Seeking game engine advice; networking, syncing, and threads

[liquidslade]

Hello all.

Brief background; our team is on the PS3 academic program, and we have access to the PS3 SDK. We are currently using a stable build of bullet. We have plans to implement networking code into our engine. We have very little sockets programming experience (a few assignments into it, taking the full network programming course next quarter), but I have been ramping up on threading and synchronization (POSIX/CellOS threads, SPUs, etc).

With respect to bullet; does it provide any networking support?

We're making an experimental RTS game, 2d logic, vector based boid movement. Node logic similar to Dyson/Eufloria. 3D graphics using our own object loader. Most of our core engine is multithreaded, with a stable signal and sync implementation. Very few "writes" to other threads. As of right now, it is geared for single-player PvE on opponent AI. However, we really want networked gaming for it.

Any ideas where I should start? Any references to good material that will help?

Ideal/Optimistic situation; we write a BSD sockets layer for bullet, with synchronization over a network. If anyone has done this, can we get some hat tips?

Thanks in advance.

Slade V.
Team ARC Infinitum, Lead Programmer
PS3-EDU, UC Santa Cruz

[Erwin Coumans]

We don't have any networked physics support, but it would be nice to have some demo.

Networking will be beyond the Bullet SDK, but we can add it to GameKit at some stage. See http://gamekit.googlecode.com

Thanks,
Erwin