Free lighting software for linux

The FlightGear flight simulator project is an open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project. Source code for the entire project is available and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

The goal of the FlightGear project is to create a sophisticated flight simulator framework for use in research or academic environments, for the development and pursuit of other interesting flight simulation ideas, and as an end-user application. We are developing a sophisticated, open simulation framework that can be expanded and improved upon by anyone interested in contributing.

There are many exciting possibilities for an open, free flight sim. We hope that this project will be interesting and useful to many people in many areas.

FlightGear is a free flight simulator project. It is being developed through the gracious contributions of source code and spare time by many talented people from around the globe. Among the many goals of this project are the quest to minimize short cuts and "do things right", the quest to learn and advance knowledge, and the quest to have better toys to play with.

The idea for Flight Gear was born out of a dissatisfaction with current commercial PC flight simulators. A big problem with these simulators is their proprietariness and lack of extensibility. There are so many people across the world with great ideas for enhancing the currently available simulators who have the ability to write code, and who have a desire to learn and contribute. Many people involved in education and research could use a spiffy flight simulator frame work on which to build their own projects; however, commercial simulators do not lend themselves to modification and enhancement. The Flight Gear project is striving to fill these gaps.

There are a wide range of people interested and participating in this project. This is truly a global effort with contributors from just about every continent. Interests range from building a realistic home simulator out old airplane parts, to university research and instructional use, to simply having a viable alternative to commercial PC simulators.

Flight Dynamics Models

With FlightGear it is possible to choose between three primary Flight Dynamics Models. It is possible to add new dynamics models or even interface to external "proprietary" flight dynamics models:

1. JSBSim: JSBSim is a generic, 6DoF flight dynamics model for simulating the motion of flight vehicles. It is written in C++. JSBSim can be run in a standalone mode for batch runs, or it can be the driver for a larger simulation program that includes a visuals subsystem (such as FlightGear.) In both cases, aircraft are modeled in an XML configuration file, where the mass properties, aerodynamic and flight control properties are all defined.

2. YASim: This FDM is an integrated part of FlightGear and uses a different approach than JSBSim by simulating the effect of the airflow on the different parts of an aircraft. The advantage of this approach is that it is possible to perform the simulation based on geometry and mass information combined with more commonly available performance numbers for an aircraft. This allows for quickly constructing a plausibly behaving aircraft that matches published performance numbers without requiring all the traditional aerodynamic test data.

3. UIUC: This FDM is based on LaRCsim originally written by the NASA. UIUC extends the code by allowing aircraft configuration files instead and by adding code for simulation of aircraft under icing conditions.

UIUC (like JSBSim) uses lookup tables to retrieve the component aerodynamic force and moment coefficients for an aircraft... and then uses these coefficients to calculate the sum of the forces and moments acting on the aircraft.

Extensive and Accurate World Scenery Data Base

Over 20,000 real world airports included in the full scenery set.
Correct runway markings and placement, correct runway and approach lighting.
Taxiways available for many larger airports (even including the green center line lights when appropriate.)
Sloping runways (runways change elevation like they usually do in real life.)
Directional airport lighting that smoothly changes intensity as your relative view direction changes.
World scenery fits on 3 DVDs. (Im not sure thats a feature or a problem!) But it means we have pretty detailed coverage of the entire world.
Accurate terrain worldwide, based on the most recently released SRTM terrain data.) 3 arc second resolution (about 90m post spacing) for North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
Scenery includes all vmap0 lakes, rivers, roads, railroads, cities, towns, land cover, etc.
Nice scenery night lighting with ground lighting concentrated in urban areas (based on real maps) and headlights visible on major highways. This allows for realistic night VFR flying with the ability to spot towns and cities and follow roads.
Scenery tiles are paged (loaded/unloaded) in a separate thread to minimize the frame rate hit when you need to load new areas.

Accurate and Detailed Sky Model

FlightGear implements extremely accurate time of day modeling with correctly placed sun, moon, stars, and planets for the specified time and date. FlightGear can track the current computer clock time in order to correctly place the sun, moon, stars, etc. in their current and proper place relative to the earth. If its dawn in Sydney right now, its dawn in the sim right now when you locate yourself in virtual Sidney. The sun, moon, stars, and planets all follow their correct courses through the sky. This modeling also correctly takes into account seasonal effects so you have 24 hour days north of the arctic circle in the summer, etc. We also illuminate the correctly placed moon with the correctly placed sun to get the correct phase of the moon for the current time/date, just like in real life.

