Open source Fallout engine coming to Mac (with your help)

[mvBarracuda]

Hi to all Mac gamers out there, the FIFE project needs your help to bring a new open source Fallout-like engine to mac.

The FIFE project is a group of enthusiastic Fallout-fans and coders that want to create a open source emulator for the Fallout 2 engine; similar to projects like GemBR for infinity engine games or Exult for Ultima 7. At the moment we are 10 developers and the project is in development for four months now. The majority of our devs use Linux but we have Windows developers, too. Therefore our current prototype of the engine runs on both platforms.

We agreed on trying to bring FIFE to all major platforms and operating systems so we're now searching for an interested Mac release manager that builds the binaries on his PPC system. You don't need to port the sourcecode as the code is already PPC compatible; we're just lacking somebody who builds the sources on his system.

You'll need the following libs & compile tools installed:
- gcc compiler, SCons building tool (requires python)
- SDL, SDL_ttf, boost
- OpenAL, libvorbis, libogg, libvorbisfile
- guichan (engine GUI lib), zlib (should be standard on every Mac, shouldn't it?)
- OpenGL (if you want to have hard accelerated gfx support)

We would be really happy to provide Mac binaries for FIFE with your support :-)

Screenshots (click on them for see the fullscreen version):
http://screens.fifengine.de/pre-alpha_002_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/pre-alpha_002.jpg)

http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_015_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_015.jpg)

http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_014_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_014.jpg)

http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_013_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_013.jpg)

More screenshots can be found in our gallery:
http://www.fifengine.de/index.php?module=pagesetter&tid=5

If you want to reach us
=========================
Homepage: http://www.fifengine.de

IRC channel: http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Developer_IRC_channel

ICQ: UIN->98600423

eMail: mvBarracuda@web.de
=========================

Important addresses
=========================
Wiki: http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php

Subversion sourcecode repository: http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Subversion_repository

Public mailing list: http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Public_mailing_list
=========================

[unknown]

Ill try and build it, does that mean I need to rewrite all the SConscript's?

[mvBarracuda]

Ill try and build it, does that mean I need to rewrite all the SConscript's?
AFAIK just the "sconstruct" in the core folder; the others should have no platform specific stuff. But I got no mac experience, you'll need includes and libs for:
- SDL
- OpenAL
- SDL_sound
- SDL_ttf
- OpenGL 1.3 (if you want to compile the OGL renderer)

You can find the prototype under:
BRANCHES\experimental\core -> SDL software renderer
BRANCHES\experimental\glcore -> OpenGL hw renderer

We plan to merge these 2 renderers and make it just a compile flag in the scons file, but its not finished ATM.

[unknown]

I mean SConscript -> makefiles, I dont think I can run SConscript files.

[mvBarracuda]

You'll need python and scons but AFAIK both are available under Mac :)

[unknown]

Ok ill have a look for scons, ive got python already.

[mvBarracuda]

We just tested it: compiling works :)

But the setup of the test environment for Mac is quite tricky as there is no .dat decompressor for Mac. We're working on it.

[unknown]

Thats good news,
will there be a way to build this without scons in futre?

[mvBarracuda]

No, as we're trying to use one build system for all platforms as it makes building quite easy :)

We had a hard time to get it working on windows but once its done, building is so easy :) A friendly mac dev just helped us to create a mac scons file, should be in the SVN tomorrow.

[Tesseract]

SCons (http://www.scons.org/) is really easy to install from source, just "python setup.py install" and you're done.

Also, mvBarracuda forgot to mention one library dependency: Boost (http://www.boost.org/). I installed it through DarwinPorts, and I expect it's available through Fink as well.

There is a remaining issue with where the OpenGL and OpenAL headers are installed, which I got around by symlinking the Headers folders from the frameworks to /usr/include/AL and /usr/include/GL. Once that's solved, building is as easy as typing "scons". Unpacked Fallout 2 data files are needed to test the program -- more to come on that in the hopefully-not-too-distant future.

[mvBarracuda]

You're right Tesseract, forget to mention that you'll need boost as we're using some special functions of it. And the mac scons file is already in the svn so you can at least compile it under MacOsX :)

The glcore has been just merged with the normal one and now you can enter "scons opengl=1" to compile it with OpenGL support. Object loading is finished and the placement does now work, too.

RogerWilco works on a modified undat that runs on Mac so with some luck you can test it on your own and see if it runs :)

[mvBarracuda]

We just released our first win32 pre alpha version. We would really like to provide Mac binaries but it all depends on if we find a Mac coder that wants to help us :-)
http://www.fifengine.de

New screens:
http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_015_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_015.jpg)

http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_014_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_014.jpg)

http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_013_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/prototype1_013.jpg)

[mvBarracuda]

Okay ONE last try :-p

You won't really need to be a "real" coder to compile FIFE on Mac. We're more searching for a release manager for Macintosh as you would just need to build the binaries on your PPC system (the code is already PPC compatible).

Building should be quite easy because AFAIK all required libs and tools are available through FINK or darwinports:
- gcc compiler, SCons building tool (requires python)
- SDL, SDL_ttf, boost
- OpenAL, libvorbis, libogg, libvorbisfile
- guichan (engine GUI lib), zlib (should be standard on every Mac, shouldn't it?)
- OpenGL (if you want to have hard accelerated gfx support)

Are there just no Fallout fans on Mac or is it really that hard to compile from source on Macintosh these days if you just need to install some packages and type "SCons"?

[kodex]

I am a Giant fan of Fallout games and its one of the reasons I got into programming games to begin with, but I am far to busy to invest time in another project right now. Especially a non-paying one since I am currently living off my programs.

