Dread Moon Linux

Is Dread Moon a Good Fit For You?

Tuesday, 05 January 2010 20:10 | Written by Administrator |

The software libraries incorporated into Dread Moon are written in the C and D programming languages. This means that the Dread Moon game developer is someone who has some "hard core" programming skills. You may want to consider this before downloading and installing Dread Moon yourself. If you are not certain then please refer to the D-Programming links available from this site to understand what is involved (the D language is a fully-compiled language that might best be considered to have borrowed the best concepts from the C++ and Java languages).

While there is a learning curve associated with starting to program in D, this language will enable you to create extremely high performance games and applications in a modern programming language. Also, the ArcLib library installed with Dread Moon will enable the proficient D programmer to rapidly develop games and multimedia applications.

Last Updated (Tuesday, 05 January 2010 20:37)

About Dread Moon

Thursday, 17 December 2009 03:40 | Written by Administrator |

If you are a Dread Moon Linux user please create your user account. Many of the features of this site are only available to registered users, and by registering you provide us with the means to contact you occasionally about new releases, software updates, etc.

This web portal is intended to provide help and support for anyone installing and using the Dread Moon remix of Ubuntu Linux for game and/or multimedia development. The message forums allow the community of Dread Moon users to collaborate constructively.

Because many tools and software libraries used for Linux-based game and multi-media development are not available as installable packages with automatic dependency checking, it can be very challenging and time consuming to configure a full development environment. Dread Moon Linux addresses this problem by providing everything pre-installed.

This means that not only does Dread Moon provide you with a turnkey, zero cost, multi-platform (did I mention "multi-platform"?) game and multi-media development environment, but also that the environment will be one known to other game developers throughout the world, (hopefully) fostering a sense of community.

Dread Moon includes a full D-language development environment (using the Tango standard library), a complete set of D-language multimedia software libraries, and a collection of tools for developing audio and video content. One of the primary focuses of Dread Moon Linux is the ArcLib 2D Game Library written in the D programming language.

ArcLib allows cross platform game development with an easy to use API. It consists of a core library with several auxiliary extension libraries that provide additional features. Features included are window creation, input handling, positional sound through OpenAL, Font rendering, shape and image drawing using OpenGL, common math routines for games, 2D physics extension, camera movement extension, GUI extension, 2D lighting effects extension, particle generator extension, per pixel collision detection extension, scenegraph extension, and sprite drawing extension. ArcLib is under constant development and is always improving.

*NOTE: While ArcLib is is a 2D graphics library, 3D graphics systems are often built atop 2D systems. Hence, ArcLib development should not necessarily be considered to be mutually exclusive with the development of 3D applications.

The Dread Moon releases are named for galaxies (yielding ample naming opportunities for future releases). The current (first) release of Dread Moon is named Andromeda.

Last Updated (Saturday, 19 December 2009 21:49)