Assorted news #1024

*hrmmpf*

• New FreeOrion 0.43 release.
• Unvanquished Alpha 18.
• Some news from the standalone idTech4 Hexen remake.
• Open-source reimplementation of Caesar3 engine picked up again.
• OpenMW 0.25.0 released.
• New Ya3dag 1.42 release.
• Files of the Open(GameArt)Bundle released under CC0.

tl;dr: Just click on the links above :p

0 A.D. Alpha 13 and other less fanboyish updates

Ok I admit it... I am a bit of a 0 A.D. fanboy! But the new Alpha 13 release is also great again, and deserved an update post:



Also pretty cool is the new OpenMW 0.22 release, that finally features player and NPC animations, and thus starts to look more like a functioning game:



Other unrelated news:

• To progress on their standalone version, the developers of The Dark Mod are looking for support in their sound department mostly.
• That non-stop programmer "TheDushan" has started porting the Torque3D engine to Linux. Pretty amazing progress if you ask me :)

Julius out!

Winter Shorts 2: Physica, SkyRiot, OpenMW

Physica screenshots

Let's play Physica - a hard casual platformer game played on Linux

Physica is a very simple casual platformer game where the goal is to drive a square through game levels from its starting position to his goal, avoiding hazards and without falling down.

SkyRiot screens

SkyRiot is available for free for Android on Google Play and was released under open source and free content licenses on SourceForge.net [forum post].

SkyRiot is a 2D flying shooting platform action game for Android devices. Fly a hoverboard and use an assortment of weaponry as you, an anarchist, single-handedly wage war against a totalitarian regime. Full 360-degree aiming along with total freedom of movement will keep you glued to your device for many hours as you blast your way across over 10 game maps.

OpenMW v0.21.0 Commentary

OpenMW 0.21.0 has been released. Changelog:

• Various dialogue, trading, and disposition fixes and improvements
• Torch flickering improved to better match vanilla Morrowind
• Fix for attribute fluctuation when infected with Ash Woe Blight
• Adjusted activation range to better match vanilla Morrowind
• Fixes for the Journal UI
• Fixed crash caused by Golden Saint models
• Fix for beast races being able to wear shoes
• Fix for background music not playing
• Fix for meshes without certain node names not being loaded
• Fix for incorrect terrain shape on inital cell load
• Fix for MWGui::InventoryWindow creating a duplicate player actor at the origin
• Added video playback
• Added support for escape sequences in message box and dialogue text
• Added AI related script functions, note that AI is not functional yet
• Implemented fallbacks for necessary ini values in the importer, unused in OpenMW as of yet
• Implemented execution of scripts of objects in containers/inventories in active cells
• Cell loading performance improvements
• Removed broken GMST contamination fixing mechanism

OpenMW 0.17.0: Changes and Freedom(!?)

video: OpenMW v. 0.17.0 Commentary

The OpenMW engine re-implementation for proprietary RPG classic Morrowind brings fixes, a pause menu, camera modes and proper player control, potion usage, drain/fortify dynamic stats/attributes magic effects and other changes in release 0.17.0.


Work has also begun on an Editor and The Example Suite.

A Free-as-in-Freedom OpenMW game?

The Example Suite is going to be a small standalone game that does not contain any Bethesda owned art assets. Therefore, even those who do not own Morrowind will be able to play with OpenMW and test it.

The project uses the "Release early and often" mantra and so hopefully we will have an early build available for download soon.

If you can help with; skills in animating, music, sounds, modeling or are an experience modder please visit The Example Suite forum.

An editor for OpenMW!

The OpenMW Editor is necessary in order to implement the post 1.0 features that the original Morrowind engine isn't capable of. It's currently a one man project and he could use some help. Visit the OpenMW Editor forum.

Additional links:

• OpenMW Homepage
• Download
• Roadmap

Lips of Suna 0.6 and other RPG news

So my recent rant resulted in a lively discussion about ARPGs, but sadly not really in any contributions or new contributors for Summoning Wars so far... but maybe that was too much to hope for ;)

Anyways, another project I mentioned was just recently updated:

Lips of Suna is now available as Version 0.6 (release notes on our forums) and this release marks the first official release with OGRE3D as the rendering engine. In my rant I dissed that rendering engine a bit due to the lack of good content creation tools (yes I know, not their focus or intention), but at least here it seems to have been put to a good use.

