mvBarracuda
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Now that made me smile.
This is quite funny because I would really like to see how you cheat with our SINGLEPLAYER engine *g*.
Open source 2D RPG engine searching for interested C++ programmers
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This is quite funny because I would really like to see how you cheat with our SINGLEPLAYER engine *g*.
mvBarracuda
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Time for yet another update here 
The progress of the last two weeks is quite encouraging. We've decided to give the extend approach for scripting a try in a separate branch but it looks like that this branch will replace our current trunk version quite fast. The work on it isn't finished yet but it seems that the performance drawback of the extend approach should be bearable; some initial tests (although with work in progress code and just on tested a Linux system) did show almost no performance drawbacks at all.
For anyone who's interested to know more about it and is not afraid of playing around with some work in progress code, check out our extend branch in SVN:
branches/active/extend
One major advantage of the extend approach in combination with <a href="http://www.swig.org/">SWIG</a> is that you'll be able to get FIFE running with bindings for your favourite scripting language quite easily. We do currently play around with Python support and that works quite well. Additionally we'll maintain support for Lua bindings as Lua was our language of choice before we decided to try something different than embedding the scripting language into FIFE. It shouldn't be too hard to create Ruby or OCaml bindings for FIFE either and if we find somebody who maintains these bindings, they'll find their way into our Subversion repository so you won't even need to invest time to generate the bindings yourself (although SWIG makes it rather easy in most cases).
Here is a nice screenshot from one of our recent test sessions. It shows the FIFE console that now can execute Python code e.g. for ingame manipulations or debugging your FIFE-based game:
Besides the work on the extend branch we're currently trying to fill our wiki with use cases for some possible FIFE-based games. That's because we intend to tackle the design of our scripting API after the work on the extend branch has finished. There is already a pretty small API in place but as it was written as proof of concept and for doing initial scripting tests it is neither consistent nor feature-complete. So we're trying to collect some real game examples first, analyze them concerning their requirements for a scripting API and plan to come up with a consistent design for our API after that.
If you consider to use FIFE for an own game in the future feel free to lend us a hand by contributing to the use cases. And don't be afraid: there are already a bunch of examples listed there that should make it easy for you to get started. If you would like to contribute but don't understand the concept of the use cases or got other related questions feel free to ask them here or at the talk page of our use case wiki article:
Use cases for the FIFE scripting API
And last but not least we're still searching for interested programmers who would like to collect some experience working on a rather large scale group project And we're usually kind guys and don't bite so if you want to find out more about us before you sign a lifetime contract with us feel free to visit our irc channel
#fife @ quakenet
The progress of the last two weeks is quite encouraging. We've decided to give the extend approach for scripting a try in a separate branch but it looks like that this branch will replace our current trunk version quite fast. The work on it isn't finished yet but it seems that the performance drawback of the extend approach should be bearable; some initial tests (although with work in progress code and just on tested a Linux system) did show almost no performance drawbacks at all.
For anyone who's interested to know more about it and is not afraid of playing around with some work in progress code, check out our extend branch in SVN:
branches/active/extend
One major advantage of the extend approach in combination with <a href="http://www.swig.org/">SWIG</a> is that you'll be able to get FIFE running with bindings for your favourite scripting language quite easily. We do currently play around with Python support and that works quite well. Additionally we'll maintain support for Lua bindings as Lua was our language of choice before we decided to try something different than embedding the scripting language into FIFE. It shouldn't be too hard to create Ruby or OCaml bindings for FIFE either and if we find somebody who maintains these bindings, they'll find their way into our Subversion repository so you won't even need to invest time to generate the bindings yourself (although SWIG makes it rather easy in most cases).
Here is a nice screenshot from one of our recent test sessions. It shows the FIFE console that now can execute Python code e.g. for ingame manipulations or debugging your FIFE-based game:
Besides the work on the extend branch we're currently trying to fill our wiki with use cases for some possible FIFE-based games. That's because we intend to tackle the design of our scripting API after the work on the extend branch has finished. There is already a pretty small API in place but as it was written as proof of concept and for doing initial scripting tests it is neither consistent nor feature-complete. So we're trying to collect some real game examples first, analyze them concerning their requirements for a scripting API and plan to come up with a consistent design for our API after that.
