OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine)

Source Distribution README file

http://www.ogre3d.org

Summary

OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C++ designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to produce games and demos utilising 3D hardware. The class library abstracts all the details of using the underlying system libraries like Direct3D and OpenGL and provides an interface based on world objects and other intuitive classes.

This distribution contains the full original source code for OGRE and is the most flexible way of obtaining the engine, although it does require you to build it yourself. For people who want a little more convenience, at the expense of a larger download and slightly less flexibility, there is also a precompiled SDK release available for some compilers.

Index Of Contents

What's New?

A summary of the new and altered features in this release.

Features

A summary of OGRE's main features.

Building the core OGRE libraries

This section covers building the libraries and plugins which make up the core OGRE system.

The OGRE Manual

A descriptive reference to the major parts of the engine such as scripts.

API Reference

The full OGRE API documentation, as generated from the (heavily!) commented source.

The OGRE Wiki

A gold mine of tutorials, tips and code snippets which will help you get up to speed with the engine.

If you are running on Linux, please also see the Linux README which will also assist you in Linux-specific issues. If you are running Mac OSX, read the Mac README.

Contributing

We welcome all contributions to OGRE, be that new plugins, bugfixes, extensions, tutorials, documentation, example applications, artwork or pretty much anything else! If you would like to contribute to the development of OGRE, please read the Contributor License Agreement, and then contact Steve Streeting at sinbad@ogre3d.org if you agree with the terms. You can also submit patches against the CVS version, go the the web site and click on the 'Developers' link.

Keeping Up To Date

The best place to keep up to date with developments on OGRE is the Official Web Site. From there you can download the latest source code and documentation. You can choose between keeping bang up to date with CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) or by just getting the regularly released snapshots.

The changes included in this current version can be viewed on the ChangeLog.

Getting Support

Please use our extensive forums if you need help or think you may have found a bug. Go to the main web site and click on the Forums link.

Licensing

OGRE is available free (both 'free as in beer' and 'free as in speech') under the GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL (see Docs/licenses/lgpl.txt). By downloading and using the software, you are subject to these licensing conditions, so please read the license text carefully. The LGPL is compatible with almost all possible uses of the library (including commercial uses), but there are some responsibilities placed upon the user to maintain the freedom of the software for downstream users.

Alternatively, you may license OGRE under the OGRE Unrestricted License (OUL) which comes with fewer conditions than the LGPL. This license is commercial and basically allows you to pay for the privilege of side-stepping the responsibilities of the LGPL. The software in both cases is identical, only the licensing conditions vary. If you wish to discuss this option  please mail licensing@ogre3d.org for more details.

Licensing for 3rd-party libraries used in OGRE

Several 3rd-party libraries are used in OGRE for various purposes, and the licensing details of each are given here.

Core Dependencies

These are the libraries which the core of OGRE depends on, and are therefore prerequisites for any use of OGRE. None of these libraries have been modified from their original distributions, and they are all licensed under liberal terms. You should read the detail of the licenses when distributing an application since most require you to include the license in your documentation. All the license texts are included in the Docs/licenses folder.

FreeImage
Original Authors: Hervé Drolon and Floris van den Berg
Website: http://freeimage.sourceforge.net
Licensed Under: FreeImage Public License 

FreeType
Original Authors: David Turner, Robert Wilhelm, and Werner Lemberg
Website: http://www.freetype.org
Licensed Under: FreeType License

LibJPEG
Original Authors: Thomas G. Lane, Independent JPEG Group
Website: http://www.ijg.org/
Licensed Under: LibJPEG License

LibMNG
Original Authors: Gerard Juyn, Glenn Randers-Pehrson, Raphael Assenat, John Stiles
Website: http://www.libmng.com
Licensed Under: LibJPEG License

LibPNG
Original Authors: Guy Eric Schalnat, Andreas Dilger, Glenn Randers-Pehrson and others
Website: http://www.libpng.org
Licensed Under: LibPNG License

LibTIFF
Original Authors: Sam Leffler, Silicon Graphics Inc
Website: http://www.libtiff.org/
Licensed Under: LibTIFF License


Zlib
Original Authors: Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
Website: http://www.zlib.net
Licensed Under: Zlib License 

Zziplib

Original Author: Guido Draheim
Website: http://zziplib.sourceforge.net
Licensed Under: Mozilla Public License 1.1 

Optional Plugin Dependencies

These dependencies are only needed if you use the plugins they relate to.

NVidia Cg
Original Authors: NVidia
Website: http://developer.nvidia.com
Licensed Under: Custom free license (binary only)
Needed By: Plugin_CgProgramManager

Sample Program Dependencies

These dependencies are only used by our sample programs, and thus you do not need to use them to use OGRE, if you don't want to.

OIS
Original Authors: Phillip Castaneda
Website: http://www.wreckedgames.com/wiki/index.php/WreckedLibs:OIS
Licensed Under: Zlib License

CEGUI
Original Authors: Paul D Turner, Tomas Lindquist Olsen and others
Website: http://www.cegui.org.uk
Licensed Under: MIT License

ODE
Original Authors: Russell Smith
Website: http://www.ode.org/
Licensed Under: BSD License

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to credit the following for their work which is used in whole or in part in OGRE:

Artwork:

Included as source (modified as appropriate), and credited appropriately in the source files affected:

Standalone tools used:

And I'd also like to thank the following just for inspiration, ideas, and pretty much anything else:

Copyright © 2006 by The OGRE Team