Amarok Blog

Back in June, an event was held in Berlin called the Qt Contributors' Summit. This was such a success that the team decided that it should not be the last time something like that happened. So, to further this success, Nokia's Qt Frameworks Division has offered KDE a whole day of unconferencing at the Qt Developer Days in Munich later this month.

If you wish to take part in furthering the collaboration between KDE and Qt, and indeed other projects, then join the Qt Contributors' Day on Monday the 24th of October at the Dolce Munich Unterschleissheim. To join in, send me an email at admin@leinir.dk to that effect

You don't have a ticket to Developer Days, you say? Well, not to fret! The KDE e.V. has been given a bunch of tickets to be given out to community members. To get your hands on one of these tickets, give me an email at admin@leinir.dk to inform me of this.

Please note! If you decide that you want to join us, get in touch with me BEFORE the end of this week! (i.e. before Sunday the 9th, which is when i send off the list of people requesting tickets and the like to the e.V. board for evaluation).

So - come to the Qt Contributors' Day at Developer Days 2011 in Munich, and let's make this thing epic! Qt 5 is ahead, and with the launch of the Qt Project, we have more to say than we ever did before!

Lately, the Gluon team has been pulling a whole lot of work together, which is why you've not been hearing about us all that much unless you've sat in the channel with us. As you most likely know, the Google Summer of Code and Season of KDE tutoring programs ran over the summer, and Gluon of course took part in both. That is not what this blog entry is about, at least not directly - i simply mention it because as we are now at an end, we are getting closer to our next release, which will happen once the three projects are merged into master.

What this blog entry is about is what we've been up to over the last few weeks - specifically attending the enormously successful Desktop Summit in Berlin, and immediately following this GDC Europe.

Desktop Summit

While at the Desktop Summit, the Gluon team took part in various events, some of which got filmed. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the recording equipment seems to have more or less exploded, and while they're working on it and hope to still be able to gain at least some of the presentations, i thought it best to publish this none the less.

The first event we took part in was the lightning talks, where Felix Rohrbach spoke about his Season of KDE work implementing support for the Achievements module in the Open Collaboration Services draft.



The next event, unfortunately without video here, was our presentation. This had both Arjen and myself on stage, where we first talked about how this was our second aniversary in our current form, with the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit being the initial event which allowed us to eventually formulate our vision. After this, we showed off Gluon Creator, and what we can do with it. Finally, Shantanu showed up to show off his work on the distribution system - the part which allows you to push games directly from inside Gluon Creator and download them using any of the Gluon Player applications. From a personal viewpoint, let me just say - while the presentation fell apart due to broken network, it is still very impressive stuff!

Similarly without video, but very productive, we had our BoF, which unlike last year, where we spent the time brainstorming about the future direction of Gluon, we spent helping those present getting to grips with how to build games using Gluon. This event further showed that we need to get those screencasts done, showing how to use Gluon Creator to build games. If you want to help us with this endeavour, drop by the channel and we'll talk Scripts for the first few of them are already done, and they primarily need to be recorded.

Finally, of course, hacking went on. One of the things which we spent time on (Arjen specifically) was the particle system. So, when he had something to show off, we recorded this little video, where you unfortunately cannot see just how fast the whole thin is - but this is drawn eight times on top of itself, and there is no perceivable slowdown. Impressive stuff And this, i'm told, is entirely unoptimized as it stands, so expect impressiveness when it's merged into master later



GDC Europe

At the Qt Contributor's Summit in Berlin, Sulamita Garcia from the Intel AppUp team came up to me and asked two questions: Were i available in mid August, and would i like to go on stage to talk about Gluon. I'm always happy to talk about Gluon to anybody who'd like to listen, and it just so happened i was available at that time. So, as it turns out, they would like to bring Gluon to GDC Europe for an AppUp event. Over the next few weeks (six weeks from the invitation was extended until GDC Europe was due to happen) we worked on putting together something to show off there.