If you consider to use FIFE for an own game in the future feel free to lend us a hand by contributing to the use cases. And don't be afraid: there are already a bunch of examples listed there that should make it easy for you to get started. If you would like to contribute but don't understand the concept of the use cases or got other related questions feel free to ask them here or at the talk page of our use case wiki article:
Use cases for the FIFE scripting API
And last but not least we're still searching for interested programmers who would like to collect some experience working on a rather large scale group project
And we're usually kind guys and don't bite so if you want to find out more about us before you sign a lifetime contract with us feel free to visit our irc channel #fife @ quakenet
mvBarracuda
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Yet another FIFE update coming to you
The work on the extend branch is coming along quite well lately and our current lead programmer Jasoka decided to summarize the current status from the developer's point of view. He does comment on the new Python support of the engine and raises some points how the modularization of FIFE should work.
For everyone who's interested in reading Jasoka's full text, feel free to check it out at our developer blog:
2007/07/11/18.44 - FIFE engine repository - Trac
The work on the extend branch is coming along quite well lately and our current lead programmer Jasoka decided to summarize the current status from the developer's point of view. He does comment on the new Python support of the engine and raises some points how the modularization of FIFE should work.
For everyone who's interested in reading Jasoka's full text, feel free to check it out at our developer blog:
2007/07/11/18.44 - FIFE engine repository - Trac
Kharn
Lord Techie,
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It's the engine for a game retard not a game in it's self, It is designed to replicate the Fallout engine and it is doing a **** good job. Don't make rash posts in future without making at least a attempt to understand what the project is about.
Sry for the double post mod's
mvBarracuda
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Welcome to yet another FIFE news update
It was pretty quiet lately, not because we would have been lazy but because I was busy with my exams and had no time to write about our most recent efforts. Nevertheless there was of course a bunch of work going on behind the scenes and I'm happy to have finally found the time to summarize it for you. There are several topics to talk about:
* The send them in! contest is over and we finally have a winner.
* The work on the new metamodel branch is coming along quite well.
* The FIFE team agreed to work on a new techdemo in cooperation with the Zero-Projekt team that explains the features of FIFE.
* The FIFE project turns two rather soon Time for a birthday party.
* fifengine.de :: Home of the next generation 2D RPG engine has been slightly updated with the help of the new developer NickWarner.
You can read about all these topics in detail at our most recent FIFE developer blog update. Have fun
It was pretty quiet lately, not because we would have been lazy but because I was busy with my exams and had no time to write about our most recent efforts. Nevertheless there was of course a bunch of work going on behind the scenes and I'm happy to have finally found the time to summarize it for you. There are several topics to talk about:
* The send them in! contest is over and we finally have a winner.
* The work on the new metamodel branch is coming along quite well.
* The FIFE team agreed to work on a new techdemo in cooperation with the Zero-Projekt team that explains the features of FIFE.
* The FIFE project turns two rather soon
Time for a birthday party.* fifengine.de :: Home of the next generation 2D RPG engine has been slightly updated with the help of the new developer NickWarner.
You can read about all these topics in detail at our most recent FIFE developer blog update. Have fun
mvBarracuda
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We can't really believe it either but our calendar says that it has been almost two years now since we started to work on this very project. At the 11th of September 2005 a group of naive but enthusiastic individuals agreed to found a development project to create an improved Fallout-like engine for roleplaying games. Although the focus shifted to become a more general and flexible 2D engine, altough new members joined and old ones left the team, we're still around and the recent progress gives us the hope that there'll be a bunch of birthday parties to celebrate in the next couple of years To celebrate at least our first two years we invite every developer (active, inactive, ex or even simply interested to get involved) and of course every guest to visit our IRC channel at Tuesday, 2007/09/11.
If you always wanted to get to know these crazy FIFE people here is your chance. As the majority of the FIFE developers are set in Europe you will probably need to wait for the evening hours (GMT) to get in touch with project members though. You could even try to obtain an answer to the question when 2007.2 will be released. Though it's likely that we'll answer: ''When it's done''. Not because we're cruel but because we don't know it either Anyway: we hope to see all of you at Tuesday.
Let's get this party started
To celebrate at least our first two years we invite every developer (active, inactive, ex or even simply interested to get involved) and of course every guest to visit our IRC channel at Tuesday, 2007/09/11.If you always wanted to get to know these crazy FIFE people here is your chance. As the majority of the FIFE developers are set in Europe you will probably need to wait for the evening hours (GMT) to get in touch with project members though. You could even try to obtain an answer to the question when 2007.2 will be released. Though it's likely that we'll answer: ''When it's done''. Not because we're cruel but because we don't know it either
Anyway: we hope to see all of you at Tuesday.Let's get this party started
mvBarracuda
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Finally a first screenshot of the upcoming techdemo that is a cooperation of the Zero-Projekt team and the FIFE staff. Looks like they make fun of poor little Barracuda :-(
mvBarracuda
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To bring up the most important fact at the beginning: the FIFE team will finally release the 2007.2 milestone to the public at Wednesday, the 10th of October, 2007. Over five months have passed since the 2007.1 milestone had been released at the end of April and a lot has changed since then. Now that the most important changes are in place and work we feel that it's time for another release to give the community a sign into which direction the project is heading.
