Modified?

#1 Good question, let me clarify. Definitely NOT dumbed down. Dynamix has been developing this engine for the sole purpose of using it internally and has never had plans to release the engine to the public. Unfortunately that state of mind does effect how you develop especially towards the end of a 3 year project. You end up doing things because they work and not truly engineering them. So as Tim and I separate the Tribes2 game code from the engine we are doing some code clean up. There is also some proprietary authentication code which belongs to WON.net that needs to be removed.

Other modifications have to do with support tools. Dynamix uses several commercial tools throughout the engine build process. For example they use a commercial 3rd party make called OpusMake, we are converting the build to use GNU Make so you don't need to purchase anything extra. Also, the code compiles under Metrowerks CodeWarrior and GCC right now but we realize that there is a large number of developers out there who have MS VC++, so we need to add support for that compiler and I am sure it will be necessary to make code changes (it's not the most ANSI compliant compiler around).

There are lots of other little things but I think you get the idea. Basically we are just preparing it for a public release. The first drop to developers will be a bit rough but we will continue working on the code base and hopefully get some of help from GarageGames community.

--Rick

#2 Rick,

Thanks for the quick reply. It is definitely an exciting prospect. My friends and I have been researching the idea of making a game for about a year now and have looked at a number of engines. Many of them fall down at just that, unclear design, poor documentation and few support tools.

Do you have any idea as to when you will be releasing the first iteration?

Is there an early adopter track?

Thanks again.

All the best

-Ian

#3 We are shooting for late next month after CGDC. We have not received the final code drop yet (Tribes2 has not shipped) but we are currently working on a source set from Thursday (2 days ago) that is 99.9% final.

We will be releasing the code the day we get done with it. Basically from now until them Tim and I don't get to sleep much. To make things more complicated next week is CGDC, the following week I am getting married and week following that will be away briefly on a honeymoon. Be nice to Tim and send him beer while I am gone. :)

Update: We have been banging hard on the code all day today and have the GNU makefiles in place and have preformed some preliminary clean up to speed up compile times. I am hoping we will have out test app up and running by tomorrow with a preliminary test gui and terrain.

--Rick

#4 Thanks Rick!
I have been married for four years now and am having a wonderful time.

Being Scotish perhaps Tim can expect a bottle of "The Macallan 1979" :-)

I would like to put a word in for all the MSVC guys out there. Hopefully a version for us is in the works.

Good luck and congratulations.

-Ian

#5 My personal goal is to have a MSVC++ version ready for the first drop. Step one in getting VC++ support was porting over to the new GNU make makefiles. They are pretty cool and don't really care which compiler you use. You just set up a couple new config files and away you go.

--Rick

#6 Please make a conversion tool for Lightwave. I know 3DSMax is the king, but try telling that to a group of hardcore LW users. I've just given up on that idea. So now its time to go the other direction and ask for LW support.

And if GG doesn't provide it, please for the love of all that is holy, will someone else please contribute it to the codebase?

E