the few out there.
To the developer of OGRE; I am not a graphics programmer, but I will download your lib and try
to learn something with it, should I ever decide to use your code in one way or another, I promise
you am going to PAY for it.
To the slashdot reader. If you have the money, and there is an OSS app the you earn your income with,
please don't be a prick and send your financial contribution to the author(s).
It is a 3D engine. If you do not understand this, then that is a piece of software that renders 3D scenes in games. In this case, it is a 3D engine on its own, for other people to create games (or other 3d software) with.
I've not tried it, so I can't truly say, but from looking at their site for a few more seconds than you claim to have done, the screenshots certainly look very very cool. It sounds very capable.OTOH, it is apparently written in C++, and as every proper Linux bod knows, C++ sucks in the extreme, as C++ is not only slow, humungously bloated, and not as portable as C, but it also is not very well supported on Linux and has a tendency to crash a fair bit. So, it's likely that I won't be using it.
Indeed.Looks to me as though it gives the relevant points, the average
If it were plain old C, I'd be very enthusiastic about this and would be downloading it right now, even if I would prolly never create anything with it! Ah well, never mind.
Be careful! New moon tonight.
It's a request, not a requirement, and not an unreasonable request at that.
Is it even legal to request such a thing from users of a GPLed program? After all, the source is available and according to the GPL I can remove this splash screen and use it all I want.
Besides, I think it would be more clever to releases this under the LGPL as well, the author himself states that he plans on licensing for commercial use as well.
Bill Gates Has No Penis.
I've been looking for a full-featured 3D gaming engine for a while, as I wish to write a hobby game in my spare time. But since I want to keep the option of selling my game open to me, I can't use any of the currently existing 3D engines. Nor can I use the Quake 1/2 source. Why?
They are all GPL. While I will be the first person to admit that Free Software has its merits, it simply does not work for game software. Releasing a core component of a game under the GPL means that only GPL games can be made with it "That's great!" you may be saying. The only problem is that games are not just programming. They are programming, music, art, and level design. Musicians, artists, and level designers (even hobbyist ones) are used to making money for what they do. But since the core engine of the game is GPL, no money can be made on the game.
(Aside: And don't give me that line about how it's perfectly legal to sell Free Software. Sure, it's legal, but that doesn't mean it works. It's like another poster in another thread said: "Sure, I't's LEGAL for me to try to sell my used car for retail price, but it doesn't mean I'll be able to." Aside over.)
And you guys wonder why FreeCraft and FreeCiv have such lousy art. It's because there's no Free Art Foundation going around saying, "You should give your art away! It's immoral to charge for art!" Same thing for musicians. Same thing for level designers. Hell, same thing for just about any skilled work that combines technical expertise with creativity EXCEPT FOR PROGRAMMING.
The GPL doesn't work for gaming. Please, I'm begging you, stop releasing game libraries under the GPL. Release them under the LGPL or the BSD license. If you do, it means professionals can use and maintain them, benefiting and giving somthing back to the community. And we can all stop having to start from scratch (or use crappy middleware like NetImmerse) whenever we want to make a game.
There is also an open source project that includes a 3d engine written in java3d (alpha stage though). It can render Never Winter Nights models. You can see it at http://xmud.sourceforge.net.
The only problem is that games are not just programming. They are programming, music, art, and level design. Musicians, artists, and level designers (even hobbyist ones) are used to making money for what they do. But since the core engine of the game is GPL, no money can be made on the game.
This is completely and totally wrong. (Or it's an artfully constructed troll; can't tell which.)
You are only required by the GPL to release any changes you make to the engine itself. If you take the Q2 engine and make a game with your own models, textures, levels and game logic, you are not required to give away the models, textures, levels and game code.
Remember, the engine and game logic are seperate codebases: Id Software releases the game logic seperately from the engine code, and usually years before, so that mod authors can play with it. And of course, the GPL does not "infect" anything but code: your textures, skins, models and levels remain your own no matter what.
If you really need to make changes to the rendering engine itself (highly unlikely for a hobbyist game programmer) without giving away your code, consider looking at the Torque Engine, which you can license for $100 and a revenue-sharing agreement with GarageGames.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Last I checked the "GNU Public License" suffers from *NON-EXISTENCE*. Freedom of code is only ensured when it is *clearly stated* that it is published under the GNU **GENERAL** Public License. Stating anything else as being the license just opens up a legal loophole.
Funny. I was going to say a similar thing about dropping copious quantities of biological bombs on the many God-fearing US cities. (It ain't God you should be scared of!)
As allready pointed out by others earlier within this topic thread, the thing about the splash-screen is just a request (and a very fair one I must say), not a requirement, and thus doesn't clash with the GPL. You can still do as you see fit with the code, but if you base a program on OGRE you really should give credit where credit is due.
Using the LGPL would mean that also commercial game developers could use the engine royalty-free, which is a good thing in some cases and less good in other. Using dual licenses means that the author can milk any commercial projects for some money that could be put back into development, while free software developers can use the fruits of that for free.
