News: Advanced Open Source Engine Based On Quake 3

[News Bot]

An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix is running a news story about the XreaL project, which its lead developer claims is the most advanced open-source game engine. XreaL is based upon the vintage Quake 3 engine, but it has been rewritten over the course of many months such that it no longer resembles the original id Software engine. The XreaL engine has its renderer written entirely in GLSL with compliance toward the OpenGL ES 2.0 specification in mind, but it supports the new OpenGL 3.0/3.1 specification and is able to take advantage of its new features. XreaL has also added an HDR pipeline to its engine and on modern hardware is actually GPU — not CPU — bottlenecked. XreaL can also load game content from Unreal Tournament 3. This engine, which is described to be as powerful as what can be found in Doom 3 or Call of Duty 4, is written entirely with free software. The XreaL project has created plug-ins for Maya to broaden their game development capabilities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Trux]

thx, will check out next week.. ^^

[rumsponge]

That's cool. Doom3 was certainly not awful. I could see plenty of new games being developed with this and then migrated to a different engine if need be.

[ACEwoK]

i really like seeing articles on big developments being made on open source. i personally think it allows for greater creativity on the whole and that can only make for more variety for the gaming public imo.

[rumsponge]

Much like what has been happening in the recording industry over the past 10 years.

[Angel of Death]

I'll have to check this out and add it to my OSS engine post.

Originally Posted by ACEwoK

i really like seeing articles on big developments being made on open source. i personally think it allows for greater creativity on the whole and that can only make for more variety for the gaming public imo.

Not only does it offer greater creativity, but it also offers greater security. Those passionate about their project are often more thorough than a corporate think tank and have a greater efficiency about fixing holes in the software, especially when it comes to gamers...nobody likes an aimbot.

[trivan]

Opensource will outgrow all Pay Programs in the end the community is HUGE.

[Trux]

Originally Posted by rumsponge

Much like what has been happening in the recording industry over the past 10 years.

let's hope you are wrong.. recording industries really fell into a fucking downward-spiral.. but that's just my opinion, and hey, it's easier for me to dominate the competition (recording industry), because all of a sudden high-quality productions became a niche-market that i nicely fit in, lol

anyway, i'm all for open-source, it opens the industry up to hobbyists, yet can be a pain n the ass for professional software-engineers, i heard..

[Trux]

Originally Posted by ACEwoK

i really like seeing articles on big developments being made on open source. i personally think it allows for greater creativity on the whole and that can only make for more variety for the gaming public imo.

i personally think that a basic, good working 3d-engine fits me better than one filled up with the latest technology. you have to be aware that the making of the artwork gets a huge effort to reap all these fancy features, and becomes quickly a black hole for resources..
also, generally, i think that restriction in technology endorses creativity. i know it first hand from recording.. i always prefer a analog desk over a DAW with zillions of features.. i don't get lost in possibilities, but stay focused on the core of my work..

this is just my personal opinion, maybe someone enjoys reading some counter-weight-philosophy ^^

[rumsponge]

Originally Posted by Trux

let's hope you are wrong.. recording industries really fell into a fucking downward-spiral.. but that's just my opinion, and hey, it's easier for me to dominate the competition (recording industry), because all of a sudden high-quality productions became a niche-market that i nicely fit in, lol

That wasn't exactly what I meant, but I do chuckle everytime I think about how this has effected the big recording companies.

My point was that it is easier now for individuals to produce professional quality products. For new bands and for consumers, it has been incredible. Yes, it has been problematic for the recording industry, but it was about time something dragged them out of the 1950's.

If the gaming industry becomes accessible for more people, I really think it will only serve to increase the variety and quality of products in the near future.