FIFE - a cross platform isometric game engine

[MetalCraze]

does it support software (directdraw) rendering?

 

[mvBarracuda]

OT questions: How difficult is it exactly to make character animations for games like Fallout, BG, Planescape: Torment etc? I heard 3D heads used clay animation or something like that; is the same technique applied to the character gifs? Also, how is consistency kept through the animation cycle (assuming the animation is hand drawn)?

My personal answer is: model your character in 3d, export it png and any apply some nifty filters to these exported 2d graphics if you want to change their appearance. 3d models can look quite good because you can create a high-poly model as it gets rendered to 2d images later anyway and doesn't influence the rendering performance.

I'm not sure how much work it would be if you would draw these characters by hand but I imagine that it would be a lot.

does it support software (directdraw) rendering?

Yes, we support software rendering Though SDL is used for that but that won't make a difference for the Windows user.

 

[MetalCraze]

Yes, we support software rendering Though SDL is used for that but that won't make a difference for the Windows user.

so if I will turn of my vcard - thus lefting the rendering -only- to cpu - will it work?
because I don't remember how good SDL will work (in the meaning will it work at all? and the framerate)

 

[mvBarracuda]

I don't know anyone who still runs a PC that doesn't have a graphics card with OpenGL support but in case you're one of the these people: yes, SDL rendering will work for you. Performance is not as good as it with with the OpenGL renderer though; but that's quite logical as your graphics card disburdens the CPU when using the OpenGL renderer.

 

[jcompton]

OT questions: How difficult is it exactly to make character animations for games like Fallout, BG, Planescape: Torment etc? I heard 3D heads used clay animation or something like that; is the same technique applied to the character gifs? Also, how is consistency kept through the animation cycle (assuming the animation is hand drawn)?

MV answered this in part, but I'll just confirm--this type of animation is in fact done in 3D packages nowadays. You rig up your various actions and then export the animations as rendered sequences of frames.

If the target is an Infinity-style engine, accessories, such as weapons and armor, are then rendered with the body made "invisible, but opaque"--so that the weapon correctly disappears when blocked by the body. The game engine then composites the two sequences of frames together when you have "man plus knife." I would have to imagine FIFE does something similar.

 

[elander_]

I will give it a try with an isometric TB version of Daggerfall making a small dungeon map. I'll post something in your forums when i get something done.

A good moders manual in pdf so that we can download the all documentation once would help a lot. Something with a well organized index that on focus the basic details of map and game making.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Yep, improving the documentation is on our todo list but there is so much that still needs to get tackled so there is often not much time left to create documentation.

Until there are more full featured docs available, here are the two most important links:
1. FIFE map format:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_Format

2. FIFE Python docs:
http://fifedocs.boxbox.org/epydoc/

 

[MetalCraze]

also another question - will you go for something like ToEE engine - where it will be possible to use 3d objects? like if you remember ToEE's engine fused 3d and 2d pretty awesomely. and 3d characters save more memory as well as pain in the butt animating them.

 

[mvBarracuda]

Yep, surprisingly we already talked about this topic on the team. Adding support for 3d characters is possible but not high on our current TODO list.

For now there are other fields of work that far more important than 3d model support. But you can count on us that we'll look into this feature again sooner or later. Likely later

 

[mvBarracuda]

The FIFE team released a new version of their compile SDK for win32 systems today.

The new SDK addresses an issue with MSVC2005 debug builds that was just recently discovered. Furthermore libSDL and SWIG have been upgraded to the latest versions.

Read the full announcement at the FIFE development blog:
New compile SDK for win32 release announcement

Download URL:
* FIFE 2008.0 win32 compile SDK (selfextracting 7zip version)
* FIFE 2008.0 win32 compile SDK (zip version)

 

[mvBarracuda]

It's time for yet another FIFE update

This time we got something special for you: a new series entitled "FIFE community spotlight". The idea behind these new community spotlight articles is to have a closer look at the projects which are utilizing FIFE for their games. The first community spotlight covers the computer roleplaying game project "Zero" that is currently in development.

You can read about it at the FIFE blog:
FIFE community spotlight #1: Zero - a postnuclear cRPG

Here is some eye candy from Zero to convince you to actually read the whole community spotlight article:
















Last but not least and slightly related to the community spotlight series: we did recently declutter our wiki starting page. Check out the new and hopefully improved version here:
FIFE wiki

All kind of feedback concerning the community spotlight and the new wiki starting page is appreciated by the team

 

[mvBarracuda]

Just a short update a first SVN snapshot of the upcoming 2008.1 release is availabe for win32 systems.

Download URL:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/F ... _win32.exe

Important changes since the 2008.0 release:
- Instance outlining
- Real stepless zoom for OpenGL render backend
- Curing singletonitis by getting rid of audio manager & vfs singleton via refactoring
- New music by the new composer torrent71

Unpack to HDD and read the README.txt that resides in the root directory.

Screenshots of new features that ship with this release:
Improved editor tool:


Instance highlighting:


Zoomed in:


Zoomed out:

 

[Higher Game]

I like the island more than the post-apoc look now. :D

 

[cardtrick]

That's great! The editor is starting to look really functional. Any of the new music posted on the FIFE website for download?

