“Verder spraken we voor deze editie met de ontwikkelaar van Diversia, een open source-variant op Second Life. Waarom Diversia wel een succes wordt, terwijl Second Life langzaam verandert in een spookstad, legt projectleider Melvin Rook uit in een rijk geïllustreerd artikel.”

Inmiddels heb ik ook al veel positieve en leuke reacties op het artikel ontvangen.

That’s the very same question I asked myself a few years ago. I think, that’s is the most difficult step in the process of learning. How should I start? Where should I start? With what should I start?

First of all you need to ask the following question: Can I start? The most simple answer is: yes you can! Everyone can start with game development, but on what time frame? Perhaps you need to learn a bit more of other topics before you actually can begin, because you can’t really program for example.

When developing games, a good knowledge of programming is a real advantage. It will be a lot easier to understand what’s going on. So when you are reading my post and you can’t even program, I would suggest to begin with learning C, C++ or PHP for example. You can take the course on your own by reading books and playing around a bit with simple console based applications or by taking the proper education in a school.

If you can program, then it’s a lot easier to start with game programming. Now we come to the answers on the questions how, where and with what to start. I think it’s the best to cover something I have experience with. When I tried to learn game programming, I personally started with a purchase of a GP2X game console.

The GP2X is a portable device running a modified version of Linux. At the time I started to program for the GP2X, it was possible to create games with C or C++ combined with SDL for the graphics, controls and sounds. I started with loads of projects, but actually I never really finished a project yet. I learned a lot of it though. So when you are really up to a challange, buy a GP2X and start to create games! /* Will post sample code, IDE and games in near future. */

A few months later I started with a project on the Rijswijk university of professional technical education. The goal was to design and create a game from scratch. However, for the university it was important to have an insight on the process of designing and creating a game, because they wanted to start a new programming theme: “Game development”. The game programming theme will cover the most important aspects of game development. So there where a few extra requirements. An opensource engine should be used for example. This is important, because then the university is allowed to change some things “under the hood”, there is no problem with licensing costs and games can easily be published by students. Also, our projectteam was required to make use of physics simulation. Which, by the way, makes games really more interesting.

One of the steps in the process was picking the best game engine. We decided to make our own “package” which consisted of the following parts:

• Ogre3D (render engine)
• PhysX (physics engine)
• NxOgre (wrapper between Ogre3D and PhysX)
• FMOD (sound manager)

I started learning developing games by following the tutorials for Ogre3D. I also played around with the Ogre3D samples by modifying code and playing around with it. After we had setup a test environment with the help of a NxOgre tutorial named ‘Cake’. “Cake is a small sandbox type application to quickly prototype or play with any feature of NxOgre. It’s designed to work within two functions; createScene and onFrame, so that all of the Ogre, GUI and Input code is hidden away from direct view and the developer can concentrate on the NxOgre code only.” (Source: cake)

After we played around a lot with cake we decided to start on the game development of the real game. Phyzle, our concept, is an open source puzzle game using physics as its main game play element. The goal is to bring a ball from point A to B as fast as possible using physics elements like magnets, springs and more.

In a level your goal consists of bringing your ball from A to B as fast as possible, without losing or destroying your ball. The faster you finish, the more points you will earn. The ball can be destroyed by elements like fire, hammers or explosions. Besides the destroying elements there are also helping elements. You can use these elements to improve your finishing time. For example you can make use of elements like fans or magnets.

Making a game concept

/* Will post this topic in the near future */

In general, I can’t cover every topic about game development. However, the internet does cover almost every topic. Please make use of it! _{And, of course, make use of the following URLs:}

• http://www.gamedev.net/
• http://www.gamasutra.com/
• http://www.gdmag.com
• http://www.devmaster.net/

/* Disclaimer: This post is still a draft. More topics will be added in the near future. When you need specific information, please ask for it by replying to this post! */

Requirements

• FreeBSD (jail) installation
• Port/package linux_base-fc4 installed
• Enabled linux emulation
• COD4 DVD

