List of free Libraries

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 8:05 am

Here is a list of libraries that I will update when I get the time to. (If any of you want to add something to the list you can by writing it in the post)

Video codec

These libraries are for decoding (or compressing) and displaying real-time video, useful for cut scenes and anything similar.

Dirac MPL
FFmpeg LGPL or GPL
Lagarith ?
Theora ‘BSD-like’?
XviD GPL
x264 GPL
VP8 BSD

Audio codec

Ogg Vorbis 'BSD-like'?
MO3 ?

Sound

These libraries facilitate the loading and playing of sound and music files within your game.

Audiere LGPL
BASS [1]
FMOD ?
Hekkus Sound System (For WinCE/Win32/Symbian and .NET.) Credit or donation required
IrrKlang ‘Free For non-commercial’ <-----Just in case you didn't know
libMikMod LGPL
libsndfile LGPL
OpenAL (?)
OpenAL-Soft LGPL
PortAudio essentially free
SDL_mixer (requires SDL) LGPL
SDL_sound (requires SDL) LGPL

Scripting Languages

An in-game scripting language that can speed up development and allow non-programmers to help out with game behaviour.

AngelScript ZLIB
BOO (Reqs .NET/CLI) MIT/BSD style
ChaiScript BSD
EosScript LGPL
GameMonkey MIT
GS9 Free
Guile 'Modified GPL'
IO BSD
Javascript ?
Lua MIT
Perl Artistic
Tcl Free
Python Free
Ruby Ruby license
Small ZLIB
Squirrel MIT

Artificial Intelligence

These libraries are used to create or control Ai, that is controlled by the computer and not the user.

FEAR GPL <---------Dead?
MicroPather ZLIB
OpenSteer MIT
PathLib ? <-----------Dead?

Physics

Box2D ZLIB
Bullet ZLIB
Chipmunk MIT
Flatland BSD
Havok Free to use for games that sell for less than $10, but if over the amount, a license is needed (Please Check)
Newton Game Dynamics ?
Open Dynamics Engine (ODE) BSD
PhysX Free?
Tokamak BSD
True Axis [1]

Physics Related Tools
APEX Free? <------Must be registered to use PhysX before you can get this

Debugging, memory checks, general purpose, etc

These libraries are not truly game-specific but they can aid development by improving the robustness of your code.

Boost (C++ smart pointers, parsers, random numbers, quaternions, and more) Boost license
ElectricFence GPL
Fluid Studios Logger Free <--------Don't know where to find it?
Hans Boehm garbage collector for C++ Free
The Image Debugger (Win32 image output) Free
IProf(‘A portable industrial-strength interactive profiler for C++ and C.’) Public domain
LeakTracer Public domain
MMGR (memory manager/checker) free <--------Not sure if this is the site?
OIS (Object-oriented Input System) ZLIB <----------Dead???
TinyCurses (portable text-based output library) LGPL <----------Dead???
Valgrind (Linux debugging and profiling tool) GPL

[1] Free for noncommercial usage. Commercial usage will have to be negotiated with the author. Authors may have commercial licences available for purchase.

Dareltibus · Post by **Dareltibus** » Sun May 01, 2011 4:00 pm

very good collection

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:25 am

Don't forget that nVidia APEX is out, at least the cloth and destruction systems.

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:27 am

3DModelerMan wrote:Don't forget that nVidia APEX is out, at least the cloth and destruction systems.

But there not free to use, you have to buy a license (I think?)

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:40 am

LizardGamer wrote:
3DModelerMan wrote:Don't forget that nVidia APEX is out, at least the cloth and destruction systems.
But there not free to use, you have to buy a license (I think?)