 

[mvBarracuda]

Thanks for the feedback Higher Game & cardtrick.

The music can't be found at the website yet but I'll ask our new project management trainee to add download links for the new music to the developer blog update that is coming soon (hopefully already this weekend). Stay tuned

 

[mirrorshades]

I like the island more than the post-apoc look now.

Sweet! A remake of Fountain of Dreams!

 

[mvBarracuda]

Welcome to yet another FIFE news update.

A lot of topics to cover and just few time on my hands so I'll just list everything and you decide if it's worth reading
* New project manager on the team and first blog update by him
* New composer on the team and first music tracks available
* Experimental networking branch (woohoo! multiplayer FIFE)
* Experimental MSVC2008 build system support
* Physfs branch
* New context menu
* A new name for FIFE?
* First Zero-Projekt video released

In case one of these topics sounds worth checking out, head over to our developer blog:
* Blog update: the smell of spring
* Blog update: Panic

 

[Burning Bridges]

The Zero screenshots kick ass!

Just wanted to let you know that I have been following your project for quite a while and might use it in the future. I sometimes post at the Ogre3D forums, so we might see there.

What are your plans in terms of GUI and sound support? Right now I'm using MyGUI and Audiere. Can't say that I'm not happy with that but I would prefer something that's better integrated.

Great job so far. This could lead to a lot of fan made rpg/strategy games that don't always suck. Right now I see a lot of fan made games that use Java, and that's not good.

 

[mvBarracuda]

What are your plans in terms of GUI and sound support?

GUI: pychan. It's a self-written python wrapper / addon for guichan:
http://guichan.sourceforge.net/

Pychan just offers basic functionality ATM but we plan to improve it over the releases so it should be a somewhat full featured GUI solution _for games_. For editor tools and other GUI heavy applications you could use wxpython:
http://www.wxpython.org/

FIFE uses OpenAL for audio out of the box. For win32 OpenAL seems to be pretty nice. For NIX system OpenAL seems to suck as Creative Labs is not really willing to push its development forward. But there is already a nice alternative in development: openal-soft. We plan to ship openal-soft with the next stable FIFE release so NIX users got the choice if they would like to use openal or openal-soft:
http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html

Great job so far. This could lead to a lot of fan made rpg/strategy games that don't always suck. Right now I see a lot of fan made games that use Java, and that's not good.

Thanks

I'm seriously hoping to see some FIFE-based hobbyist / indie RPGs in the future because that's my personal motivation for working on the project.

 

[Binary]

Sorry for joining this topic late but... there is a Linux version for this, if I understand correctly?

 

[mvBarracuda]

Yes. FIFE should even run on Mac OS X in theory but we have a hard time to find a maintainer for this platform.


For Linux your best bet is to grab the SVN trunk though the official 2008.0 release should work fine as well.

SVN checkout:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/Subversion_rep ... e_checkout

Linux build guide:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/Building:Linux:SCons

 

[asper]

Looks promising, keep up the good work !

 

[Burning Bridges]

Do you see any advantages over the one's I mentioned (MYGUI / Audiere)? Currently I am not to keen to use any wrapper in my apps.

I'm seriously hoping to see some FIFE-based hobbyist / indie RPGs in the future because that's my personal motivation for working on the project.

You must give this some time. When I see a new project I'm usually very sceptical. Too many people think it's a good idea to announce every new project they just started. With FIFE I see you got past the stage where it's just pure enthusiasm, and it looks like you actually mean business. If you can continue for 1 or 2 more years, attain some critical mass, suddenly you might find yourself overwhelmed by the interest.

By the way are you a german team?

 

[mvBarracuda]

Do you see any advantages over the one's I mentioned (MYGUI / Audiere)? Currently I am not to keen to use any wrapper in my apps.

The main advantage for you is that pychan & openal are tested and work out of the box. It's possible to add support for other sound and GUI libraries as well but it does of course take time and effort.

We simply don't have the manpower to add support for additional libraries so we try to provide a working and tested solution that is based on one library.

You said that you don't plan to use a wrapper: are you a C++ programmer or would you write your game in Python?

You must give this some time. When I see a new project I'm usually very sceptical. Too many people think it's a good idea to announce every new project they just started. With FIFE I see you got past the stage where it's just pure enthusiasm, and it looks like you actually mean business. If you can continue for 1 or 2 more years, attain some critical mass, suddenly you might find yourself overwhelmed by the interest.

Sure I think we'll have this patience considering that the project is already 2.5 years in development. It might take another 1.5 years until a stable 1.0 status is reached. So this project should keep me busy until I'm out of university.

By the way are you a german team?

We got developers from there but we're pretty international: USA, UK, Finland, Canada, Norway, Slovenia, Malaysia and Germany.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Sure I think we'll have this patience considering that the project is already 2.5 years in development. It might take another 1.5 years until a stable 1.0 status is reached. So this project should keep me busy until I'm out of university.

And after that? Some big company hires you and then its bye bye FIFE? I've seen it before too many times!!

Seriously I think it is a big minus that you are at university. I hope not all in the team are.

I hope you understand why I had to say that.