Flexible and Open Aircraft Modeling System

FlightGear has the ability to model a wide variety of aircraft. Currently you can fly the 1903 Wright Flyer, strange flapping wing "ornithopters", a 747 and A320, various military jets, and several light singles. FlightGear has the ability to model those aircraft and just about everything in between.

FlightGear has extremely smooth and fluid instrument animation that updates at the same rate as your out-the-window view updates (i.e. as fast as your computer can crank, and not artificially limited and chunky like in some sims.)

FlightGear has the infrastructure to allow aircraft designers to build fully animated, fully operational, fully interactive 3d cockpits (which even update and display correctly from external chase plane views.)

FlightGear realistically models real world instrument behavior. Instruments that lag in real life, lag correctly in FlightGear, gyro drift is modeled correctly, the magnetic compass is subject to aircraft body forces -- all those things that make real world flying a challenge.

FlightGear also accurately models many instrument and system failures. If the vacuum system fails, the HSI gyros spin down slowly with a corresponding degradation in response as well as a slowly increasing bias/error.

Moderate Hardware Requirements

The intention of FlightGear is to look nice, but not at the expense of other aspects of a realistic simulator. Our focus is not on competing in the "game" market and not on the ultra-flashy graphic tricks.

The result is a simulator with moderate hardware requirements to run at smooth frame rates. You can be reasonably happy on a $500-1000 (USD) machine (possibly even less if you are careful) and dont necessarily need $3000 (USD) worth of new hardware like you do with the many of the newest games.

That said, the more hardware you throw at FlightGear, the better it looks and runs, so dont feel like you have to chuck your expensive new hardware if you just purchased it. :-)

Internal Properties EXPOSED!

FlightGear allows users and aircraft designers access to a very large number of internal state variables via numerous internal and external access mechanisms. These state variables are organized into a convenient hierarchal "property" tree.

Using the properties tree it is possible to monitor just about any internal state variable in FlightGear. Its possible to remotely control FlightGear from an external script. You can create model animations, sound effects, instrument animations and network protocols for about any situation imaginable just by editing a small number of human readable configuration files. This is a powerful system that makes FlightGear immensely flexible, configurable, and adaptable.

Networking options

A number of networking options allow FlightGear to communicate with other instances of FlightGear, GPS receivers, external flight dynamics modules, external autopilot or control modules, as well as other software such as the Open Glass Cockpit project and the Atlas mapping utility.

A generic input/output option allows for a user defined output protocol to a file, serial port or network client.

A multi player protocol is available for using FlightGear on a local network in a multi aircraft environment, for example to practice formation flight or for tower simulation purposes.

The powerful network options make it possible to synchronize several instances of FlightGear allowing for a multi-display, or even a cave environment. If all instances are running at the same frame rate consistently, it is possible to get extremely good and tight synchronization between displays.

Flight Gear and its source code have intentionally been kept open, available, and free. In doing so, we are able to take advantage of the efforts of tremendously talented people from around the world. Contrast this with the traditional approach of commercial software vendors, who are limited by the collective ability of the people they can hire and pay. Our approach brings its own unique challenges and difficulties, but we are confident (and other similarly structured projects have demonstrated) that in the long run we can outclass the commercial "competition."

Contributing to Flight Gear can be educational and a lot of fun. A long time developer, Curtis Olson, had this to say about working on Flight Gear:

Personally, Flight Gear has been a great learning experience for me. I have been exposed to many new ideas and have learned a tremendous amount of "good stuff" in the process of discussing and implementing various Flight Gear subsystems. If for no other reason, this alone makes it all worth while.

