I have to admit it. There is no point in denying. Instead, I embrace destiny and share it with you.
You've been seeing a few news messages the pas months. But no releases, nothing to show. And frankly, thats how it will be for a few coming months as well, unless a miracle happens or some dedicated programmers come and help out.
But why no updates? Why aren't there any new demo's?
The reason is simple: i've began on to rewrite everything. Rewriting an engine thats from the ground up thought over, one that is now truly OO. And at the moment compilable on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Further more its open-source from the start (yes you can get the source right now!).
But, don't get too exited just yet.
The engine does nothing, yet. But, if you look at the source, you must be thinking "you've got to be kidding me". Here it is , in a quick overview, what it should do:
The engine should be super-flexible. It should be, in theory, be 100% modable. It should be able to run in 2D , but also in 3D mode (OpenGL). Now, i am not an OpenGL guru. But, i managed to write a 'driver', called a MultiMediaEngine (in short, MME), that is a class responsible for doing the technical stuff. Basicaly the engine uses an MME interface to communicate with, and all the OpenGL programmer should ever do, is make the implementation work.
For now, it uses SDL for 2D rendering and it is able to load up resources (bitmaps/surfaces) and draw them. Nothing fancy, but truely important. It maps surfaces with names or id's.
And thats it. When you run it, you see a few pictures, some transparant, some not. And its not a game at all. Yet very important fundamentals are being built. I will admit it immidiatly though, i am not C++ star programmer. So it takes time to create it just the way i like it. Also, there are still some habbits i can't get rid of that works against my vision "truely OO/C++".
So here you have it, the status of D2TM. It is being rewritten; it is being rebuild. But once it is finished it should open doors to not only create Dune II. But even Dune 2000 and even, perhaps, one day Emperor...
The ambition is there, now all that rests is some dedicated crew to code the thing. If you know the Makers name, you can find the project easily on Google Code. Drop me an e-mail if you tend to join and work on the project. I can't do it alone, i simply lack time. Unless someone will pay me 2000,- euro's a month, i will quit my job and code for D2TM day and night. The other option is, join the project!
