Open Gta 3 Possible/goof Idea?

[cyrax]

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=435458
Some people at GTAForums.com think about making an open source engine for the GTA 3 triology (since GTA 3, VC and SA share the same engine). Of course there is no real project at the moment but I thought that it would be a good idea if programmers from both forums would work togeter. GTA Modders would have an open engine to mod even more and we would have 3D GTA for our pandoras. What do you think about it?

PS: sorry for my bad english

 

[NLS]

I think this is a bit too early in the stages. So far it's only "I think we should make an open source GTA3 engine".

 

[Kangal]

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=435458
Some people at GTAForums.com think about making an open source engine for the GTA 3 triology (since GTA 3, VC and SA share the same engine). Of course there is no real project at the moment but I thought that it would be a good idea if programmers from both forums would work togeter. GTA Modders would have an open engine to mod even more and we would have 3D GTA for our pandoras. What do you think about it?

PS: sorry for my bad english

@cyrax

Thanks for the post!

NO, a GTA3 engine wont be made open anytime soon. Why? Because Vice City made a great hit, San Andreas is still in the "fairly new" (2005) category and China Wars is selling. Rockstar, like all other video game companies will push out every penny for their platform, even if it means pissing off a few thousand eager devs.

But thank you for starting this thread, I totally forgot about GTA3. It would be awesome if it became open, then many different games will germinate from it. I mean even GTA3 has decent graphics and interactive environment. I could just imagine a if the Pandora is released and the source code is released, many developers will turn to the Pandora. We'll see huge support, many new homebrew games, competitive to PSP games. Eg "Zeq3Lite" coming from it!!

I was waiting for Unreal engine 2 (UT2003) to become open. Why? Because it is better than an upgraded Quake3 engine (Xreal), there are many games and developers familiar with it, old or weak systems are able to run it at good/full speed (think Pandora) and its old enough to NOT hurt the gaming industry (many new engines are better quality). But Unreal has delayed this, perhaps a good move on their behalf to be able to make more profits from the handheld industry (growing Cortex A8 and A9 interest).

It would be even better if the Doom 3 engine was released. Its more powerful than the UE2 and seems like in the reach of Pandora's capabilities. But that's a little im-probable now. If they did, they could lose some/minor "Potential market", but it would make a BOLD statement and increase its supporters.

I know Unreal Engine 3 just became free. But its for non-profit educational purposes only. Its not the full source. And if games were made on a Linux distro, I feel a lawsuit action from Unreal against the devs be made before you could pronounce "X-linked agammaglobulinemia".

 

[PhillipJ]

NO, a GTA3 engine wont be made open anytime soon.

He wasn't talking about the owners of the GTA3 engine opening it, he was talking about a project to create an OS clone of the engine that would run on multiple platforms but still utilise the resources (graphics, maps, models, sounds ect.) of the original game. See OpenMW on sourceforge for an example: http://openmw.sourceforge.net/jaws/

 

[MDave]

I think it's a Goof idea!

But ... we can emulate the first 2, via PS1 emulator

 

[sixtyfifthbit]

You would need an engine capable of handling both car physics and walking well. There are open-sourced car games/simulations out there, but I have no idea how well they would handle a walking person.

Even if you had the engine capable of doing that, then you'd need TONS of art - car design, face textures, clothing, location design - and OS art is really rare to find; usually, artists cannot take another artist's work and improve it like programmers can with code.

It's a nice idea - I just don't know how workable it is.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Well, honestly, I think it's entirely workable. I mean, I think it's a damn shame open source game engines lag behind. The open source community can assemble a competitor to the leading operating system 10 times more stable, 5 times more capable and with double the user-friendliness, but gives it 0.25 times the gaming power.

I think if enough people came together an open-source walking and driving engine would be perfectly workable, if not easy. I think a lot of the lacking of OSS games probably comes from game development being so grounded in closed-source mentality (consoles, directX, $$$$$$$$, etc.) that anyone who has an ingenious idea for a video game looks at open source and is like ... *shrivels up in fear*... then goes running to Microsoft. Sure, there've been exceptions, there are some great games that are open-source. But that's why I think we approach ideas like this with skepticism.

