A Battle For Good Open-Source Game Graphics?

[Dragonlord]

I'm not sure if you understood me. I didn't say "funny" as in humorous, I said "fun" as in it gives me pleasure to work on it. I would also request that you cease with the insulting dialog(as in referring to something as being "badly designed"). I won't continue any discussion here if the insults continue, and I think it's in the best interest of the non-developers to show a little courtesy when they are requesting of the developers.

These engines are not nearly as inflexible as you think. I've seen a variety of game types created from them that are not FPS.

If criticizing sub-par design and bugs in software is considered "insulting" then we should all go back using Windows and living in stagnation and bugs hell. Seriously get your head out of your ass there. More I don't have to say to this crap post of yours.

[kraftman]

Forget about using commercial engines. People making FOSS games are generally doing this as a hobbby, and aren't going to spend half a million dollars(or even 5000 dollars) to use a AAA, AA, or A engine.

As I said before, FOSS game creation is most often a hobby, and a labor of love. If I had half a million to blow on licensing the UT3 engine, I wouldn't do it. Where would the fun for ME be in that?

Hobby, that's a point. I don't see big commercial success for Open Source games (except FlightGear and Danger from the Deep, because they'll be probably much more realistic then commercial simulators in the future), but it doesn't mean they're worse or something like that. They aim at old-school gamers rather then at market needs where graphics and simplicity usually counts the most. There's lack of really innovative and ambitious (aka strategy, simulator, cRPG; especially when comes to consoles...) games today and maybe that's a chance for OS titles which can bring more demanding experience and get some more interest.

P.S. Some people think quality of a game is measured by number of players... More people may prefer Looney Tunes music over Mozart and does it mean LT music is better? I prefer more ambitious games and more ambitious films like Pulp Fiction over Too Mad Too Stupid. If someone still doesn't know how much more ambitious some PC games are he must be an idiot.

[Irritant]

If criticizing sub-par design and bugs in software is considered "insulting" then we should all go back using Windows and living in stagnation and bugs hell. Seriously get your head out of your ass there. More I don't have to say to this crap post of yours.

Nobody is saying you can't criticize. Criticism is what allows developers myself to improve their products. Of course there is also the social grace and tact that allows such criticism to be constructive rather than destructive.

So if there are bugs that you are finding, or design flaws, it would be helpful to developers to know specifically what you need in order to develop your game on the engine. Just saying "I'm sick of FPS and this engine is "inflexible"" is useless to a developer.

[Dragonlord]

Nobody is saying you can't criticize. Criticism is what allows developers myself to improve their products. Of course there is also the social grace and tact that allows such criticism to be constructive rather than destructive.

So if there are bugs that you are finding, or design flaws, it would be helpful to developers to know specifically what you need in order to develop your game on the engine. Just saying "I'm sick of FPS and this engine is "inflexible"" is useless to a developer.

It's not about bugs. Bugs can be fixed. It's about the design itself. The way of making games has changed dramatically. The complexity of game projects has increased a lot. The old aged black-box design of game engines is not flexible enough anymore to cope with upcoming projects. Furthermore I know a lot of people who have creative ideas but the existing engines have lacking work pipelines and are cumbersome to use yet limited in what you can do without totally dismantling the engine and coding the hell out of it. I checked out all engines around when I got to my project including AAA engines but none could handle the requirements needed. Granted some engines came a long way and are no more that much of a buggy hell as they used to be back then but if I see people churn out stuff like "out engine is the best because it has the best graphics!" then I'm getting sick. To get game development on Linux kicking you need more than what the FOSS engines today can provide. You need a game engine which is usable for serious game projects which goes beyond the FPS engine we have right now. Many ask why people don't use FOSS engines more. The answer is simple: the existing ones are simply not ready for prime time yet.

[Irritant]

It's not about bugs. Bugs can be fixed. It's about the design itself. The way of making games has changed dramatically. The complexity of game projects has increased a lot. The old aged black-box design of game engines is not flexible enough anymore to cope with upcoming projects. Furthermore I know a lot of people who have creative ideas but the existing engines have lacking work pipelines and are cumbersome to use yet limited in what you can do without totally dismantling the engine and coding the hell out of it. I checked out all engines around when I got to my project including AAA engines but none could handle the requirements needed. Granted some engines came a long way and are no more that much of a buggy hell as they used to be back then but if I see people churn out stuff like "out engine is the best because it has the best graphics!" then I'm getting sick. To get game development on Linux kicking you need more than what the FOSS engines today can provide. You need a game engine which is usable for serious game projects which goes beyond the FPS engine we have right now. Many ask why people don't use FOSS engines more. The answer is simple: the existing ones are simply not ready for prime time yet.

This is still fairly vague. What are your specific requirements needed in an engine?