In somewhat unrelated news, there is also a new version of OpenMW, which is continuing at their current fast pace to reimplement that well known RPG. Change-log can be also found in our forums.

OpenMW 0.14: Changelog Video (Commented)

OpenMW 0.14 has been released [blog announcement] half a month ago.

I'm a fan of commented video changelogs and highly recommend theirs (embedded below)!

As an experiment, I created an audio-only version [ogg Vorbis, 4m12s, 3M] using youtube-dl, ffmpeg and sox, in case you prefer that over YouTube.

video: OpenMW 0.14 Commented Changelog

OpenMW 0.13.0 released

Normally qubodup is responsible for this type of games (I have to admit, never liked Morrowind, nor any predecessors or sequels), but since they are doing such a good job of promoting it (and Q is busy), so I will give them their desired news:

The OpenMW developers have just released our latest version of OpenMW. I was hoping you could post on Freegamer. Below is our message, feel free to put your own spin on it. Also it looks like the Arx Liberatis folks are almost ready to release their 1.0. Thanks!

OpenMW 0.13.0 trailer

Hot on the heels of 0.12.0, the OpenMW team is proud to announce the release of version 0.13.0! Release packages for Ubuntu are now available via our Launchpad PPA. Release packages for other platforms are available on our Download page. This release notably includes functional NPC dialogue, and beautiful sky! There is a great new demonstration video for 0.13.0 up YouTube channel and a new video showing off our improved physics implementation which is scheduled for version 0.14.0.

Please note:
- On OSX, the path to the application cannot contain spaces, or the launcher will not work properly.

Changelog:

- NPC Dialogue window and mechanics implemented
- Reimplemented sky rendering, added weather effects
- Wireframe mode added
- Fix for sounds broken in 0.12.0
- Fix for 3D sounds
- Added sounds for weather, doors, containers, picking up items, and journal
- Various code cleanup and improvements
- Fixed an Ogre crash at the Dren plantation
- Several launcher improvements
- Added fade to black effect for cutscenes
- Added backend for equipping items
- Fix to stop ASCII 16 character from being added to console on its activation in OSX
- Fixed collision shapes being out of place
- Fixed torch lights not being visible past a short distance
- Fixed some transparency rendering problems

Website
http://openmw.org/en/

Download Page
http://code.google.com/p/openmw/downloads/list

YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/MrOpenMW

Forum
http://openmw.org/forum/

OpenMW 0.12: Character Animations

image: Sky in OpenMW (scheduled for 0.13)

OpenMW 0.12 has been released:

This release notably includes NPC and Creature animation, though no A.I. has been implemented, so animations must be activated through console commands. Please review the following:

Regressions:

• Sounds other than music not working
• Scroll and button background graphics in launcher not working in Linux package

Important notes:

• You must remove all old openmw.cfg files in order for the automatic detection of Morrowind installations to work.
• If the data path is set manually and it contains spaces, it needs to be put inside quotation marks.

Changelog:

• Various rendering fixes and optimizations
• Refactored engine class
• Automatic package building
• Various build fixes and cleanup
• Various configuration fixes and cleanup, including detection of existing Morrowind installations
• Basic NPC/Creature animation support added, must be activated from console
• Basic implementation of Journal Window added
• Fix for local scripts continuing to run if associated object is deleted
• Fix for crash when taking screenshots
• Fix for crash when visiting Akulakhan’s Chamber
• Added catching of exceptions thrown in input handling functions
• Fix for NPC Activation not working properly
• Allow the player to move away from pre-defined cells

video: character animations in openMW

Morrowind Open Source Projects: Who They Are, What They Do And What They Will Become

Hey Freegamers, 

My name is Antoine and I’ve been a devotee of this site and the Linux Game Tome for years. Now I have the priviledge to contribute back an article. Thank you qubodup for helping me out with this article. I love open source games, but I have a particular soft spot for those that allow creativity and collaboration from their users. Imagine if there existed an open source, and therefore completely editable, game engine with as much content as Morrowind’s fans have created available for it? As many of you are aware, there are currently fan projects working to extend the life, reach, and functionality of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind far beyond what’s possible using Bethesda’s Construction Set modding tools.

