Read Me

                            RedShift Flight Simulator
                                  v 0.3.0-alpha
                               Third Time's A Charm


RedShift is a flight simulator written in C++ with SDL and OpenGL.  It is
distributed under the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL).


1.  About RedShift
2.  Installation
3.  Tested Configurations
4.  Directory Structure
5.  Game Instructions
6.  Content Editor Instructions
7.  Release History
8.  Frequently Asked Questions
9.  Contact Information


------------------
1.  ABOUT REDSHIFT
------------------

RedShift is a free open source software flight simulator project.  While
originally written in C, it was later re-written in C++ starting with
version 0.2.0.  RedShift uses the Simple Directmedia Layer library to provide
hardware abstraction and OpenGL for 3-D graphics acceleration.  Sound and music
are controlled with the SDL_Mixer library.

Currently, RedShift supports solo flight with a fairly realistic aerodynamics
model.  The overall project goal is to introduce a military-style gameplay with
both AI aircraft and network play over a wide variety of missions.


----------------
2.  INSTALLATION
----------------

Minimum System Requirements:

- Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, or similar operating system
- GL and GLU (OpenGL or Mesa) libraries
- SDL, SDL_Mixer, SDL_Image

UNIX-Like OS Installation:

- Follow standard autotools installation procedures
    ./configure
    make
    make install
- More details can be found in the INSTALL file

Windows Installation:

- Unzip the redshift .zip file
- Double-click redshift.exe to play


-------------------------
3.  TESTED CONFIGURATIONS
-------------------------

RedShift 0.1.1 has been tested and runs sufficiently well on the following:

  AMD64 3000+         1GB ram    GeForce 6800 GT 256MB
  P4 3.00 GHz         1GB ram    Intel 910GL Integrated Graphics
  Core 2 Duo T5600    1GB ram    GeForce Go 7400


-----------------------
4.  DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
-----------------------

./doc          Documentation, Instructions
./fonts        Font data
./images       Menu images
./include      Source header files
./man6         UNIX manual pages
./maps         Map data
./missions     Mission data
./models       3D models
./music        Music data
./sound        Sound effects
./src          Source code files
./textures     Textures
./vehicles     Vehicle data


---------------------
5.  GAME INSTRUCTIONS
---------------------

See the playing file in the doc directory.


-------------------------------
6.  CONTENT EDITOR INSTRUCTIONS
-------------------------------

As of now, content editing will be done mostly through .xml file editing.  See
the doc directory for more information on how to make custom content.


-------------------
7.  RELEASE HISTORY
-------------------

0.3.0    To be announced      "Third Time's A Charm"
0.2.0     - N/A -             [No Name]
0.1.1    December 23, 2006    "This Got Me An A"
0.1.0    June 24, 2006        "No More Asparagus"
0.0.9    June 13, 2006        "Special Preview"

RedShift 0.0.9 came about because I had been working on a brand new game for
two months and just couldn't wait to put it on freshmeat.net.  It was going to
be my first serious game, coming after years of silly one-week projects I was
too embarassed to release.  While my scheduled release date was two weeks away,
I threw a package together as quickly as possible (yes, it was pretty bad) and
put it on my webpage just to get approved a few days early.  Lame.... I know.

RedShift 0.1.0 was the second release, but the first "official" (i.e. stable)
release.  While it lacked a lot of major functionality, it did a decent job of
showing off my terrain rendering engine and arcade-style flight dynamics model.
I also wanted to see just how much interest it would generate, possiibly to see
whether or not I would continue work on the project.  Five fan-emails later,
here I am putting off yet another release in 0.1.1...

RedShift 0.1.1 took a while in the making, mainly due to me being busy and
deciding to pursue some other interests for a while, such as college (and
girls ;-] ...well, one AMAZING girl actually).  The main improvement over the
previous version was the flight dynamics engine, being that it actually had one.
It's a rough hack of the engine we worked with in one of my classes, AERSP 413
at Penn State.  But other than that, I got frustrated with the current state of
the code.  It became evident that 0.1.2 would probably never happen.

RedShift 0.2.0 was developed because 0.1.2 never did happen.  The C code had
eroded and become too cryptic to work with, so I decided to perform a complete
overhaul and rewrite everything in C++.  However, I had too many problems
getting things to play nicely together, and I didn't like the binary format of
the data files.  So I abandoned that and started work on RedShift 0.3.0.


------------------------------
8.  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
------------------------------

Q: What is a "redshift"?
A: Redshift refers to the Doppler shift of an object moving away from you very
	quickly, and how its appearance shifts to the red end of the visible
	light spectrum due to the lengthening of the light waves.  The name was
	randomly chosen from a dictionary.

Q: How did you pick June 24th as the first release date?
A: It was purely arbitrary.  I wanted it to be sometime before the end of June,
	but late enough that I could still be sure to have a decent, working
	product ready.

Q: Did you know June 24th is the last day of asparagus season in Germany?
A: No.

Q: Did you know that Peter Weller (RoboCop) was born on June 24th?
A: Nope.

Q: Did version 0.1.1 really get you an A?
A: Yes, I made an arrangement with the professor to substite working on the
	RedShift dynamics engine for some other work.  Might as well kill two
	birds with one stone, right?


-----------------------
9.  CONTACT INFORMATION
-----------------------

If you would like to contact the author about the game, he would LOVE to hear
your comments, suggestions, bug reports, or other feedback.  You can email him
at <christianjwhaag@gmail.com>.  No guarantees on how long a reply might take -
that depends on if he's around or not.  But in most cases he'll reply within a
couple days.  And yes, he wrote this paragraph in the third person simply
because it sounds better that way.