[mvBarracuda]

If you're coding on Mac I assume that you got the majority of these libs already installed. It should take about 1-2 hours to install all needed libs and once you've done that you're ready for compiling.

After that you just have to type "Scons" and it starts to build the binary automatically, you don't even need to set compiler / linker flags. We'll keep searching for Mac release managers; till we find one there will be simply no FIFE for Mac ...

[Malarkey]

I'll try my hand at it since I have Fallout 2 somewhere around here. Anyway, I'm getting the required libs now.

[mvBarracuda]

That would be really appreciated Malarkey :-)

Feel free to visit our irc channel if you encounter problems compiling. There are often FIFE devs around who can surely help you:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC

[mvBarracuda]

Anyone tried to compile it yet? Do you need help, anything we can do?

[mvBarracuda]

Good news: two courageous Mac coders have successfully compiled FIFE on their Macintosh system yesterday. There are still some issues but it looks like won't take ages anymore till you see a FIFE Mac release.

Let's hope we get the stuff fixed soon :-)

[Malarkey]

Oh good. I've been having problems trying to get the libraries it needed to build (in addition to trying to find time to even play with them).

[mvBarracuda]

After months of struggling, here it is: the first official FIFE macintosh release.

Should work for for all PPC Macs with Mac OS X:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2006.1_osx_ppc.tar.bz2?download+

README inside the tar.bz2 package; please report problems here.

[Myrdred]

Can't you just setup a PPC box that has a cron job to checkout the source and build it? Why does a person need to be involved?

I can understand when it comes to programming, but for BUILDS!?? Just automate it.

[mvBarracuda]

Can't you just setup a PPC box that has a cron job to checkout the source and build it? Why does a person need to be involved?

I can understand when it comes to programming, but for BUILDS!?? Just automate it.
How can we setup a cronjob to automatically build the source if we were not able to fully build it manually yet? We succesfully compiled it but our mac gurus don't know how to create a package so you can distribute the binary with all needed libraries.

We plan to have the next official FIFE release in about two weeks. It seems it will be win32 & linux only as there is still nobody around who can help us creating mac packages :-(

[mvBarracuda]

Just wanted to announce that our first public release for 2007 is out :-) Have fun with it:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.0_win32.exe

This is for the mac users who also own a win32 system. Unfortunately we didn't find a mac coder who was able to build universal mac packages yet :-(

Install guide:
1. Download
2. Execute the self-extracting 7zip archive and uncompress to a folder of your choice
3. Read the readme.txt that can be found within the folder where you uncompressed FIFE

And here are two screenshots from the new version:
http://screens.fifengine.de/2007.0.001_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/2007.0.001.jpg)

http://screens.fifengine.de/2007.0.002_t.jpg (http://screens.fifengine.de/2007.0.002.jpg)

[unknown]

Where is the source code?

[mvBarracuda]

Where is the source code?
We intend to release the src package in the next days as documentation still needs to be written.

If you want to have a look at the code earlier, simply download it from SVN. Engine repository r821 & content repository r85 were used to build the 2007.0 release:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Subversion_repository

[mvBarracuda]

Where is the source code?
Finally available for download :-)
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.0_src.tar.bz2

If anybody could try to create working binary packages for Mac the team would be _very_ happy.

[mvBarracuda]

The old src package was broken as I packaged it on win32 and that screwed the line breaks :-(

An updated and fixed packaged was just released by us :-)

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

[unknown]

cool it looks great, im going to try this out when I get home to my C compiler :D

[mvBarracuda]

cool it looks great, im going to try this out when I get home to my C compiler :D
A C++ one would prolly work better but let me know if you run into issues with the compile process :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Welcome to yet another FIFE news update, this time it's a rather important one. You've prolly already noticed that there was not much SVN activity after the last official release last month. Phoku is busy with his exams and jobs and won't have time for FIFE in the next couple of months. As everyone who's still left on the team seems to be incredibly busy too I want to send an SOS to all FIFE fans out there.

There were no major code additions to our Subversion repository since about one month. So if no wonder happens this phase of slowdown will probably last for several months. We know that nobody is eagerly awaiting to join a team that is in a massive slowdown but our aim was to be always honest about the status of the project. If you know any developer who could help out and would be interested to work on FIFE: don't hesitate to send us a message to our mailing list: fife-public@lists.sourceforge.net

We're in the desperate need of experienced C++ coders who are interested in working on the engine or the editor. If we won't be able to attract new contributors we'll make no big steps forward in the development for the next several months. There is a list with tasks to address for interested developers:
https://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/report/1

Furthermore you should read our getting started guide for developers to find out about the basics of FIFE:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Getting_started

Last but not least there are also some small signs of hope for the FIFE team. We got two new interested developers on team: labrat and shales. Labrat currently works on a general solver interface and wants to integrate the Micropather pathfinding library into FIFE:
http://www.grinninglizard.com/MicroPather/

Shales works on color-keying for the SDL renderer to speed up the transparency effects with software rendering. But both new developers are rather busy with their real life so their enlistment alone won't help to boost our progress significantly. We hope that someone hears this call for help :-)

Last but not least we're planning to restructure our wiki. mvBarracuda already started to overwork the wiki frontpage and planned more important changes for the next weeks. We would like to get some feedback from the community how they like the new wiki structure and what could be improved:
http://wiki.fifengine.de

See you at the next development update and I hope we can bring you better news next time.

[mvBarracuda]

Hi guys :-) Time for yet another FIFE news update.

