Open Source C++ ClanLib SDK Refreshed For 2015 47
New submitter rombust writes: Will ClanLib turn around the tides and finally challenge SDL? The latest 4.0 release already offers what Unity and the Unreal Engine charges 30% for, but now after 16 years of development, using only hobbyist developers, it will take on the giant of open source game SDKs! Dedication that's rarely found in the Open Source community without commercial backing.
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How else is rombust going to get people to use his library if not for lying about the alternatives? And, yeah, ClanLib can in no way replace Unity or Unreal Engine.
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How else is rombust going to get people to use his library if not for lying about the alternatives? And, yeah, ClanLib can in no way replace Unity or Unreal Engine.
It isn't my library. And yes, the topic isn't factually correct. Sorry
30 percent? (Score:5, Informative)
Where is this 30 percent figure coming from?
Unreal charges a 5% royalty. Unity charges a flat fee with no royalty.
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It's coming out of rombust's rectum.
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It's coming out of rombust's rectum.
Unfortunately you are correct. I really did not think this would be approved. In the past I've submitted various articles. None ever approved, so I thought I would try this. Yes it was immature, many apologies
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It's immense bullshit. Unity charges nothing, and Unreal charges 5%. Unity, with a $1500 pro license, makes sense if you're making more than $30,000 per seat per game on average: if you have 3 programmers and you're going to make more than $90,000 on your game, Unity is a better buy than Unreal. When Unreal charged 20%, this number was $7,500: any game more profitable than $7,500 would pay more in Unreal licensing than it would pay in Unity licensing.
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Unity, with a $1500 pro license, makes sense if you're making more than $30,000 per seat per game on average...
That price comparison is not quite apples-to-apples. The Unreal license includes the complete engine source, while the Unity license does not. Also, the Unity license costs extra for mobile platforms.
But in practice, the deciding factor between those two engines will usually be language support, not price. Unreal supports C++ and visual "blueprint" logic, while Unity supports C# and Javascript. For most developers, that decision will be a bigger factor than the price difference.
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Dice needs to "fire" Timothy.
Does anybody use this? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I know some researchers use it although many also use the Unreal engine (which is free under certain conditions).
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As far as I know no games have been written using ClanLib for over 10 years.
I develop ClanLib to tune my coding skills. Would I use ClanLib to create a game? Personally no. However I would use certain parts of it, and integrate them into different engines.
Hahahahaha. No. (Score:1)
The latest 4.0 release already offers what Unity and the Unreal Engine charges 30% for
In what alternate universe? Your little library isn't even remotely comparable to the tools and features of either the UDK or Unity.
Desktop only? Bzzzt. (Score:1)
You'll need robust iOS/Android support before you can dream of challenging SDL.
ClanLib Devs have never worked with a game engines (Score:5, Interesting)
Obviously, the rombust and the developers of ClanLib have never worked with a real game engine. It's already been noted that the claims in the summary are ridiculously ignorant (or outright shameful lies).
Let's examine the issue in details:
1. The Examples page [clanlib.org] for ClanLib seems like a joke. At the very least, this seems incredibly immature and unprofessional.
2. Not a single example of a real game written with ClanLib can be easily found. 16 years, and all they have to show for it is a feature in an old book on C++ game development.
3. No IDE... for game engines, the IDE is far more than a tool to write code - it's a way for a team of professionals to tie in their elements visually, in an organized way. It provides immediate feedback, which increases productivity.
4. ClanLib requires in-depth development before you see anything remotely operational in a game. Real game engines allow you almost immediate results, and even better, support scripting at a minimal level to create actual games (while allowing in-depth programming at the same time), because they already have a framework in place.
ClanLib has to deliver a LOT more than it currently does to be taken seriously. Unity, UDK, Corona, Adobe Air... all have options that allow developers to create games with no investment up front, and often no royalties at lower sales levels (and if you reach $100k sales, the fractional cost of the game engine is not really an issue). To be perfectly honest, I find it a bit insulting that this was presented on Slashdot the way it was. Slashdot-worthy? Questionable, but to tout it as a real competitor to Unity and UDK is downright wrong at every level.
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ClanLib also only supports Linux and Windows whereas SDL, Unity and Unreal support OS X, mobile OSes and, at least Unreal, HTML5 targeting.
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Unity has a web player, as well. It also supports C# scripts in all of those environments (Javascript being the other scripting language it can use).
The other thing I didn't mention is that ClanLib simply cannot be as robust as the major players - who absolutely have to respond to bug reports and have literally millions (billions?) of hours of real usage in complex games.