Sorry, just checked and if you are a licensed PhysX developer (like me) than you can get the APEX as well for free

ChaiRuiPeng · Post by **ChaiRuiPeng** » Mon May 02, 2011 12:44 am

LizardGamer wrote:
LizardGamer wrote:
3DModelerMan wrote:Don't forget that nVidia APEX is out, at least the cloth and destruction systems.
But there not free to use, you have to buy a license (I think?)
Sorry, just checked and if you are a licensed PhysX developer (like me) than you can get the APEX as well for free

hey i checked out their site, is it rare to get accepted as one? do you need to show like portfolio or something?

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Mon May 02, 2011 1:10 am

hey i checked out their site, is it rare to get accepted as one? do you need to show like portfolio or something?

I'm not to sure if it is rare or not, but basically you just give info on what your name is and why you want to use PhysX in your project etc.

zester · Post by **zester** » Mon May 02, 2011 7:57 pm

Tools that I use.

Code Editor:
Qt Creator is a cross-platform C++ integrated development environment which is part of
the Qt SDK[2]. It includes a visual debugger and an integrated GUI layout and forms
designer. The editor's features includes syntax highlighting and autocompletion, but not
tabs. Qt Creator uses the C++ compiler from the GNU Compiler Collection on Linux and
FreeBSD. On Windows it can use MinGW or MSVC with the default install and can also
use cdb when compiled from source.
http://qt.nokia.com/products/developer-tools/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

3D Modeling:
Blender is a free, open source 3D graphics application that can be used for modeling,
UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water and smoke simulations, skinning, animating,
rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating
interactive 3D applications, including video games, animated film, or visual effects.
http://www.blender.org/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Video Editing:
Kdenlive (KDE Non-Linear Video Editor) (pronounced /ˌkeɪdɛnˈlaɪv/)[2][3] is a non-linear
video editor based on the MLT Framework that focuses on flexibility and ease of use.
http://www.kdenlive.org/ (Linux, Mac)

3D Humanoids.
MakeHuman is an Open Source software application that generates 3D humanoids.
Features that make this software unique include a new, highly intuitive GUI and a high
quality mesh, optimized to work in subdivision surface mode (for example, Zbrush).
http://www.makehuman.org/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Image Editing:
GIMP (short for the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free software raster graphics
editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool.
http://www.gimp.org/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Raw Image Management:
Darktable is a virtual light table and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital
negatives in a database and lets you view them through a zoomable light table. It also
enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.
http://darktable.sourceforge.net/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Digital Painting:
MyPaint is a free software graphics application for digital painters.
http://mypaint.intilinux.com/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

2D Vector Graphics Editor:
An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw,
or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending,
etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit
nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to
maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented
development.
http://inkscape.org/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Audio Production Studio:
Linux MultiMedia Studio or LMMS, is a free software digital audio workstation. Music can
be produced by synthesizing sounds, arranging samples, and playing on a MIDI
keyboard by combining the features of trackers, sequencers and synthesizers. It
supports LADSPA and VST plugins.
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/ (Linux, Mac?, Windows)

Audio Editing:
Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording
application. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Media Pre-Production:
Celtx is free media pre-production software designed for creating and organizing media
projects like screenplays, films, videos, stageplays, audio plays, documentaries,
machinima, comics, games and podcasts.
http://www.celtx.com/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)3D Physics Library:

Library's that I use.

Application Development Framework:
Qt is a cross-platform application and UI framework. It includes a cross-platform class
library, integrated development tools and a cross-platform IDE. Using Qt, you can write
web-enabled applications once and deploy them across many desktop and embedded
operating systems without rewriting the source code.
http://qt.nokia.com/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

2D Graphics, Audio, Network, Input Engine:
Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML) is an object-oriented, cross-platform,
free and open source software multimedia API written in C++ by Laurent Gomila. It is
intended as a more modern alternative to SDL with a greater emphasis on OOP.
http://www.sfml-dev.org/ (Linux, Mac?, Windows)

Image Processing Library:
Magick++ is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images.
It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (over 100) including
DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and
TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and transform
images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons,
ellipses and Bézier curves.
http://www.imagemagick.org/Magick++/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

