Introduction
From Gnoll's Wiki
Contents |
Introduction to Gnoll
Licence: GNU/GPL v2 or greater
Website: http://www.gnoll.org
Latest version: 0.1.6RC1
Subject: A 3D action/rpg game engine
Being already fond of video games creation and free software, we wish to develop a free game engine with the main goal of helping people focusing on artistic part instead of the technical side.
Its evolution is not just driven by the core team working on it, but also by all the community supporting Gnoll.
Gnoll is not structured the same way indy games are usually. There is no such a thing as a project manager or a team working in stealth mode. Anyone can contribute the way they want to Gnoll. The only requirement is to not claim a task to only disappear and not letting anyone know you are abandoning it. The good news is no one ask for any commitment or whatsoever. People participate as much as they want depending on their goals and spare time.
Tools and libraries used by Gnoll
Librairies
- Ogre 3D: 3D graphic engine
- OpenAL/Vorbis/libogg: sound libraries
- OIS: library to handle input systems (keyboard, mouse, joystick)
- CEGUI: GUI library
- And some more: libxml++, glib, boost, etc.
Tools
- Scons: Software construction tool.
- Git: Version control system.
- Flyspray: Ticket tracking system.
Status
Means
Technical means
In order to help with communication within the project we set up a website, a wiki and a ticket tracking system.
But people still need to talk. And this is mainly achieved through :
- A mailing list: This is the main hub for all communication. There people can send patches, ask questions or talk about future development.
- IM such as Jabber or Msn: Sometimes a direct talk might be necessary.
Financial means
No one is making any money from this currently and there is no ads anywhere. So Paf currently pays for the project hosting.
Who participate and How
Anyone can participate and we are not asking for specific skills either. As any project Gnoll requires a lot of different tasks such as:
- Working on the website (maintenance, design, writing news)
- Writing docs (on the wiki (installation, integration of Gnoll with game projects, etc.))
- Testing Gnoll and giving us feedback (has it been easy to install? Is it working? What would you like to see in future versions? Have you encountered any bug?)
- Packaging. We currently only have a repository for Fedora 8 and 9. We would gladly welcome help on packaging for other OS or distributions
- Helping others with questions about Gnoll
- Creating artwork to test with Gnoll
- Creating games using Gnoll
- Developing features
Then you might to get your hands on Gnoll.
If so, you should take a look at the page about downloading Gnoll
Clients
Who are Gnoll's clients ?
Gnoll's goal is to have a free (as in freedom) set of game creation tools available on many multi-platform. Gnoll being available on multi-platform, all games using gnoll would be available on these platforms without any modification.
Screenshots
Viracocha project : Plaza de Armas (Cusco, Peru)