Can you guess which screen is rendered by what engine? :)

About Morrowind: Morrowind is an enormous proprietary game loved by fans for its atmospheric and immersive world filled with bizarre giant mushrooms, homes built into giant vines, and barren wastelands. However, it was plagued by software bugs, had many elements that were half-baked in their execution, and its game engine took poor advantage of GPUs. Some of these problems fans were able to address with unofficial patches and mods, but others could not be solved without changing the actual game engine.

When I found an open source reimplentation of the Morrowind engine I had to become involved. I’m very new to the group, but I’m helping out the PR team. However, just days after finding OpenMW, I discovered two more such projects existed, with rumors of a fourth. Mark Siewert of The Crystal Scrolls (and soon OpenMW), said the multitude of projects are a testament to the interest people still have in this game’s strange world. Indeed, look at the massive undertakings of fan projects like Tamriel Rebuilt, MGE XE, MGSO, or type in on YouTube “Morrowind 2011” or “Morrwind 2012” and you’ll get a sense for the countless hours fans continue dedicating to improve Morrowind a decade after its release.

I spoke with the developers of the different engines about their projects to get an idea of what their development status is, what their goals are, and how they’re accomplishing them. A quick disclaimer; you need a legal copy of Morrowind to use any of these engines for playing Morrowind. You can get one from steam (it goes on sale every couple of months) or by purchasing one on ebay.

OpenMW began in 2008 by Nicolay Korslund, it uses ogre3d, bullet physics, OpenAL, OIS, NifLib, and MYGUI. Nicolay stepped down as project lead last year and was replaced by the developer Marc “Zini” Zinnschlag and is joined by many great developers.

Project Aedra, was started by Tom Lopes in 2009. It employs NifLib, Bullet Collision, Quake 3 Arena for "pmove" character controller code, and the FastLZ library.

The Crystal scrolls was started by Mark Siewert in 2007 and it employs the Crystal Space 3d engine.

So what do these projects have in common? Well, they are licensed under some form of the GNU GPL license, written in C++, and aim to have all the features of original Morrowind, including compatibility with all official and unofficial expansions and plug-ins (and those based on external programs such as the Script Extender). Their individual goals are listed below. 

Additional Goals:

OpenMW	Project Aedra	The Crystal Scrolls
Allow greater modification: change game rules, create new spell effects, etc through scripting. Fix system design bugs, like the "dirty" GMST entries in mods, and the save game "doubling" problem Post 1.0: Improve the interface and journal system (possibly) improve game mechanics, physics, combat and AI (possibly) support multiplayer (possibly) improve graphics to use more modern hardware	Be blindingly fast Multi-thread support Multiplayer support Modern graphics engine Upgraded physics engine Upgraded AI	Fix bugs in Morrowind (mostly related to data merging) Add many functions of FPS Optimizer including a fix for the world map Support for multiple .ini files, with each capable of overwriting some of the default settings. Post 1.0: Support for external tools that modify the Morrowind.exe like Morrowind Script Extender Multiple world spaces like in Oblivion (would reduce mod compatibility issues)

Features:

	OpenMW	Project Aedra	The Crystal Scrolls
Windows	Done	Done	Done
Mac OS X	Done	-	-
GNU/Linux	Done	Wine	-
Game launcher	Done	-	Planning
Console	Nearly	Nearly	-
HUD	Early	Partial	-
Render Interior	Done	Nearly	-
Render Exterior	Partial*	Nearly	Done
Sky Rendering	Early	Done	Partial
Day/Night Cycle	Done	Nearly	Partial
NPC Rendering	Nearly	Partial	Done
NPC Animations	Nearly	-	Nearly
NPC Dialogue	Nearly**	-	-
Sound effects	Partial	Done	-
Music	Done	Done	-
Object Collision	Partial	Done	-
Object interaction	Nearly	Nearly	-
Water Layer	Nearly**	Nearly	Partial
Scripting	Nearly	Partial	-
Multiplayer	-	Early	-
Plugin Merging	-	-	Planning
Graphical Replacer Support	Done	Done	-
Multithread Stream Loading	-	Partial	-
Hardware Animations (Shaders)	Planning	Partial	Nearly
Load Doors	Done	Done	-
Render Particle Effects	-	Planning	-
Read Scrolls and Books	-	Done	-
Menus	-	Partial	-
Ground Blends	-	Early	-
Distant Land	-	Partial	-
Journal	Partial	-	-
Nearly** = Code is in the repository, but not in the latest release.
Partial* = Code is in repository, but likely to not be activated in a release for quite some time.
- = No code or planning done yet, or possibly not intending to include.

