Parts of the Unreal Engine to be Opened

Mr.Pantz writes "Epic's GreenMarine updated his .plans with some news on Linux support (and such) and UT. Here's the goods: I have permission from Tim to open source certain parts of the engine for the purposes of improving Linux support. What I would like to do is make available the code I have written for Glide, Mesa, input, and audio. I would appreciate Linux programmers taking the time to submit improvements to me at [e-mail]. I will look into putting up a webpage for this and perhaps a discussion forum. Please email me your input or ideas. I'm leaving to go home for Thanksgiving tomorrow, so I may not be able to start on this until I get back on Friday. Right now I'm working on the Mesa renderer, because I would like to release that soon, if possible. The code that I open source will not allow you to really dig very deep into the engine, but it will let you do a lot of stuff to the renderer and X windows interface. Since my time is split between non-Linux related projects, the Linux port could no doubt be improved if it gets some attention from experienced Linux programmers. "

This is great

[segmond]

This is great, I hope the greatness of it doesn't end in slashdot tho. Hopefully people will be able to make time and contribute a few lines of code. The worst thing that can happen to an open source project is when people take the pain to open up, and no one contributes nothing. HOpe this will not be the case.

Barking up the wrong tree?

[Dast]

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad they have decided to do this--but my question is this: are serious gamers also great coders?

Because from my experience, gaming doesn't mix well with coding. One of the two won't get done. ;)

Could be that I'm totaly off base, however. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

That's nice but

[schporto]

Yeah its great that its gonna be open. Except it looks kinda like they're just looking for help. The comment about the open code won't allow you to dig deep into the engine, we just want a better interface kinda sounds wrong. I mean really having games run better on linux is great. Having an GPL/BSD/xPL game engine would be even better. But these are just my thoughts.
-cpd

Re:That's nice but

[Psiren]

You have to remember, this is a comercial company trying to make money. Sure, you can make money from GPL'd software, but its not as easy. Open source is never going to take over everywhere, least of all games, where there is so much money to be made.

It's a good start

[jd]

It's easy to be cynical, and say "hey, they just want a better interface for Linux", but think of it this way. If the Open Source code produced is of exceptional quality, and doesn't hurt the commercial value of Unreal, then they might be tempted to take another step, and release part (or all) of the engine.

If a baby is taking it's first steps, you don't scream at them for not winning marathons, but you might offer encouragement for what they can do. The same is true here.

Its a fun tree to bark.

[GoofyBoy]

I think that programming games would be great modivation for good programming. Play it for a few hours then fix or improve what you don't like. Repeat. Add functionality when you get bored.

e.g. Angband/Moria/Nethack.
e.g. Mods/Add-ons for Quake2.

That's all I see programming as, one big game waiting to be won.

Looks like a good model for doing things...

[Midnight Ryder]

One person already commented that this was just a way for them to ask for help. So? This looks like the perfect way to do it! This isn't turning Unreal Tournament into an Open Source style project, but instead, allows the people who enjoy the game the most to make sure it runs perfectly smooth on thier hardware. Granted - there's only a small part of the system that's GPL'd. For those people who will eventually whine that the whole thing should be GPL'd - it's more open than you think alread if you haven't checked out the game closely. Most objects within the game are scripted, and allow very easy access to most objects. It's not designed to be replaced, of course, but allows for people to extend the game further using Unreal script. But over all - this looks like a great way for game companies to do things! Why? Well, the get the benefit of everyone who wants to see the game become more than it was at release time doing some tweaking on it. Just enough of it isn't open to prying eyes so that you can't just copy what they have, slap a new lable on it, and call it thiers. They can still make money, which means they can afford to bring us another great game later. Internally, all the scripting is open to editing that people who want to can add new stuff. To me, it sounds like a very winwin relationship, and profitable at that! For those who wonder if gamers can code - yep. Not saying all of them are great, but, there's already been some seriously kick butt 'Mutators' (small script extensions to the game) written for UT even before it hit the shelves thanks to the gamers who were fans of Unreal!) For those who haven't checked it out, go hit http://www.PlanetUnreal.com/Mutation and check out the 'Giants!' and 'FatBoy' mutators that were written by fans of the game!

Re:No more anonymous posts?

[jsm2]

And possilbly an .smear file where we can put words we don't want appearing on our screen. [I check from work and would love to be able to replace obsenity with the traditional @$#!.]

This would be a good idea -- I, on the other hand would like a file that replaced "***" with "uck".

jsm

Re:It's a good start

[kijiki]

They plan to license the engine to other game compnaies. They simply will not open source it, because then their potential liscensees would simply download the source, develop their own game, and then release their own open sourced game with copyrighted graphics/story/etc. And Epic loses out on that revenue.

Re:Barking up the wrong tree?

[BitS]

I'm more of a programmer then gamer, I'll definatly be taking a look at the source as it comes out.

I'm not much of an Unreal fan, not much for 3d shooters anymore for that matter, iD has provided my eyes with more shades of brown then I ever care to see again. However, the chance for me to dig into some serious graphics code looks like fun. And the fact that I can write some code, then play the game and see a direct result of that code, perhaps not good results, but results none the less :) That will keep me interested, and I'm sure there are plenty of hardcore programmers out there who think the same way, and will be glad to get some source out there with thier name on it.

Count me in.

Re:WOW

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't aware the Q3 full release was available. Wait until both are on the shelves before judging - thanks.

Eh?

[Squeamish Ossifrage]

This seems to fall in the gray area around the borders of free software.

It is distictly a good thing: They are giving the users (us) the ability to modify the source code and help the product serve our needs/wants better.

