[Bf-committers] restore Game Engine project
Patrick
bf-committers@blender.org
Wed, 06 Aug 2003 10:30:11 -0700
Yeah, we should work on progress and not worry too much about
backwards compatibility, at least for now. We can plug solid in when
possible for the option of being compatible then.
ODE looks to be a big improvement.
I can't quite see why seperating the game engine would be all that
helpful, since the game engine is mostly seperate code-wise from blender
anyway. But I'm not that experienced about such matters. If we do
seperate it, what about having an embeded player in the blender
application that uses the external .dll engine to run, that way its
still seperate but you can see it all happen in the window like we are
used to.
Then again, being able to press p, then have the game start up
fullscreen would be a nice option as well.
I don't think that increased startup times is too big of a deal, we
already have pretty big startup times for the larger games. It'a only a
problem if it increases more than 10 or so seconds, because its
important to be able to test things fast - that's what makes the blender
game engine so much better than most others. You can see what you
changed right when you change it.
Another issue is memory. I don't know if blender loads all the file
into ram at once or what, but with a lot of textures and sounds etc, it
could be a lot to load. It would be nice if we could use external files
also for textures or models, as an option, to keep the actual memory
loaded in game down to a minimum. This would really increase the load
times I suspect, so it would need to be an option. For instance, the
replaced mesh actuator could check if the mesh is loaded first. If the
mesh is not loaded, it trys to load it from a file. It could be similar
for sound actuators etc.
But that's an idea for the future:) But it's an idea that would
probably be easier to add if the engine were seperated.
So if the startup is less than 10 seconds more than currently, and you
can press p to get in the game, and when you exit return to blender
easily, I'll vote for external file.
For the plugin, it's definately one of the most intriguing aspects of
the game engine, so I'm sure people want it back. I don't need it
personally, but there is a lot of support for it, and it's a good way to
get people interested in the project as well. Um, not sure about the
development path for this, linux/mozilla plugin should be easy enough to
pick up on, but internet explorer?