As you might already know our old editor coder went absent without official leaving and we've been searching for new developers who wanted to work on the editor. Despite the fact that some people were interested in helping out with editor development, none of them did stick to the task in the long run. There is still one guy left on the team who's interested to work on the editor but has no time to do so :-/

So I want to be totally upfront about this: it seems that there will be _NO_ FIFE editor available for the next couple of months. Therefore the editor beta test is on halt. We'll inform you as soon as there is a willing developer around who brought up a serious concept for it and commited some promising code into SVN. I won't announce anything just because we would have found yet another coder interested who silently leaves the project after that. I intend to spare you and myself this drama.

Phoku, the driving force behind FIFE coding in the last months, was hard working in the last two weeks and plans to write a detailed developer blog update in the next couple of days. He'll talk about the upcoming 2007.1 release and the roadmap for the next two releases: 2007.2 & 2007.3.

There are at least a few promising news in spite of the whole editor nightmare:
1. The work on the 2007.1 milestone is coming along good. That means we plan to have more than two FIFE releases in 2007. There is no release date set but I'll inform you about any details as soon as I know more.

2. Phoku finished his map format draft recently. That means the 2007.1 release will feature a somewhat stable map format so you could start creating maps for FIFE (by hand) despite the lack of a map editor:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_Format

3. I didn't talk with phoku about all details but I guess that the roadmap, that will be announced in the next days, will feature these basic ideas:
3.1 Stable map format with the 2007.1 release
3.2 Stable animation format with the 2007.2 release
3.3 More fleshed out script API with the 2007.3 release

4. Furthemore we plan to organize a FIFE contest entitled "Send them in!". The idea behind this contest is to encourage the modders to send in their self-created GFX. The FIFE team will have a look at the different contributions and will pick a winner after that. We'll use the winner's gfx for the planned 2007.2 demo map that should show the possibilities of the engine without the need to have one of the two Fallout RPGs installed. There is still a lot of planning to do but it's planned to launch this contest after the release of the 2007.1 milestone.

We plan to get news coverage at NMA as soon as phoku's developer blog update is online, we can hopefully announce more details about the "send them in!" contest too.

That's all for today, see you at the next update.

[mvBarracuda]

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

Even more important it seems that we've found an dedicated Mac programmer who wants to provide universal binaries of FIFE for Macintoshs in the future. No guarantee that we'll provide a binary of the upcoming 2007.1 release for Mac, but we hope that we can do so.

[mvBarracuda]

A little Mac-related progress report :-)

Our new mac programmer provided a patch on the mailing list today that can be already found in SVN now. With this patch applied, FIFE should build on Macintosh again. He also wrote a compile guide if anyone is interested in building FIFE from source:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Mac_compile_guide

He's currently working on creating universal binaries for Mac. So there seems to be no reason that the 2007.1 release should not feature Mac binaries, stay tuned.

[mvBarracuda]

Ahh well, the work on the final fixes for 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/

[unknown]

it looks amazing, cant wait to try it sometime.

[mvBarracuda]

it looks amazing, cant wait to try it sometime.
Ahh well, I guess you'll need to wait till someone finally starts to work on our damn map editor. We still got no active coder working on it (and about 3-4 inactive ones :lol:).

Creating maps with the text editor is a real PITA but it works for the example map and so I'll go through the hassle till the map is finished.

[mvBarracuda]

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

Could anyone here please test if he's able to get the engine compiling using the source package linked above and this guide?
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Mac_compile_guide

Our Mac programmer is busy and therefore there are no Mac binaries yet :-/

[mvBarracuda]

Ahh well, good news from the Mac front I guess :-)

We've got a new Mac developer involved who got time and the required knowledge to create the Mac binaries for FIFE. He has already successfully compiled the latest version of FIFE and currently plans to create an easy to install FIFE package for Macintosh. Therefore we're in the need of Mac testers who would give installing this package a shot and report back if everything works fine. We're in the need of:
* 2-3 testers who're running a PowerPC-based Mac
* 2-3 testers who're running an Intel x86-based Mac

If you're interested, please visit our irc channel (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC) to get in contact with one of the developers or reply here. There is no scheduled date when the test packages will be ready but it shouldn't take too long so we thought that it would be good to ask in advance if people are interested in helping out with testing.

[mvBarracuda]

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) :-)

[unknown]

Cool!
I keep meaning to try and build this but always forget, shame on me :S

Can't wait to see more of this project :D

[mvBarracuda]

Cool!
I keep meaning to try and build this but always forget, shame on me :S

Can't wait to see more of this project :D
Ahh well, with some luck there are official Mac binaries at the end of the month so you should prolly just wait :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Update time :-) Progress was rather slow in the last weeks but there's a bunch of interestings things to report about nevertheless.

So here we go:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/06/25/12.05

[mvBarracuda]

Yet another FIFE update coming to you :-)

The work on the extend branch is coming along quite well lately and our current lead programmer Jasoka decided to summarize the current status from the developer's point of view. He does comment on the new Python support of the engine and raises some points how the modularization of FIFE should work.

For everyone who's interested in reading Jasoka's full text, feel free to check it out at our developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/07/11/18.44

[mvBarracuda]

It looks like picking a winner for the send them in contest will be actually quite easy. At the moment there is not a single participant listed there: http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_GFX_contest_contributions

The contest will end at 2007/08/01 and if nobody sends in a package that complies to our rules (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_GFX_contest#Requirements_for_t he_graphics) the jury will consider contributions that don't meet the requirements too. E.g. Wulax did already send in some rather nice looking buildings that can be found within our SVN repository now.

So if you intend to take part in the contest, don't miss the deadline :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Update time :-)

We're currently reworking our XML map format as we found a number of inconsistencies that we failed to foresee when we initially designed the first version of our map format :-/

Fortunately (or unfortunately, that really depends on the perspective) there are just two FIFE-based games in development at the moment so we decided to address these issues as soon as possible to reduce the number of affected projects that will need to slightly adjust their map markup to work with the latest FIFE code.