The art, now that is another story... but I would go for gameplay over eye-candy, even if it's made with wireframe sketches at first, you can always find willing artists later.

 

[PhillipJ]

The art, now that is another story... but I would go for gameplay over eye-candy, even if it's made with wireframe sketches at first, you can always find willing artists later.

I think it's legal to use the art from a game with a different engine if you already own the game.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

The art, now that is another story... but I would go for gameplay over eye-candy, even if it's made with wireframe sketches at first, you can always find willing artists later.

I think it's legal to use the art from a game with a different engine if you already own the game.

True... at least, that's what that Morrowind clone is going for. I'm not sure if he was talking about an -exact- clone of the game, though. I mean, if you used the art
from the original, you'd have to stick to certain exact dimensions, specifications, etc. because the licensing would prohibit any improvements or alterations. I think
also it'd be better to make something new and entirely open rather than to rely upon someone owning a license to the art. That sort of thing causes piracy in the long
run which although sometimes necessary is unfortunately not permissible.

 

[willrandship]

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=435458
Some people at GTAForums.com think about making an open source engine for the GTA 3 triology (since GTA 3, VC and SA share the same engine). Of course there is no real project at the moment but I thought that it would be a good idea if programmers from both forums would work togeter. GTA Modders would have an open engine to mod even more and we would have 3D GTA for our pandoras. What do you think about it?

PS: sorry for my bad english

Well, since it will probably be a while we can always use the PSP emulator that's being developed.

 

[Kangal]

NO, a GTA3 engine wont be made open anytime soon.

He wasn't talking about the owners of the GTA3 engine opening it, he was talking about a project to create an OS clone of the engine that would run on multiple platforms but still utilise the resources (graphics, maps, models, sounds ect.) of the original game. See OpenMW on sourceforge for an example: http://openmw.sourceforge.net/jaws/

Oh okay my mistake. :blush:
Still games are way better quality when built ground up, and the GTA3 engine would've been an awesome additon.

Forgot to mention, Doom 3 engine (id Tech 4) will be open source when the game "Rage" (id tech 5 engine) is out. Its expected this year, but who knows? :huh:

This last bit has nothig to do with the topic, but I gotta get it out of my system
I'm really hyped about next-gen devices. Currently, were on the tipping point. I can't wait until Tegra 2 is upgraded from 1.5GHz to a 2GHz and game-oriented graphics are given like PowerVR's SGX543MP8 :blink: . We might see such a combination into 9" netbooks running UNR/Moblin (Linux distro's B) ) with all-day computing + HD/great games ready on tap early 2011, which N900 will become fossils and Snapdragon will come in cheap HTC phones! So the only thing lacking is release of Game Engines for devs .

Games/Game engines I like to see become open (best to worst graphics - imo from screenshots/actual playing)
F.E.A.R.
Half Life 2 <-full speed at high resolution possible on next gen. of smartphone/handheld [PowerVR SGX543MP8]
Far Cry
Doom 3
UT 2004 <-full speed at high resolution possible on current gen. of smartphone/handheld
San Andreas
GTA3
xREAL
Quake 3

 

[willrandship]

The art, now that is another story... but I would go for gameplay over eye-candy, even if it's made with wireframe sketches at first, you can always find willing artists later.

I think it's legal to use the art from a game with a different engine if you already own the game.

True... at least, that's what that Morrowind clone is going for. I'm not sure if he was talking about an -exact- clone of the game, though. I mean, if you used the art
from the original, you'd have to stick to certain exact dimensions, specifications, etc. because the licensing would prohibit any improvements or alterations. I think
also it'd be better to make something new and entirely open rather than to rely upon someone owning a license to the art. That sort of thing causes piracy in the long
run which although sometimes necessary is unfortunately not permissible.