Dual licenses can really be a big win for program infrastructure projects like this and I'm kind of surprised not more developers are using it. Commercial users pay for the product with real money that keeps the company alive, while the free software community contribute bugreports, improvements and some free work labor in return for free use, not to mention the free advocating, exposure and wider acceptance.
I like people who flame for using AND spelling words correctly. It is so rare!
Thank you dickweed for looking like a total fucking loser. Bravo.
Read previous posts -> Comprehend -> Say OMG IFU
Haha U luuuuzer
You may think I am being a troll, but I'm only speaking the truth when I say what is the point of having several (L)GPL 3D engines when there are no decent freesoftware games being developed other than one or two role-playing games.
The open source community _needs_ graphic artists badly to start producing games. 1980s style arcade games won't do it.
It kind of looks like RMS. But then I don't see a homosexual orally copulating him, so maybe not.
The first poster is wrong in that he won't be able to make money from the game. Most GPL:ed 3D engines are available under dual licenses, the GPL and one commercial license that comes with a fee. That is perfect for him since he can start developing without a commercial license and then get a commercial license if/when he decides to release the game commercially. Just be sure to check the details of the license first though and possibly get some kind of guarantee that they won't change the commercial licenses during your development.
The second poster is somewhat wrong in his interpretation of the GPL. You do have to release your entire codebase under the GPL, but not the textures, models etc.
The GPL works on a program-wide level while the LGPL works more like the above poster described (but not entirely, you are for example required to keep the LGPL:ed codebase in a DLL, which shouldn't cause the developer any bigger troubles but gives the user the benefit of being able to modify or replace the LGPL:ed part of the program), so I guess he mixed them up a bit.
German company Radon Labs released their game engine under a free licence (but not GPL nor LGPL). It has very impressive feature list, check their Sourceforge site. It already works on Linux.
--
I refuse to use
Check out The Visualisation Toolkit
It's a nice piece of work, but it solves a problem that nobody needed solved.
I'm glad you don't have a problem with calculating and drawing all visible polygons in a 50 000 poly-based world as quickly as possible. Some of us do.
Ogre is a "high-level scene graph engine". This is a level above a standard 3D rendering API, like OpenGL, but a level below a general-purpose game engine. Unfortunately, while high level scene graph engines seem plausible, they're not very useful.
I'm not sure what you mean by plausible - since Scene Graphs are not just theoretical: they work extremely well for their purpose. They are very useful, probably the fastest general purpose method for drawing large scenes available today.
There are quite a few of these things. SGI Inventor was the first major one. Apple had one in Quicktime 3D. Direct-X has one, but Direct-X is mostly used as a low-level drawing API. One was announced for OpenGL (it was called Farenheit) when SGI and Microsoft lost interest, it didn't really bother anybody.
Meanwhile in the year 2002, there are quite a few scene graphs available for many platforms. One of the best is Open Scene Graph, an LGPLed library which is used for games, demos and high-end visualisation systems. Not to mention Ogre itself which looks very sweet indeed.
You need a low-level graphics API to abstract different types of hardware. That's the real job of OpenGL and Direct-X.
Direct-3D I think you mean.
You might want a full game engine if you're building a game, and you can get those from a number of vendors.
You might also want to consider what 95% of game writers do and that is to select the best tools for the job and assemble them yourself. Graphics and rendering tends to be 10% of the typical code base for a commercial game - the bulk is AI, gameplay logic, resource management, menus, and supporting tools.
But mid-level APIs just aren't all that useful. You have to do things their way, but they don't do enough of the job to justify the trouble.
I suppose if you're looking for a game engine which does everything for you while wiping your nose and holding your hand, then a mid-level API won't be very useful. For a game writer looking to solve the one big problem of overdraw, a mid level API like Ogre or OSG is an excellent solution. Plug it in and it does the clipping, culling and drawing work for you. I know from personal experience that OSG is superb at this job - adapting equally well to visualisation, flight simulation and terrain rendering. Ogre's screenshots tell a similar story. Want a Quake 3 level? Load it and Ogre adds it to the graph and takes care of the rest.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Well, it could have been worse.
Its good to have a Free software 3D engine, even it is on MS Windows. But how can you say
"All classes must be fully documented"
http://ogre.sourceforge.net/docs.php
when you are relying on
"This section includes the full documentation of each class, using HTML documentation generated from comments included in the C++ source."
Generating documentation from comments is a hacked way of not properly designing or documenting
stuff properly in the first place. It depends on literally designing at the keyboard, which
is basically making stuff up as you go along. This is because the programmers are too hasty
for results. Then depending on this stuff, to write up your documentation. Its like making
a movie, THEN writing the script.
This over-eagerness is evident in this:
"Make good use of object-oriented features such as exceptions, overloading, inheritence and data hiding in order to improve the design."
Object-orientated features are tools for a design. FIRST you come up with the design, then
you decide which of them to use. To even consider these things, before you have decided
the design, indicate that the design is a merely a vehicle for the tool.
Things like using established code libraries are NOT part of the design.
They are LIMITATIONS of the design. They are parts of the project where NO decision, hence
no design, is to be made.
A design is a solution to a problem. A solution can have no principles. Because problems
have no principles. If problems fell within well defined principles, they would NOT be
a problem.