When is your next release?

OpenMW: No exact date, but we are on the verge of our big 0.12.0 release.

Project Aedra: One was just released. The latest download is r163.

Crystal Scrolls: After recently returning from an unexpected and prolonged hiatus, I released a new snapshot two weekends ago.

What’s next?

OpenMW: Work on version 0.13.0 has already begun.

Project Aedra: Everything (in no particular order); scripting, multiplayer, key binding, animated textures, GUI, conformance (tweaking every little thing to be the same as in Morrowind), ground blends, bug fixing, animated skins, distant Land, 3D SFX, and shaders.

Crystal Scrolls: I am going to join forces with the OpenMW team and help them in getting their own project out of the door. While I will still continue developing this project, I also want to see one of the many Open Source Morrowind projects completed. And from my point of view, OpenMW is likely to reach maturity first. I am planning to do more work on things that do not depend on the renderers, so this should be of use to OpenMW as well.
Concerning Crystal Scrolls 0.3:

• Plugin/Mod support. Possibly with a launcher which lets you disable/enable plug-ins 
• Support for original save games (it's no that different from plug-ins). 
• Object interaction. This will enable many additional features, such as picking up objects, entering internal cells, and more. 

How big is your team?

OpenMW: We have eleven active developers (with varying degrees of involvement with OpenMW) and five people working on things like package maintenance, public relations, and website administration. Our team list is here.

Project Aedra: 1 person, me!

Crystal Scrolls: Myself.

How can people contribute?

OpenMW: If you are skilled with C++ or have game programming skills please register at our forum, look at the version 0.13.0 thread and find an unassigned task, assign it to yourself and get started. Also we want people with fast computers and video editing skills to record demonstration videos for Youtube. We hope that releases post 0.13.0 will be playable enough to necessitate many bug testers. If you are learning how to code, download and have a look at OpenMW.

Project Aedra: I'm looking for C and C++ game programmers with prior experience who can help program.

Crystal Scrolls: There are many ways to help out. Now that rendering and animation is mostly out of the way, it is feasible to start implementing more features. My primary goal for 0.3 is to add plug-in/mod support, and object interaction, but one can easily imagine things that are not blocked by this feature: sound, the console, scripting, etc. So if you want to help, install the program and find something that is missing and that might not depend on plug-in support or object interaction.

There you have it folks; three projects sharing a lot of common ground, but with some different goals and feature sets. Which is the best? That depends on who is asking. I suggest trying out all three every six months or to see how their changing and defining their own style. No doubt they will influence each others development with ideas and solutions. It is very exciting that Mark Siewert is joining the OpenMW team. Here’s to open source, games that facilitate creativity, and the preservation and improvement of games for posterity!

Video Change Logs: Make Your Own!

[video: OpenMW 0.10.0 Change Log]

OpenMW has been steadily reporting about latest progress on their blog and now also released some video change logs with audio commentary.

Freedroid is another project that has been reporting their progress regularly. You can follow them and many more projects on our game planet or dev planet.

To me, short video commentary reports of progress are a delight. While it might be ineffective to make a video for each release, if the changes are not so many and the effort is high, but from time to time having a video change log might be better at getting players interested or developers impressed enough to contribute than a simple CHANGES.txt.

An interesting middle ground is what M.A.R.S. did for their last few releases: screenshot changelogs.

GLC is one of the two nice ways I use to record game videos - here STK

When it comes to gameplay video recording on Linux, I spent some time on the subject and for me it all boiled down to two methods:

1. GLC is ideal for games that use both OpenGL and ALSA
2. FFMpeg is an all-rounder, that is a bit slower but works fine if the machine is powerful enough or the resolution low enough

I will gladly offer my experience in recording videos and editing them on Linux to help you make your own. Just post in the comments, start a thread on the forums or email me via qubodup@gmail.com.

