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Parts of the Unreal Engine to be Opened
Mr.Pantz writes "Epic's GreenMarine updated his .plans with some news on Linux support (and such) and UT.
Here's the goods: I have permission from Tim to open source certain parts of the engine for the purposes of improving Linux support. What I would like to do is make available the code I have written for Glide, Mesa, input, and audio. I would appreciate Linux programmers taking the time to submit improvements to me at brandon@epicgames.com. I will look into putting up a webpage for this and perhaps a discussion forum. Please email me your input or ideas.
I'm leaving to go home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, so I may not be able to start on this until I get back on Friday. Right now I'm working on the Mesa renderer, because I would like to release that soon, if possible.
The code that I open source will not allow you to really dig very deep into the engine, but it will let you do a lot of stuff to the renderer and X windows interface.
Since my time is split between non-Linux related projects, the Linux port could no doubt be improved if it gets some attention from experienced Linux programmers.
"
That's pretty sweet... I hope they get the Mesa renderer working so that I can play it under Linux (got me a TNT2)... it's a phat game under NT though :-)
:-)
P.S. First non-"first post" post
"Software is like sex- the best is for free"
-Linus Torvalds
This is great, I hope the greatness of it doesn't end in slashdot tho. Hopefully people will be able to make time and contribute a few lines of code. The worst thing that can happen to an open source project is when people take the pain to open up, and no one contributes nothing. HOpe this will not be the case.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they have decided to do this--but my question is this: are serious gamers also great coders?
;)
Because from my experience, gaming doesn't mix well with coding. One of the two won't get done.
Could be that I'm totaly off base, however. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
This sig is false.
Yeah its great that its gonna be open. Except it looks kinda like they're just looking for help. The comment about the open code won't allow you to dig deep into the engine, we just want a better interface kinda sounds wrong. I mean really having games run better on linux is great. Having an GPL/BSD/xPL game engine would be even better. But these are just my thoughts.
-cpd
If a baby is taking it's first steps, you don't scream at them for not winning marathons, but you might offer encouragement for what they can do. The same is true here.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
May I ask why you did this?
Perhaps anonymous posts shouldn't be allowed anymore? Having the possibility to post anonymously might be a good thing, but if it means that we will get these meaningless posts, maybe it would be better to disallow them? I don't think we need all this crap. All it does is irritate the serious users.
A tad off topic I know but does anyone know why I can't use the glide library from the consol, why do I have to run glide only progs from within X. As far as I know the glide library goes straight to the video hardware and needs no support from X.
If this is just a case of getting I/O privs how do I arrange that ?
SVGA is great but glide would be.. well different.
Cheers.
I dunno... I smell, perhaps, a job at Epic in the future if some outstanding code is donated for some young programmer.
I think that programming games would be great modivation for good programming. Play it for a few hours then fix or improve what you don't like. Repeat. Add functionality when you get bored.
e.g. Angband/Moria/Nethack.
e.g. Mods/Add-ons for Quake2.
That's all I see programming as, one big game waiting to be won.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
i totally agree. (whether its off topic or not!) the internet has hepled us all to become lazy ass lusers that dont know how to stand up for what we believe in. we as a whole have become complacent. people dont stray from microsoft becuz thats all they know and they are afraid to actually LEARN something new, even if it would be good for them. big businesses and the governement control so much of our lives that we dont have a choice anymore. censorship by the gov, business not allowing fair competition...its all a form of repression. and it all sucks.
dont let the system crash you...crash the system! -oceangal
One person already commented that this was just a way for them to ask for help. So? This looks like the perfect way to do it! This isn't turning Unreal Tournament into an Open Source style project, but instead, allows the people who enjoy the game the most to make sure it runs perfectly smooth on thier hardware. Granted - there's only a small part of the system that's GPL'd. For those people who will eventually whine that the whole thing should be GPL'd - it's more open than you think alread if you haven't checked out the game closely. Most objects within the game are scripted, and allow very easy access to most objects. It's not designed to be replaced, of course, but allows for people to extend the game further using Unreal script. But over all - this looks like a great way for game companies to do things! Why? Well, the get the benefit of everyone who wants to see the game become more than it was at release time doing some tweaking on it. Just enough of it isn't open to prying eyes so that you can't just copy what they have, slap a new lable on it, and call it thiers. They can still make money, which means they can afford to bring us another great game later. Internally, all the scripting is open to editing that people who want to can add new stuff. To me, it sounds like a very winwin relationship, and profitable at that! For those who wonder if gamers can code - yep. Not saying all of them are great, but, there's already been some seriously kick butt 'Mutators' (small script extensions to the game) written for UT even before it hit the shelves thanks to the gamers who were fans of Unreal!) For those who haven't checked it out, go hit http://www.PlanetUnreal.com/Mutation and check out the 'Giants!' and 'FatBoy' mutators that were written by fans of the game!
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
I've played both and UT makes Q3 look sorta silly and blocky, now this GO UT :)
Then filter it you nitwit and grow up, the world IS NOT here for your ammusement...
