GREAT article, ET. Very informative ! :D
"E.T." - Apparition Developper wrote: [..]
[..]
Half Life 1 seems like Quake 1 engine core with "pluggable" renderers (SW/HW/D3D) implemented in similar way like NPRQuake (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/graphics/Gallery/NPRQuake/) which together form "raw world" engine.
Valve's addition is skeletaly animated model studiomdl (Studio = reference to 3D Studio MAX used for modelling, MDL = original name of Id's model format (?)) rendered into "raw world" using engine core. Model format doesn't support morphing (disadvantage). This "raw world" engine is slightly modified to use WAD textures with cutom palettes and
So theoretically you could acheive same results by using one of these ports, adding physics like ODE http://www.ode.org/, adding skeletaly animated and moph supporting model rendering. However amount of coding work would be quite high, very high I think. So there is Half-Life 2 with all this features included, tested, debuged and with big(money), succesful, and supporting company behind, like Valve is. It's best way to go.
Yet another reason to work with Source and not a GPL engine its medias. You need giganteous** amounts of work to generate that much and good models, maps, textures, etc.. If you are doing a Quake3 clone, its easy, already exist zimbillions of perfect Quake3 clones, because you only need some random ridiculous textures maps, a few v_weapons and g_weapons, a player model and bot code. But If you are doing anithing different, Its better to have something like Alyx model, or the C17 maps, etc.. AND the huge HL2 userbase to populate your servers.
> > BTW I'm still interested in opensource/gpl games and I'm very curious > whether it's possible to create AAA quality opensource/gpl game. >
AAA not, because need millions dolars, and years manwork. And most people dont build nuclear weapons on the backyard*. But some people sell his house, work hard 8 months and create a nice BB game. I fear creating mods for HL2 can be that cost, because the requirements are soo high that you may need another million dolar to create a good mod (million dolar by money, or by manhours cost).
So no, free gamming will never achieve the quality* and size** of commercial games. But dont really need to. Imho.
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