Let's summarize the most important changes for the 2007.2 release and have a (small) look into the future of FIFE as well.
After having utilized Lua5 for the scripting side of FIFE for over 18 months we agreed that it would be worth taking a look at SWIG again. SWIG was promising as it offered a way to use our engine with a number of scripting languages; furthermore we could get rid of the semi-manual lunar.h bindings approach this way as well. We ran into some hurdles while trying to integrate SWIG into FIFE but in the end it worked out quite well. Now we had the ability to wrap up the engine into python instead of the old way of embedding the Lua library into FIFE.
The so-called metamodel branch was an undertaking to seriously redesign major parts of the engine. We decided to go for an MVC (model - view - controller) architecture pattern for FIFE and refactored the engine modules accordingly. Another aim was to remove unneeded bi-directional module dependencies to have a clean module hierarchy:
Engine Core - FIFE development wiki
The Zero-Projekt team agreed to work with the FIFE developers on an example game for future releases together. This way we can give game creators a starting point and show what can be done with the engine. Furthermore working with the Zero team directly together brings up a number of advantages for FIFE:
* We won't need to worry about producing content for the example game.
* We're in contact with game creators so we get feedback what works well and what aspects should be improved.
* We can test and adjust the FIFE API while we work on the example game. This wouldn't be possible without building an actual game on top of the engine.
A first snapshot of the example game will come bundled with the 2007.2 release. Don't expect too much: it is a work in progress project and especially the first versions will naturally lack a lot of polish!
After the release of the 2007.2 milestone we plan to finally start working on the editor tools for FIFE again. We tried to do so several times before but everytime something went wrong: editor programmers disappeared and later we did find several engine issues that prevented building an useful editor tool on top of the engine.
Now that the engine is in pretty good shape after the metamodel refactoring, we feel that working on the editor tools will bring up better results this time. Jwt, who also wrote the new python-based maploaders for the 2007.2 release, does currently investigate how we could create python-based mapsavers. This is meant to be the first step for the editor tools.
Anxs & prock are currently redesigning the FIFE audio module in a separate branch. If everything works out as planned we might be able to ship the new improved audio module already with the 2007.3 release. If you want to read some detailed information about the audio module redesign, head over to the wiki:
Audio Design Documentation - FIFE development wiki
Now that we're heading to the finish line we can need every helping hand to test the upcoming release. Furthermore help with packaging would be appreciated as well. Therefore we invite every interested community member to join our project IRC channel to lend us a hand. We hope to see some of you there. If you're too busy, it would be great if you could be around at the release day to celebrate the new milestone with us at least
IRC - FIFE development wiki
And finally after all the text, some new eye-candy as well. This is a screenshot of the product we're working on together with the Zero-Projekt team. This content won't ship with the upcoming 2007.2 release and is work in progress.
Let's summarize the most important changes for the 2007.2 release and have a (small) look into the future of FIFE as well.
After having utilized Lua5 for the scripting side of FIFE for over 18 months we agreed that it would be worth taking a look at SWIG again. SWIG was promising as it offered a way to use our engine with a number of scripting languages; furthermore we could get rid of the semi-manual lunar.h bindings approach this way as well. We ran into some hurdles while trying to integrate SWIG into FIFE but in the end it worked out quite well. Now we had the ability to wrap up the engine into python instead of the old way of embedding the Lua library into FIFE.
The so-called metamodel branch was an undertaking to seriously redesign major parts of the engine. We decided to go for an MVC (model - view - controller) architecture pattern for FIFE and refactored the engine modules accordingly. Another aim was to remove unneeded bi-directional module dependencies to have a clean module hierarchy:
Engine Core - FIFE development wiki
The Zero-Projekt team agreed to work with the FIFE developers on an example game for future releases together. This way we can give game creators a starting point and show what can be done with the engine. Furthermore working with the Zero team directly together brings up a number of advantages for FIFE:
* We won't need to worry about producing content for the example game.
* We're in contact with game creators so we get feedback what works well and what aspects should be improved.
* We can test and adjust the FIFE API while we work on the example game. This wouldn't be possible without building an actual game on top of the engine.
A first snapshot of the example game will come bundled with the 2007.2 release. Don't expect too much: it is a work in progress project and especially the first versions will naturally lack a lot of polish!