Updated FIFE map format (draft) (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Map_Format_v.2)

The good news is that the reworking of the map format is a first step and part of our strategy to finally tackle the monster that FIFE developers call the "map editor". So there is actually hope that people who start to explore the world of FIFE with our next planned release 2007.2 won't need to worry about these changes at all (if we manage to finish a first version of our map editor tool until then).

Jasoka and jwt did invest a large amount of time to refactor important parts of the engine, kick out singletons and remove bi-directional dependencies between the different engine modules thus leading to a far cleaner engine structure. The whole refactoring process is still ongoing and everyone who's interested in what we're currently working on should check out our metamodel branch in SVN and take a look at the SVN changelog of the last weeks :-)

Metamodel branch @ SVN (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/browser/branches/active/metamodel/)
SVN changelog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/timeline)

[mvBarracuda]

Welcome to yet another FIFE news update :-)

It was pretty quiet lately, not because we would have been lazy but because I was busy with my exams and had no time to write about our most recent efforts. Nevertheless there was of course a bunch of work going on behind the scenes and I'm happy to have finally found the time to summarize it for you. There are several topics to talk about:
* The send them in! contest is over and we finally have a winner.
* The work on the new metamodel branch is coming along quite well.
* The FIFE team agreed to work on a new techdemo in cooperation with the Zero-Projekt team (http://www.zero-projekt.net/) that explains the features of FIFE.
* The FIFE project turns two rather soon :-) Time for a birthday party.
* fifengine.de (http://www.fifengine.de) has been slightly updated with the help of the new developer NickWarner.

You can read about all these topics in detail at our most recent FIFE developer blog update (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/08/22/16.32). Have fun :-)

[mvBarracuda]

We can't really believe it either but our calendar says that it has been almost two years now since we started to work on this very project. At the 11th of September 2005 a group of naive but enthusiastic individuals agreed to found a development project to create an improved Fallout-like engine for roleplaying games. Although the focus shifted to become a more general and flexible 2D engine, altough new members joined and old ones left the team, we're still around and the recent progress gives us the hope that there'll be a bunch of birthday parties to celebrate in the next couple of years :-) To celebrate at least our first two years we invite every developer (active, inactive, ex or even simply interested to get involved) and of course every guest to visit our IRC channel (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC) at Tuesday, 2007/09/11.

If you always wanted to get to know these crazy FIFE people here is your chance. As the majority of the FIFE developers are set in Europe you will probably need to wait for the evening hours (GMT) to get in touch with project members though. You could even try to obtain an answer to the question when 2007.2 will be released. Though it's likely that we'll answer: ''When it's done''. Not because we're cruel but because we don't know it either :-) Anyway: we hope to see all of you at Tuesday.

Let's get this party started :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Finally a first screenshot of the upcoming techdemo that is a cooperation of the Zero-Projekt team (http://www.zero-projekt.net/zero-content/include/language.php?l=1) and the FIFE staff. Looks like they make fun of poor little Barracuda :-(

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/5/52/2007.2.005.jpg

[mvBarracuda]

To bring up the most important fact at the beginning: the FIFE team will finally release the 2007.2 milestone to the public at Wednesday, the 10th of October, 2007. Over five months have passed since the 2007.1 milestone had been released at the end of April and a lot has changed since then. Now that the most important changes are in place and work we feel that it's time for another release to give the community a sign into which direction the project is heading.

Let's summarize the most important changes for the 2007.2 release and have a (small) look into the future of FIFE as well.

After having utilized Lua5 for the scripting side of FIFE for over 18 months we agreed that it would be worth taking a look at SWIG (http://www.swig.org/) again. SWIG was promising as it offered a way to use our engine with a number of scripting languages; furthermore we could get rid of the semi-manual lunar.h bindings approach this way as well. We ran into some hurdles while trying to integrate SWIG into FIFE but in the end it worked out quite well. Now we had the ability to wrap up the engine into python instead of the old way of embedding the Lua library into FIFE.

The so-called metamodel branch was an undertaking to seriously redesign major parts of the engine. We decided to go for an MVC (model - view - controller) architecture pattern for FIFE and refactored the engine modules accordingly. Another aim was to remove unneeded bi-directional module dependencies to have a clean module hierarchy:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Engine_Core

The Zero-Projekt (http://www.zero-projekt.net/) team agreed to work with the FIFE developers on an example game for future releases together. This way we can give game creators a starting point and show what can be done with the engine. Furthermore working with the Zero team directly together brings up a number of advantages for FIFE:
* We won't need to worry about producing content for the example game.
* We're in contact with game creators so we get feedback what works well and what aspects should be improved.
* We can test and adjust the FIFE API while we work on the example game. This wouldn't be possible without building an actual game on top of the engine.

A first snapshot of the example game will come bundled with the 2007.2 release. Don't expect too much: it is a work in progress project and especially the first versions will naturally lack a lot of polish!

After the release of the 2007.2 milestone we plan to finally start working on the editor tools for FIFE again. We tried to do so several times before but everytime something went wrong: editor programmers disappeared and later we did find several engine issues that prevented building an useful editor tool on top of the engine.

Now that the engine is in pretty good shape after the metamodel refactoring, we feel that working on the editor tools will bring up better results this time. Jwt, who also wrote the new python-based maploaders for the 2007.2 release, does currently investigate how we could create python-based mapsavers. This is meant to be the first step for the editor tools.

