Horde3D

First of all, congratulations (to Nicolas and Volker) on the tool, this is a big step for Horde The GUI looks quite professional, and I can't wait to start using it!

However, I'm having quite a few problems in getting it to work with the standard Horde content (the content that comes with the Horde engine, not the content that comes with the editor).

On my hard-drive, I have everything that comes in "\Horde3D SDK [0.11.1]\Samples" extracted to "C:\Programming\bin".

In the editor, I've changed all the content paths to match this location in File->Settings (e.g. Scene Graphs is set to "C:/Programming/bin/content/models").

When I try to open the file "C:/Programming/bin/content/models/knight.scene.xml", I get an Error box which says "Error initializing Pipeline".

After this error happens, if I go into the Scene->Pipeline dialog and try to open "C:\Programming\bin\pipeline.xml", then I get an error box that says "Error opening existing pipeline file: C:/Program Files/HordeEditor/bin\Pipelines\".

I can make this error go away by copying a pipeline.xml file into that folder, but this is only a work-around... I want it to load the pipeline files from "C:/Programming/bin".

After I've used the above work-around, and tried to load "knight.scene.xml" again, I get another error which says "Error when opening file C:/Programming/bin/content/models/models! No such file or directory"

I don't know what to do about this error...



Apart from that, I think the plug-in feature is great, but I'm concerned about the license mis-match with the Horde engine. For example, if a professional game company uses Horde3D, they can integrate it with their proprietary game-engine, but they cannot integrate their game engine with the editor using plug-ins - because the plug-ins must be GPL.
I think it would be a good idea to license the plug-in API using the same license as the horde engine (but the rest of the editor should stay as GPL).

Thanks!



Could you describe a little bit more in detail, what you have done exactly.
The first impression of "When I try to open knight.scene.xml" seems to me that you tried to load it via the Open Scene command.

This won't work, since the editor has to know the path settings for your scene (not the one for the repository you can define under the settings dialog). These settings are stored in a .scn File (actually also an xml file) you have to create either with the editor (by creating a new scene) or by adjusting one of the provided samples.

In this file the root .scene.xml File as well as the directory settings and the pipeline are configured. If you open this file, the editor will load your data from wherever you want (but be aware that the pathes should be defined relative to the scn file's directory). Normally you should place the scn file in the root content dir, and the textures, materials, etc. folders as a subfolder of this directory (as it is done in the samples provided with the editor)

BTW: Have you already read the documentation pdf file? I know it is quite preliminary but perhaps you may understand the way the editor is working a bit better after you read it.


I've uploaded a new version that fits your proposal. I agree that this would be the best solution.

Yes, that is what I was attempting to do.


Ahh, now it makes sense to me


I only read it quickly, because I was too exited to start using the tool
I had assumed that a .scn file was the same thing as a .scene.xml file

Thanks for the help!

Apart from the license of the AttachmentPlugIn interface itself, I have to mention, that the interface also uses Trolltech's PlugIn technology. That's why you also have to check their license agreements if you want to create and maybe sell a plugin for the editor.

I'm not a jurist and so I'm not sure how it may be treated if someone creates a plugin for the editor using a game engine not licensed under the GPL (or LGPL).

Does this person only have to publish the plugin licensed under the GPL or is it also necessary that the GameEngine the plugin is using is published under the GPL? The later one doesn't make really sense, does it?

I'm glad that you like the tool. I also think Volker is doing a great job on it
We still have a plenty of ideas to increase productivity. My next favorite feature for example is a preview of render target contents. We are currently working on that.


Another problem I see is that your content is based on Horde 0.11.1 but the editor is using version 0.13
A few things have changed since then, e.g. the new shadow mapping technique from 0.12 and some updates to the pipeline in 0.13

Hmm... after looking at the GPL FAQ, it seems that writing a plug-in that links to commercial software is very complicated!
In normal circumstances you can, but you have to keep it private...
However, you can some extra text to the license to give permission for this to happen, but you also need this extra text to be in the license for any other GPL software that you've used.

First it says that you're not allowed:


But, it says you are allowed, if you keep it private:


So a company can integrate their commercial products with the editor, but they can never release their plug-ins to the general public.


However, there is a work-around:

So you could add this text to your license, which would allow people to write plug-ins that link with commercial software - however, we would also require Trolltech's license to include this exception for their plug-in code's license.

All these legal issues are really annoying. I wrote a Mail to Trolltech, maybe they can clarify this problem. Apart from the trolltech problem, I will be open to reason if someone wants to implement a closed source plugin.

If the LGPL itself does not solve this problem I'm sure we can find a solution. But I don't think that we should care to much about this, in the current state of the application.

[edit] Trolltech has answered my mail, but they only argued that they can't answer questions concerning the GPL