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mvBarracuda
9th October 2006, 11:06
Team name:
FIFE developing team.

Project name:
FIFE - Flexible Isometric Fallout(-like) Engine.

Brief description:
Just like the name of our project suggests we work on a new open source framework for isometric games. The engine started as a Fallout-only project but we recognized very fast that it offers the potential to be used as a general 2d ISO framework for the development of cross platform games.

The engine supports the assets of the original Fallout games but it is also suitable for creating even totally new 2D games. We are focusing on the creation of an engine itself but will bundle it with an example mod; so modders have a starting point to create their own games based on our engine.

Since we do not focus on the creation of a complete game we will be working on comfortable and easy-to-use editing tools. Engine and editor are planned to run on all flavours of Linux, Win32 and MacOSX.

The FIFE project is over 12 months in development now and we have released three public pre-alpha versions of the engine on sourceforge / freshmeat in January and May 2006. Another release is planned for the end of the year coming with the first version of our editor tool.

Target aim:
Open source GPL v2.0 (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php); non-profit

Compensation:
We are confident that advanced coders will find it quite exciting to work on the creation and the designing of a whole engine with other experienced and passionate open source coders. But as we're a non-profit project the only thing we can provide is a way to express your love for open source software and the satisfying feeling to work on an ambitious project.

Technology:
Linux, Windows, MacOSX
C++, Boost library
SDL, OpenGL (optional)
Qt4 for the editor

SVN Sourcecode checkout: Engine
svn co https://svn1.cvsdude.com/fife/engine/trunk/core

SVN Sourcecode checkout: Editor
svn co https://svn1.cvsdude.com/fife/engine/trunk/fifedit

We are searching for:
Qt4 map editor developer
We had already found a developer for our map editor; he did even create design documents for it. Unfortunately he's quite busy at work currently so he can't invest much time into the project anymore. The first task for the editor developer would be to evaluate the current editor design documents and to decide which parts of them can be used and which ones need to be redesigned.

You can find them here:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=FIFEdit_Design_Document
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=FIFEdit_Functionality
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=FIFEdit_Structure

The goal is to create a map editor that is based on QT4 to create maps for FIFE. Major parts of the needed code are already implemented in the engine itself; this way we can reduce the amount of code to maintain. We'll simply link against our static engine library and "just" the editor specific features need to be written from scratch.

Planned tasks:
1. Evaluate the editor design documents.
2. Decide which parts can be reused and which ones need redesigning.
3. Integrate the engine into the editor. E.g. we to get the editor working together with our SDL / OpenGL render backends; otherwhise we would need to write an extra QT render backend for the editor. We already tried that in the past but the results weren't satisfying performance-wise, even on modern system. Another problem would be code duplication because a QT render backend would mean more code to maintain and it would needed to be kept up to date with the other backends. So we think "embedding" the SDL / OpenGL backends is the better way to go.

The best way to decide if this project is your cup of tea is to check out the "getting started"-guide (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Getting_started) and take a look at our current code base (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Subversion_repository).

Team structure:
Phoku - engine core designer & coder
Zahlman - engine core coder
Chris - engine core freelancer
ismarc - editor core designer & coder (inactive)
Cheesesucker - editor coder
Skybound - XMLmaps & script integration developer
RogerWilco - sound engine developer
IFooBar - MSVC 2005 porter
GIR - script integration developer
chewie - lua scripter / mod developer
mvBarracuda - project manager

My job as project manager is to keep the team together and to ensure that the communication structure inside the team works so everyone enjoys working on the project. Among other things I'm the official development wiki maintainer and take care of official and experimental Win32 builds of the engine.

Website:
Homepage (http://www.fifengine.de)
Development wiki (http://wiki.fifengine.de)
Development blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/blog)
Getting started guide for interested developers (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Getting_started)
Doxygen code documentation (http://docs.fifengine.de)
Design documents (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Category:Design_Documents)

Current release:
FIFE 2006.1 pre-alpha Win32 (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2006.1_win32.exe?download)
FIFE 2006.2 experimental SVN builds Win32 (http://members.fifengine.de/bin/FIFE_r729_win32.exe)
Linux users better get the code from because we added a fair share of new code since our last official release.