It makes no sense to talk about Design Principles. A solution either works or it doesnt.
To talk about principles is to suggest there is ALREADY general set of solutions to which
this design is part of. This is NOT true for any NON-TRIVIAL solution.
However they are bang on when they say:
"All code should stand up to current professional standards"
This is just like the vast majority of so called professional work out there. They
basically hacked, poorly documented, TRIVIAL solutions to something which has already
been solved elsewhere.
Rod.
I just got a GF4, and let me tell you it absolutely smokes in Linux. It actually performs slightly better in Linux than windows, only too bad that there are few native Linux games. I run a couple games in winex too, but you lose some performance doing that, but the GF4 really helps, now I can run JK2 in 1024 with all details turned on and it runs great.
FWIW, games that run well in winex, usually run more stable than they do in windows, even win2k, but admittedly win2k is plenty stable enough for gaming.
I really hope OpenGL 2 will attract developers away from D3D, that sure would be good for Linux in the future.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The WorldForge Project is probably a good place to start looking for them.
Krótko: kady Erotomek
W pimiennictwie ma swój domek.
Ah, I see your a language zealot. Hey, I have some news for you, C++ isn't slow. Have you tried using a decent compiler (I.E. something other than Gcc 2.9.x ?) No? Then be quiet, and get back to trying to emulate OO with structs of function pointers, the GTK+ people need you!
P.S:
and not as portable as C
If you mean "I can't compile it with this K&R SysV compiler from 1983" then yes, this is true. However, ANSI C has been updated more recently than C++ has. So if thats your argument, then I say C isn't as portable because I can't compile C99 code on your ancient compiler either.
section 2b of the GPL [gnu.org]: You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof,to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. [emphesis added]
This clearly refers to the source code, not add-on graphics, etc. Dynamic libraries are not "getting around" the GPL, the GPL is specifically designed to limit itself to the project(s) in question and its derivatives, not every usage of the project that doesn't directly incorporate its source code.
Furthermore, your artistic work is no more a part of the GPLed code that a word document you write with Open Office is a part of that GPLed project (and thus GPLed itself). You are propogating a Microsoft myth that has been debunked by numerous third parties, and by the Free Software Foundation itself.
If you were writing a game based on a GPLed game, then yes, your game would have to be GPLed. If, however, you are writing a game that uses a GPLed library (like Ogre or Crystal Space) the GPL does not extend beyond the boundries of the GPLed library unless you statically link it to your code, and then distribute that statically linked binary (something no one in their right mind would do in this day and age regardless of the GPL).
The GPL foists no trap upon developers, it protects the freedom of their projects from poachers like Microsoft, and it in no way coerces your project external to it into using the GPL, your protestations and denials notwithstanding.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The original poster's passage in question is:
the engine and game logic are seperate codebases: Id Software releases the game logic seperately from the engine code, and usually years before, so that mod authors can play with it. And of course, the GPL does not "infect" anything but code: your textures, skins, models and levels remain your own no matter what.
The art, music, textures, levels, models, etc are not "infected" by the GPL. But I would say that "game logic" includes such things as the code that reads the level files (other than the engine code, any OpenGL wizardry you added to give it that added "whiz-bang" factor, any AI programming you did for command recognition or enemy reaction, etc. And as far as I know (never having used the Quake engine), the engine is static-linked into the rest of this "game logic", so it must also be GPL.
Another problem that might come up is this: what if I want to integrate the program with ViaVoice (or any other closed-source voice rec program), or with a closed source 3D game controller? Can I do that if it requires that closed source glue code be statically linked into the binary? This problem comes up with regards to Newton development as well - specifically with using the C++ tools, which require closed glue to be linked - more generally becasue the main development program, Newton Toolkit, is not open-source, and no clone has been made (yet, one of these days I'll get around to it..) Jim
Strange that OO-ness is such a major feature that it found it's way into the name of the engine. I've never really thought of OO-ness as making or breaking an engine.
I suppose it was inevitable. I, too, was working on a Python OpenGL rendering engine called OGRE.
waht about me?
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
That's wrong.
You can use GPL code in a commercial app if you either:
a) Distribute the modified source code under the GPL along with the binary, or
b) Don't distribute the binary.
Why would people pay in case a)?
To receive support.
How can a commercial product not be distributed (case b))?
You can use it in-house or as a server (e.g., a database or web server).
So you can use GPL code in commercial apps.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
ACK! I'm being killed by the letter "h"!!! Oh noooooooo... It _h_urts... How _h_orrible.
Murphy was an optimist.
if a LIBRARY is GPL, then by simply using it (making calls and all that rot) would not restrict anyone from keeping their source closed right? Sort of the opposite of say, DirectX. I can release code that is GPL that makes directX calls. Please explain if I am wrong (but not in lawyer terms as I have little patience for unnecessary complexity and 'obfuscation')
while this poster had a point, it is not Insightful. (it is in fact wrong but that is beside the point) Please moderators if you think something is valid then mod it up, but if you modded this up thinking it will help GPL you are wrong. Education is based on facts not misconceptions and misrepresentation