Oh... and let's not forget third party support. Tools and plug-ins provide smoother workflow management, whether it's a single developer o
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I think you're confusing your targets here. The summary is nonsense of course. Clanlib is obviously not a competitor to Unity or UE4. However, it's not really trying to compete with them. It's an alternative to SDL, which also is no sort of competitor to Unity or UE4. The fact that Clanlib is nothing like Unity or UE4 is not really something to criticise. This does not say anything about the developers, who are clearly aiming for something else. You should feel free to criticise the submitter, who clearly h
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However, it's not really trying to compete with them.
So then why does rombust, a developer of Clanlib, even mention them if that was't an implication?
This does not say anything about the developers, who are clearly aiming for something else. You should feel free to criticise the submitter, who clearly hasn't understood what Unity and UE4 are.
The submitter is one of the main developers.
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I didn't know that. Criticism is perfectly justified in that case..
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However, it's not really trying to compete with them.
So then why does rombust, a developer of Clanlib, even mention them if that was't an implication?
This does not say anything about the developers, who are clearly aiming for something else. You should feel free to criticise the submitter, who clearly hasn't understood what Unity and UE4 are.
The submitter is one of the main developers.
Again, I apologise for wasting your time. You are correct for criticising
Unity and UE4 are excellent.
ClanLib doesn't have main developers. It only has developers that want to code certain aspects because it interests them.
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1. The Examples page [clanlib.org] for ClanLib seems like a joke. At the very least, this seems incredibly immature and unprofessional.
It was a joke. In the old days ClanLib had a large website that showed off what ClanLib could do. Yes, it can actually do some amazing things. But useful? That's another question...
ClanLib has potential. But without 100's of developers, it will not make it big time.
Note, I did not create ClanLib. But I worked with it for ten years.
We found that a large website took too much time to maintain. Nobody was interested. I don't blame them. Maintaining web pages is not much fun for hobbyist programmers.
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Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm sure you are a bit crispy after being exposed to the Slashdot crowd in full force ;)
ClanLib would have been awesome 20 years ago, when I was playing around with some game ideas, and I kind of wish I had known about it when I was writing Xbox homebrew (MXM, X-Marbles). These days, the library is kind of secondary to the tools and frameworks for building games, and more often than not, decent games require a team to build.
That said, ClanLib might not be a bad base if a
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It was a joke
No, it wasn't. You could more correctly state, "It was meant as a joke". That would be a valid statement.
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Wow that examples page is quite....something.
Actually, you can add Godot [godotengine.org] to that list, while it's still a bit undercooked it's actually fairly viable to make a working game, includes editing tools and has better examples than this. And the source can be modified for free.
Not the optimal choice, but for someone who can't afford (or doesn't want to pirate) Unity or Unreal, it's a fairly valid option.
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It's because the summary was written by the ClanLib developer who is trying to shill his product.
Quick Answer (Score:3)
Will ClanLib turn around the tides and finally challenge SDL?
No.
Way Way off (Score:1)
https://www.unrealengine.com/showcase
vs
http://www.clanlib.org/examples.html
Yeah...
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But...but...they were mentioned in an 8-year-old book on C++ game programming. Unity and Unreal better be quaking in their boots!
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and there isnt exactly lack of gaming related engines... this page has plenty of them: http://www.slant.co/topics/149... [slant.co]
Alternatives (Score:2)
It raises a question in my mind: If Clanlib had been out for that long in 2007, providing a C++ game programming library and being well-known enough to be included in at least one book, then why was there a percei
16 years? (Score:1)
They spent 16 years on that? Wow. Sounds like outdated tech.
Game Developer Here (Score:2)
I developed a complete game using ClanLib, 14 years ago. ClanLib was a nice library (just a library, nothing remotely similar to Unity), but then I had to switch to SDL because they kept changing the API and data structures. It also had serious performance problems, until they decided to switch to SDL and OpenGL as graphical backends.
So I was like... "Should I write an abstraction over ClanLib to save my game from their changes... using a library that is *itself* an abstraction over SDL... or should I just
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Yeah I had similar issues back then. I think part of the problem is that it wasn't developed for any game in particular so it ends up being a way for the devs to vent their "artistic" streak so to say.
Apology for this submission. (Score:1)
I shouldn't have posted this article, looking at it, it was very childish. I really didn't expect it to be accepted, I was just personally interested to see how long it would be until it was rejected. What a surprise it was when it was accepted...
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Well, it's a nice try, but the claims are outrageous. As far as libraries go SDL and SFML are already very competent and easy to use. As far as pre-cooked engines this has nothing on Unity, Unreal or Godot, which allow seeing results real quick. Given how the market has pretty much moved to premade engines, and from-scratch engines have SDL/SFML/GL and whatnot readily available, and for quick prototypes or fooling around there's stuff like LÃve, which using Lua is extremely easy to get moving.
While mor