free & open source game engines & Rift support

[STRZ]

Does anybody know something about the status of those engines?

http://www.blender.org/education-help/t ... me-engine/
http://gameplay3d.org/
http://www.ogre3d.org/
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/

[MSat]

I forget what it's called, but there was a developer of an open source engine that won the Oculus competition for a free dev kit. It was mentioned in one of the Kickstarter updates.

[Evenios]

technically the Only free game engine to support the rift so far is UDK since Unity requires Unity Pro now. I find the lack of letting us know that Unity Pro is required until now to be borderline dishonest.

Its hard for me to believe that they didnt know at the start with talking with Unity that the Pro version would be required. I think oculus really should issue an apology for not letting users know that ahead of time and even consider offering refunds for those who choose it. they did so for doom 3 which wasnt that big of an issue at all for most so why cant they make that option here? We shall see. And like others have posted out there is most likely a way that Unity free could work with Rift .. the "four months free" is nice but more of a PR thing i think considering someone posted before that sometimes if you email Unity themselves they will often give you a longer trial.

[nateight]

I forget what it's called, but there was a developer of an open source engine that won the Oculus competition for a free dev kit. It was mentioned in one of the Kickstarter updates.

I can't seem to find a link to any actual results of the contest, but I know Cube 2 was a strong contender. I haven't used it but with this Unity announcement it looks like I may have to - it's definitely got a lot going for it.

[MSat]

There's also id Tech 4 which is now open source with much of the work to get it running on the Rift already done.

Oh, the winner of the Gift A Rift contest was Lee Salzman, the main developer behind the Cube engine.

[STRZ]

Thx for the Input @ all

[Evenios]

i like cubes.

did you guys see the mock "VR Game" Cube? funny.

[Dakor]

technically the Only free game engine to support the rift so far is UDK since Unity requires Unity Pro now. I find the lack of letting us know that Unity Pro is required until now to be borderline dishonest.

They never said you can use the free Version. They pointed out, they are trying to find a compromise that you can use the free versions of both (UDK / Unity), but they never said it as a fact. You could read everywhere that the shader stuff you need etc. ist Pro only.
Basically UDK is not completely free, since you have to pay for commercial Projects.
Additionally, they also said it is currently limited to Unity Pro. And off course it is a shame that the Unity team wants to make Money with their Engine and don't give their Pro Features away for free to everyone just because of the Rift. (Ironie)

I guess after all, if you write the implementation yourself, every engine that support dll libraries can be used.

[nixarn]

Does anyone know if the SDK comes with some raw C/C++ OpenGL code for integrating the rift?

[DaEmpty]

I find the lack of letting us know that Unity Pro is required until now to be borderline dishonest.

Someone expected Oculus Support in the Free Version?
- No native plugins
- No Post-Processing effect
-> No Rift support unless Unity integrates the rift sdk itself

To be honest, the free version of unity is quite useless in general. It is too restricted.

[nateight]

To be honest, the free version of unity is quite useless in general. It is too restricted.

I believe the term you're looking for is "crippleware".

[Ben]

Its hard for me to believe that they didnt know at the start with talking with Unity that the Pro version would be required. I think oculus really should issue an apology for not letting users know that ahead of time and even consider offering refunds for those who choose it. they did so for doom 3 which wasnt that big of an issue at all for most so why cant they make that option here?

Why is it hard for you to believe that? They didn't even know what the hardware was going to be at that stage. And what exactly do you want a refund for? The free version of Unity? Consider it done.

[GeraldT]

Its hard for me to believe that they didnt know at the start with talking with Unity that the Pro version would be required. I think oculus really should issue an apology for not letting users know that ahead of time and even consider offering refunds for those who choose it. they did so for doom 3 which wasnt that big of an issue at all for most so why cant they make that option here?

Why is it hard for you to believe that? They didn't even know what the hardware was going to be at that stage. And what exactly do you want a refund for? The free version of Unity? Consider it done.

of course they knew - it was a known issue right from the start, because the limitations of the free Unity are not a secret. There might have been hopes in some minds that they could convince Unity to allow for a special plugin or some crazy hacker workaround solution, but that it most likely would need Unity Pro was clear from the start.

[WimbledonLabs]

Does anyone know if the SDK comes with some raw C/C++ OpenGL code for integrating the rift?

Yes, cyberreality mentioned working on getting started tutorials for C++

Well I've only finished one tutorial so far, its just a really simple 'getting started' type of thing in C++. Hope to have more soon.

There will also be several documents that help you to work with the SDK and integrate into your application.

This stuff will all be available shortly, when the SDK releases to the public. Its coming very soon.

From: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... &start=120

[nixarn]

Does anyone know if the SDK comes with some raw C/C++ OpenGL code for integrating the rift?

Yes, cyberreality mentioned working on getting started tutorials for C++

Well I've only finished one tutorial so far, its just a really simple 'getting started' type of thing in C++. Hope to have more soon.

There will also be several documents that help you to work with the SDK and integrate into your application.

This stuff will all be available shortly, when the SDK releases to the public. Its coming very soon.

From: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... &start=120

Ah great , thanks for that informatin! All I need to begin developing still not a huge fan of unity. Been trying to learn it, and learn to like it, but I like writing code that does what I want.

[cybereality]

I've worked with Ogre, it's a nice engine. Granted, its a graphics engine, NOT a game engine. So you will have to cobble together other libraries for stuff like sound, physics, etc. but it's still pretty good. Mainly because it has a nice clean API and its free and open-source. Somewhat of a learning curve compared to some other engines, but it gets easier to work with. You also should have a good understanding of C++ before you try to tackle Ogre.

One of the main faults I found is that there is no editor for Ogre, so you are kind of on your own here. It's a lot more bare-bones than something like Unity. Still worth looking into, though.

