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Roadmap

Planned Features for Alpha 3: Gluon 0.72.0 (Alpha Particle) (In Development)

(Blockers block the release of this Alpha, Non-blockers do not but are nice to have.)

Core

Blockers:

  • GluonObject Dependency Graph - Track dependencies between objects, like Components using Assets.
  • Support serializing lists properly - Make it possible to store properties that are lists of objects.

Audio

Blockers:

  • Initial Playlist support - Create lists of sounds and play them sequentially or in random order.
  • Start using ffmpeg for decoding - One single dependency for audio decoding making it far more manageable.

Non-blockers:

  • Last bits of cleanup - Audio will no longer depend directly on libsndfile, instead all will be handled by alure or ffmpeg.
  • Advanced Playlist features - Script-based track advancement and others.
  • Channels - Create channels that have a single-volume level for a set of sounds, like "Effects" and "Music".

Graphics

Blockers:

  • General Performance Improvements - More intelligent rendering code should improve the performance.
  • Cleanup - Some bits of API are not fully implemented yet and need to be updated.
  • Context Management - Manually managing the OpenGL contexts means we can support rendering to multiple contexts.
  • Particle Systems support

Non-blockers:

  • Render to Texture - Already supported to some degree, fully implement support for it.
  • Mesh Loading - Make it possible to load meshes from files.

Input

Blockers:

  • Abstract Input Actions - Create actions that are independent of input device and can be remapped to use different devices.

Non-blockers:

  • XInput2 backend - Use XInput2 to gain access to all devices and events from those devices.

Engine

Blockers:

  • Scene loading process - Use the dependency graph to load all the necessary assets before starting the scene.
  • Prefabs - Use a (collection of) GameObject(s) as an asset that can be reused.
  • Physics Engine integration - Use an engine like Bullet and create a set of components that integrate it into Gluon.
  • Asset Mimetypes - Determine what type of data is supplied by assets and make it possible to filter based on that data.

Non-blockers:

  • Statistics and Achievement - Season of KDE project, implement a statistic tracking and achievement system.
  • SMARTS Behaviour Trees - Summer of Code project, integrate the SMARTS behavior tree system into Gluon.
  • Profile Support - Select which assets and other things to use based on device parameters.

Players

Creator

  • Smoke*based QtScript bindings
  • Scene*global scripts

Also see the todo page for features currently being implemented.

Planned Features for Gluon 1.0 (In Development)

GamingFreedom

  • Up/Download Games with versioning
  • Rate, comment games
  • Up/Download assets
  • Achievements

Creator

  • Create/Save/Publish projects
  • Download and Edit projects
  • Edit/Play view, play in the editor
  • Undo/Redo
  • Docs (!)
  • Project & Scene management
  • Edit object properties
  • Debug/Release mode
  • Run on *nix, mac, win

Player

  • Runs on *nix, mac, win, maemo, (other mobile platforms?)
  • View, Download and play games
  • Play without logging in
  • Rate and comment from within the app
  • Achievements, Donations, Highscores
  • Sharing screenshots
  • Rating screenshots
  • Direct messages

Engine

  • Object hierarchy consisting of components that may reference assets
  • Asset objects that represent some piece of game data
  • Integrated scripting through QtScript
  • Modern game loop implementation (Fixed update, variable frame rate)
  • Project objects that allow creation of games without compiling

Graphics

  • Object-based rendering engine
  • Fully fixed-function free rendering pipeline
  • Complex shader-based material system
  • Advanced post-processing effect support
  • Extensive node-based material and effects editor available through Gluon Creator

Audio

  • Full 3d positional audio support
  • Streaming audio support using many audio formats
  • Playlist support for background music with different track change triggers
  • Dynamic background music generation

Input

  • Multiple mice support
  • Designed for game use
  • Abstracts the native input system of the platform

Core

  • Full*text declarative language to describe object structures
  • Extend QVariant to remember the old object type when setting new values
  • Extensible, modular object framework

Planned Features for Gluon 1.1

GamingFreedom

  • Highscores
  • Leaderboards
  • Friendly stuff
  • Recommend to friends & stuff

Creator

  • Git versioning support
  • Asset packages (Asset bundles from Unity)
  • Tags for GluonObjects (for search, filter, findChildrenByTag...)

Audio

  • Audio effects support

Planned Features for Post Gluon 1.1

  • Realtime communication and everythhing