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Re: Just what we need..

 

Hello Luke

Since I'm no developer, I can't give input on point 1 and 2.

I agree that there is a need for a centralized artwork repository that
can be licenced to be re-used and modified. I think this is something
that we need to be aware of, since some FOSS games had trouble due to
artwork licenses (war§ow comes to mind). What would also be needed is
a certain standard of what tools to use (blender3d?), what format, how
many polygons, what techniques and labelling to be used on objects,
texture resolution, animation... I have no experience with pixel art
so I have no idea what guide-lines apply there.

Once these things are agreed upon, contributions should (hopefully)
start rolling in ;-)

/KhaaL

On 2009-04-27, Luke Benstead <kazade@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I just stumbled across the Ubuntu Gaming team via the news post over
> at Phoronix. The goals of the team are very similar to what I have
> been thinking about for some time. My name is Luke Benstead, I'm a
> co-maintainer of NeHe (the OpenGL tutorial website). Some friends and
> I have been considering what it is that is preventing an open source
> games "industry" from developing. I've come to the conclusion that
> there are several areas that need attention from a developer point of
> view.
>
> Firstly, the game-related APIs. Developing games on Windows (from
> scratch - not using a pre-developed engine) is much easier for several
> reasons. DirectX is key here. DirectX provides a consistent API for
> graphics, sound, input and networking. We have OSS equivalents
> (OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL) but they are scattered, it's not a "standard"
> toolkit. Devs mix and match with other libraries there is no "Game
> SDK". Also, the DX SDK provides functionality that is difficult to
> find in open source libraries, model loading (X files), 2D and 3D font
> output, D3DX math functions - again, there are libraries and code
> snippets lying around the OSS world, but you have to find them.
>
> Secondly, tutorials and documentation. Because DX is a combined
> package, there is a load of documentation for the package as a whole.
> Also game development tutorials can focus on the broad scope of the
> whole game, while there are OSS tutorials on OpenGL, OpenAL and SDL...
> again they are scattered everywhere.
>
> Finally, game resources. We need a central repository of 3D models,
> sounds, maps and textures. Think gnome-look.org for games. It's no
> good if you develop a cool game that looks like a train-wreck full of
> programmer art and sounds made by blowing down a PC mic. There are
> people all over the place that develop these kind of resources for fun
> (look at the modding community), there just needs to be a central
> location for people to upload to.
>
> Now, I've been thinking about this for AGES, and if it wasn't for my
> lack of time, there would already be such a central repository
> website. However, my friends and I have done *something* on the SDK
> front. On launchpad there is a project called "kazmath", it's a 3D
> math library, written in C in an OpenGL style, the aim is to fill the
> gap that the D3DX math libraries fill over on WIndows. At the moment
> the math library is completely unoptimized, (we are concentrating on
> making it work, before making it fast) and it is still under
> development. But it already has over 100 math related functions and
> I've been using it in my personal stuff for some time. Alongside
> kazmath, in the same bzr repo I've just added a folder called
> "kazmodel". My aim for this library is to fill the model loading gap
> which the DX SDK already caters for. I hope to support the Quake 3
> (MD3), Quake 2 (MD2), X and OBJ model formats. It's in very early
> development (only basic MD3 model loading and rendering in wireframe
> works). The final piece of the puzzle (which I haven't even started
> yet) is to provide a similar library which can render 2D and 3D fonts
> in OpenGL - probably called kaztext to keep with the naming ;)
>
> My eventual plan is to add a gamedev-sdk.deb meta package, which
> downloads and installs libsdl1.3-dev (when 1.3 is released),
> libopenal-dev, libgl1-mesa-dev, codeblocks (awesome IDE), libkazmath,
> libkazmodel and libkaztext. Creating a full cross-platform game SDK
> which is in a consistent style.
>
> Anyway, let me know what you guys think, feel free to checkout kazmath
> and submit patches (we are in desperate need of unit tests), I'll keep
> this list updated with news on the other libraries.
>
> Luke.
>
> P.S. Basic website here: http://www.kazade.co.uk/kazmath/
>
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-- 
Khalid Rashid
☎: +4676 575 2050



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