Blender game engine, back!?

[ton]

Some 3 months ago I announced that the author of the Solid collision library decided to open the sources for this important missing piece in Blender. He mentioned july as a deadline.

Latest update is, that we could get some binaries for test now, but the actual GPL release will be "end of Q3, beginning Q4".
So, still need to practice patience for another 2-3-4 months.

Once we really know an actual release date, I can get these library binaries and organize some early tests, so that we can release right after Solid becomes free.

[dreamsgate]

yay! that sounds so cool! I'm off to practice patience.

[Sutabi]

hm... i think the binaeries are great just for now ^_^ maybe encourages others, just knowing the collision source will be out later.

thanks ton, my hero

[Michel]

Latest update is, that we could get some binaries for test now, but the actual GPL release will be "end of Q3, beginning Q4".
So, still need to practice patience for another 2-3-4 months.

Great,

This means we have to spend some time in the build systems As if we're not busy enough already

No problem, I'd love to work on this relatively small task to get the game engine working again.

With regards,
Michel

[Saluk]

SO we get to work with the physics enabled, but can't release it until the SOLID source is released? Am I understanding correctly? If that's the case, I guess its the best we can do, when will the developers be able to download the binaries?

[ton]

two reasons for problems:

1. GPL officially doesnt allow, so you can do that for internal usage only
2. the Solid author might add restrictions to a potential pre-release, like distribution limitations, etc.

I've told the Sold author that I prefer to wait with accepting an SDK pre-release until we have a definite fixed deadline for the Solid sources release. The current situation still is too much uncertain.

[Saluk]

Darn, that's what I feared. I guess we wait then:)

[Kludge]

The current situation still is too much uncertain.

Moving deadlines arouse my suspicions.
Is the ketsji/ode in Tuhopuu still being developed?
Or is this deal for certain?

-Frank

[joeri]

Hee hee ! Good news.

[andriy]

two reasons for problems:

1. GPL officially doesnt allow, so you can do that for internal usage only
2. the Solid author might add restrictions to a potential pre-release, like distribution limitations, etc.

I've told the Sold author that I prefer to wait with accepting an SDK pre-release until we have a definite fixed deadline for the Solid sources release. The current situation still is too much uncertain.

It's look like Solid now is Freesolid uder LGPL:
http://www.win.tue.nl/~gino/solid/
http://www.ece.uic.edu/~msripada/solid.htm
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freesolid/

[Saluk]

Freesolid is solid 2 while the solid in the game engine is solid 3, and there are signifigant differences between them, they might not even be compatible.

But things are looking up, as some people are picking up the ODE integration again. We might not even need solid at all if they have success, although it would be a boon for backwards compatibility.

[nay]

those links look pretty old

hopefully what we end up with will be at least as recent as the 2.25 library.

[kAinStein]

Freesolid is solid 2 while the solid in the game engine is solid 3, and there are signifigant differences between them, they might not even be compatible.

But things are looking up, as some people are picking up the ODE integration again. We might not even need solid at all if they have success, although it would be a boon for backwards compatibility.

Solid wouldn't be only better regarding backwards compatibility. It also seems that ODE is much slower. I tested the ODE integration in Tuhopuu Blender and I it is around 50% to 75% slower compared to the engine in Blender Publisher 2.25 even though Tuhopuu Blender is much faster when working with it. I observed quite the same some time ago when ODE was integrated into Blender the first time for trial.
Speaking of performance: I mentioned it some time ago on elysiun.com - when i looked into the source, the way how the logic bricks are processed doesn't seem to be very effective. It is very clear and readable but it doesn't perform very well. Unfortunately I've got to work and don't have much time. Especially now in summer I've got other activities than sitting in front of the computer. Otherwise I would make up my mind to find a better way to process the logic bricks. But perhaps someone else is willing to do so. If the logic would be faster then it would mean a real boost for the game engine.
Other things that can be done (and are done more or less) would be frustrum culling (you, Saluk said that you are working on it with your dad, but you don't have much time either) and some kind of activity culling to suspend object's logic if they are not at a certain distance.

--
Rui