FlatFrag is a multiplayer action shooter game. With its deathmatch fights it strives to be an entertaining arcade-style experience.
The game is played from a birds eye view and contains some 3D effects in order to make it not seem too flat. Currently only the game mode deathmatch is available, but others will probably be developed in the future.
The game has been built from scratch, though a few important libraries were used in the process. For example, OpenGL is used for fast 3D graphics and SDL provides the game with many cross-platform functions.
It is developed by a single person as a hobby project, but it is released under the terms of the GPL (GNU General Public License), which makes it Open Source software. So everybody is able to get the sourcecode and do his own changes to the project.
Main features:
- Cross-platform support currently for Linux and Microsoft Windows (planned: Mac OS X, BSD, though you can try it anywhere with the provided sourcecode)
- 3D graphics using OpenGL -- the game is played from a birds eye view, but the individual tiles are 3D cubes
- 3D sound using OpenAL -- 2D would probably be more appropriate
- SDL is used for cross-platform input, networking and window creation
- Multiplayer network games with up to 32 players (actually there is no fixed limit set yet)
- Support for Lua-scripted modifications (more like planned, but the console already expects Lua code as input)
- File types: Ogg Vorbis used for sound compression, PNG used for image compression
- Advanced particle system
- Dynamic lighting
- Bots
- Ridable cars and usable stationary guns
- 14 different weapons (some of them very unconventional)
- In-game map editor
- Game modes: deathmatch (more planned)
- Dedicated game server
- A server list function, which fetches a list of servers. You can also see the list of servers here.
- Completely free software -- free as in speech and free as in beer -- Licensed under the GPL

Glest is a project for making a free 3D real-time customizable strategy game.
Current version is fully playable, includes single player game against CPU controlled players, two factions with their corresponding tech trees, units, buildings and some maps.
Main features:
Customize every aspect of the game
- Custom units can be defined using XML files. Its posible to define its basic parameters (hp, mp, armor, sight, requirements and much more), its skills and commands and the 3d models associated with them.
- Custom upgrades can be defined. Its posibble to define how and what units they affect, its requirements and more.
- Custom factions can be defined by grouping a set of units and upgrades.
- Custom resources can be defined.
- Custom tech-trees can be defined by grouping a set of factions and resources.
- Custom tilesets can be defined. Its posible to define the surface textures, object 3d models (such as trees os rocks), ambient sounds and more.
- Maps can be edited with the glest map editor.
Graphics: OpenGL 1.3 graphics
- Heightmap terrain.
- Free camera movement (translation, rotation and zoom).
- Own 3d format that can be exported from 3dsmax using the g3d export plugin.
- Real-time shadows, projected or shadow mapped.
- Keyframe animated 3d models.
- Particle systems for rain, snow, fire and spells.
- Classical 3d effects: transparency, lighting, fog etc...
A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCY
- A* based pathfinding algorithm.
- Basic AI for computer controlled players.
Enhancements:
- New Magic units:Tower of Souls, Golem, Daemon giant, Drake rider
- New Tech units:Aerodrome, Air ballista, Rider, Ornithopter, Airship
- New Magic upgrades
- New Tech upgrades
- New animations for existing units
- Shared vision between allies
- New particle blending
- Players now start on the location indicated in the game settings menu
- Score system
- HTML documentation
- Increased projectile accuracy
- Optimized particle rendering
- Loads of balance changes

Hammer of Thyrion is a port of Ravens Hexen2 source code and is based on the original Linux Hexen II project, Anvil of Thyrion.

HoT includes many bugfixes, improved sound and video modes, opengl improvements and documentation among many others.

Whats New in This Release:

General:
--------
- The engine version is now at 1.19 for Hexen II and 0.19 for HexenWorld.
- Added support for 64 bit architectures: The crashes on amd64 are fixed.
- Added support for protocol 18: Hammer of Thyrion is now fully network-
compatible with Ravens 1.11 windows version, as it has been with other
Hexen II ports.
- The net compatibility works both ways: When H.o.T is run as a client,
it can connect to Raven-1.11 servers and can play just fine. On the
other hand, if a 1.11 client wants to connect to a H.o.T. server, the
server must be started with "-protocol 18" command line argument.
- You can also load and play games saved with the 1.11 windows version and
can playback the demos recorded with the 1.11 version.
- Fixed and improved parsing of puzzles.txt: This fixes the bug where the
names used to be listed as Unknown in the puzzle pieces inventory display
(you can access the puzzle pieces inventory display using a key bound to
the +showdm command, the default is q).
- Updated the loading of strings.txt, infolist.txt and puzzles.txt.
- Updates to SDL input code. Added the Shift-Escape key combination as a
new means for opening the in-game console.
- Fixed many printf format string errors.
- Revised pak data checking.
- Added experimental support for using unpatched, off-the-cdrom 1.03 version
pak files as a compile time option. Disabled by default.
- Several cvar tweaks.
- Made the load and connect commands to get rid of the menu or the console.
- Fixed multiplayer episode selection in the menu system.
- Updates to zone memory usage: a 256 KB secondary zone for static textures
(sec_zone) is now initialized, which is especially useful for the software
renderer and have its merits for the opengl version, too.
- Revised several unsafe LoadStackFile and LoadBufFile usage.
- Removed the useless net_vcr facility.
- Tweaked the init sequence.
- Changed the remnants of malloc usage into hunk or zone allocations.
- Mac OS X: Ensured that the basedir always stays the same (fix was added
in 1.4.1-rev1).

