OSS MMO (Abandoned)

This page (and sub-pages) are no longer relevant, as we have changed engine design. It is left here for reference.

The devblog is at http://underworldmmo.wordpress.com
(original concept site further down article here: neopangaia.com/ummo)

Server

(Remains to be seen how viable it is ewithout additional expense). The RedDwarf Server/Project Darkstar is dynamic, with highly detailed persistence of all items, objects and data. The unique design of RedDwarf/Darkstar allows massive number of players in one area/world.

RedDwarf Server is Java software designed for latency-critical, massively scaled online applications such as online games. It reduces the technical challenges of scaling, load balancing, data consistency, and failure recovery currently faced by developers of multiplayer games.

Multi-node capability is designed (but not yet implemented) into the server but requires the contracting of  nphos or your own development to work properly. The Open Source server is under development and could be evolved in-house as needed.

The official site for RedDwarf Server is http://www.reddwarfserver.org/

 

Client

Graphics: OGRE
Framework: Gamekit/Ogrekit
Physics: Bullet
Game Logic: Blender Game Engine (Logic Bricks)
Modeller: Blender

The client was chosen for graphical high-definition. For planet rendering,  utilize work from Patrick Cozzi, Eric Bruneton and others researching realtime planet rendering. Considered using WebGL, but decided to keep that for side projects using the same database/data.

The java server allows a variety of 2d and 3d clients, genres and apps to share data.

Patrick Cozzi http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~pcozzi/
Eric Bruneton http://www-evasion.imag.fr/Membres/Eric.Bruneton/

Some comments I read in 1999, by a professor at the University of Edinburgh, affected me deeply. He was talking about how it should be possible, even fair, for a citizen in a planet sized virtual reality to be able to blow up literally half the planet with advanced explosives. He did mention that it would be disastrous for the citizens of the blown up half.. something that would impact a commercial enterprise.

The work of Patrick Cozzi and Eric Bruneton, is in pages  listed below. There are closed source alternatives such as Outerra and even one available in the Unity engine (imersiva).

 

Patrick Cozzi

His work really inspired the idea of building an engine from scratch around the idea of a realtime planet renderer, including other components afterwards. His work also demonstrates alternate rendering techniques for different elements of the terrain/world. The idea of using shaders or procedural generation to actually render terrain without a heightmap underneath. His engine is c-sharp OpenGl 3 and Open Source.

[iframe http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~pcozzi 100% 640]

 

Eric Bruneton

His work is phenomenal, in many cases, even more interesting than that seen in “Outerra” (which is not available for use). Most of the work his team has put out in the field of Realtime Planet Rendering might potentially become open source. At the very least, there are papers for each component.

[iframe http://www-evasion.imag.fr/Membres/Eric.Bruneton 100% 640]

 

Old Production Details 

Physics (Also examine Bullet Native, see below), artificial intelligence, crafting, magic, combat, conversation, these are all elements of any virtual reality that can be wildly different in execution between games, just as so many ways of viewing the world are different between movie directors.

Physics – Bullet Physics is an interesting Open Source SDK for handling realtime physics. It can even gain extra realtime muscle from the GPU via OpenCL.

Digital Camera Tech: Panasonic Lumix GH2, 12mm f2.0, 25mm f1.4, 45mm f1.8 (2X to approximate 35mm so 12mm=24mm etc.)

Server/Workstation: Dell Precision T3500 Xeon Quad Core 4GB – 16GB

Low End Test Box/Per Image/Model/Track Editor: Acer Iconia Tab W500

Video Editor/Non Liner Editor (NLE): Lightworks

Color Correction: DaVinci Resolve Lite

DAW (Digital Audio Workstation): reaper

Sequencer: Hydrogen (Open Source)

Audio Editor: ocenaudio

Client: TBD (Between jMonkeyEngine 3, OpenGlobe, Proland and Unity)