Free Allegiance!

Catch-all for all development not having a specific forum.
factoid
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Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

Given that my goal is to get a cross platform build of allegiance working as quickly as possible, and to preserve the mechanics of the game. It's actually quite a sane choice. The IGC is what makes alllegiance. Re-implementing it from the ground up just to get away from the MS licence seems kind of silly since I have no commercial aspirations for the project. I wouldn't really have a problem with my custom engine code being MSR-SSL licenced, but I don't have to, so I can go with something more open. The elements of the game core that were tied to MS specific implementations were their container classes, smart pointers, mutexes, thread local storage, time, random number generation, and threading. C++11 contains all of those features plus a ton of syntactic improvements that make it possible to further simplify the code without throwing out the nuance of the mechanics. I can virtually guarantee that for the amount of effort I've expended on the core port one would not be able to capture as much functionality of the game in a spiritual successor.

The rest of the engine is something anyone could write, and if it's modular enough, the core alleg code could be linked to it. Again, fortunately there is a great deal of open tools to facilitate that development, so that one can focus on writing the layers that bridge the core library to the other frameworks. Even without scripting, we'll be able to eventually revisit the core and move more of it's content into data, making it more moddable. No matter what language the mechanics are written in, at a certain point you have to know your stuff to contribute, because it's the business logic that's the hard part, not the language you're implementing it in.

Your stuff sounds very interesting though KG, hope to be able to see the fruits of your efforts at some point, something to compete with Unity and Unreal would always be welcome.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

Progress update. I've got a client running a map and spawning in the visuals. I'm trying to resolve issues of relative scale and get the fly-around camera configured properly, but I think I'm about a week from something you can interact with. Exititingly it gets a little more real daily. Once I hit the fly around a sector milestone I'll take the time to get a VC++ project setup and make some windows binaries and an installer. If anyone wants to try and get a VC project setup before me, feel free to grab the code in the git repo and have at it.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
raumvogel
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Post by raumvogel »

I'm going to try to get involved a little in my spare time.I predict a beta test soon. :psyched:

Any idea how much Visual studio costs? They have a 90 day trial,but the page doesn't seem to give me any idea on the cost.
Last edited by raumvogel on Fri Mar 28, 2014 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

Express edition is free. Should be good enough. Grab the 2013 edition however.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
_xJammer_
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Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:10 pm

Post by _xJammer_ »

You don't have to use VC for this project though, afaik?
factoid
Posts: 929
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

No, I'm using g++ 4.8 on Linux. Any c++11 compiler should work.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
raumvogel
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Post by raumvogel »

The 2013 edition requires me to create an MS account.I don't want them to find out I wear Underoo's™ :P

They still sell them,you know..
Last edited by raumvogel on Fri Mar 28, 2014 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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factoid
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Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

Post by factoid »

I'm pretty sure you can just download the ISO without an account. They try to get you to sign in to their cloud service, but it's optional. Try opting out of everything and see how far it gets you. You may also be able to get it to build on windows by way of MiniGW

http://mingw-w64.sourceforge.net/

I know that all the dependencies for free allegiance are cross platform, but I don't know what build systems will work under windows in all cases, so people who want to smash their heads against that wall are welcome. Eventually I'll put some of my own effort into it, to try and create something that is easy to download and build right out of the box. OSX should be straightforward in either vanilla gcc or XCode.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
raumvogel
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Post by raumvogel »

Ok, I'l give it a try...thanks factoid. ;)
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factoid
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Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:00 am
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Post by factoid »



First note worthy render out of the new client engine. Alephs are the white spheres, because those were apparently made of code. Anyone want to make me a textured aleph object file in blender or whatever?
Last edited by factoid on Fri Mar 28, 2014 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"I make it a point not to chat with AP off... space is vast, but it's never vast enough for my scout."
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