Support for "modern" OpenGL features (>3.1)

OpenGL 3.1 is now out for more than 6 years, yet jMonkeyEngine barely supports any of it’s features (only VAO and geometry shaders AFAIK).
Does the core team have any plans to integrate them in the near future?
For example: Shader Storage Buffer Objects, Uniform Buffer Objects, separate blend functions for MRT, …

Well… usually we integrate the features when there is a use case, for a more functional feature we want to add to the engine…
Also, it’s always painful to add this kind of feature because we usually have to find a falback for opengl 2.
Geometry and tesselation shader have been discussed a long time in the core team for this very reason.
Until a contributor made a PR to add them, and we merged the change into the core. The one sure way to see somthing happen, is to do it yourself :stuck_out_tongue:

So what’s your use case?

Weighted Blended Order-Independent
Transparency
: needs separate blend functions and clear colors for MRT.

Order-Independent Transparency for Programmable Deferred Shading Pipelines: needs several OpenGL4 features, e.g. SSBO, atomic counters, etc.

Well you’re welcome to make a pull request to integrate those features into the engine, but remember that you have to check if they are available on the hardware to use them.

There are some people who made deferred renderers for jME with quite impressive results.
I wonder if any of those projects will have source code flowing back into the engine.
OpenGL4 would also be cool for “marketing purposes” (attract more users).
Too bad that we don’t have full time people to improve the engine.

On one side people are blaming us for dropping OpenGL1 on the other people blame us for not integrating OpenGL4 features… I like those best that make great looking games with whats available :wink:

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I didn’t blame anyone.
Maybe that could be the topic for another GSoC action or something like that.

You didn’t, no.

lol it’s not the same guy :stuck_out_tongue:

But yeah it’s yet again that kind of post when OP is invited for a free meal and complains there is no ketchup.

Why does everybody always think I’m sarcastic? I said he didn’t and I meant it so.

Dude…because you’re German… :smiley:

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So you are basically saying you have no interest in developing the engine further, unless someone else does the work for you?

Down with old OpenGL!

My almost 10 year old Graphics card came with 2.1, so it just baffles me that people have OpenGL 1 at all (one guy claimed his cpu only supported openGL1, but get a dedicated graphics card damnit)!

I would think everyone wants to be using the latest, and greatest features, granted a lot of us have to develop for those without heavy dedicated GPUs and such…

It seems the biggest issue was backwards support for OpenGL 1… Now there’s issues with Backwards support for OPenGL2?

I know, right?
Core developers, instead of wasting your time doing your business, and building that giant golden monkeyhead that will be the next jmonkeyengine hq, do the work for which we are paying you and develop jmonkey!!111

Lol yeah right, lecture me…
You know that it’s been 5 years that I’m spending almost all my spare time “developping the engine further”. So if I’d want to spend more time “developping the engine further”, I’d have to quit sleeping… And that could have severe draw backs.
And that’s the same for any core members…
So you have 2 solutions :

  • Either you wait that a use case pops up, that is so interesting, that convinces us that it’s a must have feature, and we implement it. But you have no garanty…
  • Either you do it yourself.

Because that’s how OSS works…
Either way, please quit being disrespectful of our work, and every thing will be alright…

6 Likes

CLASS IS IN SESSION…

Anyways, thank you for all that you do for the engine.

I heard a certain “qxCsXO1” will make jME a business and pay fulltime salary for all core members. We can quit our dayjobs guys! Or maybe he just wants his money back? Maybe we could make some money off a youtube channel with the most stupid and entitled posts :wink:

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I think that donations should become more of a thing with JME. I remember finding a donation topic, but there wasn’t much in it, and I believe one core member wanted me to talk to @erlend_sh about it more. I think it should be more shown on the site.

I definitely want to donate some money to the engine at some point soon. IT’s a shame that none of the money would go to the core members, and more towards site hosting fees and such :frowning: .

would be nice if JME did become a business, I wonder what would be added to the engine if that were the case… But like any business, that would mean JME would probably have to cost money, or else a business wouldn’t really be feasible… Unless someone just wanted to donate a shizz ton of money that enabled the core members to spend more time on JME, which probably means they aren’t quitting their jobs…

I think you can’t find a “donate button” because peoples giving some money will expect some result. The core dev are making the engine in their spare time just for fun and doesn’t want to be disturbed by people asking why such things is not implemented yet.

3 Likes

Just like this thread? :smile:

It will happen regardless, but maybe people will think they are owed something if they donated…

Donations are just that, donations… People aren’t forced to pay, but I think there should be something that says “Donations don’t mean you have a say in the engine/feature implementations, unless your name is Konrad.”

:wink: