Game engine and open source, a target to aim for. What defines the game engine

[Omni-Tom]

Hi guys.
Planeshift as a game engine and as a game. It has a lot of possibilities.

 Though most work seems to be on the engine within the Planshift game I think that there are other options that may help the engine in general.

 First off there is the issue of licensing,, So from what I read so far the base engine is open source and the Planeshift stuff is not.

 I have been thinking about this for a while now and feel we might be able to do more open source stuff that could help with engine development.

 First off I was thinking of something a bit different lightly based on the Herd operating system, this uses the mach OS kernel and the hurd system acting as a layer of that OS. This got me thinking that it might be possible to something a bit different.
 Would it be possible to reorganize the game engine in a manner that can enhance the engine in general. Currently I am thinking of something where the base game engine could be like a kernel that does the base nitty gritty and have a game layer like hurd giving it function. So now we could have the base game engine kernel that does not change or rather stuff that will not change in general and a hurd like layer of things that may change. This layer which hopefully can also be open source it may be able to add new features to say a game someone wants to develop. This can include moduals such as combat systems such as aiming and damage or say character racial traits. Also I am hoping that having a layer for the game engine kernel can define programming game functions such as pre defined functions that can e used in game. This may allow for custom tweeking and game development possibly with a future module maker.

 This is sort of organization based in that you have the base game engine Kernel and the game layer hurd like system that can be tweeked and also have it so that interacts with other components to make a playable game. Modules can add even more functionality to the game engine. For example it may be possible to have a hurd like layer that adds say the open source D&D mechanics.

 So kind of  thinking of having bits and pieces coming together to make a gaming system. Also hoping that this can cause forking and merging where other developers can contribute to the game engine.

 Oh ya this would be so sweet for a original Unreal like game lol.

 Anyways what do you guys think of somthing like this.

[argtjs]

If that means having an activity as intense as the Hurd (close to zero), and releases as often as the Hurd (close to zero), maybe, the developers should stick with what they do now.
In any case, if the point is having more modularity, do not take it lightly, I worked on a project which was completely rewritten in order to gain more modularity, the results were good, the amount of work required were huge and painful.

[Lanarel]

I have no clue what Hurd is. It must be really great and fantastic and the answer to every problem PS has and will have in the next 5 years to come even close to compensate for the unimaginable amount of work it would take to rewrite the engine

[verden]

When MySQL runs on the HURD, then PS could also. Until then, you are talking about two completely different things. PS is not an OS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HURD

[Pizik]

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but what it sounds like is that you envision the PS Engine as being a "Game development package" (A term I may have made up ;op ) that offers a simple out of the box soloution to all your game engine needs. I don't believe the aim of the PS project has ever been anything beyond The Developers learning how to create a game, and game engine. To make a user-friendly package that allows anyone with a modicum of knowledge of games development to pick up the PS engine and create a game is a vast amount of work, beyond what has already done. As is suggested earlier it would likely require starting from scratch.

[Lanarel]

From that wiki page I get the idea it is not even cross platform .
As Pizik, I do not think that the idea of PS is to make an easy platform to make other games. It is changed all the time to include new features that are nice for PS. Learning how to create a game may not be the most important, but being able to build on probably is . At the same time the code is free for others to use, but making that easy is not the first concern

[argtjs]

To Lanarel:

The Hurd is the official OS of the GNU project (a sort of replacement for the linux OS, which is by GNU, but is a not a GNU project). It is a very ambitious project, with the slowest possible development you can imagine. It supports almost nothing (in terms of modern hardware), and takes a lot of time to install (it took me a week).
It has many interesting features due to its very unique structure, but it is very unlikely that it will be working before 10 years (lower bound).

 I don't really see the comparison of the Hurd, an experimental OS, with PS (apart from the fact that PS is not finished as well), a game (engine).

[Omni-Tom]

 To clarify,, The reference to hurd is just a example. I am not saying make something like hurd but rather a reference to the approach.

 So referring to a game base combined with a layer approach so the hard like guts will be like a game kernel or components that do not change by description. And the reference to a hurd like layer more like a added layer of things that can and may change. Also not thinking of anything pertaining to rewrite the game engine rather modifying. So any reference to hurd like is just a reference not the desired results.

 guess a simple example would be say having a combat system where the core has the core guts and may load a different module pertaining to what he is armed with say a different file for say a sword or a bow as the systems are a bit different where there may be the long attack range set with this module. Hopefully this might allow say for a firearm in a different aspect.

 But more importantly as this was based on the fact that Planeshift is about developing a game engine would be what can we do now with little work or disturbance to game engine development.

[Homik]

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but what it sounds like is that you envision the PS Engine as being a "Game development package" (A term I may have made up ;op ) that offers a simple out of the box soloution to all your game engine needs.

Isn't that essentially what CELstart is? correct me if i'm wrong, but PS uses Crystal Space as its engine, which provides CELstart as a simple way of making games. You still need to know coding, but i would imagine it'd be easier than just opening blank app in Visual Studio and starting from there.

[h34th]

I think he is saying that we could have the combat manager portion of the project broken out as an add on that could be switched out by adding or removing an item from the game directory. The way the project is right now, you could make a different version of the combat manager and use it when the project was compiled. If I was running Planeshift game engine on a test server, and I took the time to re-write the combat manager using D&D ruleset (which would involve a lot of transposition and making of things that are not there), then I could compile with that. But to make it a plugin would take extensive changes to the project the way it is. I am not part of the dev team, so I could be completely wrong, but that is my sincere impression.