Contacts:
IRC channel: http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC
eMail: mvBarracuda@web.de
icq: UIN -> 98600423 (http://www.icq.com/whitepages/wwp.php?to=98600423)

Important:
You can either use our free XMLmaps with the engine or access the original Fallout maps with it. If you want to use the Fallout maps you will need a legit copy of Fallout 1 or 2. The FO 1/2 maps are far more advanced compared to our own XMLmaps; basically we just set some placeholder textures on them to have something that lets you start the engine without having to own Fallout. So if you want to experience the full beauty: give the Fallout maps a go.

To give you an impression about the status of the project we took sample screenshots of the current release (using the Fallout maps):

A very early version of FIFEdit, later abandoned:
http://screens.fifengine.de/editor_002_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/editor_002.jpg)

One of our XML maps:
http://screens.fifengine.de/2006.1.001_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/2006.1.001.jpg)

FIFE can handle different resolutions in spite of the original Fallout engine:
http://screens.fifengine.de/pre-alpha_002_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/pre-alpha_002.jpg)

The OpenGL render backend supports alphablending:
http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_015_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_015.jpg)

Feedback:
Feel free to add whatever feedback you like :-) Critics will help us to improve the project.

mvBarracuda
14th January 2007, 10:19
We did just release a new version of FIFE. This first release in 2007 hopefully convinces one or the other coder to have a look at the project and give us a chance :-)

Grab the source package here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.0-r1_src.tar.bz2

mvBarracuda
5th March 2007, 23:41
Phoku revealed the roadmap for the next FIFE releases today and we're planning a GFX contest entitled "Send them in!". You can read about all the details @ our developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/03/05/08.17

mvBarracuda
11th March 2007, 18:38
Just wanted to announce that we've got a new developer on the team who's currently working to get FIFE running on Macintosh again.

If everything works out as planned, we'll already provide universal Mac binaries for the upcoming 2007.1 release :-)

mvBarracuda
29th March 2007, 00:01
We're currently working hard to get the 2007.1 release out. Therefore we decided to release a last test build for win32 so users can get an impression what new features are coming with the new release.

Download:
http://members.fifengine.de/bin/FIFE_r988_win32.exe

mvBarracuda
10th April 2007, 01:37
Ahh well, the work on the final fixes for the 2007.1 is going extremely slow :-/ Seems like we'll need to delay the release till the end of April, if not even further.

So here is at least a new screenshot of the content that will be featured in the official 2007.1 demo map, stay tuned :-)

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/1/15/2007.1.004.jpg

The graphics have been taken from Reiner's tilesets:
http://reinerstileset.4players.de/

mvBarracuda
23rd April 2007, 17:01
It's done :-) After over three months of hard work, we've fixed the last issues today and released the 2007.1 milestone of FIFE. The most important improvement is the new custom map format that can be considered as stable. We created a demo map for this release for a number of reasons:
* Show the modders how the FIFE map format and specific concepts like the tilesets, archetypes and prototypes work.
* Set up a starting point for modders so they can get into the world of FIFE more easily.
* Create something that looks totally unFallouty to get away from the "FIFE-is-just-a-Fallout-emulator"-image. Welcome to the Isle of FIFE :-)

Here is a screenshot of our new demo map, using graphics from Reiner's Tilesets (http://reinerstileset.4players.de/index.html):
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg/300px-2007.1.005.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg)

New features since the 2007.0 release:
* Stable custom XML map format for FIFE including our demo map to show the new features and syntax of it :-)
* FPS limiter (can be set in fife.config) to save important CPU time for future tasks (AI, pathfinding, etc.)
* Tile and object coordinates can be displayed (press "c")
* Color key overriding for Fallout transparency effects (see content/gfx/fallout_overrides.xml)
* Fixed DAT1 decoding code (bug was introduced with the DAT1 rewrite)
* Major map model classes have been exported to Lua and are now accessable via the console
* Map size dependant, configurable geometries
* Colorkeying for the SDL renderer
* Add custom VFS sources via vfs.addSource (see content/etc/vfs_sources.txt)
* Increased startup speed with FO2 DAT files
* Enhanced camera with support for multiple viewports (see content/scripts/demos/map_control.lua)
* Built against SDL_image 1.2.5 and guichan 0.61 now (Win32 binaries)