As it turned out the AppUp Lab got cancelled, but this happened at such a late time that everything else was already ordered, so Arjen and i went merrily on our way to Cologne, checked into the hotel and eventually got our passes. We walked around on the floor, talking to as many people we could about Gluon and what we are trying to do for the Makers and Players of Games, and a lot of people were more than happy to hear what we had to say.

There was lots of interest in using our various libraries directly, and our distribution system hit home as well with many people. We also spoke with a supplier of payment solutions about what we might be able to do for our donation-based monetization concept, and got some very good insights on this.

Finally, of course, everybody likes a bit of swag, and Intel decided to sponsor us some really nifty t-shirts! With a graphic designed by Eigene "it-s" Trounev, Arjen, Bjoern, Monika and i looked dashing in our dark blue Gaming Freedom t-shirts. Here is Arjen looking confused on the final day of the event (sorry, didn't get to taking other shots, we were so much all over the place i totally missed taking pictures ):



Now, as the AppUp Lab event got cancelled, i now have the remaining t-shirts in two boxes here in my home. So, we came up with the idea that, other than making sure that the Gluon team gets some t-shirts to wear, we would give others the opportunity to get one as well. And as these ones are a bit special, we thought that it would make sense to make it a bit of a competition rather than simply handing them out: So, make a game with Gluon Creator and get it up on GamingFreedom.org (through http://test.gamingfreedom.org/ - or using Shaan7's GSoC work to do it directly from Gluon Creator), and get in touch with us about it, so make sure you're you, so you can get your t-shirt! Note, there are about 200 t-shirts in various sizes, so to make sure you get one, you will need to get there before everybody else - this is first come first serve after all... and who knows, there might be an achievement in this later on

Next?

The next steps on the path towards gaming freedom are many. Some of them are:

• Merge the tutored projects in


• Release a snapshot


• Produce those screencasts to help people build games


• Use those t-shirts constructively - want one? Make a game!

Hi people! Just to let you know that Gluon is very much moving - not only are all the students now starting more seriously on their GSoC and SoK projects, since their exams are starting to end, we have also been active in other places. Recently i returned from the MeeGo Conference in San Francisco, and rather than bore you with the details, i will just say that Intel are interested in a combination of GamingFreedom.org and their AppUp application store... Potentially interesting stuff on the horizon, we shall see!

Other than that, we were also featured on the FreeGamer blog, and two of the Gluon people (myself and Laszlo) took part in the OCS Next sprint - furthering the technology on top of which the GamingFreedom.org distribution site is built. Finally, a short article about Gluon was included in a recent Commit Digest, the weekly update on development efforts going on in KDE.

Finally, we will be presenting at the Desktop Summit, and on that note Laszlo has given a short presentation to the Helsinki chapter of the IGDA, whose members seemed to quite enjoy what we're trying to do. This is great news, as these are exactly the people we're trying to catch the attention of! So, in short - Gluon seems to be going places

Sharing a nice, big booth at LinuxTag, the KDE, Kubuntu and Calligra teams are pulling together to promo all things KDE. As you can tell from the picture below, the booth is very well visited, with lots of people interested all 'round - showing off Plasma on the desktop in the middle there, and the brand, spanking new Plasma Active running on an openSuse powered tablet nearest the camera - already a real crowd puller, even in its experimental stage! Kudos to the Active team there, great stuff, very demoable



Yesterday i did a talk about Calligra, standing in for Inge who couldn't attend, immediately following Michael Meeks' talk about LibreOffice - what an act to follow - and it was received very well indeed! The message of the Calligra Engine as a kind of WebKit for office applications is clear and easily understood, and the audience seemed very interested in this. Not only that, people seemed very interested in the fact that Calligra isn't just working on mobile versions, they're right around the corner. So, yes, it sounds like Calligra is, indeed, the future of office suites as hinted by Inge in a blog post a couple of days ago.

