Hi all,
First an introduction. I’m the project manager of Crystal Space (Open Source 3D Engine), Crystal Entity Layer (game entity layer on top of Crystal Space), and more recently CrystalBlend (game engine port to Crystal Space). Here are a few url’s:
- Crystal Space: http://www.crystalspace3d.org
- Crystal Entity Layer: http://cel.crystalspace3d.org
- CrystalBlend: http://www.crystalspace3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=CrystalBlend
At this moment CrystalBlend is a standalone application that reads current Blender files and tries to play them with the current game logic system. This is not complete yet and currently perhaps on 20% of the current Game Engine is implemented. This version of CrystalBlend will still be developed so that it becomes a usable tool to use with current Game Engine logic but it is not the way CrystalBlend will be in the future.
The future CrystalBlend will be integrated with Blender and it will use a totally different (incompatible) logic system. To avoid terminology confusion I will rename the current version of CrystalBlend to CrystalBlend Lite.
I’m currently busy making a design document for the new CrystalBlend. In that document it will be described how the new logic system will work and how the new user interface should look like roughly. Once that document is ready I will post it for further discussion to refine everything. However I would like to start recruiting people for the CrystalBlend team already. I see three main departments in the development of CrystalBlend:
- The Blender Department: this department is responsible for making the integration of the CrystalBlend dll/so with Blender itself. i.e. adding the option to Blender to load the Game Engine as a module. This department will also work on the new user interface for the new game logic and will also do all needed modifications to Blender itself. We need at least two people in this department.
- The Engine Department: this department is responsible for implementing the new game logic on top of Crystal Entity Layer and Crystal Space. This team will also work out how to map the Blender material system to Crystal Space and everything that is related to that. We need at least two or three people in this department (including me).
- The Art Department: this department will design and create the reference game for CrystalBlend. This game should be a complete and playable game but it should also use as many features of CrystalBlend as possible so that it can be seen as a test case. We need at least three people in this department (3D art, 2D art, sound, …).
To populate these departments I need the following people:
- For Blender Department: this person knows about Blender internals and can manage the forked code base of Blender (and regularly make sure important changes in main branch of Blender are merged with CrystalBlend branch). This person should be familiar with C and perhaps Python too. This person should be comfortable about loading of shared libraries.
- For Blender Department: this person should know how to make a new user interface in Blender. He/she will be responsible for making the interface for the new game logic.
- For Engine Department: this person will help me develop the new Game Engine logic on top of Crystal Space and Crystal Entity Layer. This person should know C++ very well. Experience with Crystal Space and Crystal Entity Layer is certainly good to have here. This person will help find out how to match the material system of Blender to Crystal Space.
- For Engine Department: this person will help match the Blender animation system to Crystal Space. That includes ipo and armatures. Experience with Crystal Space is recommended.
- For Art Department: we need several people here who can do 3D art, 2D art, sound and so on.
Give me an email if you are interested in joining the team: [email protected]
Greetings,