Get the win32 package here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_win32.exe

Get the src package for linux, mac and kind of other POSIX systems here:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.1_src.tar.bz2

Install guide:
1. Unpack
2. Read README.txt

mvBarracuda
19th May 2007, 18:24
The last weeks were quite busy for the majority of the team members so there was we've published no news update since the release of the 2007.1 milestone about 4 weeks ago. Now we've found some time over the weekend to summarize all the events that happened in the last weeks to give you can overview about the current status of the project.

The full article can be found at the developer blog (http://blog.fifengine.de) and covers a bunch of topics including some remarks about the feedback concerning the recent release, news about the upcoming universal binaries for Macintosh systems, an update about the SVN and wiki restructuring process and the reintroduced MSVC 2005 and new KDevelop support for FIFE. Have a nice read (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/05/19/09.47) :-)

mvBarracuda
25th May 2007, 22:57
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f1/FIFEbanner5.png (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_GFX_contest)

About FIFE
FIFE is an open source 2D engine that aims to become a whole framework for the creation of cross platform (Linux, Mac, Win32) roleplaying games. Although we are having trouble getting the development started on the editor, we aim to include modding tools in future FIFE releases. The project is in development for almost 21 months now (ohh, we're getting old :-/) and we did release several public milestones of the engine over this time.

The latest release, entitled FIFE 2007.1, shipped about one month ago and features our first larger custom map for FIFE. The engine supports some of the assets of the Interplay RPG classics Fallout 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_%28computer_game%29) & Fallout 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2). The Fallout assets served as test content for the engine but we've moved away from our Fallout roots over the last year and FIFE is slowly becoming a general purpose 2D RPG engine, suitable for the creation of all kind of roleplaying games.

Here is an impression of our demo map that shipped with the 2007.1 release:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg/300px-2007.1.005.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f0/2007.1.005.jpg)

About the contest
The demo map shown above was created with free graphics from Reiner's tilesets site (http://reinerstileset.4players.de/englisch.htm). We're trying to build a community around FIFE and we're also of course trying to get them involved in the project. A first step into this direction is our upcoming graphics contest, called: Send them in!.

The contest will start at the first of June, 2007 and the end of it is scheduled for the first of August, 2007. There are basically four different categories in which you can take part: floor tiles, roof tiles, static & animated objects and animated characters. You can take part in more than one category but there are certain requirements for each category; if you want to win the prize of the contest, you'll need to fulfill them.

So what is the prize? FIFE programmer Phoku offers to code an (useful) ~10 man hours feature into FIFE for the winner. This is probably a good way if you're considering to use FIFE for an own project but one important feature is still currently missing in your opinion. Although there will be no monetary compensation as the whole team works in their free time on the project, we're hoping for a bunch of interested participants nevertheless.

We're aiming to use the contributions of all participants of the contest for a new demo map that will hopefully already ship with the upcoming 2007.2 release.

More information
You want to know more about FIFE and the Send them in! contest? Our project site (http://www.fifengine.de) and the development wiki (http://wiki.fifengine.de) are good starting points for you. Our wiki features a separate rather detailed article (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_GFX_contest) that is dedicated the contest. All details about the rules of the contest, license-specific issues and the different contest categories can be found there.

If you still got questions about this upcoming event, feel free to visit the team at their project irc channel (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC) or ask your questions directly at the talk page of the corresponding article (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Talk:Map_GFX_contest#Contest-related_questions). You'll need to register at the wiki to get write access. We were not keen to enforce wiki registration, but the spam attacks of unregistered bots are really getting on our nerves and waste our time that could be invested far more useful.

We want to thank every interested graphics artist who takes part to support an work in progress open source project :-)

mvBarracuda
15th October 2007, 13:28
The position has been filled. Thanks for your interest :-)

Could any moderator please lock the thread or add the word "[FILLED]" to the title of the thread? Thanks :-)