other game engines (was: Re: [Bf-committers] restore Game Engine project)

Ton Roosendaal bf-committers@blender.org
Sun, 10 Aug 2003 21:50:01 +0200


Hi,

>> - separating also means allowing to think over support for more  
>> engines
>
> Support for other game engines has been mentioned a lot during the  
> last month
> or two in several completely different threads. Currently this is just  
> talk
> and no plan. This *is* an accusation. There are two way possible from  
> here:

Please don't make such statements. Most people then just stop  
reading... we're still in a very uncertain situation about this engine,  
with no official development being done on it. By 'just talk' we can  
learn from each other what the ideas are, and who's interested and  
competent to pick that up.

> 1. Develop an C (better C++) interface that enables game engines to  
> interface
> directly with a running instance of blender. This means that blender's  
> own
> game engine would be required to use this interface. I strongly  
> propose a C++
> interface as this is the only approach to hide away some of the more  
> awkward
> internals of blender like the specialized memory management. And  
> needless to
> mention, that this would be the start of basing the entire blender on  
> a sound
> plugin-based architecture (if one C interface is there people will  
> start to
> demand others... you know the tune ;-).

By default, all modules/libraries in Blender have a C API. We stick  
with that at least until 3.0 version.
Blender also doesn't have a plug-in architecture. I don't know exactly  
what you mean with it... but an architecture like 3DS has is highly  
disputable if we ever want to copy that. Again, it's a 3.0 design  
discussion...

Having Blender libs and modules well documented, with a clear API, and  
at least *known* dependencies, is another topic. Of course we want that.

If you examine the current engine structure, you most probably can find  
that its relation/dependency with Blender is very minimal. No danger to  
get confronted easily with "awkward" Blender internals after  
conversions have been done.

-Ton-

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org  
http://www.blender.org