Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

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daret
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by daret »

You are propably right.

From Michael Noland (Unreal Engine Developer ):
You can not release code under GPL (even as a dual license) that is consuming any code that is covered by the UE4 EULA (e.g., a game made that links against the engine).
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raevol
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by raevol »

As Ace said, UE4 is a complete engine. We have to make our own engine, and we just need a renderer. We would spend more time wrangling out the mechanics of UE4 to make room for mechanics that we have already written. A renderer-only like OSG is what we really need.

Edit: At least as I understand it. Scrawl or Zini will have a better answer.
HiPhish
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by HiPhish »

matthewfarmery wrote:https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthr ... ource-game

I think that is a no, from what I understand, a user's work is fine, but not the engine itself, but then again, isn't that what the team are doing anyway? you get the openmw code, but you still need to download the other stuff separately, like the ogre engine. so in that respect, I'm not sure, but I think its a no, but could be wrong.
You don't have to download Ogre, unless you want to compile the engine yourself. Ogre is just one piece of the engine, the graphics part, but Unreal Engine is a complete engine that provides much more than just graphics.

A developer of OpenMW has to download the dependencies (Ogre, Bullet, SDL and so on), but when the binary, i.e. the finished program, is built all those parts are then baked into one. That is the program the user downloads. The user does not have to provide anything else other than the game assets.

Imagine if you wanted to make a cake, you could either grow your own wheat and grind it to flour (write your own graphics solution), or buy already made flour (get Ogre). Using unreal on the other hand would be like buying a finished cake and then just adding some custom icing on top of it.
matthewfarmery
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by matthewfarmery »

that makes a lot of sense, I just wasn't thinking straight. but even then, using UE4 is a no anyway.

hoping that the port to OSG is still going well and the final results will be well worth the wait. sadly, I'm no programmer, I just don't have the gift of understanding a single line of code :lol:
phobossion
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by phobossion »

HiPhish wrote: Imagine if you wanted to make a cake, you could either grow your own wheat and grind it to flour (write your own graphics solution), or buy already made flour (get Ogre). Using unreal on the other hand would be like buying a finished cake and then just adding some custom icing on top of it.
Using Unreal would be more like a buying a finished fancy wedding cake, removing everything but the baked base and then trying to make a completely different cake out of it :)

If the project would be staring now, using Unreal would actually make a lot of sense, but at this point it just does not. As a OT question - why is OpenMW using GPL anyway? Why not some of the more common and usable licenses like MIT? Just asking :)
Chris
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by Chris »

phobossion wrote:As a OT question - why is OpenMW using GPL anyway? Why not some of the more common and usable licenses like MIT? Just asking :)
The main reason it's using GPL is because that's what Nico used, and that's what all contributions inherited. Changing it would require hunting down everyone who's ever contributed code, and asking them if we could change it. Though IMO, GPL is just fine for the project anyway... it ensures the code remains available to people using it, and it doesn't prevent it from being used commercially if someone were to make a completely new game with it.
HiPhish
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by HiPhish »

phobossion wrote:Using Unreal would be more like a buying a finished fancy wedding cake, removing everything but the baked base and then trying to make a completely different cake out of it :)
No, that would be making a total conversion mod for an existing game. Don't underestimate the work needed to create a game, even when using an existing engine. Sure, you can use the default example scripts that come with the engine, but if you don't want your game to play like a Frankenstein monstrosity you will write your own code. I have been using Unity for years.
phobossion
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by phobossion »

HiPhish wrote:
phobossion wrote:Using Unreal would be more like a buying a finished fancy wedding cake, removing everything but the baked base and then trying to make a completely different cake out of it :)
No, that would be making a total conversion mod for an existing game. Don't underestimate the work needed to create a game, even when using an existing engine. Sure, you can use the default example scripts that come with the engine, but if you don't want your game to play like a Frankenstein monstrosity you will write your own code. I have been using Unity for years.
Not sure I got you there, I was mostly joking :D I have been developing games for 10 years now so I have a pretty good grasp of what it is like...
phobossion
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by phobossion »

Chris wrote:
phobossion wrote:As a OT question - why is OpenMW using GPL anyway? Why not some of the more common and usable licenses like MIT? Just asking :)
The main reason it's using GPL is because that's what Nico used, and that's what all contributions inherited. Changing it would require hunting down everyone who's ever contributed code, and asking them if we could change it. Though IMO, GPL is just fine for the project anyway... it ensures the code remains available to people using it, and it doesn't prevent it from being used commercially if someone were to make a completely new game with it.
I see, that makes sense, thanks! The problem I've run into with GPL was that if you don't want to disclose pieces of your code, you are pretty much screwed - think an online game, for example, where the ability to compile your own fully functional client makes it easy for people to hack or create bots and stuff like that. So you would probably want to keep some parts of the code closed (even in an otherwise open source project).

Over the years, I've seen many projects switch to MIT just because it actually promotes others using your code in their projects and thus builds the community (unlike GPL where you are always thinking like "can I do this? can I do that? what if my business plan changes or I want to sell it later and I can't?"). But it's true that this mostly concerns libraries, rather than executables...
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psi29a
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Re: Announcing switch to OpenSceneGraph

Post by psi29a »

phobossion wrote:The problem I've run into with GPL was that if you don't want to disclose pieces of your code, you are pretty much screwed - think an online game, for example, where the ability to compile your own fully functional client makes it easy for people to hack or create bots and stuff like that. So you would probably want to keep some parts of the code closed (even in an otherwise open source project).

IANAL, however I've been with lawyers and have gone over the impact of the GPL within my company (formally Amplidata, now HGST/Western Digital). According to our European and American lawyers, use of GPL in our products is fine so long as we can isolate our IP from the GPL code itself. For example, dynamic libraries and plugins that are proprietary (or even just a difference license) can be loaded into an GPL application without making it GPL itself.

You may argue differently, that's fine, but I've talked with lawyers and feel comfortable enough type the above.

This is how Nvidia and AMD/ATI are able to inject their code into the GPLv2 Linux kernel without having to GPL their code. They of course have to have a shim that is GPL, the plugin loader to inject the binary blob.

The same also applies to assets like textures and meshes, they are also not GPL-ed because they too are loaded at runtime. This is how people who make TCs make money off of them without having to release anything as GPL aside from the engine itself.

This is also how OpenMW can be used, though we would very much like anything that is done to OpenMW be contributed back to the project, there are ways around this that are legal. So you want to use proprietary code to check for cheaters, you are free to do so if you can load this library/plugin at runtime. If you statically compile this code into OpenMW, it does however become GPL whether you like it or not.
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