Sunday, April 7, 2013

Open Sourcing Star Wars

"In a statement to Kotaku Australia, a Raven spokesperson said that the company is releasing the code “as a gift to the persistently loyal fanbase for our Jedi games and in memory of LucasArts.” “We wish the best for all the talented people who were let go and hope they find good work in studios in the industry,” the statement read. I did a little digging in the code, and some of the programmers’ comments make the files worth reading even for fans who can’t program. After one huge pile of code involving lighting, one programmer writes “yes, this is completely ridiculous.” Another, commenting on a piece of code for a particle class in Jedi Outcast, noted “Man, this just seems so, like, uncool and stuff…” In a piece of code related to camera control, one programmer sternly advises another, “we’re doing a cut, so just go to the new angles. none of this hifalutin lerping business.” The source code for Jedi Outcast (my favorite Star Wars game) and Jedi Academy can be downloaded from SourceForge.net."

From Wired.