Source Code Reference

External libraries

Freespace2 relies on the following libraries, which are included in the source tree:

• lua: LUA Scripting language
• libjpeg: Jpeg library
• oggvorbis: Ogg Vorbis sound library
• dx8sdk: DirectX 8 SDK
• dx9sdk: DirectX 9 SDK

See msdn.microsoft.com for discussion of the DirectX libraries. For the other libraries, look in the README files for more info

Freespace2 Source Code

The root also contains the actual Freespace2 code, in the code/ directory. The Freespace2 source code consists in several components, each of which is kept in a separate subdirectory. These components are listed below, from different views.

Alphabetical view

• ai (Computer AI)
• anim (Displaying .ani animated bitmaps)
• asteroid (Handle asteroids - movement, collisions, creating smaller asteriods when larger ones are blown up etc.)
• autopilot (Handles autopilot control - where if there are no enemies, travelling a long distance etc. control is temporarily switched to the computer)
• bmpman (Manage 2d graphics files, such as .bmp, .tga, .jpg etc.)
• camera (???)
• cfile (File/directory management routines including .VP file handling that are OS independent eg. handles differences between Linux & Windows)
• cmdline (Handles command line switches, such as -mipmap etc.)
• cmeasure (Handles countermeasures - flares that the player & AI can drop to disrupt missiles)
• controlconfig (Configures keyboard/mouse/joystick controls)
• cutscene (Handles cutscene viewing)
• ddsutils (Handles compressed textures for 3d graphics cards that support it)
• debris (Creates & handles flying debris from exploding ships)
• debugconsole (Handles debugging console and file)
• decals (Adds support for painting decals - small 2d textures - onto ships etc.)
• demo (Allows you to save & playback games to show as demos)
• directx (Specific includes for the Microsoft DirectX library - Windows only)
• exceptionhandler (Deals with crashes, saving stack trace, system info etc.)
• fireball (Displays & handles fireballs and warping effects)
• freespace2 (Main code - handles engine initialisation, loading resources, plus windows resources like icons & dialog boxes)
• fs2open_pxo (Network code)
• gamehelp (Displays context sensitive help text)
• gamesequence (Handles progression of events during a campaign, such as entering a mission, showing credits etc.)
• gamesnd (Handles sounds & music)
• globalincs (Basic global constants & definitions, eg. version, colours)
• graphics (Low-level wrapper for all 2d & 3d graphics that handles different display engines (DirectX, OpenGL etc)
• hud (Handles the HUD - all the 2d cockpit graphics that the player can see eg. radar, ammo, escort list, sqaud etc)
• iff_defs (Handles traitor ships???)
• io (Handles IO devices, such as keyboard, mouse & joystick)
• irc (Adds support for an IRC chat client)
• jpgutils (Opens, reads JPG files)
• jumpnode (Displays & handles jump nodes)
• lab (???)
• lighting (Handles light sources, and their effect on ships)
• localization (Handles a global string table for translating all written text into foreign languages)
• math (Library of math routines for handling vectors, splines etc)
• menuui (Handles all the misc user interface, such as the main menu, tech room, campaign list etc)
• mission (Handles general mission actions eg. briefing, goals, training info, in-mission messages etc)
• missionui (Handles UI for general mission actions)
• mm (Headers for older MS Multimedia library)
• model (Displays and handles ship models eg. reading files, collission detection etc)
• nebula (Displays and handles nebulae)
• network (All multi-player code, eg. UI, network traffic)
• object (High-level code to handle all objects eg. ships, weapons, debris, asteroids, waypoints, fireballs, shockwaves)
• observer (???)
• osapi (Wraps low-level Operating System calls, for different OS, eg. multi-threads, windows event loops, main app window)
• palman (Handles bitmap palettes - different colour maps for the same 2d bitmap)
• parse (Handles scripting files, eg. python, LUA etc)
• particle (Displays and handles particles, such as smoke, fire)
• pcxutils (Handles 2d .pcx graphics files)
• physics (Handles realistic physical behaviour of objects, such as ship acceleration/deceleration, rotation etc.)
• playerman (Handles pilot files & player ship movement)
• popup (Displays & handles 2d pop-up windows, eg. when the player dies)
• radar (Displays & handles the radar)
• render (Low-level 3d rendering code for some primitives)
• ship (Displays & handles all ship code, eg. shields, afterburner)
• sound (Low-level sound, speach & music routines)
• species_defs (Reads species_defs.tbl to handle different behaviour for different species)
• starfield (Displays & handles background images such as starfields, nebulae etc)
• stats (Displays & handles player statistics, medals etc)
• tgautils (Handles .tga 2d graphics files)
• ui (Low-level user inteface routines eg. buttons, scrollbars)
• vcodec (Handles player voice streaming for multiplayer ???)
• weapon (Displays & handles everything to do with weapons)
• windows_stub (Low-level windows functions that are needed for Unix)

There are also some directories that are only used for generating tools (not part of the main fs2 executable):

• cfilearchiver (Creates .VP file archives)
• cfileextractor (Extracts .VP file archives)
• cryptstring (Creates encrypted strings)
• fred2 (The FReespace EDitor)
• inetfile (FTP & HTTP network handlers)
• scramble (Utility to scramble file tables for the Demo version)
• variables (???)
• wxfred2 (Cross-platform version of FRED2)

Layer view

• Infrastructure
  • System
    • cfile/
    • exceptionhandler/
    • irc/
    • localization/
    • osapi/
  • Math
    • math/
  • Sound
    • sound/
    • vcodec/
  • Windows
    • ui/
    • windows_stub/
  • 2D graphics
    • anim/
    • bmpman/
    • ddsutils/
    • tgautils/
    • jpgutils/
    • pcxutils/
    • palman/
  • 3D graphics
    • decals/
    • mm/
    • directx/
    • graphics/
    • camera/
    • render/
  • User Input
    • controlconfig/
    • io/
• Freespace2
  • Common
    • globalincs/
    • cutscene/
    • cmdline/
    • debugconsole/
  • In Space
    • ai/
    • asteroid/
    • autopilot/
    • cmeasure/
    • debris/
    • demo/
    • fireball/
    • gamehelp/
    • gamesequence/
    • gamesnd/
    • hud/
    • iff_defs/
    • jumpnode/
    • lighting/
    • nebula/
    • object/
    • observer/
    • model/
    • network/
    • particle/
    • parse/
    • popup/
    • physics/
    • radar/
    • ship/
    • species_defs/
    • starfield/
    • weapon/
  • In Base
    • stats/
    • menuui/
    • mission/
    • missionui/
  • Engine
    • fs2open_pxo/
    • freespace2/
    • playerman/
• FRED
  • fred2/
  • wxfred2/
• Tools
  • cfilearchiver/
  • cfileextractor/
  • cryptstring/
  • lab/
  • scramble/
  • inetfile/
  • variables/

Category Browser

The subdirectories above are also categorised by function. See the Category:Source Code to browse this way.