Anxs & prock are currently redesigning the FIFE audio module in a separate branch. If everything works out as planned we might be able to ship the new improved audio module already with the 2007.3 release. If you want to read some detailed information about the audio module redesign, head over to the wiki:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Audio_Design_Documentation

Now that we're heading to the finish line we can need every helping hand to test the upcoming release. Furthermore help with packaging would be appreciated as well. Therefore we invite every interested community member to join our project IRC channel to lend us a hand. We hope to see some of you there. If you're too busy, it would be great if you could be around at the release day to celebrate the new milestone with us at least :-)
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC

And finally after all the text, some new eye-candy as well. This is a screenshot of the product we're working on together with the Zero-Projekt team. This content won't ship with the upcoming 2007.2 release and is work in progress.
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/2/24/2007.2.006.jpg/300px-2007.2.006.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/2/24/2007.2.006.jpg)

[mvBarracuda]

We've made it! The 2007.2 release is on the server and we're all happy that it shipped in time.

Download
* Source package (Linux, Macintosh): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.2_src.tar.bz2
* Win32 binaries: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2007.2_win32.exe

Screenshot
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/b/b4/2007.2.007.jpg/300px-2007.2.007.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/b/b4/2007.2.007.jpg)

Important changes since the 2007.1 release
* Removed the rather difficult to maintain lunar.h bindings in favour of SWIG (http://www.swig.org).
* Replaced the Lua scripting support with Python. Now the main loop runs in the scripting language. For the 2007.1 release the main loop still ran in the engine side and the Lua library was embedded into the engine. By utilizing SWIG game creators can add Lua support back to the engine again if they have the need for it.
* Metamodel refactoring. This resulted in a better engine structure and a decreased number of dependencies between the engine modules. Furthermore bi-directional dependencies were removed completely.
* Improved engine modularity. Our aim is that you can cherry-pick specific engine modules of FIFE and just use the ones you really need for your game.
* Pathfinding integration. Exchangable backends so you can already replace the currently rather simple linear pather with a more sophisticated system.
* New 3d geometry system. Camera supports now tilt, rotation and zoom. Geometries are affected by camera adjustments, but in addition to that, layers can contain separate scale and rotation.
* New event channel module. Scripts have full access to mouse, keyboard & widget input.
* New MVC architecture pattern. The whole engine has been refactored to follow a model - view - controller pattern. This leads to a cleaner engine module hierarchy compared to the engine design that was used before.
* Improved action-based animation system.
* A techdemo to give game creators a starting point. This is a common undertaking of the Zero-Projekt team (http://www.zero-projekt.net) and FIFE.

Read the full release news update:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2007/10/10/16.23

[mvBarracuda]

So here we go! FIFE binaries for Intel Macs:
http://members.fifengine.de/donbachi/Release_2007.2/FIFE_2007.2.zip

Needed dependencies:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Build_dependencies#Framework

How to run:
Move into the <FIFE> folder and run: python techdemo.py

Feedback would be really appreciated if these binaries work for you!

[maximile]

I'd love to try this. I installed all the dependencies (I think), but I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "techdemo.py", line 25, in <module>
import fife, fifelog
File "engine/swigwrappers/python/fife.py", line 7, in <module>
import _fife
ImportError: dlopen(engine/swigwrappers/python/_fife.so, 2): Symbol not found: __ZThn132_N3gcn9TextField12mouseDraggedERNS_10Mous eEventE
Referenced from: engine/swigwrappers/python/_fife.so
Expected in: /opt/local/lib/libguichan.0.dylib


I installed libguichan using DarwinPorts, if that's any help.

[mvBarracuda]

I think that is caused by having the "wrong" guichan version installed. Could you please try to install guichan 0.61 in case you're currently running a different version? FIFE just currently works with guichan 0.61; 0.7 and 0.71 are not supported (yet).

Thanks for testing :-)

[diordna]

I also tried it, with the same result, and nowhere did I see mention of the word "guichan" on the web site or in the documentation. I have no idea what that is or where I can download it. Did I miss something?

[mvBarracuda]

Guichan is the GUI library we utilize for FIFE.

Looks like guichan 0.6.1 is available through Darwinports:
http://libguichan.darwinports.com/

[diordna]

Well, I don't have Darwinports, and I'm not motivated enough to get it, so I guess I'll have to start testing this some time later.

Edit: Actually, it looks like my problem was with SDL, not with guichan, but I'm not about to downgrade SDL either.

[ThemsAllTook]

Sounds like it's about time to get your dependency management under control, and make sure everything nececssary to run the game is included in the application bundle. :)

[mvBarracuda]

Sounds like it's about time to get your dependency management under control, and make sure everything nececssary to run the game is included in the application bundle. :)
We plan to release an application bundle of FIFE later but we had a hard time to find a Mac maintainer for our project. Now we've finally found someone again; he plans to build FIFE and the necessary dependencies as soon as he finds the time for it. (Hopefully already this weekend)

Any links to share about building universal binaries and the creation of application files for Macs ThemsAllTook?

[maximile]

It's weird, because I installed libguichan through that darwinports link. And I don't know enough Terminal magic to find out the version I have installed.

[mvBarracuda]

It's update time!

It was pretty quiet in the last weeks. One reason were the number of university tasks but another factor was my personal lazyness and lethargy caused by the holiday period. Now FIFE is back with yet another news update :-)

Here is a nifty new screenshot of the currently work in progress editor tool:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/c/c5/2008.0.001.jpg/300px-2008.0.001.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/c/c5/2008.0.001.jpg)

Furthermore our latest blog post covers the latest issues we encountered but also progress reports from the audio module, editor development and pather front.