The day before, i gave a talk about the GamingFreedom network and the Gluon tool chain, and what it means for Free game development. While there was a fairly small number of attendees (about thirty people), those who were there were enthusiastic and positive about it. The question about JavaScript was brought up again, and it seems my answer that it is for reasons of easy distribution, and that the amount of code work when writing games is reasonably small as well, was acceptable. They also responded very well to the statements about how to monetize the effort - that is, that selling games is not encouraged, but that donations are being made extremely simple, thus removing all obstacles bar will and stinginess - in short, people liked to know that they would not have to compromise on their principles just because they wanted to make a bit of money with Gluon and GamingFreedom. Which is good to know

So, all in all, it seems to be going quite well!

In the summer of 2009, a few people gathered in a darkened room in Gran Canaria, to discuss what might be done about the current game development situation on Linux. From there, it was decided to begin putting together a solution to this problem: Support the makers and players of games, all the way from the idea to playing the game and back again.

Then in April of 2010, the first alpha of Gluon was released, which hinted at the Gluon team's implementations of the vision created as a suggestion for how to fix this problem. X-Ray, as the release was named, included one game, and included the beginning of Gluon Creator, the game construction tool.

Now we have reached a point in time where we can create games with Gluon Creator, and do it properly. We have the beginnings of the social features which are the basis of the connection between the makers and players of games. And we have a game engine which by now has most of the features required to create games in today's demanding world.

Since Last We Met

Those of you who played around with the last release of Gluon will remember that the scripting system was somewhat simplistic, and that the graphics system was very old fashioned. Since then, both have been redone almost from scratch.

The scripting system is still powered by QtScript, but is now handled in such a way that it is able to control many more aspects of the game engine, and generally much more consistent.

GluonGraphics has been rewritten as a fully modern graphics engine, with both OpenGL and OpenGL ES 2 support, allowing Gluon based games to run not only on the desktop but also on the many millions of hand held devices out there. It features, along with much more, a new material system based around programmable shaders and a rendering pipeline based around framebuffers, allowing for complete control over the rendering process and its end result.

Game UIs are a hot topic, and where many large games rely on middleware solutions such as ScaleForm, Gluon has decided to use a real user interface solution, specifically the powerful declarative UI system Qt Quick. This allows for fluid user interfaces integrated into your games.

On top of this, many other changes happened, and you can see all of those in the condensed change log found at the end of this release announcement. And, of course, X-Ray Invaders, the game shipped with X-Ray has been updated to employ these new features, and a further game, Electron Apocalypse, was created, showing off others, such as animated sprites.

Finally, those who tried Gluon X-Ray likely noticed an issue with the input system on Linux, namely that a permissions change was needed. This issue has now been alleviated, and input is now not only fixed on Linux, but in fact available on all platforms where Gluon will run.

Game On!

So, with no further ado: Downloads are available now for many platforms, all located on our website at http://gluon.gamingfreedom.org/ in the Download section. This includes the entirety of the Gluon platform: The libraries GluonAudio, GluonGraphics, GluonInput, GluonPlayer, as well as the applications Gluon Creator, Gluon KDE Player, Gluon Qt Player and Gluon Player Touch.

As hinted at in the introduction, Gluon Creator is now at such a level that you, as a maker of games, can start up the tool and construct your game. Of course, no matter how much effort we were to put into the usability of our little project, no tool is 100% intuitive, and as such, we present you with documentation on how to use Gluon Creator to build games. These exist both in the form of written guides and short video tutorials, explaining how each part works.

We look forward to your visits to the #gluon IRC channel on irc.freenode.net where the team is happy to receive you and help you with any issues you might have. Or, of course, if you wish to join our little revolution, it's the same place

What Does The Future Hold?

The next step for Gluon is the social aspects, which we hint at in this release through the inclusion of the Gluon Player applications. The beginnings of the distribution site can be found at http://test.gamingfreedom.org/, and you can see the effects of this in the players, where you can use your openDesktop.org account (users of kde-look.org or any others from that network of sites will already be aware of this). This will let you make new comments, as well as view and reply to existing ones.

