Ori Hanegby Pixtazy Blog:

Open Source is Everywhere!  Operating Systems Linux, FreeBSD  Web Servers Apache, PHP, Python, Ruby  Embedded Systems Embedded Linux  Hardware Open Cores  Web Browsers FireFox, Chrome.  GAMES

How can Open Source help my project?  Almost every aspect of game development has an Open Source solution these days, below is a (very) partial list:  Libraries and SDKs 3D, Sound, Networking  Tools Modeling, Art, Sound Editing  Full games: open_source_games open_source_games

Choosing an Open Source engine  Platform What are the target platforms that your game runs on?  Languages Does the project has binding to your development language? Some projects has “parallel” projects for other languages ○ Example: Bullet vs JBullet

Choosing an Open Source engine  How active is the community? Successful open source projects have active community ○ Forums ○ Wiki  Releases How often is there a new release of the project? Make sure it is not a “dead” project, even if it used to be an active project. For example: OpenTNL last update- 22-Feb-2005  Licensing

Licensing  Open Source licenses might be restrictive  Some are not suitable for commercial projects  Some projects offer dual licensing models to enable commercial needs

Licensing cont’d.  GPL Any project using GPL must be GPL itself Not suitable for commercial projects  LGPL “Lesser GPL” Used to license libraries in a less restrictive manner than GPL. LGPL libraries can be used in propriety software and distributed in binary format. Any modifications to the library itself must be shared. … as long as the end user has the ability to replace the library, hence statically linking is not permitted. Suitable for PC games but not for console games.

Licensing cont’d  BSD, MIT, ZLIB and alike Very liberal licenses Suitable for any kind of application license.php license.php

Games related domains at a glance  3D Rendering  Physics  Networking  Sound  Game Engines

3D Engines  Some of the features that are provided by 3D engines: Cross platform 3D rendering Loading models exported from 3D software Scene Graph management Particle systems Materials and Shaders  Good selection of 3D Engines today: Ogre3D, Irrlicht, Open Scene Graph, G3D etc.

Focus: Ogre3D  High end features  Active community  Used in commercial games  C++  Has ports and binding to Java,.NET, Python and Ruby  Dual Licensing – LGPL / Propriety

Focus: Ogre3D

Focus: Irrlicht  Easy to learn Good for beginners  Active community  Cross platform  Support for older hardware  ZLib license (very permissive)

Focus: Irrlicht

Physics  2D and 3D physics libraries  Collision detection  Rigid Body Dynamics  Soft Body Dynamics  Forces simulation  Good selection of engines available ODE, Bullet, Box2D, Chipmunk etc.

Focus: Chipmunk  2D Physics engine for games  Easy to use  MIT License (unrestricted)  Fast  Many Languages bindings Ruby, Python, Java, C++ and more Flash port exists as “Glaze” engine

Focus: Chipmunk

Focus: Bullet  High end features Rigid and Soft Body dynamics, Vehicle, Ragdoll, PS3 and CUDA optimizations and more  Used in commercial applications and AAA games.  ZLib license  Lacks good documentation.

Focus: Bullet

Networking  Networking libraries supplies a higher level communication structure than plain sockets. Some common features are: RPC Authentication Remote object management Messaging Time synchronization  Current open source networking libraries appear to be lagging behind commercial/indie solutions.

Focus: Games Networking Engine (GNE)  Connection and bandwidth handling  Packet ordering  Object serialization  Time synchronization  Cross platform  LGPL license

Sound  Some of the common features that are supported by sound engines are: Loading and playing sound files Decoding MP3/OGG or alike 3D sound emulation  Open Source sound libraries tend to be lower level and tend to supply less complete solutions than propriety solutions  Additional libraries can supply missing features i.e. Ogg Vorbis libraries for.OGG music decoding.

Focus: OpenAL  Maintained by Creative Labs  Focused on 3D sound features No special sound formats decoding such as MP3 or OGG  Cross Platform  LGPL license

Game Engines  Game engines provides a more complete framework for game development  Some of them are comprised of other open source engines  Good open source engine options are available today Crystal Space, Panda3D, Wintermute and more

Focus: Panda3D  Disney’s game engine  Python  High end 3D graphics  Sound 2D and 3D sound, music streaming  Network Low level and high level object distribution API  Physics Basic physics support  Used in commercial games  Modified BSD license.

Focus: Panda3D

Resources  Ogre3D:  Irrlicht:  Chipmunk: pmunk pmunk  Bullet:  GNE:  OpenAL:  Panda3D:

Thanks!