You can check out the whole news update at the FIFE developer blog:
Time for heroes - yet another FIFE blog update (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/01/07/13.51)

Last but not least: we're of course still trying to recruit new developers for the project :-) Don't be shy and visit us at our developer IRC channel (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=IRC).

[mvBarracuda]

It's update time again :-) three weeks have passed since our last official blog update and we're glad that we can report to have made several steps forward in this time.

To just summarize the most important points:
- We decided to revive the island_demo concept from the 2007.1 release and ship a island_demo like game with future FIFE releases
- View code changes to improve performance and resolve z-order issues
- Floating text renderer support for map instances
- VFS improvements for editor tool
- Vastly improved pychan extension
- FIFE documentation server with fresh doxygen, epydoc documentation generated on a daily basis; live IRC logs for developers
- Tweaked FIFE forums design
- Fresh blood on the team: two new programmers, one additional project manager
- New precompiled Win32 SVN snapshot available

Feel free to give the whole detailed blog update a read here:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/01/28/17.22

In case you're just interested in fancy screenshots we got something for you as well. Here is a list of all new screenshots that are shown in the update:
Floating text support:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/3/38/2008.0.003.jpg/300px-2008.0.003.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/3/38/2008.0.003.jpg)

Continuum graphics pack: 45° rotation:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/5/56/2008.0.004.jpg/300px-2008.0.004.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/5/56/2008.0.004.jpg)

Continuum graphics pack: 135° rotation:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/f/fa/2008.0.005.jpg/300px-2008.0.005.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/fa/2008.0.005.jpg)

Continuum graphics pack: 225° rotation:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/d/d2/2008.0.006.jpg/300px-2008.0.006.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/d/d2/2008.0.006.jpg)

Continuum graphics pack: 315° rotation:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/c/ce/2008.0.007.jpg/300px-2008.0.007.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/c/ce/2008.0.007.jpg)

Continuum graphics pack: playing around with rotation, tilt and zoom parameters:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/2/26/2008.0.008.jpg/300px-2008.0.008.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/2/26/2008.0.008.jpg)

Last but not least: here is the download link for the mentioned new SVN snapshot for Win32:
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_r2057_win32.exe

[mvBarracuda]

We've done it again! We proudly present the FIFE 2008.0 release :-)

Download:
* Source package (FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh) (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2008.0_r2109_src.tar.bz2)
* Win32 binaries (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2008.0_r2109_win32.exe)

Screenshot of the new editor tool:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/5/5f/2008.0.009.jpg/300px-2008.0.009.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/5/5f/2008.0.009.jpg)

Youtube promotion trailer:
FIFE 2008.0 promo video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZrlr2H5kFw)

Theme of this release:
For the 2008.0 release we decided to pick up the island_demo concept again. Right: again. We already used this concept for the 2007.1 release but we put it on ice as we worked together with the Zero-Projekt developers on a different example game for the 2007.2 release. The cooperation didn't work out as planned for either side and so both teams stick to their own projects again now.

After the cooperation has ended we considered all possible options and finally decided to flesh out the old island_demo concept and base our future example game upon it. Although we were able to finish the initial planning work for the new island_demo game some days ago, there is almost none of the new planned content in place yet. On the other side the engine itself and the editor tool that ships with it now made _huge_ steps forward since the last release about 4 months ago. Therefore we decided to release the current status as stable release although it offers not many new aspects on the content side and the content that is in place is very likely to change with the 2008.1 release.

The milestone itself seems to be a very important step into the right direction. You can build your own maps now with the help of the editor tool. Furthermore a basic application structure is in place that should give you an idea how can create your own FIFE-based game. We'll surely adjust the structure of the island_demo client over the next months but this release is stable enough to start working on your game now.

This release is surely not the beginning of the end of the road for us, but it's the end of beginning for the FIFE development team. Enjoy it as we do :-)

Important changes since the 2007.2 release:
* New audio module with support for some more advanced audio features.
* Optimized view code to improve the performance and resolve map instance z-order issues.
* Switched back to island_demo concept; this will be the example game that ships with future FIFE releases as well.
* Ability to save maps
* Routing pathfinding (previous release only had linear pather)
* Pluggable rendering system with several new plugins included.
* New editor tool, which can be used to layout maps
* XML-format improvements: stack position, z-position, camera definitions, animation x/y offsets
* Vastly improved pychan extension; XML based GUI definitions
* Quadtree adjustments
* Ability to define own settings formats and interpret them from scripts
* Ability to attach cameras to instances (so that they are tracked while they move)
* Separate x/y scaling for cellgrids, allows more flexible geometry definitions (e.g. rectangle)
* Basic mouse map instance picking.
* Improved engine-script exception reporting
* Mouse cursors can be changed from scripts

Few non-code related changes:
* Rough task list for the whole island demo (https://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/report/3) has now been created
* Vastly improved documentation with nightly updates for engine core (http://fifedocs.boxbox.org/doxygen/) & scripts (http://fifedocs.boxbox.org/epydoc/)
* Lots of new content gathered and created for island demo e.g. agent definitions, clouds graphics, music...

Read the full release announcement at the FIFE developer blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/02/03/14.08).

[mvBarracuda]

The FIFE team released a new version of their compile SDK for win32 systems today.

The new SDK addresses an issue with MSVC2005 debug builds that was just recently discovered. Furthermore libSDL and SWIG have been upgraded to the latest versions.

