26 September 2009
Welcome to IndieZen

Current Events
Clips from the Indie Zen forum

More progress on World Builder

Post by Tony Richards on Thu Aug 13, 2009 5:57 pm
You may have to use your imagination a bit, but this picture shows off the new Creator view and Layers view.

The Creator view is used to create new objects in the currently loaded Zone.

The Layer view shows the different layers in the Zone. I’ll provide a better explanation of how Layers work in a bit, but the Default Layer works the way you’d expect most world builders to work. — read more –

Handling of Memotica stimuli (sort of like WoW phasing)

Post by Cayle on Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:53 pm
Some of you might have seen my wallhack question on the Torque forums the other day. I’ll repeat the question here, in a bit more detail to see how the problem might be solvable in Zen. Memotica has a concept in its “standard” metamemes known as stimuli. Stimulus refers to information that is supposed to be transmitted to a decision making entity. By decision making entity, I mean player, AI, etc. Everything that a client knows about an agent is in the form of stimuli. Is he wearing red socks? Does he have bad breath? Does he have a tattoo on his forehead only visible in the UV spectrum? Multiple stimuli can be assigned to agents and events; sounds, text descriptions, textures, meshes, specially formatted information for the AI, etc.

The problem is as follows: — read more –

Cross Platform Build system

Post by Tony Richards on Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:13 am
This weekend I spent most of the weekend finishing off what Joker, GwynWynn, hatboyZero, etc had started with CMake.

I’m not 100% done, but my new approach will make it so that the CMake build will never get out of sync with the source code unless we add new libraries or plugins.

I’ve added a new command to zpkg: — read more –

Zen Engine + Zen Studio feature list

Post by Tony Richards on Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:39 pm
Features marked with italics are planned features that are incomplete as of this writing. The non-italic features are features that are complete today and ready to use.

General Features

Object-Oriented Design with three API layers. A simple to use script based interface, a fairly easy to use but more flexible C++ starter-kit interface with support for game rules, behaviors, and simple to use network examples, and a more advanced yet extremely flexible C++ API. For most features, game developers can use the outer script and/or C++ layers to accomplish most of their game design goals.

Only under rare circumstances should you actually be required to modify the Zen Engine framework. In most cases, extension points or other clear-cut interfaces exist to help you extend the existing functionality without modifying the original source. But, you get all of the ZOSS source code, so you are not prevented from modifying the source.

Most architectural decisions have been left to the developer (i.e. you choose your architecture, not IndieZen). ZOSS includes examples of a variety of well-known and commonly used architectures and each of them are well suited for use with ZOSS and Zen Engine.

Source code example using an Service Oriented Architecture for supporting n-tier enterprise services including a C++ Enterprise Application Service container is included as an advanced example for MMO games and enterprise virtual worlds for commercial and entertainment uses.

Other examples include a variety of peer to peer and client / server architectures pre-tuned for use with specific game types including Arcade, FPS, Racing, RPG, RTS and MMO games.
– read more –

For more news please visit the IndieZen Wiki

Where Are We Today?

Milestone: Version 0.6.1
Due (08/31/09)

This minor milestone is to push through the World Builder to visibility.

Zen Studio

  • Implement a Property view with contributors
  • World Builder
    • Enhance the Scene framework as needed.
    • Create the Layers view.
    • Enhance the Creator view.
  • Game Builder
    • Add element properties

Milestone: Version 0.6.2
Due (09/08/09)

This short milestone is primarily for minor enhancements and bug fixes to World Builder and Game Builder.

Milestone: Version 0.8.0
Due (09/14/09)

The primary goals of this milestone are:

  • Zen Worlds
    • Zone services
    • Zone Data services
    • World services
    • Multiplayer networking
  • Game Builder
    • Integration with Zen Worlds
    • World export (not sure how this will look yet)
      • Database – export to a database including DML to create the database
      • Lua script – export to Lua script
      • C++ and script bindings – Code generator for C++ and script bindings for game object types.
    • World Builder
      • Integration with Zen Worlds

    Milestone: Version 1.0.0
    Due (09/13/09)

    Version 1.0 first GA release.

    The primary goal of this milestone is to polish the documentation and tutorials, clean up the installation process and polish any interfaces that require polishing.

    Timeline
    Here you can find the change logs for all the newly baked code bits and bytes. ( A bit of Zen Engine, a byte of World Builder, a lot of indie-community add in some cross-platform support… TaDa… Zen Studio! )

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