[FILLED] Isometric 2D engine searching for editor programmer
Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 19:27
Disclaimer:
I didn't know in which subforum to create this thread but someone from the #CEGUI irc channel mentioned that General Discussion would do the trick. So if you think it doesn't belong here, please move the thread.
Team name:
FIFE developing team.
Project name:
FIFE - Flexible Isometric Fallout(-like) Engine.
Brief description:
Just like the name of our project suggests we work on a new open source engine for isometric RPGs. The engine started as a Fallout-only project but we recognized very fast that it offers the potential to be used as a general 2D ISO engine for the development of cross platform RPGs. The engine supports the assets of the original Fallout games but it is also suitable for creating even totally new 2D RPGs. We are focusing on the creation of an engine itself but will bundle it with an example mod; so modders have a starting point to create their own games based on our engine.
Since we do not focus on the creation of a complete game we will be working on comfortable and easy-to-use editing tools. Engine and editor are planned to run on all flavours of Linux, Win32 and MacOSX.
The FIFE project is about 16 months in development now and we have released three public pre-alpha versions of the engine on sourceforge / freshmeat in January, May 2006 & January 2007.
Target aim:
Open source GPL v2.0; non-profit
Compensation:
We are confident that advanced coders will find it quite exciting to work on the creation and the designing of a whole engine with other experienced and passionate open source coders. But as we're a non-profit project the only thing we can provide is the satisfying feeling to work on an ambitious project.
Technology:
Linux, Windows, MacOSX
C++, Boost library
SDL, OpenGL (optional)
GUI library of your choice
Warning:
It seems that we should have stated this earlier as a lot of coders seem to be overstrained with the undertaking of creating a whole engine. That is not meant to sound rude but FIFE is a quite complicated large-scale project that needs a different working approach compared to smaller projects. Please have a look at our code first before you apply for the position. There were several developers who applied for positions in the past who couldn't cope with the task and did leave the team.
As this is neither satisfying for the coders nor for us, the best way to find out if you want to take the challenge, is to have a look at our current code base. You can either get the most recent code from our Subversion repository or download a fresh engine snapshot from our homepage (if you're not familiar with SVN yet or don't have the needed tools installed).
SVN sourcecode checkout:
HTTP sourcecode download:
FIFE 2007.0-r1 src package
Talent needed:
Editor programmer - <font color="green]position(s) open</font>
The story of our planned editor is almost a neverending one. We had already found a developer for our map editor months ago and he started to create design documents for it. Unfortunately he did leave the team because of private reasons. The design documents he created were written in a time when we still intended to use the Qt4 GUI library for the editor. However we had no success to find a new Qt developer who wanted to continue the work on the editor.
Considering that there are just some lines of code for the editor in SVN yet, we decided to give up the idea to create the editor with Qt4. The GUI library choice will be completely up to the coder who wants to work on the editor. Possible GUI libraries are (feel free to propose a different one nevertheless!):
WxWidgets
Qt4
CEGUI
LuaGUI (our own GUI library for the engine, based on guichan)
There are only two requirements for the GUI library: it needs to works cross platform on Linux, Win32 and Mac and it should integrate rather easy with our current engine code. The first task for the editor developer would be to evaluate the current editor design documents and to decide which parts of them can be used and which ones need to be redesigned to work with the GUI library you decided for.
You can find the design documents for the old planned qt4 map editor here:
Editor design document
Editor functionality
Editor structure
The aim is to create a map editor that can be used to create maps for our engine. Major parts of the needed code are already implemented in the engine itself; this way we can reduce the amount of code to maintain. We'll simply link against our static engine library and "just" the editor specific features need to be written from scratch.
Planned tasks:
1. Decide for a GUI library you would like to use for this task.
2. Evaluate the old editor design documents.
3. Decide which parts can be reused and which ones need redesigning.
4. Start working on implementing the editor.
Our engine coders will try to assist you with all these steps :-) Now we just need a brave volunteer.
Team structure: (only currently active members listed!)
Phoku - engine designer & coder
Zahlman (yes, the one from gamedev.net ;-)) - engine coder
Sky0 - engine coder
mvBarracuda - project manager
My job as project manager is to keep the team together and to ensure that the communication structure inside the team works so everyone enjoys working on the project. Among other things I'm responsible for the news updates @ FIFEngine.de, the project wiki and to provide the official and unofficial win32 packages.
Website:
Homepage
Development wiki
Getting started guide for interested developers
Doxygen code documentation
Design documents
Developer blog
Current release:
FIFE 2007.0 Win32 (official release)
FIFE 2007.0-r1 src package (official release)
Ways to contact the team:
IRC channel: irc.quakenet.org | #fife
eMail: [url=mailto:mvBarracuda@web.de?subject='Interested in FIFE']mvBarracuda@web.de[/url]
icq: 98600423
Important:
You can either use our free XMLmaps with the engine or access the original Fallout maps with it. If you want to use the Fallout maps you will need a legit copy of Fallout 1 or 2. The FO 1/2 maps are far more advanced compared to our own XMLmaps; basically we just set some placeholder textures on them to have something that lets you start the engine without having to own Fallout. So if you want to experience the full beauty: give the Fallout maps a go. We hope to be able to provide better looking free maps as soon as the editor is in a somewhat usuable state :-)
To give you an impression about the status of the project we took sample screenshots of the current release (using the Fallout and our custom XML maps):
One of our free XML maps from the 2007.0 release:
Fallout 2 Arroyo map using the new FIFE GUI code:
A very early prototype version of the old editor that was seriously misdesigned:
FIFE can handle different resolutions in spite of the original Fallout engine:
The OpenGL renderer supports alphablending:
Feedback:
Feel free to add whatever feedback you like :-) Critics will help us to improve the project.
