Jedi Knight

[ezekiel000]

Does anyone know of or plan to do a reimplementation of the Jedi Knight engine (Sith engine) or the Jedi Knight 2 engine (modified Quake 3 engine) that runs on Linux?

This isn't really related to ScummVM although it's sort of related to Residual as the Sith engine shares some code with GrimE.

[LogicDeLuxe]

This isn't really related to ScummVM although it's sort of related to Residual as the Sith engine shares some code with GrimE.

Dark Forces uses a 2.5D engine and flat spites while GrimE simply uses still images for landscapes with polygon characters on it (somewhat simplified put).
Common code would be the subengines like imuse and such, though.

[ezekiel000]

Dark Forces does indeed use iMuse and the Jedi engine (also used in Outlaws) but I was asking about Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight (Sith Engine) and Jedi Knight 2: Outcast (Q3A Modified Engine), sorry if I wasn't clear.

The Sith engine is 3D engine.
"The engine has also been used in Grim Fandango, as a basis for the GrimE engine, and used in Star Wars: Droid Works and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine." from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sith_(engine)

[MusicallyInspired]

Isn't there already a linux port for Quake 3? Couldn't you use that for Jedi Outcast/Academy somehow?

[ezekiel000]

Not 'as is' the engine used in Jedi Knight 2 Outcast is a modified Q3A engine by raven, I'm not a programmer so I'm not sure what to look for.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Dark Forces does indeed use iMuse and the Jedi engine (also used in Outlaws) but I was asking about Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight (Sith Engine) and Jedi Knight 2: Outcast (Q3A Modified Engine), sorry if I wasn't clear.

Sorry, I mixed those up. Having a portable Dark Forces would be cool, nevertheless. It's a pity that LEC isn't a fan of open source software.

[clone2727]

There was a discontinued Jedi Knight reimplementation here. I don't know how advanced it is/was.

There is an in-progress Dark Forces reimplementation, called DarkXL, out there.

[ezekiel000]

That's true although I can't see a reason not to release obsolete game engines (Jedi, Sith, GrimE, Scumm not the game files) as open source as they are of no commercial value to LEC but would improve their public image.

edit: Thanks clone2727 although the Sith 2 project is Windows only as it uses DirectX.

edit2: I got in contact with a guy that used to work on Sith 2 it has been discontinued but it has both OpenGL and DirectX but to work on Linux the gui, timer and input code would need to be rewritten.

[SuperDre]

That's true although I can't see a reason not to release obsolete game engines (Jedi, Sith, GrimE, Scumm not the game files) as open source as they are of no commercial value to LEC but would improve their public image.

Well I can see enough reasons, for one, copyright.. And ofcourse it isn't in the interest of LEC to open source the engine.. What would exactly improve on their image? nothing, because only a handfull of people would really know of it..
It's even more of a hassle for LEC, because they can't release the code without checking all the code for unwanted comments etc.. also they might use tech licensed from other developers which disallowes them from publishing it..
It would be nice ofcourse, but there are enough reasons for them not to do it..

edit2: I got in contact with a guy that used to work on Sith 2 it has been discontinued but it has both OpenGL and DirectX but to work on Linux the gui, timer and input code would need to be rewritten.

If the windowscode is done pretty well it shouldn't be a real hard task to rewrite it for linux..

[MeddlingMonk]

Well I can see enough reasons, for one, copyright..

Didn't stop id from releasing the source code for Doom, Quake, Quake II, etc. If the owner of the code wants to release it, there's nothing to stop them. Copyright doesn't inhibit the owner of the copyright, after all.

[LogicDeLuxe]

because only a handfull of people would really know of it..

Sure? Looking at Doom as a well known example, I don't think that there are many Doom fans not being aware of the source code releases. So why should this happen with an engine from a developer as big as LEC? And they also had the aforementioned license problem regarding the sound code, which they just removed. It's certainly better than not releasing anything at all. And it likely increased the sold copies of the game, since you can't do much without the full version's data files (before freedoom was developed which still isn't perfect).

It seems like LEC isn't even interested in selling old games, which is evident by the lack of almost any mentioning on their homepage, and also the lack of providing updated so they would better work on later OS versions.
If they were interested, releasing the source code is likely to be cheaper for them, as they don't have to care about updates anymore.

[Freddo]

Didn't stop id from releasing the source code for Doom, Quake, Quake II, etc.

It almost stopped them from releasing the source code for Doom.

The source code id released for Doom wasn't the original DOS version of the game since it included licensed code for the sound. id didn't write the sound middleware (DMX sound library). So instead they cleaned up the code lots and lots, changed the sound functions and made it for Linux, which all in all took them about a year (the changelog with dates is included with the source starting from january 18 1997 to december 22 1997). So it wasn't just the plain original source, but a heavily modified one.

After Doom, id made an effort to write everything themselves, something that can't be said about most developers. It made a business sense too since id license out their engines to others.

Now I don't know what licesensed code that Jedi Knight might be using, but wouldn't surprise me if they used a fair share of middlewares. Cuts down the development time after all.

So copyright is a huge reason for not releasing the source.

[bobdevis]

Well, if a company really wanted, they could release the source with the middle-ware left out. It would yield a half broken not compiling mess, but it would be better then no source at all I guess

[MusicallyInspired]

3D Realms (Apogee) is another company that's released the source code for a lot of their old games including Duke3D and Shadow Warrior to the delight of many fans. If LEC would've stayed as cool as they used to be they'd definitely have a huge audience who'd love to get their hands on the source code for these old games. Even though they're not, though, I still think it'd put them on a higher pedestal in the public's eye. But I think they think they're doing just fine with their current goals.

Heck, it's probably something as bad as Sierra where they just threw a bunch of crap out in the dumpster for their older titles thinking it was worthless.

[MeddlingMonk]

Well, if a company really wanted, they could release the source with the middle-ware left out. It would yield a half broken not compiling mess, but it would be better then no source at all I guess

Which is sort of what you'd want them to do anyway. Having the source code without the 3rd-party stuff makes it a lot easier for anyone working with it in that it has to come out anyway, and wouldn't you rather have someone else do it for you? But that alone is probably the biggest thing preventing companies from releasing the source of their old products: why do the work required to strip out the code they don't have the right to release when that work won't contribute any to the bottom line? All that id really got from releasing their code was a lot of good will. That's all very nice, but try to buy a Jag with good will.