Engine for Collaborative Science Education MMOG? 56
plisdku asks: "My research advisor wants to create an online, collaborative science education game for middle- to high-school students; we need a 3D engine! A pioneer in internet-assisted laboratories (iLabs), he has developed real experiments that students can operate remotely over the internet. We envision a game where students wander a campus, solving Caltech-style 'stacks,' and learning collaboratively as they perform the great experiments of the history of science in simulated and real laboratories. What we need is a 3D engine and content creation system with which our team of artists and bright student developers can produce a prototype within a year. Requirements: customizable avatars, flexible integration with other technology (iLabs, CompEdu, etc.), and reasonable licensing fees (open source would be great). Our last project used SGI tools -- what are our modern-day options?"
The obvious solution (Score:2, Funny)
idsoftware (Score:4, Informative)
Re:idsoftware (Score:3, Informative)
There's other OSS engines out there, too, such as Crystal Space [crystalspace3d.org].
Two words... (Score:5, Informative)
It's highly configurable and easy to code for. There are multiple included implementations of apps using the engine that come with it so you can keep the wheel reinvention to a minimum.
Also it supports multiple formats to be imported such as 3DS and the like.
MTW
Re:Two words... (Score:1)
Quake 2 (Score:2, Funny)
Ogre3d (Score:2)
http://www.ogre3d.org/ [ogre3d.org]
Re:Ogre3d (Score:2)
Croquet (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.opencroquet.org/ [opencroquet.org]
Two psossible downsides SmallTalk and Alan Kay. Both are positives for me but I understand some peoples aversion.
Re:Croquet (Score:2)
Try Q (Score:2)
http://www.qubesoft.com/ [qubesoft.com]
Second Life (Score:3, Interesting)
They even have a special program for universities.
It's not just a graphics engine, it's a whole 3D world where you can collaboratively build and script stuff... it has very customizable humanoid avatars and is extremely user friendly.
It's got physics too - based on the "industry standard" Havok engine.
Re:Second Life (Score:2)
If the poster needs any help regarding SL or OSMP feel free to to mail me:
eggsta
Re:Second Life (Score:2)
Re:Second Life (Score:1)
Second Life: Educational Possibilities/ SLPresentationOutline.htm [kumc.edu]
http://www2.kumc.edu/netlearning/SLEDUCAUSESW2005
It's likely one of the easiest and most affordable options.
A similar project (Score:3, Informative)
http://muve.gse.harvard.edu/muvees2003/ [harvard.edu]
I saw him present this at AERA this year.
You have to root around to find the science experiment stuff.
Re:A similar project (Score:1)
http://www.atitd.com/ [atitd.com]
Delta3D Open-Source Game Engine (Score:2, Informative)
Open-source under the LGPL license, and developed at the Naval Postgradute School (former home of America's Army).
Please post on the forum if you have any questions, and I'll be glad to help you out.
A few possibilities (Score:1)
RealmForge from www.realmforge.com is open source. They just released v0.6.1 but are not yet to a beta version, (Puts on Tinfoil Suit) and it is
Very complete feature set (many yet to be implemented however).
Nevrax
Radan Labs
Reality Factory
3D Game Studio
but better, browse to
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/ [devmaster.net]
and waste some time there!
Cube (Score:1)
http://cube.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Soya (Score:5, Interesting)
Nevrax has a nice engine, NeL (Score:2)
Not just any 3D engine... (Score:1)
This
Non-Free (Score:2)
You might want to give the torque (tribes2) engine [garagegames.com] a try, as it supports large environments, unmodified up to about 128 simultaneous players, has decent physics and is more mature in a lot of ways than anything in the F/OSS realm. and at $100 per developer seat, the cost of entry is really not that high.
Re:Non-Free (Score:1)
shouldn't it be:
In Soviet Russia, the Fnords can't see you!
?
One word! (Score:1)
Up and coming (Score:2)
VRML is still around (Score:2)
FreeWRL [sourceforge.net]
You won't be able to do the type of things that an engine like crystal space would enable, but you will have easy access to web-like hyperlinking and information presentation. It depends on how game-like you envision the final product being and what information you are trying to convey.
I had an idea similar to this (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I had an idea similar to this (Score:1)
Re:I had an idea similar to this (Score:2)
Re:I had an idea similar to this (Score:1)
AgentFX and jMonkeyEngine (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.agency9.com/ [agency9.com]
http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/ [jmonkeyengine.com]
If nobody mentioned it, try Garage Games (Score:2)
OGRE (Score:2, Informative)
Lots of options. (Score:2)
If you want to make it easy I'd recommend Torque [garagegames.com] from GarageGames. It has greate documentation, lots of premade widgets, it's also finished and being used for a number of games. Mainly it has the polish that makes working with it enjoyable. (Tutorials, prebuild samples, etc) Not open source but has a similar community
Someone else has already recommened Crystal Space. If your looking for an example of an MMORG check out PlaneShift [planeshift.it].
Another engine that I've been impressed with i
Quake 2/3, Ogre, cube, and many others (Score:3, Interesting)
Quake3 will probably be in the near future, and has a very active community of modders/tools/information/...
Cube (and nextgen Sauerbraten) are zlib licensed:
http://wouter.fov120.com/cube/ [fov120.com]
fun for its realtime ingame editor iirc
Ogre is LGPL'ed and also very active community
http://www.ogre3d.org/ [ogre3d.org]
I think you must be able to find some decent open source stuff.
Might not work (Score:2, Interesting)
Tell me more (Score:2, Interesting)
What are the level size/multiplayer requirements? (Score:2)
These are significant aspects of a game engine's architecture and you are not going to want to have to customize them in; clarifying the requirements here could significantly reduce the number of possible solutions. (Although, given the average slashdotter
OGRE (Score:2)
MASSIVE (Score:2, Interesting)
Panda3D (Score:1)
thanks all (Score:1)