News Shorts

OpenPatrician is a not-yet-playable free implementation in Java of Ascaron's classic The Patrician and The Patrician 2. There are some assets but unfortunately the project's default license is a noncommercial one.

OpenMW is moving forward: new blog look, renderer is being refractored, inventory being implemented, record saving too.

Alex the Allegator was part-ported to HTML5 using the melonJS library. I'm #9 on the high score at time of post! :D

DusteD, maker of Wizznic! is not dead.

Blendswap now has a slim set of rules for contributors and texture licenses are annoying.

Bandit Racer is a car racing and combat game in HTML5, built with GameJS. Comes with track editor and pretty UI. An earlier version multiplayer mode, which will probably come back sooner or later

OpenMW 0.9 and DungeonHack Progress

OpenMW 0.9 is now available for download. Features:

• Exterior cells - loading, unloading and management
• Character Creation GUI
• Character creation
• Make cell names case insensitive when doing internal lookups
• Music player
• NPCs rendering

No screenshots I'm afraid!

DH concept art from the "clothing the Estonian" thread

DungeonHack will have a new software architecture [git repo], estimated to be showcased very soon. [announcement]

I noticed that both projects have a "Contributions Wanted" link which leads to their milestone/roadmap tickets (on a wiki page) [dh/owm]. I get the feeling it's time to start using trac, as does PARPG for example. :)

OpenMW reaches next milestone, reboots, recruits

OpenMW has released 0.9.0!

For those that don't know, OpenMW is a project to write an entire 3d rpg engine from scratch, made compatible with Morrowind data formats (other formats can be added later) with the noble intention of setting the first target at being feature complete with Bethesda's Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
And after that's achieved?

"Ideas include multiplayer, improved graphics and animation, improved scripting and more flexible modding, a new editor, or moving on to Oblivion and other games" 

 sayeth their roadmap making them one of the most potential brimming opensource projects around.



Basically at 1.0:

• All Morrowind mods will be compatible

• Total conversions that do not use Bethesda art or recreate them, will be totally FOSS, (0$ for people who've never brought Morrowind). Non-total conversions need the retail copy.

• Modder rage inducing technical restrictions/bugs removed, improved modability/interface (of the type that caused Tolkien based AME project on Oblivion to give up after a heightmap issue)

1.0+:

Continuing development(see here), driven by a community, and not made casually obsolete once every 5 years when the next utterly incompatible game gets released



Why is it promising, and liable to deliver rapidly once a strong core is established?

These factors:

• Lots, and lots and lots of lots of total conversions for morrowind, and post v1.0, oblivion.

• Unlike other projects the modderbase, recognition and interest is there and widespread

• Morrowind rebirth project, Nehrim at fate's edge (moddb 2010 winner) for oblivion, Enormous Tolkien based MERP mod for oblivion, or the stunning Betrayal of Jarvall all are proof of the dedicated community required to energise and drive a project, even with engines more than half a decade old.

• Total conversions are often recreations of literary/television franchises. Suited for ongoing/iterative development..rather than reaching a completion point, or becoming completely boring conveniently in time for a new engine and different art

• Modders tired with 10s of thousands of modder-hours being gradually faded away by game obsolescense post-release dev halting

• Free->lower investment risk->wider audience

• After Morrowind/Oblivion waypoints, large community means attracting contributors, leading to real development a marquee status of OpenMW and opensource RPGs:)

Download from the OpenMW website.

How much left to do, you ask? 6-7 months, calculated when team was a handful of coders, apparently.

Latest:

The project has been rebooted, after the lead dev went MIA for a while.

They are conducting an extensive recruiting campaign after the reboot, so Ogre/Bullet/general c++ coders, python scripters, PR people, ideas people and moral support welcome:)

One option for them to disseminate the scale of what has been achieved (3d RPG engine from scratch) might be to retitle the project as OpenRPG and:

• Release a Morrowind compatible branch, Morrowind
• Maintain a branch that ports new compatibility breaking features, Morrowind+
• Release a Oblivion compatible branch, Oblivion
• Maintain a branch that ports new compatibility breaking features, Oblivion+
• Do the same for other games, but I suspect they will have enough of a following to just work on OpenRPG branch by then.
• Create a small test bed game using available foss art work, so everyone can try it

• Associate themselves with a few open ended total conversion projects, like Morrowind Rebirth (small team, but right spirit), and start working with an Oblivion total conversion team towards a free for public release by the time the mod is finished. The Tolkien based MERP Mod (large team/mod) would be released in about 3 years  which is ideal and given the Tolkien fan forums (not to mention game forums) with 50-100 thousand+ users a public FOSS release would be welcomed. (What ever project the Nehrim's sureAI team would want to work on next is an option, too)

• +s: Administrative and PR manpower that has been largely lacking, buzz, actual project requirements and practically tested feedback needed to drive design. Modders will benefit from not having to persuade users to buy an old/obsolete engine just for their mod.

Anouncements thread, twitter,moddb, online PR appear to be up:)

Open Imperium Galactica

A very interesting development that I picked up thanks to LGDB is the Open Imperium Galactica project. 

Another open source clone of a proprietary game, Open-IG doesn't require external datafiles to be played; it comes with a launcher which downloads all necessary files for you. It has a rather wide variety of gameplay, from 4x galaxy management, to city-building, to rts battles in space and on land. A very cool game and definitely a project to watch.

Open Source 3D Game Engines Updates

Crystal Space 1.4 is out. Features include improved animations ("integrating vertex based animation with skeletal animation") and terrain ("improves rendering and handling of large outdoor areas"), OpenAL for sound and an internationalization plug-in.

Engine screenshots are very informative. This is Panda3D by the way.

Panda3D has a prettier website, it released version 1.7.0 and apparently has a web-plug in. The new version makes it easier to crash the computer, but also gives a performance boost - with the magic of 'pointer textures'.

I have a little crush on Panda3D, because it gives access to 3D and audio with no complicated setting up through a scripting language (Python). On the other hand it requires 3D models to be in its own format and I find converting not very convenient. For example there have been problems importing animations into Radakan.

OGRE mascot

Ogre has a mascot, and it might even become freely licensed, somebody just needs to confirm this (by posting in the thread). :)

Besides that, 1.7.0 RC1 has been released, which is licensed under MIT license (before, it was LGPL). Here's what seems like a changelog.

OGRE wikis

Furthermore, the OGRE wiki moves from MediaWiki to TikiWiki. I suspect that a main reason is because a nicer OGRE style was made for TikiWiki, while the MediaWiki OGRE style looks bad. That may be a strange reason, but as long as it makes people use the wiki more, why not? Here's the discussion if you have an idea.

Just for kicks: a simple comparison of OGRE, Panda and Crystal regarding lines of code. What does it tell us? Well, that OGRE has the biggest codebase (even though it only handles graphics), that Panda3D is the most compact of the tree and that Crystal Space code size had strange ups and downs. Nothing more really.

Kambi VRML v2.0 is soon to be released, as is the final version of the demo game Castle (which will only mean additional eye candy to the game). What is more important, as soon as Castle 1.0 is released, work will start on Castle 2.

Castle 1 is a three-level game and I consider it hard (easy to die) and its controls to be rough. On the other hand the level design is great: the layout invites exploration the levels are linear, each with a goal to be reached. This way the levels actually are part of a game, rather than an open-ended tech demo. This is why I have a good feeling about Castle 2.0 already. Depending on whether the developers decide to work on Castle 2 on their own or to ask the community for contributions, we might see some more use of their forum.

Morrowind scroll loaded in OpenMW

OpenMW, the Morrowind engine implementation in OGRE switched from D to C++ (because of compiler availability and language popularity) and from svn+git to git-only (because of git-svn problems). Git clone instructions here. The next feature to be implemented are animations. A video was promised as soon as they are ready.

Old news: OpenGameEngine development stopped in October 2009, until a project manager wants to take over. The form in which the project is left is described as "usable" and "still too much work to make it worth the time investment".

Enjoy another ridiculous comparison of 3D (game) engines: OpenMW, KambiVRML and OGE. I just love diagrams. :)

We have a list of 3D engines on our wiki, if you want to dig some more. Also all FOSS game engine blogs that have feeds are included in the FGD development planet feed aggregator.