And being such a serious user means that your post had some value..I think NOT... The sun is not the center of the universe boy, and neither are you...
I suspect it was the "adolf hitler in an unrelated thread" automoderator. Its designed to help prevent the inevitable flamewars, anytime hitler is mentioned in something other than a strictly historical context. Don't take it personally.
The funny part about this comment, its not even on topic... perhaps they should prevent posting by >stupid users, and leave posting for the ones who pay attention to topic, anonymous or not.
http://www.schizo.com/
With Q3 I was kicking people (who had ping 10-, while I had ping 100+) all over the server, and with UT The same people kicked my ass, mostly because I blew myself up whenever they came near and when I'd start blasting all of a sudden I was facing the wall.
If this is improved network play I'm sure glad I've never played the original on a network!
The graphics of UT look nice but my gues is that it takes more than that for a good and playable game.
My conclusion would be: UT is nice for LAN-play but on the internet Q3 absolutely rulez!
This seems to fall in the gray area around the borders of free software.
It is distictly a good thing: They are giving the users (us) the ability to modify the source code and help the product serve our needs/wants better.
But it's not a great thing. A basic principle of fairness involving free software is that of symetry. (See HTN by ESR) That is to say, all developers are equal partners. Under the GPL, the y can use my code to improve their product, but I can also use their code to improve mine.
As far as I can tell, Epic isn't going to directly impose an unfair license, but is getting much the same effect circuitously: By only open-sourcing certain parts of their software, they don't allow other developers the benefit of their most usefull code, or give working code for a complete program.
Now, they're still giving out good code, and they're still allowing us to customize it, so Epic's move is definitely a Good Thing, and a step in the right direction. But it's also something of a tease, and we ought to encourage them to seek a fuller and more equal partnership with the open-source community.
Um first of all
THANK YOU epic for provideing linux with more games
(even if only because the other company did so)
BIG shout to all hackers being paid to do this respect
Now what can we give ?
simple realy go buy the game publishers see one thing the tally.
if the money to create it happens to be more than the money (revenue) that was gained they are not going to do it again !!
BUY UT it is a very good game
what can they give us ?
well the engine was @ the forefront but it still uses SPRIT's and just uses the ol turn them to face the view trick to graphically 'I' dont like the engine thats not to say it has very good points I just hate it for that
BUT it DOES do SOUND well !! V. Good sound now if they got hafe of what was working under WIN32 under linux that would be Great
I am intrested to see how they hacked this and how they pipe sound out what interfaces they use this is one thing DirectX has over OpenGL and Mesa is that Dinput and sound has one API I am not aware of a standard way of doing it under *n*x
anyway
cheers
john
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
What license is this source code being released under? I can change the code for personal use but can't redistribute my changes? If I want people to get my improvements I have to give my changes back to a company that will then get to make money off my improvements without me seeing a red cent?
No thank you. I refuse to share crop for anyone. I will join an open source game effort before I do that.
But thanks for the offer.
After 2 years of quake, and the crime against nature that was Q2, I am really disappointed that Id couldn't create anything inte4resting about the gameplay of Q3. Also, it everything is so large and cartoony, I just can't stand Q3, especially compard to UT. I think Id needs to try putting out something original... If they make aquake 4 that is still all about rockets, red armor, quad and railguns , I am going to go insane with disgust. Curved surfaces... um, wow, thats great. i think it's more like Quake 1.5. But besides comparisons with Quake 3, I really enjoy Unreal Tournament. I wish them the best.
Juln
But, if folk who grok glide, mesa, et al feel it is worthwhile hacking about with it, fine. Others may be wary of being exploited and run a mile - this is also fine.
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
Actually, four out of five programmers here were recruited based on cool stuff they had developed and released freely on the net:
Erik de Neve for his algorithmic fire effects, Steve Polge for his ReaperBot mod for Quake, Brandon Reinhart based on his UnrealScript tutorial and Unreal mod, and Jack Porter because of the object-oriented GUI framework he created in UnrealScript.
Someone else was asking about the GPL. We are not GPL'ing the Unreal engine, though we've opened up a lot of the source and might be releasing more in 2000. Our strategy here is to encourage users to do cool things with the engine freely, but when somebody profits from our work, they need to do a licensing deal with us and give us a cut of the action.
A bunch of cool free stuff is happening with the Unreal engine now. For example, check out http://www.vrndproject.com/vrndfr.htm.
-Tim Sweeney, Epic Games
Uhh yeah, you get to redistribute the changes back to the guy you got it from. And, because of that, your second question is answered. If he likes your code then everyone will see the improvements in the form of a good product. What do I think about a company that makes money off of volunteer programmers? Volunteer programmers develop and contribute to the kernel source code. Linus Tarvolds examines and approves the code and puts it into the kernel source tree. Then companies like Red Hat and Caldera come along and do what American businesses do best, make money. Sounds like the same thing to me.
Does anyone know the standard licensing terms of the unreal engine? How much does the engine cost to license and how long do typical licensees spend developing their game on top of the Unreal engine?