[Help wanted] artec:: & Project Atropine

[lukrop]

Hi,

my project idea evolved to a big idea and so I deceided to post here (as well as I deceided to post on the german forum -> http://www.irrlicht3d.de/forum2/viewtop ... f=15&t=526).
We are searching for developers because I think this project needs to grow and it can evolve to a big community(project).

The engine: the artec::engine should be a open source game engine wich provides everything needed to develop a FPS (including sound, phyiscs, object-factoring, etc.). It should provide a solid base for hobby developers(-teams).

The game : Project Atropine is a horror FPS which brings the player into a ghost town where he has to survive. His enemys are not only crazy/aggressive citiziens but also his own team, which betrayed him.

More information about the game and the engine is available in the Design Document.

We're searching for diffrent kind of help e.g. coding, modelling, sound etc. (see Jobs for more details)

Please feel free to contact me (jabber or mail, see contact on the project site) if you are interessted in helping out and maybe we can win you as core-developer.

There's already a codebase which implements all basic features but it still needs to be improved. Please see Download for getting the code or browse the Doxygen API documentation

Of course the engine and the game are opensource, so the "job" will be not paid.

Well to my person:
skills: C++, blender - animate/skinning, GIMP

Project site: http://artec.sourceforge.net

A concpet art picture showing the first expression the player gets of the city:


and a screenshot of the first weapon (untextured Aug A3) on the well-known quake-test-map:


Tools which are used for development are listed here.

thanks in advance
lukas aka lukrop

[rogerborg]

Hey, that's pretty well realised. It's nice to see an actual design and game outline for a change.

Unfortunately, I don't contribute to virally licensed projects, but I wish you good luck with it.

[lukrop]

Hey, that's pretty well realised. It's nice to see an actual design and game outline for a change.

Unfortunately, I don't contribute to virally licensed projects, but I wish you good luck with it.

thank you, but what's the problem with the licensing? Basically I want to have everything released under the GNU GPL so everything should be opensource. I'm having troubles with the licenses of the helper libraries e.g. Newton so I think we/i'll have to use ODE and FMOD should be replaced with OpenAL. I'm confused with all this license stuff...

[FlyingIsFun1217]

I can't wait to see where this goes.

Don't let it die!

FlyingIsFun1217

[Nadro]

If this game is non-commersial You can use FMOD, or irrKlang, but if this is commercial project You have to use free audio library eg. OpenAL or You will buy license for FMOD or irrKlang. You can use Newton also for commercial project

[lukrop]

If this game is non-commersial You can use FMOD, or irrKlang, but if this is commercial project You have to use free audio library eg. OpenAL or You will buy license for FMOD or irrKlang. You can use Newton also for commercial project

ty I know, this is and will ever be a non-commercial project, but i want to use only open source libraries, well I like newton more than ODE and I have expirence with it. Also I heard that fmod is better than OpenAL but both (newton and fmod) are closed source distributions.

[rogerborg]

One of the reasons why I won't touch viral licenses is the mental gymnastics that you have to go through.

For starters, GPL is both an "open source" and "free" (in the FSF's definition of that term) license. Irrlicht's zlib-style license is "open source", but not (by the FSF's definition) "free". Perversely, in my view, that makes Irrlicht more "free" - in the common English language meaning of the term - than a GPL or LGPL alternative.

In this case, if you mix Irrlicht and GPL code, then you are obliged (by the GPL license) to re-license Irrlicht under the GPL. Now, the zlib-style license used by Irrilcht appears to be liberal enough to allow that. However, it's largely pointless, as what you can't do is to remove the zlib license, so you end up with dual licensed code in which the zlib license (being more liberal) effectively trumps the GPL and makes it pointless.

It gets even weirder when consider pulling in ODE, which is licensed under either the LGPL - which is not sufficient to satisfy the GPL's viral requirement, and which cannot be 'upgraded' to a GPL license - or BSD, which again may be compatible with dual licensing with GPL, but which then requires you to have two (count them, two) similar but very slightly different disclaimers of warranty, and which obviates the GPL by being more liberal.

Working through licensing issues is one of the more interesting but least rewarding parts of my day job, and sweating it in a hobbyist project doesn't seem like me to be a barrel of fun. One of the main reasons that I'm sticking with Irrlicht is that the zlib style license is simple, clear and ilberal, which is almost, but not quite, exactly unlike the GPL.

[lukrop]

One of the reasons why I won't touch viral licenses is the mental gymnastics that you have to go through.

In this case, if you mix Irrlicht and GPL code, then you are obliged (by the GPL license) to re-license Irrlicht under the GPL. Now, the zlib-style license used by Irrilcht appears to be liberal enough to allow that. However, it's largely pointless, as what you can't do is to remove the zlib license, so you end up with dual licensed code in which the zlib license (being more liberal) effectively trumps the GPL and makes it pointless.

It gets even weirder when consider pulling in ODE, which is licensed under either the LGPL - which is not sufficient to satisfy the GPL's viral requirement, and which cannot be 'upgraded' to a GPL license - or BSD, which again may be compatible with dual licensing with GPL, but which then requires you to have two (count them, two) similar but very slightly different disclaimers of warranty, and which obviates the GPL by being more liberal.

Working through licensing issues is one of the more interesting but least rewarding parts of my day job, and sweating it in a hobbyist project doesn't seem like me to be a barrel of fun. One of the main reasons that I'm sticking with Irrlicht is that the zlib style license is simple, clear and ilberal, which is almost, but not quite, exactly unlike the GPL.

so you would recommend to use zlib license? is it possible to use newton and fmod with the zlib license? I'm really confused, maybe because i only understand 60% of your post (because of my bad english). I'm really happy for every hint because 1. I don't want to get troubles because of licensing 2. I don't want to loose developers because of licensing.

[lukrop]

so here's a small update:

I've managed to get network and physics working.

Here you can see two screenshots, the first is showing the new menu design and the second shows some sphere's in motion, managed via Bullet as physics library and RakNet for network.

I'm still searchin for help, currently I'm searching for a solution how to implement the character controller with bullet.