Read the full announcement at the FIFE development blog:
New compile SDK for win32 release announcement (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/02/10/21.29)

Download URL:
* FIFE 2008.0 win32 compile SDK (selfextracting 7zip version) (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2008.0_win32_SDK.exe)
* FIFE 2008.0 win32 compile SDK (zip version) (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2008.0_win32_SDK.zip)

[mvBarracuda]

It's time for yet another FIFE update :-)

This time we got something special for you: a new series entitled "FIFE community spotlight". The idea behind these new community spotlight articles is to have a closer look at the projects which are utilizing FIFE for their games. The first community spotlight covers the computer roleplaying game project "Zero" that is currently in development.

You can read about it at the FIFE blog:
FIFE community spotlight #1: Zero - a postnuclear cRPG (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/02/21/00.59)

Here is some eye candy from Zero to convince you to actually read the whole community spotlight article:
http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-5.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-5.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-6.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-6.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-7.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-7.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-8.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-8.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-9.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-9.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-10.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-10.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-11.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-11.jpg)

http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/thumbs/1680x_zero_2008_0-12.jpg (http://zero-projekt.net/bilder/press/1680x_zero_2008_0-12.jpg)

Last but not least and slightly related to the community spotlight series: we did recently declutter our wiki starting page. Check out the new and hopefully improved version here:
FIFE wiki (http://wiki.fifengine.de/index.php?title=Main_Page)

All kind of feedback concerning the community spotlight and the new wiki starting page is appreciated by the team :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Welcome to yet another FIFE news update.

A lot of topics to cover and just few time on my hands so I'll just list everything and you decide if it's worth reading :-)
* New project manager on the team and first blog update by him
* New composer on the team and first music tracks available
* Experimental networking branch (woohoo! multiplayer FIFE)
* Experimental MSVC2008 build system support
* Physfs branch
* New context menu
* A new name for FIFE?
* First Zero-Projekt video released

In case one of these topics sounds worth checking out, head over to our developer blog:
* Blog update: the smell of spring (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/03/08/09.00)
* Blog update: Panic (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/03/12/21.06)

[mvBarracuda]

Howdy and welcome to yet another FIFE news update :-)

This time we cover our ongoing efforts to release the next FIFE milestone under a less restrictive license compared to the current GPL licensing. This topic seems to be especially interesting for independent developers who consider to use FIFE for a game project but are afraid of the current licensing policy.

You can read the whole news update at the developer blog:
License mumbo jumbo at the FIFE blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/04/02/16.21)

[mvBarracuda]

Hello and welcome to yet another FIFE update :-)

Unfortunately this one contains somewhat bad news as the majority of our key developers have been quite busy lately. Now I'm facing some serious university issues so I'll need to take a temporaty break from the project as well.

We appreciate all kind of help by new interested developers. We know that there are more tempting tasks than applying for a development team that is currently going through a drying time. But we wanted to be always up front about the status of the project so that's we think it's our duty to inform the community about lack of progress and issues as well.

You can read the whole update at the FIFE developer blog:
Temporary drying time for the FIFE project (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/05/01/09.02)

[mvBarracuda]

There are two important things to talk about so we decided to post a little developer blog update to keep the community up to date about the current status of the project.

FIFE is still progressing rather slow because of the lack of active developers who can invest time into the project. If you think you could help, please don't don't hesitate to grab the latest code from SVN to have a look into it and get in contact with us after that.

We recently released an upgraded compile SDK for win32 systems. You can read about all of this in detail at the FIFE developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/05/29/18.38

Enjoy the good weather outside and remember that you don't need a weathermen to know which way the wind blows.

[mvBarracuda]

Welcome to yet another FIFE update!

This one covers a whole bunch of aspects. Finally the end of the license switch process from GPL to LGPL is in sight. Furthermore we're currently replacing our unittests, consider to upgrade to the latest guichan release and plan to release a new win32 compile SDK soon. FIFE recently gained some new developers and the datasets branch will hopefully get merged into trunk rather soon. You got curious?

Check out the full news update at the FIFE developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/06/18/03.41

Still not really convinced? Maybe these work in progress screenshot of maps of the upcoming release help:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/c/c8/2008.1.011.jpg/300px-2008.1.011.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/c/c8/2008.1.011.jpg)

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/3/3e/2008.1.010.jpg/300px-2008.1.010.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/3/3e/2008.1.010.jpg)

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/2/2e/2008.1.009.jpg/300px-2008.1.009.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/2/2e/2008.1.009.jpg)

[mvBarracuda]

We've done it again! We proudly present the FIFE 2008.1 release :-)

Download:
Source package (FreeBSD, Linux, Macintosh) (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2008.1_r2512_src.tar.bz2)
Win32 binaries (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fife/FIFE_2008.1_r2512_win32.exe)

For the 2008.1 release we decided to stick to the tropical island concept and called our example game "Rio de hola".

Caution: this release is still lacking a lot of polish, especially the "Rio de hola" game that ships with it. It lacks almost any form of gameplay but there is a reason why we decided to ship the release in its current form nevertheless. We planned to release future FIFE milestones under the LGPL to offer a less "restrictive" license to possible FIFE users (we know that the term "restrictive" is just our personal point of view).

We had to clear up the legal situation first and fortunately the software freedom law center (http://www.softwarefreedom.org/) helped us with the transition. The agreement of all developers who contributed code that was still used in FIFE was needed and because over three dozens of people contributed code to the project, this took us a lot of time. We were not able to reach all of them so we decided to either remove or rewrite the code of the contributors who didn't reply to our license switch proposal mails (from scratch).

We were able to replace the last parts of the problematic code today so now FIFE is officially LGPL'ed software. We're glad that we were able to make this step after it took us so long and we think that the new license alone is worth a release. Therefore we're proud to finally present the first FIFE release that is published under LGPL 2.1 or newer (your choice).