Gameplay:
---------
- The gamecode is now at version 1.19.
- Origin fixes for tomed fires of vorpal sword and purifier: paladin used
to fire them always from the non-crouched eye position, and it was even
the worst when he was looking up (and down). You wont be shooting your
back again when standing just in front of a wall and fire your tomed
purifier to the sky, from now on ;)
- Fixed an obscure bug where the assasin with her 4th weapon uses the tome
of power and cant fire it (gamecode version 1.16a, the fix was added in
1.4.1-rev1).

Console:
--------
- Added prefix matching support to the maplist command.
- A duplicate name detection bug in the maplist command was fixed.
- Updated and sanitized the command lister procedures.
- Added a -developer command line argument which sets the developer cvar to
1 during the init phase (ie. before the config is read).
- Consolidated all Con_Printf and Sys_Printf family of procedures into a
single flag based procedure. Added macros for compatibility with the old
api.
- Revised the logging system, made all Con_Printf and Sys_Printf output to
be written into the logs from the start. Added a -devlog command line
switch to enable logging of developer message even when the developer cvar
isnt set.

Server:
-------
- Fixed the mission packs doWhiteFlash server message: it used to affect the
local client only. Naturally, the recorded demos didnt carry the message
and the flash didnt appear, either. It works properly now.
- Made the Hexen II dedicated server to exec not hexen.rc or config.cfg, but
server.cfg if available. As an alternative, any config file can be execed
when starting the server, such as: "h2ded +exec myconfig.cfg"
- Hexen II dedicated server now starts the demo1 map, if the server is still
not active when initialization is complete.
- Fixed net driver checks in Hexen II dedicated server: It was broken in the
1.4.1 release and works properly now.

Video:
------
- Added apply changes and reset changes items to the video options menu.

Software Renderer:
------------------
- Added ability to load external wal texture files instead of internal pixel
data of the brush model (depends on the new r_texture_external cvar).

OpenGL Renderer:
----------------
- Some speed-ups in the alias model drawing.
- Fixed RGBA lighting.
- Fixed bug that the array size for playertextures must be MAX_CLIENTS, but
was hardcoded as 16.
- Added ability to load external wal texture files instead of internal pixel
data of the brush model (depends on the new r_texture_external cvar).

Sound:
------
- Added external music file support via SDL_mixer as an extra patch.

CDAudio:
--------
- Updated the volume setting procedures.

HexenWorld:
-----------
- OpenGL: Fixed bug that netgraphtexture was not reset during reinitializa-
tion of the draw subsystem (used to affect the packet loss status graph by
r_netgraph).
- OpenGL: Fixed bug that dynamic lights had a problem with RGBA lightmaps
(such as torches didnt illuminate) but luminance mode was fine. Lightmaps
in RGBA mode are working now.
- OpenGL: Added colored dynamic lights and extra dynamic lights (stuff copied
over from hexen2). The gl_colored_dynamic_lights and gl_extra_dynamic_lights
cvars and their menu entries are functional now.

Launcher:
----------
- Added integrated ability to patch the pak files.
- The launcher now scans the installation directory against known game versions
for pak file health, and pops up the patch window with a short report if it
finds something bad. It now disables the mission pack or hexenworld options
according to the results it took from the installation scanning.
- Many clean-ups. Incremented the version number to 1.0.0.