But it's not a great thing. A basic principle of fairness involving free software is that of symetry. (See HTN by ESR) That is to say, all developers are equal partners. Under the GPL, the y can use my code to improve their product, but I can also use their code to improve mine.

As far as I can tell, Epic isn't going to directly impose an unfair license, but is getting much the same effect circuitously: By only open-sourcing certain parts of their software, they don't allow other developers the benefit of their most usefull code, or give working code for a complete program.
Now, they're still giving out good code, and they're still allowing us to customize it, so Epic's move is definitely a Good Thing, and a step in the right direction. But it's also something of a tease, and we ought to encourage them to seek a fuller and more equal partnership with the open-source community.

Re:There are more important things than looks.

[Aos]

UT is still more fun that Q3. Unless retail Q3 is drastically different than demos, UT stands out as more fun game (faster, more furious, cooler and more diverse weapons, great levels) than Q3. ID's network code is probably better but I wouldn't play any game if the ping is >100ms... There are better things to do then getting frustrated because you're getting toasted and can't do a thing about it.
And I can tell you that dedicated server maintenance on my dual linux box is much nicer with Unreal Tournament. I can check up on things from work if I want/need to.
There's nothing wrong with Q3, UT just looks and plays more polished. But, those bot lines is Q3 are just great: "What kind of shot was that, you stinking frag farmer?!". It blows away UT's "You suck!".

oldy but a goody

[johnjones]

Um first of all

THANK YOU epic for provideing linux with more games
(even if only because the other company did so)

BIG shout to all hackers being paid to do this respect


Now what can we give ?
simple realy go buy the game publishers see one thing the tally.
if the money to create it happens to be more than the money (revenue) that was gained they are not going to do it again !!

BUY UT it is a very good game


what can they give us ?
well the engine was @ the forefront but it still uses SPRIT's and just uses the ol turn them to face the view trick to graphically 'I' dont like the engine thats not to say it has very good points I just hate it for that

BUT it DOES do SOUND well !! V. Good sound now if they got hafe of what was working under WIN32 under linux that would be Great

I am intrested to see how they hacked this and how they pipe sound out what interfaces they use this is one thing DirectX has over OpenGL and Mesa is that Dinput and sound has one API I am not aware of a standard way of doing it under *n*x

anyway

cheers

john



a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)

UT is much better than Q3

[Juln]

After 2 years of quake, and the crime against nature that was Q2, I am really disappointed that Id couldn't create anything inte4resting about the gameplay of Q3. Also, it everything is so large and cartoony, I just can't stand Q3, especially compard to UT. I think Id needs to try putting out something original... If they make aquake 4 that is still all about rockets, red armor, quad and railguns , I am going to go insane with disgust. Curved surfaces... um, wow, thats great. i think it's more like Quake 1.5. But besides comparisons with Quake 3, I really enjoy Unreal Tournament. I wish them the best.

Re:Barking up the wrong tree?

[Midnight Thunder]

I am playing Unreal on a Mac, and shades of brown is one thing that is clearly absent. Unreal is a game with a great engine and many colours.

Now all I need to do is buy a 3D accelerator to improve it even more - software rendering is definite memory hugger!

if (OSS!=GPL) fputs("minor nitpick\n",stderr);

[kipling]

In other words, don't assume everything open source is GPL. Also, don't assume that any program's scriptability makes it open - on that basis the MS office apps are open. Yeah sure scriptability is cool, but it makes the program more flexible, not open.

But, if folk who grok glide, mesa, et al feel it is worthwhile hacking about with it, fine. Others may be wary of being exploited and run a mile - this is also fine.

Re:That's nice but

[Haven]

What they could have done is opensource the entire engine under some restrictive license, and keep the .wad (I'm an old school doomer) or whatever they are called now under strict protection.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone posted: "I dunno... I smell, perhaps, a job at Epic in the future if some outstanding code is donated for some young programmer."

Actually, four out of five programmers here were recruited based on cool stuff they had developed and released freely on the net:

Erik de Neve for his algorithmic fire effects, Steve Polge for his ReaperBot mod for Quake, Brandon Reinhart based on his UnrealScript tutorial and Unreal mod, and Jack Porter because of the object-oriented GUI framework he created in UnrealScript.

Someone else was asking about the GPL. We are not GPL'ing the Unreal engine, though we've opened up a lot of the source and might be releasing more in 2000. Our strategy here is to encourage users to do cool things with the engine freely, but when somebody profits from our work, they need to do a licensing deal with us and give us a cut of the action.

A bunch of cool free stuff is happening with the Unreal engine now. For example, check out http://www.vrndproject.com/vrndfr.htm.

-Tim Sweeney, Epic Games

Uhhh wtf

[CmdData]

Uhh yeah, you get to redistribute the changes back to the guy you got it from. And, because of that, your second question is answered. If he likes your code then everyone will see the improvements in the form of a good product. What do I think about a company that makes money off of volunteer programmers? Volunteer programmers develop and contribute to the kernel source code. Linus Tarvolds examines and approves the code and puts it into the kernel source tree. Then companies like Red Hat and Caldera come along and do what American businesses do best, make money. Sounds like the same thing to me.

Re:UT is much better than Q3

[Pope]

Hear Hear!
I have a 3 year old Mac with a VooDoo 1 card, and UT Demo plays WAY better then Q3 Test. I get much better performance out of UT, and the fact that it's native GLIDE, instead of having to hack through Mesa to get hardware rendering, also gets my vote.
I know where my money is going this X-Mas, and it ain't to iD.

Pope

UT Engine Licensing Terms

[moxy]

Does anyone know the standard licensing terms of the unreal engine? How much does the engine cost to license and how long do typical licensees spend developing their game on top of the Unreal engine?