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