After the release, we will build a new panel for Gluon Creator, which allows the makers of games to not only upload the games they build, but also keep in contact with the players of those games. This effort also includes the extension of the Gluon Player applications to include downloading of new games and interact with each other directly.

Additions to the game creation features which will happen after this release feature such things as an editing view in Gluon Creator. This view will allow for direct manipulation of the objects in the scenes of your game. This will allow for even easier placing of the objects than is possible now, which will help game designers and other visually orientated users of the tool. We will also be employing the powerful KDevPlatform system, which allows us to integrate version control systems into Gluon Creator, as well as using the code knowledge system to provide code completion and other things, which will make the life of game programmers easier.

Lastly, the near future also holds the Google Summer of Code, where Gluon took part last year under the KDE umbrella; a choice so successful that we will do it again this year. As KDE has been accepted as a mentoring organisation, and with two really great proposals accepted for the Gluon project, and great interest for the Season of KDE as well, we hope to see a powerful boost in development to what is already a fast moving project. More information on these projects will be published over the next weeks and months. In short: The future looks very bright, and we hope you want to take part in it!

Condensed Change Log

General

• Gluon API docs now available on api.kde.org: http://api.kde.org/playground-api/games-apidocs/gluon/html/index.html
  
• New game: Electron Apocalypse! Mouse+keyboard top-down multi-directional survival shooter. Move your goblin with the keyboard, aim with the mouse, shoot other goblins and survive the apocalypse for as long as you can!
  
• New sample game: Ball. Google Code-In project by Michał Koźmiński
  
• Invaders renamed to X-Ray Invaders and given proper menu
  
• General sanity of names and examples
  
• Compilation speed up (also code size) with unnecessary header file eliminations
  
• Code quality changes, refactoring, more and more sanity checks.
  
• AStyle-like code unification
  
• Fix krazy issues
  
• Fix valgrind issues
  
• Eliminate Java-like getters
  
• Fix spelling errors
  
• Improve the documentation
  
• Add lincense into more files where it is appropriate
  

GluonCore

• Handle references to any GluonObject in properties correctly, through the GluonObjectFactory
  
• Refactor GluonObjectFactory to be much more efficient (speed and memory both)
  
• Refactor GDLHandler for clarity, move the GDL parsing methods from the gluonobject into this singleton class
  
• Support comments (ignore them while parsing)
  
• New script system, integrated directly into core, with many improvements
  
• Add simple message passing class (MessageHandler)
  
• Add GLUON_DEFINE_SINGLETON macro for convenience, very handy to create gluon singletons by hiding the internal details.
  

GluonAudio

• Support for streaming sounds (no longer allocates entire music files into memory)
  
• Alure used to handle various useful things, such as further file formats support
  

GluonInput

• Establish a backend based management (backends are X11, mac, windows and the indirect Qt wrapper for X)
  
• Add Qt backend management to the Input system, used when platform-specific input system fails because the user does not have right credentials to read the device directly or when the low-level platform specific implementation is just missing
  
• Add more examples, like a loop for all the devices and/or Qt backend testing example
  
• Rename examples from tutorialX for more talkative ones according to the functionality of the given example.
  
• Implement the touch and keyboard mechanism in a way on N900, thus the touch example for instance works for now (More investigation on the engine later pretty soon because of the Meegathon)
  
• Optimize the linux backend code further on (there were some time-consuming loops that were called more times for iteration than needed)
  
• Eliminate the Standard Template Library namespaces and C, C++ headers usage completely
  
• Implement libudev input detection mechanism (commented for now for later consideration)
  
• Add support for the Qt namespace and start using Qt::Key - much cleaner and easier, simplified code that way (implement the mapping accordingly)
  
• Start the work on the QGesture related Qt touch management, too.
  