If you're reffering to openMW, the only reason they can do that is because you need to supply your own .esm file. That file contains all of the art in the game, as well as all of the models and landscapes. That requires you to have a copy of the game in some form, hence Bethesda loses no money, and might even make more. Therefore no cease and desist.

You Cannot just take the art out of a game and use it as your own. For this to be legal with your logic would require everyone who ever downloaded it to own the game as well, and that is pretty much impossible.

Still, though, artists seem much easier to come by (in my area) than programmers, and you could take community support. Making your own clone of art from scratch is absolutely fine, as you did all the work yourself and took only the idea.

 

[Tom`]

Well, honestly, I think it's entirely workable. I mean, I think it's a damn shame open source game engines lag behind. The open source community can assemble a competitor to the leading operating system 10 times more stable, 5 times more capable and with double the user-friendliness, but gives it 0.25 times the gaming power.

Er, what? :blink:

I'm assuming you're talking about Linux here - no one "gave" Linux 0.25 times the "gaming power." (What is that exactly?)

I think a lot of the lacking of OSS games probably comes from game development being so grounded in closed-source mentality (consoles, directX, $$$$$$$$, etc.) that anyone who has an ingenious idea for a video game looks at open source and is like ... *shrivels up in fear*... then goes running to Microsoft.

Linux has exactly the same potential as Windows for gaming. The problem is that (graphical) computer games have mostly evolved in a DOS/Windows environment, and not a Unix one. There are two things going on here. First, the number of Linux users historically was small, and more importantly, most Linux users weren't gamers. Now, this is partly because of a lack of commercial ports for Linux. This is basically self-perpetuating, though - not a lot of gamers use Linux because it doesn't support their favorite games, and there aren't a lot of cross-platform games because there aren't enough Linux gamers to buy them. This is exacerbated by the fact that while there are lots of tools for developing games on Linux, the cost in developer time might be too much in comparison to the small number of sales they'd get. It's less because of "closed-source mentality" than basic economics.

That explains why there aren't a lot of commercial games - what about free ones? Well, in fact many totally free (libre) games do have Linux ports. Sauerbraten, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, Warsow, and Tremulous are all very polished free FPSes. So it can be done - I do wonder why there aren't as many RTS games, for example, though. Other genres suffer as well.

 

[PhillipJ]

... would require everyone who ever downloaded it to own the game as well...

That's exactly right; you want to play GTA3 on your Pandora so you download the OS engine that runs on your Pandora and you need a copy of GTA3 too to get textures, models ect. from (just like OpenMW and freeRA). I realise it's possible that GTA doesn't have everything nicely packed in a .esm or .mix but that doesn't mean it's not possible. AquaAnalogue's point about encouraging piracy is valid but it's up to the individual to decide if they're going to get a legitimate copy of the game from which to get the visual (and probably audio) resources or if they're going to pirate.

 

[kagato]

I've had an idea in the back of my mind for a long time now.

I'd like to set up a site called "Open Game Worlds" (which I see has now been taken, but that's irrelevant), where the community could build up a collection of shared assets & resources for building consistent game experiences.

It grew from looking at open source games trying to emulate the feel of commercial franchises like Mario & Zelda, and usually ending up with poorly realised Tux-based ripoffs. Projects hosted on the site would be to establish "open source game franchises", with lots of depth to the character and world designs, and above all a consistent direction to everything. The site wouldn't build actual games; just assemble the materials that developers could draw upon.

Another project idea (and this is where I finally get relevant to the topic) was the "Island City" project, whose goal was to plan and assemble resources for a city of similar scope to Liberty City from GTA3. This would differ a bit from the "franchise" projects as the city map assets would probably have to be matched to an appropriate engine for rendering them, so there would likely be some code associated with it. However, the project still wouldn't produce a specific game -- rather, the assets & engine could be used to build a variety of games.

For example, given a small city and a game engine to suit, you could produce:

• a GTA knockoff (obviously)
• a dedicated street-racing game
• traffic simulations
• a city-wide zombie apocalypse game
• etc...

So, yeah.