After the release of the 2007.2 milestone we plan to finally start working on the editor tools for FIFE again. We tried to do so several times before but everytime something went wrong: editor programmers disappeared and later we did find several engine issues that prevented building an useful editor tool on top of the engine.
Now that the engine is in pretty good shape after the metamodel refactoring, we feel that working on the editor tools will bring up better results this time. Jwt, who also wrote the new python-based maploaders for the 2007.2 release, does currently investigate how we could create python-based mapsavers. This is meant to be the first step for the editor tools.
Anxs & prock are currently redesigning the FIFE audio module in a separate branch. If everything works out as planned we might be able to ship the new improved audio module already with the 2007.3 release. If you want to read some detailed information about the audio module redesign, head over to the wiki:
Audio Design Documentation - FIFE development wiki
Now that we're heading to the finish line we can need every helping hand to test the upcoming release. Furthermore help with packaging would be appreciated as well. Therefore we invite every interested community member to join our project IRC channel to lend us a hand. We hope to see some of you there. If you're too busy, it would be great if you could be around at the release day to celebrate the new milestone with us at least
IRC - FIFE development wiki
And finally after all the text, some new eye-candy as well. This is a screenshot of the product we're working on together with the Zero-Projekt team. This content won't ship with the upcoming 2007.2 release and is work in progress.
mvBarracuda
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We've made it! The 2007.2 release is on the server and we're all happy that it shipped in time.
Download
* Source package (Linux, Macintosh): SourceForge.net: Downloading ...
* Win32 binaries: SourceForge.net: Downloading ...
Screenshot
Important changes since the 2007.1 release
* Removed the rather difficult to maintain lunar.h bindings in favour of SWIG.
* Replaced the Lua scripting support with Python. Now the main loop runs in the scripting language. For the 2007.1 release the main loop still ran in the engine side and the Lua library was embedded into the engine. By utilizing SWIG game creators can add Lua support back to the engine again if they have the need for it.
* Metamodel refactoring. This resulted in a better engine structure and a decreased number of dependencies between the engine modules. Furthermore bi-directional dependencies were removed completely.
* Improved engine modularity. Our aim is that you can cherry-pick specific engine modules of FIFE and just use the ones you really need for your game.
* Pathfinding integration. Exchangable backends so you can already replace the currently rather simple linear pather with a more sophisticated system.
* New 3d geometry system. Camera supports now tilt, rotation and zoom. Geometries are affected by camera adjustments, but in addition to that, layers can contain separate scale and rotation.
* New event channel module. Scripts have full access to mouse, keyboard & widget input.
* New MVC architecture pattern. The whole engine has been refactored to follow a model - view - controller pattern. This leads to a cleaner engine module hierarchy compared to the engine design that was used before.
* Improved action-based animation system.
* A techdemo to give game creators a starting point. This is a common undertaking of the Zero-Projekt team and FIFE.
Read the full release news update:
2007/10/10/16.23 - FIFE engine repository - Trac
Download
* Source package (Linux, Macintosh): SourceForge.net: Downloading ...
* Win32 binaries: SourceForge.net: Downloading ...
Screenshot
Important changes since the 2007.1 release
* Removed the rather difficult to maintain lunar.h bindings in favour of SWIG.
* Replaced the Lua scripting support with Python. Now the main loop runs in the scripting language. For the 2007.1 release the main loop still ran in the engine side and the Lua library was embedded into the engine. By utilizing SWIG game creators can add Lua support back to the engine again if they have the need for it.
* Metamodel refactoring. This resulted in a better engine structure and a decreased number of dependencies between the engine modules. Furthermore bi-directional dependencies were removed completely.
* Improved engine modularity. Our aim is that you can cherry-pick specific engine modules of FIFE and just use the ones you really need for your game.
* Pathfinding integration. Exchangable backends so you can already replace the currently rather simple linear pather with a more sophisticated system.
* New 3d geometry system. Camera supports now tilt, rotation and zoom. Geometries are affected by camera adjustments, but in addition to that, layers can contain separate scale and rotation.
* New event channel module. Scripts have full access to mouse, keyboard & widget input.
* New MVC architecture pattern. The whole engine has been refactored to follow a model - view - controller pattern. This leads to a cleaner engine module hierarchy compared to the engine design that was used before.
* Improved action-based animation system.
* A techdemo to give game creators a starting point. This is a common undertaking of the Zero-Projekt team and FIFE.
Read the full release news update:
2007/10/10/16.23 - FIFE engine repository - Trac
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