[spire8989]

Esenthel isn't open source unless you pay for the source, but its one of the engines I love playing with and think it needs more recognition, so I'm just mentioning it

[Nogard]

You could just program from scratch using opengl or Direct3D, with a good understanding of C++ that and thorough knowledge of vectors, matrixs and quaternions(little trig wouldn't hurt ether). Oh
and grasp of game programming methodology would be important. I imagine you want to get a lib or two for decompressing and parse data from files because that can be an utter bitch to do with out them. Might want to find a good sound API too, oh and for the rift you will need to know a few fundamentals about basic shader architecture. At least they throw in an API for the track so thats something

That got a little silly towards the end but really you can try and find an engine or you can dive straight in and not surface until you have something. Just go hit up this:http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/p ... structure/ keep following that and when you feel that you have enough information to make lets say a text adventure, then give it a go.
My way might be harder and it could be a year or two before you actually touch 3D related programming but at least you will have some sweet games programming skillz at the end of it.

[spire8989]

Making a proper text adventure in c++ is harder than making a game with simple graphics.

[Nogard]

Making a proper text adventure in c++ is harder than making a game with simple graphics.

Not if you have to do the rendering your self, besides i never said it had to be good.

[STRZ]

I've worked with Ogre, it's a nice engine. Granted, its a graphics engine, NOT a game engine. So you will have to cobble together other libraries for stuff like sound, physics, etc. but it's still pretty good. Mainly because it has a nice clean API and its free and open-source. Somewhat of a learning curve compared to some other engines, but it gets easier to work with. You also should have a good understanding of C++ before you try to tackle Ogre.

One of the main faults I found is that there is no editor for Ogre, so you are kind of on your own here. It's a lot more bare-bones than something like Unity. Still worth looking into, though.

I found some tutorials for setting up external IDE's for Ogre in Linux http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/Setting+ ... on+-+Linux

What do you think about openscenegraph? They already support stereoscopic 3d, Flightgear is using it too http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg

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

http://www.flightgear.org/

As i'm a huge simulation fan, it may be a good idea to get into openscenegraph

[spire8989]

Making a proper text adventure in c++ is harder than making a game with simple graphics.

Not if you have to do the rendering your self, besides i never said it had to be good.

You don't have to render if its 2d sprites. Idk, I think muds are a huge challenge. But I guess if you don't want a bunch of rooms and stuff you could hack something together.

[cybereality]

@STRZ: I've never used OSG, so I can't really comment there.

Also, there is NeoAxis, which is free for non-commercial use:
http://www.neoaxis.com/

[Aabel]

What about the Source engine? I don't have any experience with it, so I don't know how viable of an option it is, but with the occulus SDK it should be possible to integrate it with Source giving people a free option.

[Nogard]

Making a proper text adventure in c++ is harder than making a game with simple graphics.

Not if you have to do the rendering your self, besides i never said it had to be good.

You don't have to render if its 2d sprites. Idk, I think muds are a huge challenge. But I guess if you don't want a bunch of rooms and stuff you could hack something together.

A single player text adventure, that's like a text parser, an items array with keywords, an room array, with room text, gates, for item use and room changing, and finally a flag set for tracking progress. basic text adventure, the parser could be the tricky part but i found them quite easy to make, just need to get a few people to run the adventure so you can see what use cases you missed and there you have your very own basic text adventure, fun for all the family.

You do have to render 2d sprites since these days sprites are just run though the graphics card as quads with out perspective or view matrices applied. Even if done the old fashioned way, the pixels still need to be updated the code still has to re-render for every frame. Anyway good luck with the engine findin' STRZ.

[STRZ]

What about the Source engine? I don't have any experience with it, so I don't know how viable of an option it is, but with the occulus SDK it should be possible to integrate it with Source giving people a free option.

Interesting as well, but they mentioned a while back that they're developing the source engine 2 after updating the first one for over a decade. I think the wait will be worth it, considering that big modding scene they have and the recent words from Gabe Newell that they benefit a lot from a productive community.

I looked more into OpenSceneGraph yeterday, and i think it's very interesting for VR due to the extensions and VR groundwork others have done with it, and the general approach towards realistic behaviour of the whole thing. It's not a engine, more that you patch your own engine together with the integration of all the compatible extensions and programs.

http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg/wiki/Links

It could be a good choice for a dedicated VR developing and research operating system based on Linux, which could be distributed for free.

The screenshots of the stuff people have done with it look a bit outdated and 2000ish, but this could be the reason of a lack of importance of graphics for those projects. http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/ ... creenshots

[STRZ]

Some other interesting cross platform open source game engines i found so far:

http://www.maratis3d.org/ (complete game engine, good looking GUI, seems to work very well with Blender and has Lua scripting)

http://pixellight.sourceforge.net/website/ (complete game engine, but the dev also works on a standalone renderer which integrates into the engine later)

http://g3d.sourceforge.net/index.html (A 3d renderer front end similar to Ogre, semms to be used by some "VR" research people too, more "scientific" than the others)

[Charge]

Really surprised that no-one has mentioned Torque 3d yet. http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d

[nateight]

Really surprised that no-one has mentioned Torque 3d yet. http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d

F'real, man. It looks like a very capable engine, the asset store is perhaps not as full of stuff as Unity's but has the benefit over UDK's by virtue of existing, and I'm a sucker for anything with an MIT license. The lead developer is a recent addition to the MTBS family, actually, and he's hopefully already in the process of setting something up with Neil. If he gets back to me soon with word that he won't be starting a Torque thread himself, I'll volunteer even as a complete stranger to the engine. I have plans, you see...

[STRZ]

Really surprised that no-one has mentioned Torque 3d yet. http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d

If they'd had a good scripting language like Lua and a Linux client it would be a nobrainer.