Dante: Open-Source Doom 3

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Dante: Open-Source Doom 3

Oliver McFadden has been working on renderer improvements to the open-source id Tech 4 engine for the Doom 3 game. This project is now going under the name Dante...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE1NDE

[uid313]

Game

I hope we see some cool open source games using this engine.

Would be nice with some really beautiful and modern games.

[elanthis]

I hope we see some cool open source games using this engine.

Would be nice with some really beautiful and modern games.

Modern games are not going to come from an engine developed in the early 2000's specifically for making a narrow class of FPS titles and nothing else.

Almost the only thing you saw from the GPL'd Quake 1-3 engines was a bunch of repetitive Quake clones. The only thing you're going to see from this engine is Quake 4 clones.

If you want to see modern FOSS games, _stop_ trying to port ancient crufty inflexible rigid crappy engines that were only abandoned to the GPL after they were no longer useful for making modern games. Instead, build a new flexible component-based easy-to-use actual modern engine with fantastic tooling and content support for designers and artists. Build something that might compete with UDK 4 or Unity 4 or CryTek 3 or Unigine or so on, not a nearly dead one-trick pony like the idTech engines.

The community can build a kernel like Linux that's in many ways superior to all the commercial competitors, so surely it is capable of building a game engine that's in many ways superior to all the commercial competitors, right? I don't believe the community is capable of it, but I'd love to be proved wrong. Nobody's going to do it by trying to use the idTech engines in any capacity, though.

[Teho]

The community can build a kernel like Linux that's in many ways superior to all the commercial competitors, so surely it is capable of building a game engine that's in many ways superior to all the commercial competitors, right? I don't believe the community is capable of it, but I'd love to be proved wrong. Nobody's going to do it by trying to use the idTech engines in any capacity, though.

Around 80% of the contributions to Linux kernel are done by corporate employees. The reason it's so powerful in the first place is because it's commercial product. The open source game developement community seems to be quite small without many if any financial sponsors so it's not going to get to the point where it can compete with engines built by hundreds of full time developers. That could of course change but for that to happen someone must first find a way to monetize on it.

[uid313]

Modern games are not going to come from an engine developed in the early 2000's specifically for making a narrow class of FPS titles and nothing else.

Almost the only thing you saw from the GPL'd Quake 1-3 engines was a bunch of repetitive Quake clones. The only thing you're going to see from this engine is Quake 4 clones.

From what I understand, there are FOSS games based on old id Tech engines, and they look much better than the original engine because they have been heavily beefed up.

So if someone took the Doom 3 engine and modernized it, then it could be good. Sure its 8 years old, but it could be beefed up with modernities.

[DeepDayze]

From what I understand, there are FOSS games based on old id Tech engines, and they look much better than the original engine because they have been heavily beefed up.

So if someone took the Doom 3 engine and modernized it, then it could be good. Sure its 8 years old, but it could be beefed up with modernities.

Exactly this...fix the things that its weak in and make the better parts stronger and you've got a fine game engine.

[Irritant]

Exactly this...fix the things that its weak in and make the better parts stronger and you've got a fine game engine.

Yup.

Games made with this engine needn't resemble Quake/Doom. Look, we have Steel Storm, UFO:AI, and others made from older idtech engines that are completely different genres. There is nothing holding the engine back from making non-FPS games. Every content tool you need is out there, and free.

Idtech4 still looks as good, or better than a lot of so-called "modern" gaming engines anyway. The main thing that needed fixing was replacing the old ARB shader pipeline with GLSL, and that's been done by a few people already. Add IQM support, modernize some of the rendering techniques, add a few more modern features with lighting and shadowing and other effects, and it would be one kick ass engine for projects to use. Will people make something that isn't an FPS? Who knows, but what I do know is being whiny, cynical, and bitching about FPS games won't get that accomplished.

[kwahoo]

Dante-based Android port https://plus.google.com/u/0/10839663...ts/gY4kDVhDMTT