OpenThief source forge project available

openthief on 3/12/2008 at 00:31

Dear all
As a professionnal coder at Ubi, I dont have time anymore to seriously take care of the openThief project (http://openthief.sf.net)
I have installed a wiki, analyzed and tested some open source graphics and physics engines (as Crystal Space, Irrlicht, Bullet, PAL,...), and put some demo in the SF private folder.
I could still help on some coding tasks as AI or GUI but I cant lead the project anymore.
As Thief like gameplays strongly use difficult to code features as dynamic lights, shadows, intelligent AI, and now network, leading a such project needs time and experience. It should not be a good idea to become the new admin if you have never managed a source forge project before or if you are starting the university.
I will so give the openthief SourceForge admin & email password to anyone experienced and interessed to continue the development.
For that, send an email to [email]openthief@hotmail.com[/email] (openthief arobas hotmail dot com)
Regards to all
Eternal life to Thief.

jtr7 on 3/12/2008 at 00:51

Sorry for the bummer part. I thank you very much for your work, thus far.:cool:

You might want to change the format of your email, there, so you won't get hit by a spambot.

Thanks for making an announcement about your circumstances, too.:)

Haplo on 3/12/2008 at 03:20

I wonder if we could merge it with openDarkEngine.

clearing on 3/12/2008 at 03:29

(http://openthief.sourceforge.net/mediawiki-1.6.10/index.php/Screenshots)
openthief, I can't see any screenshots.

sNeaksieGarrett on 3/12/2008 at 06:36

Judging on the wording on your site, I take it that this is NOT like openDarkEngine, as you say it is "an open source project to create a Thief/DarkProject like game." Am I correct?

openDarkEngine is actually for thief, but it sounds like yours is not.:confused:

Volca on 3/12/2008 at 07:02

From what I understand, this project overlaps with DarkMod in the idea and direction (much more than with openDarkEngine :) ).

openThief: How far did you get besides some basic interactivity? I get it the project is at "just started" phase, is it?

sNeaksieGarrett on 3/12/2008 at 08:05

(http://ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124060) Lol, I thought I had seen this before....:laff: I'm not going crazy...... yet.:sly:

Volca: Yeah, that is what I was thinking based on his wording.

New Horizon on 3/12/2008 at 14:20

Quote Posted by Volca

From what I understand, this project overlaps with DarkMod in the idea and direction (much more than with openDarkEngine :) ).

Yes, I remember this project from a long time ago. This is my understanding of it as well...it's a stand alone.

Given how far along we are, I don't see the need for this project to continue. We will have the D3 source code relatively soon, so we'll be completely open source. If there are any C++ coders out there, we could certainly use their help to lighten the load on our coding team.

openthief on 3/12/2008 at 17:25

So to explain the differences between the mentionned Thief like projects :

- DarkMod is only a mod of Doom 3. You need Doom 3 original game to play mods. Meaning you should need to buy Doom 3 CD/DVD. The engine at the background (D3SDK) is already dead as the author, IDSoftware, has not updated it for years and ofcourse will not. Even with source code, a real enhancement of Doom 3 engine, which will be necessary one day, would need to restart everything from scratch. It is working with a dead technology and knowing that one day everything will have to be thrown and cancelled. It is then so hard than such "mod" projects usually stop. It is the same problem with the Unreal Thief mod. It is finally quite sad to use corpses and scraps from the current game industry. This industry is not excited at all by the game we love, Thief. Nowadays, video games editors dont want to produce at all Thief like games.

- openDarkEngine is a total different goal. It aims at reloading Thief 1 and 2 levels, artworks and, hoping, gameplay. Contrary to DarkMod, it is fully real opensource, does not depend on a dead engines. It means more long term project than DarkMod. But the goal is limited if it stops at T1 and T2 levels. it will be difficult to include all the new features that appears in games for years : physics gameplay, next gen AI, network, shaders,... The graphical aspect will looks old as it use old low polygon levels and characters, and the compatibility between T1, T2 and perhaps a new level format will be time consuming to keep. On the contrary, it is a more intelligent project than DarkMod or thief UT mod, as the graphics engine for example, is external (Ogre if I remember right). Everything can be redone and we have the full control on the data, assets and code.
Full open sources projects like openThief has no limit : it use external upto date middlewares. For example, rendering engines like Ogre has already been used in several commercial games, it is updated every days by the whole community, and is already 6 years old. The physical engine ODE is 10 years old,.. without mentioning Bullet, or opened Collada format. You dont usually need to buy a commercial game to play an open source game as it's a stand alone executable with his own assets. Life of open sources projects is unlimited as there are no legal nor technical limitations. To finish, having the source code of the engine you use is not sufficient if nobody update it. Actually, the best is to use several external open sources long term solutions (Ogre + Bullet + OpenAL...).

Here it is.
So :
- for a short term solution, Dark Mod could be funny and easy to work on. But be sure that in the near 2 years, it will be dead or deprecated.
- For long term solutions, either openthief or OPDE is better.
According to my contacts in the industry, absolutely no thief 4 is planed.
So the only solutions to definitely renew thief like games are OPDE or openThief.
Kind regards to all.

New Horizon on 3/12/2008 at 18:18

Quote Posted by openthief

So to explain the differences between the mentioned Thief like projects :.....

Wow. HUGE misinformation in that post if I've ever seen it. No disrespect, but you are so totally off base that I find it personally offensive that you would even post something so absolutely ignorant and uniformed. Whether or not you work as a professional coder at Ubisoft is irrelevant.

1. When the D3 source code is released...efforts can and will be made to create a stand alone base. Until then, yes...you obviously need a copy of the game, but when the code is released...it can break free of that limitation.

2. It doesn't matter if Id software has updated the engine or not, 'WE' have already made updates to the code they released in the SDK. 'WE' have also made great strides in improving an already robust engine. You think an engine is no good if nobody is updating it...well, that's what we've been doing with the code we have...and when the source code is released, you can be damned sure we are planning to fix some issues to improve the engine further.

The full source code is to be released as early as next year, which will likely coincide with our Beta Release of the mod....putting it on equal ground with any other open source engine that is maintained by an open source community. I don't know if you've played any of our Demos, but we're at a point where everything is in place. It's essentially finished, and pretty soon we'll be opening it up to the community.

There is hardly any difference between building a Thief experience from the ground up in a native open source engine and one that 'becomes' open source when its commercial lifespan has ended. It all boils down to the same thing...'years of work' and 'a dedicated team'. Our team has managed to fulfill what we set out to do, not only on one project...but 2...The Dark Mod, and Dark Radiant. We're serious, we're dedicated and we will get it done!

How far along is your project? Do you have any playable demos? Lets see them. I'm not saying that to be confrontational, I seriously mean it. Show your work. It doesn't matter what engine a team is using, if it doesn't have the team members to do the work...you've just got a pile of code.

You're sorely mistaken if you think this community will simply roll over and let The Dark Mod expire. The community here has been totally supportive of us.

OPDE is brilliant, and I think it is making great progress. I can't wait to try it. As for your project, I meant no disrespect...but we're already well underway. There would be no sense in everyone climbing onto an openthief project...only to spend another 4 or 5 years developing it when the community will have a viable, maintainable project with TDM.