Volca on 23/2/2007 at 13:20
Quote Posted by poroshin
I'm really enjoying some other replacement engijes, like the ones for Duke Nukem 3D, the Doom/Heretic games, and Rise of the Triad.
It's a pity that we're not in the same situation - I do not know about Rise of the Triad, but Duke Nukem 3D and Doom have had a public source code release. I do not hope to see the code, because of the complications I mentioned earlier...
Anyway, if someone wants to put his/hers effort into openDarkEngine, I'm always willing to give any kind of help that would be needed to understand the original Dark Engine and what is needed to be done and how. Any Dark Engine expert help is much appreciated too.
The project is still going on, but as with only about 5-20 hours a week of my effort, it sure does not make a speedy progress...
poroshin on 23/2/2007 at 16:02
Yes, I realize that source code for those games (and probably ROTS also) was released, whereas that's not the case with Thief, which is a shame, as I don't think the games are even sold now.
But reading through the thread it seems you have made some interesting progress. I'm not a programmer, otherwise I'd gladly offer you my help, so all I can offer is my support, and testing, should you require that down the road.
This is a very, very important project, and I can't thank Volca enough for undertaking it. Our beloved Thief games most likely will not run on PCs in the next year or two - or with a lot of work. Even now to get Thief to run properly on a modern PC with Windows XP (I wouldn't know yet about Vista) is a pain, requiring you to download a patch, fiddle with your CPU, and use tricks to have the videos play - and that's in the best case.
What I'm trying to say that future-proofing these games is imperative. A replacement engine will ensure these games live on for years.
P.S.: I hope that the engine you're making, Volca, will enable one to play the games as they originally would be played. In other words, offer a "classic" mode, and an enhanced one.
sephiroth111 on 26/2/2007 at 00:29
i hate making a feature request so early in the design process but, Could you include support for Widescreen monitors (16:9 and 16:10 format)?
That'd make my day hardcore (my monitor is a bit weird when it comes to 4:3 resolutions)
imperialreign on 26/2/2007 at 00:47
I would offer to help, but I haven't really worked with any game code since I was writting mods for QuakeI aeons ago, alas, though . . . I just don't have the time now :(
I would be thrilled, though, to see Eidos or EA cough up the source code . . . if the taffer community continues to grow, maybe they will
sparhawk on 26/2/2007 at 13:41
And why would they do THAT?
dracflamloc on 26/2/2007 at 16:13
Quote Posted by imperialreign
I would offer to help, but I haven't really worked with any game code since I was writting mods for QuakeI aeons ago, alas, though . . . I just don't have the time now :(
I would be thrilled, though, to see Eidos or EA cough up the source code . . . if the taffer community continues to grow, maybe they will
On the contrary. If the community dies down and someone at EIDOS happens to leak out a copy of the source.....
But yea.. no way are they going to release the source. They are as bad as EA.
Volca on 26/2/2007 at 18:27
Even if the code would leak out of EIDOS, it would be unusable for legal reasons...
In my opinion, there are good and bad companies, as people are, if you simplify things a bit. The situation, as it seems, is that EIDOS is not the good one.
Quote:
i hate making a feature request so early in the design process but, Could you include support for Widescreen monitors (16:9 and 16:10 format)?
That should be no problem, simply changing the camera's FOV should be sufficient. I'll try to keep it in mind.
sephiroth111 on 26/2/2007 at 20:20
The only way to get the source would to hack it out of EIDOS themselves. and you'd probably be breaking a few laws (or, more than a few in certain areas).
and even then, the sources are probably on some deactivated computer in a basement somewhere. I'm not saying it's hopeless to receive the source, but unless some of the developers requested it personally i doubt they'd give it.
and i've only had experience with Sumo and the blender game engine, how does Ogre handle?
New Horizon on 26/2/2007 at 20:28
Quote Posted by sephiroth111
The only way to get the source would to hack it out of EIDOS themselves. and you'd probably be breaking a few laws (or, more than a few in certain areas).
and even then, the sources are probably on some deactivated computer in a basement somewhere. I'm not saying it's hopeless to receive the source, but unless some of the developers requested it personally i doubt they'd give it.
and i've only had experience with Sumo and the blender game engine, how does Ogre handle?
As GBM has posted numerous times, Eidos would not be the sole owner of the source code. Apparently, whatever LGS owned when it went out of business became the property of some other company...or it might have been a group of companies. I don't recall. The sad reality is, unless some former LGS staffer has the source code hidden away somewhere...and in my dreams someone does...we will never see the Thief Source Code.
Volca on 26/2/2007 at 21:10
Quote Posted by sephiroth111
The only way to get the source would to hack it out of EIDOS themselves. and you'd probably be breaking a few laws (or, more than a few in certain areas).
and even then, the sources are probably on some deactivated computer in a basement somewhere. I'm not saying it's hopeless to receive the source, but unless some of the developers requested it personally i doubt they'd give it.
and i've only had experience with Sumo and the blender game engine, how does Ogre handle?
I personally think the sources are quite acquirable if somebody will propose a nice sum of money for them. If I'm not wrong, the T3 developers had access to them.
The question is what to do with such code, if not legally owned by community. Probably nothing. Maybe ScummVM guys have some experience in this field. I would not like to get into the situation of having access to the the code this way. Too troublesome.
Ogre3D is not a game engine by itself, it is more a graphics library (a great one). Game engine would be unusable as a base, because of the way the in-game objects are handled would be fixed... Even with ogre3d, there are some situations that require special handling to get a Dark Engine compatible behavior (There was no portal based Scene Manager, so one had to be written - which is the only working code for now, other things are conceptual now).
