Notes about Game Development
Pondering about Game Programming. Not quite Tipps & Tricks, because I don’t yet know enough to call it that. Stuff I find on the way.
Free Software 3D Game Engines
I was asked about game engines, so I went through the list on Wikipedia, and there are quite a few, but the only one that also runs on Android and iOS is Godot.
FLOSS Game Engines that have at least several published games:
| Name | Website | Wikipedia | Scripting | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Godot | godotengine.org | Godot_(game_engine) | GDScript, custom, like Python | Desktop, web and mobile |
| Torque | torque3d.org | Torque_(game_engine) | Torque Script ⇒ custom | |
| OGRE | ogre3d.org | OGRE | ||
| Blender | blender.org | Blender_Game_Engine | Python | few games |
| Panda3D | panda3d.org | Panda3D | Python | few games |
| Irrlicht | irrlicht.sourceforge.io | Irrlicht_Engine | sound needs other libs |
Sources for Free Culture 3D assets
This are just the sources I found. There are likely more. I had to exclude many because their licenses are either unclear or incompatible with Free Culture.
- OpenGameArt cc by/by-sa/0 and GPL (good filters, collections, and search, the most longlived collection for game art, cc by-sa and GPL can only be used if you fully commit to free culture)
- OpenGameArt cc0 and cc by (good filters, collections, and search, alternative search that limits to lax licenses)
- Sketchfab filter: cc by or cc0 or cc by-sa, downloadable, animated (good filters and search, requires login, cc by-sa can only be used if you fully commit to free culture)
- Sketchfab filter: cc by or cc0, downloadable, animated (good filters and search, requires login, alternative search that limits to lax licenses)
- Kenney 3D (cc0, simpler models)
- Poly Haven (cc0, no human models)
- AmbientCG List (cc0, materials)
- cgbookcase (cc0, high quality ground textures)
- Quaternius (cc0, mostly comic style characters)
This does not include BlenderKit, because they mostly use the “RoyaltyFree” license which is not sufficient for Free Culture (and I could not find a filter for CC0). Free is not just gratis.
To search for more, you can start at Freesets.dev 3D or The People’s Design Library, but you’ll have to carefully check licenses. If you have any unfree art (for example because an artist does not want to sell their art under free culture licenses), you can only use cc by or CC0, otherwise you can also use cc by-sa.