• BUG: 236254 - gluon/input: RPMLINT error which must be fixed
  
• BUG: 254842 - gluoncreator can not find keyboard whenever i try to run examples
  

GluonGraphics

• Replaced all the old OpenGL 1.1 rendering code with OpenGL 2.0
  
• Support for OpenGL ES 2.0
  
• Programmable pipeline support, with vertex and pixel shaders
  
• Provide a render widget directly from the library
  
• Remove GLEW dependency
  
• Multiple render target support
  
• Support for using Qt Quick to render in-game UI
  

GluonEngine

• New Scripting asset/component combo, to replace the old, naive system
  
• All new assets for rendering sprites and simple meshes
  
• New material system, based on the new GluonGraphics programmable pipeline
  
• Make Sphere collider component more efficient
  
• New Beam Renderer component
  
• Games are now NeXT style bundles
  
• Renaming objects now means that the files which Assets represent are moved in the bundle's file system, so the object hierarchy and the file system hierarchy are identical
  

GamingFreedom.org

• Development of GamingFreedom.org begins - base and hosting provided by Frank Karlitschek of openDesktop.org
  

Gluon Player

• Gluon Player Plasmoid, Google Summer of Code by Shantanu Tushar Jha
  
• GluonPlayer library created as part of plasmoid project
  
• Gluon Player for KDE, Qt Quick and standard Qt, based on GluonPlayer library
  
• Social features emerge in the Gluon Player apps
  

Gluon Creator

• Prettier listing of objects in the Property View
  
• Ability to handle limits and steps on numerical properties
  
• Templates for Assets
  
• Allow locking the UI
  
• Components list categorised, and generally more friendly looking
  
• KPart support for editing and viewing Assets
  
• Support for rendering mode switching in View pane (texture/wireframe/points)
  
• The beginnings of a visual, graph-based code editor, Google Summer of Code project by Kevin Whitaker
  
• Support for adding custom properties to objects in Property View
  
• Messages pane now shows debug from all debug() calls on all objects
  
• Change menu bar to resemble KDevelop's project-centric approach
  
• Watch assets for changes outside of Creator, and reload on changes
  
• Drag and drop support for rearranging items in the Project View (similar to Scene View)
  
• Fix the left-over, obsolete plugin desktop file related issues, crashes (basically a plugin version management system)
  
• Add Name/Location versatile validation for the newprojectdialog
  
• Add a new bool mouseTrack property inside the mouse component class
  
• Implement the Move Up/Down features inside the property view
  
• Fix the command line argument related crash about the creator
  
• Add overwrite confirmation dialog option for KFileDialog (saveAs).
  
• Reset input filter on game view during play when clicking (allows selecting items in the Scene tree and otherwise interact with Creator's UI during gameplay)
  
• No longer crashes when deleting certain Assets
  
• BUG: 243723 - Add a closeEvent to the mainwindow and stop the game there.
  
• BUG: 233336 - removing GameObject in treeView cannot be saved
  
• BUG: 265016 - Crash when dragging a gameobject in scene treeview to its parent
  
• BUG: 235011 - Gluon: RPMLINT warnings which should be fixed
  
• BUG: 244105 - Gluon crashes upon opening and creation of Gluon projects
  
• BUG: 244107 - Gluon Creator crashes upon load and creation of a Gluon projects
  

A few days ago, i was approached by Chris Woolfrey, who asked whether i would be interested in being interviewed for the Free Software Foundation Europe's regular feature called the Fellowship Interviews. Each month some person from the FSFE membership is interviewed about their involvement with Free Software and Free Culture, and i was introduced as somebody who had something to do with this, as one of the people behind the http://GamingFreedom.org/ network. So, i said sure thing, and we had a chat over Jabber, where we touched upon many a thing. And then, last night, it was released! http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Fellowship_interview_with_Dan_Leinir

Also, i'm going to be at the KDE Games sprint in Dresden, named Blue Wonder 2011! Leaving tonight, to spend the night in Gatwick airport so i can catch my stupidly early plane tomorrow morning... yay excitement there Much more excitement, however, on finally getting a face-to-face between the core KDE Games developers and the Gluon team! Great stuff here, much cooperative work hopefully in the future