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Engine for Collaborative Science Education MMOG?

Posted by Cliff on from the outside-of-the-FPS-box dept.

plisdku asks: "My research advisor wants to create an online, collaborative science education game for middle- to high-school students; we need a 3D engine! A pioneer in internet-assisted laboratories (iLabs), he has developed real experiments that students can operate remotely over the internet. We envision a game where students wander a campus, solving Caltech-style 'stacks,' and learning collaboratively as they perform the great experiments of the history of science in simulated and real laboratories. What we need is a 3D engine and content creation system with which our team of artists and bright student developers can produce a prototype within a year. Requirements: customizable avatars, flexible integration with other technology (iLabs, CompEdu, etc.), and reasonable licensing fees (open source would be great). Our last project used SGI tools -- what are our modern-day options?"

5 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. idsoftware by oni · · Score: 3, Informative

    if I'm not mistaken, id has released the quake 1 and 2 engines under the gpl

    1. Re:idsoftware by Short+Circuit · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yup. And they've been under active development ever since in projects like Quakeforge, Darkplaces and Twilight.

      There's other OSS engines out there, too, such as Crystal Space.

      --
      tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  2. Two words... by shadwwulf · · Score: 4, Informative

    Crystal Space

    It's highly configurable and easy to code for. There are multiple included implementations of apps using the engine that come with it so you can keep the wheel reinvention to a minimum.

    Also it supports multiple formats to be imported such as 3DS and the like.

    MTW

  3. A similar project by mwber · · Score: 3, Informative

    Chris Dede's group at Harvard is doing something like this:
    http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/muvees2003/

    I saw him present this at AERA this year.

    You have to root around to find the science experiment stuff.

  4. Soya by Chilltowner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've found Soya to be a very friendly Python-based 3D engine. It also has ODE physics built in, so that might be useful, too. It also works closely with Blender models. In addition, the developers are very responsive, and they've produced a number of tutorials to get people up to speed quickly. Not sure if the software you'd like to integrate with has Python bindings, but this is a good option if it does.