Engine and the editor tool made _huge_ steps forward since the last release about 5 months ago. Therefore we decided to release the current status as stable release although it offers not many new aspects on the content side and the content that is in place is very likely to change with the 2008.2 release.

The milestone itself seems to be a very important step into the right direction. You can build your own maps now with the help of the editor tool. Furthermore a basic application structure is in place that should give you an idea how can create your own FIFE-based game; this release is stable enough to start working on your game now :-)

Most important changes since the 2008.0 release:
* License switch from GPL 2.0 to LGPL 2.1 or newer.
* Improved map format & resource loading (datasets branch).
* Vastly improved editor tool; batch object loading.
* New (work in progress) Rio de hola demo: new maps, graphics, sounds (still unfinished!).
* Eye candy: stepless zoom (OpenGL mode only), instance coloring & outlining.

Screenshots & videos:
Just two somewhat representative release screenshots.

Rio de hola:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/b/b1/2008.1.013.jpg/300px-2008.1.013.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/b/b1/2008.1.013.jpg)

Editor tool:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/f/f8/2008.1.014.jpg/300px-2008.1.014.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/f/f8/2008.1.014.jpg)

No videos from our side this time. You might see a video presentation of the new FIFE release soon nevertheless as the FreeGamer blog (http://freegamer.blogspot.com/) considers to cover the release with a short video soon. No final decision made yet but if it they actually create a video of this FIFE release, we'll let you know here :-)

Read the full release announcement at the FIFE developer blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/07/13/19.46).

[mvBarracuda]

It's time for a little FIFE update again :-) We're currently considering to change the name of the project or to choose at least a new meaning for the FIFE acronym to express that we've moved away from our initial Fallout roots. The engine is simply neither limited to Fallout-like games in particular nor to RPGs in general anymore.

We would like to hear what the community thinks about it. You got two weeks to bring up proposals for new names or new meanings for the FIFE acronym at our forums:
http://forums.fifengine.de/index.php?topic=93.0

After that we'll open a poll and all registered forums' users can vote for two choices from the list of all proposals. The poll will stay open for four weeks; after that the developers will try to agree on one name from the top 3 of the poll.

You can read about our plans in details at the developer blog:
http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/07/19/21.53

A little screenshot from work in progress FIFE-based game OpenAnno (http://www.openanno.org/devblog):
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/e/ef/2008.1.015.jpg/200px-2008.1.015.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/e/ef/2008.1.015.jpg)

I plan to cover OpenAnno in the second episode of the FIFE community spotlight series soon. Stay tuned :-)

Last but not least: Urban Breznik, a friend of our team member Lamoot, was so kind to provide us with a draft for a new FIFE logo. We're interested in all kind of feedback concerning the draft. If the community thinks it suits the project we'll introduce it as new official FIFE logo after we decided on a new name (text can be adjusted; the cube itself would stay regardless of a possible name change). Discussion concerning the logo takes place at the forums:
http://forums.fifengine.de/index.php?topic=86.msg873#msg873

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/5/58/Fife_new_logo.jpg/400px-Fife_new_logo.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/5/58/Fife_new_logo.jpg)

That's it from our side for today :-) see you at the next update.

[mvBarracuda]

Welcome to yet another FIFE update! This time we're proud to bring the second issue of the community spotlight series to you.

In this episode we cover the progress (or the lack of it) of the current FIFE-based projects in general but also the development of the OpenAnno project in detail. OpenAnno is a free and open source realtime economy simulation with strategy elements loosely oriented towards Sunflower's Anno series.

You can read the full community spotlight article at the FIFE developer blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/07/31/20.13).

Here is a little visual teaser for those who would like to get a first impression of OpenAnno before deciding if it's worth to dive into the mass of text. More screenshots can be found in the full article that is linked above.

http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/7/77/OpenAnno_spotlight2.png/300px-OpenAnno_spotlight2.png (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/7/77/OpenAnno_spotlight2.png)

[mvBarracuda]

Hello and welcome to yet another FIFE update!

This time we got a whole pack of news for you today:
- Linux OpenGL bug that was worrying us for over a year finally fixed by OpenAnno developer!
- Rewrite of the rendering pipeline planned to improve performance and add the possibility of more advanced graphical features.
- FIFE becomes the Flexible Isometric Free Engine.
- 3 years of FIFE IRC birthday party at 2008/09/11.
- Departure of a founding developer. Who will it be?

You can read about it at the FIFE developer blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/09/10/18.40).

[mvBarracuda]

Hello and welcome to yet another FIFE news update!

This time we got quite some important news to announce: the FIFE-based real-time economy simulation and strategy game OpenAnno released its first public milestone recently. The primary purpose of this release is to show the framework in action and to attract some new interested developers for the OpenAnno project this way. Although there is rudimentary gameplay available, don't expect something too sophisticated our you'll end up disappointed. Their release comes in three flavours: precompiled binaries for 32 & 64bit Linux distros and a win32 installer:
* OpenAnno 2008.1 release download site (http://www.openanno.org/wiki/index.php/Release_2008.1)

For the ones who want to get a first impression before downloading the release, there are screenshots and an official release trailer for your viewing pleasure :-)

Screenshot:
http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/thumb/9/94/Oa_rev1489_ingame1.jpg/300px-Oa_rev1489_ingame1.jpg (http://wiki.fifengine.de/images/9/94/Oa_rev1489_ingame1.jpg)

Release trailer:
* Low quality youtube version (http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jQtsZx4Po).
* High quality MKV version (http://openanno.org/upload/openanno-2008.1-demo.mkv) (H.264 + Ogg Vorbis >> Matroska container).

Read the full blog posting at the FIFE developer blog (http://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/fife/engine/wiki/2008/10/08/13.24) :-)