Creating your server release

• First of all you need a MS windows installation or emulation to install/unpack your COD4 DVD. For example you could install/unpack to ‘C:\Games\cod4\’. The reason that you need to do this on windows is because Activision/Infinity Ward doesn’t provide a serverpackage or unix installation of cod4.
• Now patch your installation to the latest version (current version is: 1.7568)
• Create a directory ‘C:\Games\cod4srv\’.
• Copy the all the files and directories from cod4 to cod4srv.
• Go to ‘C:\Games\cod4srv\’ and delete the following files as this will save some space on your server:
  • Docs\
  • main\videos\* (all but keep zakhaev_escape.bik)
  • players\
• Get the cod4 linux binaries from the following URL: http://treefort.icculus.org/cod/ (most recent: cod4-linux-server-06282008.tar.bz2)
• Unpack cod4-linux-server-06282008.tar.bz2 to ‘C:\Games\cod4srv\’.
• Now pack ‘C:\Games\cod4srv\’
• Transfer the pack to your server
• Unpack (to the directory ‘/home/cod4/cod4srv’ for example)
• Keep your original (C:\Games\cod4\) directory for future patching

Running your COD4 server

• Create a server.cfg file (an example server.cfg file can be found here)
• Put the server.cfg file in the ‘/home/cod4/cod4srv/main’ directory
• Now we can run the server:

cod4srv# cd /home/cod4/cod4srv
cod4srv# ./cod4_lnxded +set dedicated 2 +set net_port 28960 sv_maxclients 20 +exec server.cfg +map_rotate &

This command will start a dedicated server on port 28960 with 20 slots, map rotation enabled and will load the options from the server.cfg file. The server will run in the background. Optionally you can run the server in a screen session and detach from it.

Patching your server release

/* Coming soon */

Installing anti-cheat mechanisms

PunkBuster

First shutdown or kill your running cod4 server. Now run the following commands:

cod4srv# cd /home/cod4/cod4srv
cod4srv# ./pbsetup.run -e
cod4srv# ./pbsetup.run --add-game=cod4 --add-game-path=/home/cod4/cod4srv/
cod4srv# ./pbsetup.run -u

While running the PunkBuster setup it will ask you to agree to a license and possibly ask you a few other questions. The PB setup will download and install the most recent files. Now you can run your server again!

Dmw Pro

/* Coming soon */

FAQ

Why don’t you play cod4? Oh, I forgot to tell… I don’t really play cod4, I just installed a cod4 server for a couple of friends. And yes, I have an official license key.

Het eindproduct omvat een game waar de spelers helemaal zelf bepalen hoe de wereld waar ze in rondlopen er uit komt te zien. Er is de mogelijkheid om gebouwen te creëren, voertuigen te bouwen, steden in de richten, etc. De game wordt compleet open source. De servers die de game draaiende houden, kunnen worden gekoppeld zodat de complete wereld door blijft groeien. De server is uiteraard ook open source.

Het idee achter deze opdracht komt van Koen Martens. Koen Martens is ondernemer, politiek activist, hacker en open source ontwikkelaar. Geboren in 1977. Is vijf jaar geleden gestart met het open source bedrijf Sonologic, is voorzitter van de werkgroep open source van GroenLinks en initiatiefnemer van het open-search project. Studeerde kunstmatige intelligentie en logica aan de universiteit van Amsterdam.

Koen Martens vindt het belangrijk dat een open source alternatief wordt ontwikkeld om virtuele werelden te creëren. De voornaamste gedachte hierachter is dat een gebruiker nu geld moet betalen om mee te kunnen doen in de virtuele wereld. Daarnaast wordt door de aanbieder van de virtuele wereld bepaald of de gebruiker zijn wereld behoudt of juist niet. Het bedrijf achter de wereld kan bijvoorbeeld ‘er gewoon mee stoppen’. De gebruiker is dan al zijn tijd en moeite kwijt die hij in zijn wereld gestoken heeft. De oplossing is een open source oplossing waarbij een gebruiker een wereld kan maken door een server te starten.

Phyzle, een vorig project van onze projectgroep, heeft veel positivie reacties gehad. Het filmpje dat versie 0.1 van het spel laat zien is al 12000 keer bekeken en het spel zelf is 1350 keer gedownload. Deze cijfers zijn behaald door het gebruik van een klein beetje mond tot mond reclame en het gebruik van StumbleUpon voor de publiciteit.
Een aantal citaten van mensen die Phyzle gespeeld hebben:

• “I’m a computer teacher and some of my students enjoy problem solving games. I thought maybe this would be a good one to add to our collection. They love Armidillo Run and Crayon Physics.”
• “Phyzle – another physics game puzzle builder like Phun. This time in 3D.”
• “Some kind of Incredible Machine simulator, sounds cool.”
• “Wow this looks awesome! I’m a big fan of sandbox style games like this and the fact that it’s open source makes it even better.”

De verwachting is dat het MultiVerse project nog meer aandacht gaat trekken, omdat MultiVerse ook het sandbox gedeelte uit Phyzle gaat bevatten in een virtuele wereld die blijft bestaan.

Phyzle preview