Utilities:
----------
- Added the bsp2wal tool which extracts all texture data into hwal files.
- Added the lmp2pcx tool which converts hexen2 texture data into pcx and tga.
- Fixed the broken project path decision in qbsp. it doesnt scan for a maps
directory anymore.
- Added a findfirst/findnext implementation to the common library.
- Several fixes in dcc.

Other:
----------------------
- Imported the latest xdelta-1.1 sources into the tree.
- Started a large scale attempt at improving const-correctness.
- Updated inline commentaries.
- A lot of code clean-up all over the tree.

Alien Arena 2006 is the ultimate freeware deathmatch game!

Included are 25 total levels, 9 detailed characters, 8 weapons, 2 vehicles, 5 gameplay modes(DM, TDM, CTF, All Out Assault, Deathball), and much more!

New for Alien Arena 2006 are five mutators(instagib, regeneration, vampire, rocket arena, and low grav), and Deathball, a mode in which you get points by capturing a ball and firing in into a goal.

Eight new levels have been added, as well as alternate firing modes for several of the weapons. The game now runs on version 4.03 of the CRX engine, based on the id Software GPL source codes, and adding nextgen features such as reflective water, shaders, light bloom, improved lighting, and much more, while optimizations allow it to still run extremely fast even on modest systems.

The game now features colored names, an improved console, and an enhanced in-game server browser.

Also available is the "Nightmare Bots" patch, which adds a fourth skill level to the in-game bots, which will challenge even the best players.

TrueCombat:Elite project is an Enemy Territory total conversion modification of the free, popular, stand-alone third-person shooter Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. That is, TC:E is an entirely free game, made by gamers, for gamers.
TC:E is currently being developed by GrooveSix Studios and TeamTerminator. While TeamTerminator is known for the famous Q3 based TrueCombat series, GrooveSix Studios was initiated by retired TeamTerminator co-founder Coroner to develop a Return to Castle Wolfenstein modification that is not released.
Thus, as very experienced Q3-based content creators, we hope to be able to serve the gaming community with a quality offering.
Now, the most important question: "What can you expect from TC:E?" TC:E is a tactical-team shooter, set up in a modern-world environment.
TC:E puts you into the role of elite mercenary soldier in the conflicts of two internationally operating forces.
Main features:
- Texture Tone Mapping
- HDR Lighting
- Realistic scaling
- High quality sounds (44khz)
- rich, deluxe graphics, based on high-resolution digital-camera shots
- Letterbox & widescreen modes - TrueVision
- Dynamic Eye Adaption - DynEA
- Cross Platform Gaming (Win, OS X, Linux)
- tactical-teamplay oriented, modern-world combat simulation
- realistic weapon behavior simulation
- iron sight aiming system, no crosshair
- sophisticated ballistic simulation including multiple-layer object penetration
- professional mode: 1-life, short-timed, objective driven scenarios in realistic environments
- bodycount mode: team deathmatch style, gametype to relax?
- Reinforced OBJ, as Capture the Flag in stock maps
- balanced, team specific set of real-world weapons (Beretta 92, Glock 19, Ump45, Mac-10, M4, Ak-47, and more)
- Free climb
- lag compensation, client-side bullet prediction, punkbuster support
- immersive and lethal, fast-paced action"

KShaderDesigner is an Intergrated Development Environment (IDE) for graphic vertex and fragment shaders. It supports the Cg programming language.
- It interfaces the NVIDIA Cg Compiler
- It allows to block Cg parameters from the scene and set them manually for debugging purpose
- Its architecture allows graphic developpers to add new complex OpenGL scenes to the program, and apply shaders on them
- It supports the latest hardware profiles, like VP40 et FP40 for GeForce 6 GPUs.
The released version is only a preview, it is not really usable. I would like testers to try compilation, project loading, and basic OpenGL rendering. An FX-class Nvidia card is needed for fragment shaders. Project creation and saving is not implemented yet.
An example project is also provided, it implements a shadow mapping algorithm as well as bump mapping.
Please report all compilation errors, feedback or whatever by email.
You will need the Nvidia Cg Toolkit (URL given in configure script).
Enhancements:
- Updated the build system to the latest bksys development version, using the new modules system
- The rendering window now redraws even when no project is running
- Added a per-pixel lighting example. This is an unoptimized implementation of the Blinn-Phong lighting model, using per-pixel calculation. Usefull for benchmarking.