3D Graphics Engine:
The Irrlicht Engine is a cross-platform high performance realtime 3D engine written in
C++. It features a powerful high level API for creating complete 3D and 2D application
such as games or scientific visualizations. It comes with excellent documentation and
integrates all state-of-the-art features for visual representation such as dynamic
shadows, particle systems, character animation, indoor and outdoor technology, and
collision detection. All this is accessible through a well designed C++ interface, which is
easy to use.
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

3D Web Browser Engine:
Berkelium is a library that provides off-screen browser rendering via Google’s open
source Chromium and takes advantage of Chromium’s multi-process rendering engine,
allowing us to safely isolate browser instances.
http://github.com/sirikata/berkelium (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Audio Synthesis:
NSound is a C++ framework for audio synthesis. It aims to be as powerful as Csound
but with the programming features of C++. Nsound tries to make the process of
generating complex and interesting sound as easy for the programmer as possible.
http://nsound.sourceforge.net/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

2D Physics Library:
Box2D is a 2D rigid body simulation library for games.
http://www.box2d.org/index.html (Linux, Mac, Windows)

3D Physics Library:
Bullet is an open source software multi-threaded 3D collision detection, soft body
and rigid body dynamics library (physics engine) for games and visual effects in film.
http://bulletphysics.org (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Computer Vision:
OpenCV is a computer vision library originally developed by Intel. It is free for use
under the open source BSD license. The library is cross-platform. It focuses mainly on
real-time image processing. If the library finds Intel's Integrated Performance Primitives
on the system, it will use these commercial optimized routines to accelerate itself.
http://opencv.willowgarage.com/wiki/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Particle Engine:
SPARK is an opensource particle engine on CPU side written in C++. It was designed to
be portable, configurable, evolving, and simple to use. Domains of applications of the
library are mainly the rendering of 2D and 3D effect based on particles but it can also be
used for slight simulation of numerous physical entities.
http://spark.developpez.com/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Scripting:
Lua is a powerful, fast, lightweight, embeddable scripting language.

Lua combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs
based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, runs
by interpreting bytecode for a register-based virtual machine, and has automatic
memory management with incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for
configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.
http://www.lua.org/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

Encryption:
Qt Cryptographic Architecture
QCA aims to provide a straightforward and cross-platform cryptographic API, using Qt
datatypes and conventions. QCA separates the API from the implementation, using
plugins known as Providers. The advantage of this model is to allow applications to
avoid linking to or explicitly depending on any particular cryptographic library. This
allows one to easily change or upgrade Provider implementations without even needing
to recompile the application!
http://delta.affinix.com/qca/ (Linux, Mac, Windows)

serengeor · Post by **serengeor** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:22 pm

@zester: Nice! Some new linux tools for me to try out when I'll install new ubuntu(11.04)

zester · Post by **zester** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:39 pm

Sorry

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Mon May 02, 2011 9:47 pm

Please keep FAQ threads clean of OT posting!

LizardGamer · Post by **LizardGamer** » Tue May 03, 2011 7:36 am

hybrid wrote:Please keep FAQ threads clean of OT posting!

What is OT posting?

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue May 03, 2011 8:35 am

OT means off-topic. zester started a discussion about gaming apps, while this thread is meant to list useful libraries and tools.

3DModelerMan · Post by **3DModelerMan** » Tue May 03, 2011 3:23 pm

Something that needs to go in sound is cAudio. It's the best free sound library I've come across yet.

randomMesh · Post by **randomMesh** » Tue May 03, 2011 3:34 pm

3DModelerMan wrote:Something that needs to go in sound is cAudio. It's the best free sound library I've come across yet.

Do you mean cAudio by wildrj? It's not a library, it's a wrapper around OpenAL.

Irrlicht Engine

List of free Libraries

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List of free Libraries

Here is what I use.