[Snickersnack]

I know, write me off as just a troll that isn't a game dev, because yeah, I couldn't code to save my life. But it doesn't make what I'm saying any less true that there is a distinct lack of creativity in linux gaming,

So, in order to be more creative, Linux game devs should clone tired old console games instead of YAFPS?

Are you offended by the proliferation of Rogue-likes?

[Dragonlord]

@Irritant:
platform independent, runtime modular ( so not compile time modular ), huge world support, physics simulation ( various types ), good graphics rendering ( full multilayer transparency, mirroring, refraction/reflection, dynamic lighting/shadowing ), extensible graphics ( adding new abilities without changing the engine ), holed terrains, equally capable of indoor/outdoor, unrestricted bone weighted mesh deformation, animation system capable of handling parametric/procedural animations, Blender3D support for modeling/terrain/animation, fully scalable ( from high-end down to low-end ), multi-camera rendering, multi-world rendering, dynamic textures ( runtime generated ), dynamic sound/music, streamed music, 3D audio, using a typed scripting language, persistency usable for large scale world, streamed loading of the world, model/animation/physics in separate files, no pre-compilation steps, accurate world editor ( ingame rendering ), scalable network support able of both p2p/client-server

and especially

no compile time mess engine so no need to dismantle the engine to get new features done.

I didn't write down all points there are as this is just straight out of my head but it contains some important points.

[deanjo]

@Irritant:
platform independent, runtime modular ( so not compile time modular ), huge world support, physics simulation ( various types ), good graphics rendering ( full multilayer transparency, mirroring, refraction/reflection, dynamic lighting/shadowing ), extensible graphics ( adding new abilities without changing the engine ), holed terrains, equally capable of indoor/outdoor, unrestricted bone weighted mesh deformation, animation system capable of handling parametric/procedural animations, Blender3D support for modeling/terrain/animation, fully scalable ( from high-end down to low-end ), multi-camera rendering, multi-world rendering, dynamic textures ( runtime generated ), dynamic sound/music, streamed music, 3D audio, using a typed scripting language, persistency usable for large scale world, streamed loading of the world, model/animation/physics in separate files, no pre-compilation steps, accurate world editor ( ingame rendering ), scalable network support able of both p2p/client-server

You forgot hilarious easter eggs.

[deanjo]

Yes, BSD is second class when compared to GPL, because GPL forces people to bring upgrades to community. Thankfully GPL makes companies to deal with it harder or impossible.

So much for freedom when you have impassible barriers. It still has restrictions on what you can and cannot use with it. If GPL was more loose I have no doubt you would see great innovations like dtrace and zfs already in the kernel for example.

GPL is the best option to give code freedom.

In your opinion. It barriers true freedom of what one can contribute on what terms they want. Public domain release is required for that.

Yes and not always. In my opinion license to be truly Open Source should allow you to modify code and pass it further. Not only look at it :> I'm talking about overall not FreeSpace or Homeworld license mentioned before. Btw. why Homeworld is still in terrible state on Linux? Isn't this, because license? One of the best games in my opinion and no one's interested in polishing it?!

The freespace license does not prohibit you in any way of making your code contributions free as you see fit.

[L33F3R]

@Irritant:
platform independent, runtime modular ( so not compile time modular ), huge world support, physics simulation ( various types ), good graphics rendering ( full multilayer transparency, mirroring, refraction/reflection, dynamic lighting/shadowing ), extensible graphics ( adding new abilities without changing the engine ), holed terrains, equally capable of indoor/outdoor, unrestricted bone weighted mesh deformation, animation system capable of handling parametric/procedural animations, Blender3D support for modeling/terrain/animation, fully scalable ( from high-end down to low-end ), multi-camera rendering, multi-world rendering, dynamic textures ( runtime generated ), dynamic sound/music, streamed music, 3D audio, using a typed scripting language, persistency usable for large scale world, streamed loading of the world, model/animation/physics in separate files, no pre-compilation steps, accurate world editor ( ingame rendering ), scalable network support able of both p2p/client-server

serious list

I have always been a huge fan of irrlicht myself due to its opengl3 support and ease of use. But then again im primarily a csg level designer so i urge you to note my bias. I know physx is supported to an extent on linux but as for open source there is plenty of physics systems. And i know for a fact raknet is nearly the best and is used by sony. Several sound systems can handle 3d audio just fine and im sure python or lua support would need to be added. It honestly looks like alot of work though. Which is one of the reasons why we need to rely on open source fps games to base our creations.

From an artwork perspective adding content into open source engines like ogre and irrlicht (which keep in mind are only rendering engines by themselves) is just as easy as say quake 3.

But for now we are stuck with FPS titles based on ID engines and cube.

If said licenses on open source engines happened to support commercial development we would have more linux games. I know the art camp likes commercializing their work more then the programming camp. At the end of the day the GPL is a very social license that protects his/her work from being sold (which is a damn good reason in my opinion).

Amen