I guess I'm suggesting that if you're going to the effort of building a game engine of that scope, it would be better for everyone if it's made as flexible as possible, so you could build on it and end up with a whole raft of interesting games, rather than just a free port of a commercial game.

 

[MDave]

That explains why there aren't a lot of commercial games - what about free ones? Well, in fact many totally free (libre) games do have Linux ports. Sauerbraten, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, Warsow, and Tremulous are all very polished free FPSes. So it can be done - I do wonder why there aren't as many RTS games, for example, though. Other genres suffer as well.

All those games you mentioned except for Sauerbraten, are based on ID's open source tech, which explains why there are so many good free FPS ports for Linux There aren't a lot of PC game commercial companies that open source their engines under the GPL like ID do. Shame, really.

 

[Tom`]

That explains why there aren't a lot of commercial games - what about free ones? Well, in fact many totally free (libre) games do have Linux ports. Sauerbraten, Nexuiz, Alien Arena, Warsow, and Tremulous are all very polished free FPSes. So it can be done - I do wonder why there aren't as many RTS games, for example, though. Other genres suffer as well.

All those games you mentioned except for Sauerbraten, are based on ID's open source tech, which explains why there are so many good free FPS ports for Linux There aren't a lot of PC game commercial companies that open source their engines under the GPL like ID do. Shame, really.

True (I wasn't aware that Warsow was based on Quake 2 - it's very heavily modified), but even so, the artwork and models is all new - I've heard it said (don't know whether it's true) that that is at least as difficult and time-consuming as creating the actual engine.

Certainly id deserves a lot of credit, though.

 

[zevdawg]

Oh okay my mistake. :blush:
Still games are way better quality when built ground up, and the GTA3 engine would've been an awesome additon.

Forgot to mention, Doom 3 engine (id Tech 4) will be open source when the game "Rage" (id tech 5 engine) is out. Its expected this year, but who knows? :huh:

This last bit has nothig to do with the topic, but I gotta get it out of my system
I'm really hyped about next-gen devices. Currently, were on the tipping point. I can't wait until Tegra 2 is upgraded from 1.5GHz to a 2GHz and game-oriented graphics are given like PowerVR's SGX543MP8 :blink: . We might see such a combination into 9" netbooks running UNR/Moblin (Linux distro's B) ) with all-day computing + HD/great games ready on tap early 2011, which N900 will become fossils and Snapdragon will come in cheap HTC phones! So the only thing lacking is release of Game Engines for devs .

Games/Game engines I like to see become open (best to worst graphics - imo from screenshots/actual playing)
F.E.A.R.
Half Life 2 <-full speed at high resolution possible on next gen. of smartphone/handheld [PowerVR SGX543MP8]
Far Cry
Doom 3
UT 2004 <-full speed at high resolution possible on current gen. of smartphone/handheld
San Andreas
GTA3
xREAL
Quake 3

Psht, list that many games and you might as well be asking for STEAM to be ported :lol:
(edit: according to this wiki, there is a slim chance it may be brought to the Linux community)
Would be cool to see, cause even GTA could run on it (though don't count on a port if it's 'closed source', cause that's taboo AFA-Linux is concerned ).

 

[elwing]

Games/Game engines I like to see become open (best to worst graphics - imo from screenshots/actual playing)
F.E.A.R.
Half Life 2 <-full speed at high resolution possible on next gen. of smartphone/handheld [PowerVR SGX543MP8]
Far Cry
Doom 3
UT 2004 <-full speed at high resolution possible on current gen. of smartphone/handheld
San Andreas
GTA3
xREAL
Quake 3

/me just want "the dark engine" to be ported...

 

[cyrax]

GTA 3 uses IMG archives for meshes and textures, that's why you can use some PC mods on hacked xbox (same for Vice City and San Andreas). So if you use your IMG files from PC it would be the same as with OpenMW or with Stargus (both would be great on Pandora), you copy data from your PC to your SD and use them with the engine.

PS: could some of the mods change the title to "Open GTA 3 possible/good idea?" It was late when I wrote my post and I forgot to spellcheck everything before posting.