XreaL: The Most Advanced Open-Source Game Engine?

[Dragonlord]

Answer is simple: This engine is locked to a game type and then it's nothing else but trying to mod Quake3. This is not the solution to the OSS Game problem. The design is outdated not the technique.

And yes there are projects out there which have their own direction, which are not FPS games, which have not a space marine in a suite, which have a different game mechanics and which have an original story with an entire original world around it. The problem is just that these projects don't get the people since they are attracted but boring FPS stuff... like this one here :/

[Michael]

Well, somebody wants to show this guy the OverDose project, because last time I checked, xReal looked like a badly made mod for Q3, and OverDose looked like a legit retail quality game. Not trying to start a "who is better than who" war here but OverDose has probably the best tech out there, plus its based on Q2 code, not Q3. xReal will only ever be as good as the art it takes from mods and maps, thats the biggest gripe I have with it. Its just another "Open Arena" clone, it does nothing new.

OverDose also has its own set of tools built from scratch, even a level editor. So its making life easier for the artists working on it. Well artist, its just one guy doing the ingame art and one coder. Check out some of the pics on the site, its sexy:

http://www.teamblurgames.com/overdose/

Isn't OverDose only for Windows?

[deanjo]

Well, somebody wants to show this guy the OverDose project, because last time I checked, xReal looked like a badly made mod for Q3, and OverDose looked like a legit retail quality game. Not trying to start a "who is better than who" war here but OverDose has probably the best tech out there, plus its based on Q2 code, not Q3. xReal will only ever be as good as the art it takes from mods and maps, thats the biggest gripe I have with it. Its just another "Open Arena" clone, it does nothing new.

OverDose also has its own set of tools built from scratch, even a level editor. So its making life easier for the artists working on it. Well artist, its just one guy doing the ingame art and one coder. Check out some of the pics on the site, its sexy:

http://www.teamblurgames.com/overdose/

Sorry if this is a double post, the forums dont seem to be showing my posts...?

Ya and there is no plans at all to port it. Windows exlusive, baaaaa.

No, OverDose does not use SDL.

As stated on our wiki, there are currently no ports in the works or even planned, but the code is designed with portability in mind, so it may be possible for some programmers to contribute ports to other platforms in the future. Both Linux and MacOSX ports would be nice, and I'm sure they would be quite easy to do (way easier than porting to a console).

Moving to the programming forum BTW...
__________________
Nicolas Flekenstein
Lead Programmer, Team Blur
www.teamblurgames.com

[yogi_berra]

The main problem is that most artists "don't get" opensource, and in particular they especially "don't get" working for free, their idea of success centers on getting a paying job at a studio, so they only look at free projects as a possible stepping stone to a studio job, and tend to ignore them even for that.

The problem is not that artists don't get open source (the sheer amount of content available under the CC licenses attests to the contrary), but the atmosphere that exists within many projects tends to drive away artists.

Granted, it is easier to blame artists than to actually look at how the social dynamic within projects tends to drive them off, but if you aren't willing to examine your own actions (Open source developers in general, not you personally) you will always have the same results as very few people are willing to put up with the pure crap that some people dish out.

[maleadt]

The main problem is that most artists "don't get" opensource, and in particular they especially "don't get" working for free, their idea of success centers on getting a paying job at a studio, so they only look at free projects as a possible stepping stone to a studio job, and tend to ignore them even for that.

But does a project really need "true artists" in order to create content?
I think it'd suffice having a game with some base content, and a very accessible toolset (imagine having a "nexuiz-tools" package in ubuntu, containing preconfigured GtkRadiant and some other stuff) to get some quality content over time.

Also, many of those games are still unknown to the new Linux user. I'm using Linux for some years now, but only heard about Nexuiz when 2.5 got released (thanks Phoronix). Why not have a Windows-style "welcome center" or "feature presentation" while installing an OS, advertising quality software available? It might kill the frequently-heard "there aren't any good games for Linux" complaint.

[Dragonlord]

I don't want to burst your bubble but do you consider those generic-FPS-run-of-the-mill-quake-clone-using-ioquake-or-whatever "good"? I don't and that's not what helps Linux gaming. In contrary it kills it off since people perceive Linux then just as a copy-cat but with poor quality compared to serious titles.

[deanjo]

I don't want to burst your bubble but do you consider those generic-FPS-run-of-the-mill-quake-clone-using-ioquake-or-whatever "good"? I don't and that's not what helps Linux gaming. In contrary it kills it off since people perceive Linux then just as a copy-cat but with poor quality compared to serious titles.

I agree "Yet Another FPS" doesn't peek a lot of interest for me. I would rather see a good engine and toolset for a RPG, especially when complete documentation such as the DnD ruleset are available under a Open Game License.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35

Now that would truly be kick ass and probably gather a good following if it was made cross-platform judging by the sheer number of peeps still playing NWN.

[Julius]

Raedwulf - several open source engines and games use skeletal animation, it's nothing new, I've had support for a skeletal model format in DarkPlaces Quake engine (which powers Nexuiz) since 2002, Nexuiz has been using exclusively skeletal animation from the beginning.

Just to add to this: Sauerbraten has complete MD5 support and also ragdoll physics since a few months (check svn for the latter).

Otherwise I think Xreal is a great effort... it simply has the problem that most open-source, indi etc gamers do precisely *not* have a cutting edge system. Thus interest is quite low in the traditional peergroup.

But it might have the bells and whistles to attract some professional artists.
I would suggest that once you have the Unreal pipeline running properly (!) to head over to Polycount and make a nice showcase and recruitment post.

[xav1r]

GLSL + Binary = Fail. The idea behind GLSL is that you _don't_ need a compiler like CGC to get things done. The only thing that makes sense is to use a shader tree to generate the GLSL code but this is another problem. That said what's so advanced on this? I don't want to down-call on this project but looking at the screenshots I ask myself what is exactly so next-gen on it? ( because I ought to claim that this is not the most advanced engine... but I guess this depends on what part of the engine you look at )

Well, I've talked with tr3b, the main developer (the only one too) of Xreal, and from what he told me, Xreal has native support for md5 model format, has superior graphical quality than doom3 had, and has much less overhead than quake4-doom3 had, among its features. One of their biggest problems with showing off Xreal's features is precisely because they need good quality art assets to be able to display their engine's awesomeness.

[xav1r]

The main problem is that most artists "don't get" opensource, and in particular they especially "don't get" working for free, their idea of success centers on getting a paying job at a studio, so they only look at free projects as a possible stepping stone to a studio job, and tend to ignore them even for that.

Not all artists are that way, but the vast majority are.

So other than MMOs (where the product is really the service and the content could be free software) I don't think we'll see that happen on any big scale - and I wouldn't hold my breath for any MMOs doing that.

Yeah, isnt it ironic that most artists, who should be the "out-of-the-box" thinkers, side most of the time with the old, trite, closed-source, look but dont touch, business model from the old music/movies industry pioneered in 1966? And OTOH, most programmers, more techincally oriented, tend to prefer a freer model.