ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[Matt Raykowski <matt.raykowski@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think I tend to agree with Przemek on this. But again there are pieces
that fill this puzzle. One of my core gripes when I got into open source
game development was the lack of a cohesive system. DirectX encompasses
everything - 2D, 3D, sound, etc. In open-source you have to cobble together
a bunch of low-level libraries which leads to engine development and not
game development.

But there are also good, solid engines like NeL, OGRE, Irrlicht,
CrystalSpace and Nebula Device which do the hard work of abstracting the
low-level work into higher level APIs. I think it is advantageous that
projects start looking at engines rather than reinventing the wheel (NIH
Syndrome affects far too many FOSS projects.) It's great that these lowlevel
libraries are out there for people who genuinely want the challenge of
writing an engine - however as a game developer I'd rather be focusing on
that.

In addition to that these low-level frameworks provide no inherent content
pipeline. You're on your own to either write one (aka a plugin to a modeler
that writes to your own format) or put together a mismash of model formats
(e.g. Cal3D, lib3ds.) I guess this is why I suggest that would-be engine
developers embrace an engine and update and extend it.

If we fall down the path of "lets create a DirectX for Linux" your version
won't be good enough for me. So I'll start my own which won't meet someone
else's specific needs. Then you have a higher-level version of the SDK hell
that we experience with low-level libraries (see also "Welcome To Jungle".)

I see this a lot in FOSS projects. For example there are a number of
GPL-compatible scripting engines out there. You can embed Python, there's
Lua, AngelScript and some people have even embedded Ruby. There's also
SpiderMonkey. But when you say to yourself, "self, SpiderMonkey has this one
annoying quirk. Self, we should write our own scripting engine and language
that meets out specific needs." You end up writing a scripting engine and
all development ceases on the rest of your game. Not coincidentally the
server in this anecdote is no longer developed.

I see this same thing occur at an engine level. Someone comes to the NeL
projects and attempts to use it, starts to get a grasp on it and then comes
back and says "your shader framework sucks" and they decide to go write
their own alternative to NeL - not look into one of its competitors, but
write their own engine. Not surprisingly none of these projects have
succeeded, this is not a trivial task.

Maybe I've gone over the edge into "rant" territory but I don't understand
the incessant need for projects to reinvent the wheel. I don't understand
how people come to the conclusion that helping fix the deficiencies in an
existing project is somehow more work than starting from scratch. Isn't this
the whole mantra, modus operandi and goal of open-source? Collaborating on
projects to better them rather than striking out on our own?

Here's some links. I'll be done for now.

NeL
http://dev.ryzom.com/projects/nel

OGRE 3D
http://www.ogre3d.org/

Crystal Space:
http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Main_Page

Irrlicht
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/

Welcome To The Jungle
http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2007/05/welcome_to_the_jungle.html

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:17 AM, Przemek Kulczycki <
przemekkulczycki@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 5/12/09, Arc Riley <arcriley@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 5:43 PM, J Sloan <joe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> Don't we already have something like that? SDL, anybody?
> >>
> >
> > some low level window/input frameworks used in free software games:
> >
> > GLX (roughly equiv to WGL)
> > freeGLUT (free replacement for GL Utility Toolkit)
> > FLTK (C++ user interface toolkit for X and OpenGL)
> > SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer)
> > GDK (GTK's window/input layer - small, efficient, and cross-platform)
> > GTKGLArea (GTK extension to include a GL drawing area inside a GTK
> window)
>
> Last time I checked SDL was nowhere as complete as DirectX. Correct me
> if I'm wrong.
> Game developers don't want to track 600 different frameworks for
> creating games for Linux. (OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, ...). Linux must have
> a unified gaming platform, otherwise it will never be a viable choice
> for gaming developers.
>
> Also I'd like you to read the following essay:
> Playing the Open Source Game
> By Shawn Hargreaves, July 1999
> http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/games.html
> --
> ## Przemysław Kulczycki >><< Azrael Nightwalker ##
> # jabber: azrael[na]jabster.pl | tlen: azrael29a #
> ### www: http://reksio.ftj.agh.edu.pl/~azrael/<http://reksio.ftj.agh.edu.pl/%7Eazrael/>###
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming<https://launchpad.net/%7Eubuntu-gaming>
> Post to     : ubuntu-gaming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming<https://launchpad.net/%7Eubuntu-gaming>
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>



-- 
Matt Raykowski
/s