I didn't know in which subforum to create this thread but someone from the #CEGUI irc channel mentioned that General Discussion would do the trick. So if you think it doesn't belong here, please move the thread.
Team name:
FIFE developing team.
Project name:
FIFE - Flexible Isometric Fallout(-like) Engine.
Brief description:
Just like the name of our project suggests we work on a new open source engine for isometric RPGs. The engine started as a Fallout-only project but we recognized very fast that it offers the potential to be used as a general 2D ISO engine for the development of cross platform RPGs. The engine supports the assets of the original Fallout games but it is also suitable for creating even totally new 2D RPGs. We are focusing on the creation of an engine itself but will bundle it with an example mod; so modders have a starting point to create their own games based on our engine.
Since we do not focus on the creation of a complete game we will be working on comfortable and easy-to-use editing tools. Engine and editor are planned to run on all flavours of Linux, Win32 and MacOSX.
The FIFE project is about 16 months in development now and we have released three public pre-alpha versions of the engine on sourceforge / freshmeat in January, May 2006 & January 2007.
Target aim:
Open source GPL v2.0; non-profit
Compensation:
We are confident that advanced coders will find it quite exciting to work on the creation and the designing of a whole engine with other experienced and passionate open source coders. But as we're a non-profit project the only thing we can provide is the satisfying feeling to work on an ambitious project.
Technology:
Linux, Windows, MacOSX
C++, Boost library
SDL, OpenGL (optional)
GUI library of your choice
Warning:
It seems that we should have stated this earlier as a lot of coders seem to be overstrained with the undertaking of creating a whole engine. That is not meant to sound rude but FIFE is a quite complicated large-scale project that needs a different working approach compared to smaller projects. Please have a look at our code first before you apply for the position. There were several developers who applied for positions in the past who couldn't cope with the task and did leave the team.
As this is neither satisfying for the coders nor for us, the best way to find out if you want to take the challenge, is to have a look at our current code base. You can either get the most recent code from our Subversion repository or download a fresh engine snapshot from our homepage (if you're not familiar with SVN yet or don't have the needed tools installed).
SVN sourcecode checkout:
HTTP sourcecode download:
FIFE 2007.0-r1 src package
Talent needed:
Editor programmer - <font color="green]position(s) open</font>
The story of our planned editor is almost a neverending one. We had already found a developer for our map editor months ago and he started to create design documents for it. Unfortunately he did leave the team because of private reasons. The design documents he created were written in a time when we still intended to use the Qt4 GUI library for the editor. However we had no success to find a new Qt developer who wanted to continue the work on the editor.
Considering that there are just some lines of code for the editor in SVN yet, we decided to give up the idea to create the editor with Qt4. The GUI library choice will be completely up to the coder who wants to work on the editor. Possible GUI libraries are (feel free to propose a different one nevertheless!):
WxWidgets
Qt4
CEGUI
LuaGUI (our own GUI library for the engine, based on guichan)
There are only two requirements for the GUI library: it needs to works cross platform on Linux, Win32 and Mac and it should integrate rather easy with our current engine code. The first task for the editor developer would be to evaluate the current editor design documents and to decide which parts of them can be used and which ones need to be redesigned to work with the GUI library you decided for.
You can find the design documents for the old planned qt4 map editor here:
Editor design document
Editor functionality
Editor structure
The aim is to create a map editor that can be used to create maps for our engine. Major parts of the needed code are already implemented in the engine itself; this way we can reduce the amount of code to maintain. We'll simply link against our static engine library and "just" the editor specific features need to be written from scratch.
Planned tasks:
1. Decide for a GUI library you would like to use for this task.
2. Evaluate the old editor design documents.
3. Decide which parts can be reused and which ones need redesigning.
4. Start working on implementing the editor.
Our engine coders will try to assist you with all these steps :-) Now we just need a brave volunteer.
Team structure: (only currently active members listed!)
Phoku - engine designer & coder
Zahlman (yes, the one from gamedev.net ;-)) - engine coder
Sky0 - engine coder
mvBarracuda - project manager
My job as project manager is to keep the team together and to ensure that the communication structure inside the team works so everyone enjoys working on the project. Among other things I'm responsible for the news updates @ FIFEngine.de, the project wiki and to provide the official and unofficial win32 packages.
Website:
Homepage
Development wiki
Getting started guide for interested developers
Doxygen code documentation
Design documents
Developer blog
Current release:
FIFE 2007.0 Win32 (official release)
FIFE 2007.0-r1 src package (official release)
Ways to contact the team:
IRC channel: irc.quakenet.org | #fife
eMail: [url=mailto:mvBarracuda@web.de?subject='Interested in FIFE']mvBarracuda@web.de[/url]
icq: 98600423
Important:
You can either use our free XMLmaps with the engine or access the original Fallout maps with it. If you want to use the Fallout maps you will need a legit copy of Fallout 1 or 2. The FO 1/2 maps are far more advanced compared to our own XMLmaps; basically we just set some placeholder textures on them to have something that lets you start the engine without having to own Fallout. So if you want to experience the full beauty: give the Fallout maps a go. We hope to be able to provide better looking free maps as soon as the editor is in a somewhat usuable state :-)
To give you an impression about the status of the project we took sample screenshots of the current release (using the Fallout and our custom XML maps):
One of our free XML maps from the 2007.0 release:
Fallout 2 Arroyo map using the new FIFE GUI code:
A very early prototype version of the old editor that was seriously misdesigned:
FIFE can handle different resolutions in spite of the original Fallout engine:
The OpenGL renderer supports alphablending:
Feedback:
Feel free to add whatever feedback you like :-) Critics will help us to improve the project.