The new version is available for Windows and Linux at the Ca3DE Downloads page.
Overview • Features • News • Downloads • Gallery • Source Code Licenses • Watch the Ca3DE Movie!
New features in this release
The new version introduces a new GUI Editor: A convenient graphical editor for editing GUIs for use in Ca3DE. The resulting GUIs can be used both in 2D (e.g. for the console, player HUD or the main menu) as well as directly in the 3D worlds as game elements. See the GUI Gallery for some examples - updated today!
We're very proud that in our implementation we managed to beautifully combine two normally totally opposed concepts: Our GUIs are conveniently edited in the new graphical GUI Editor and still customized in a very powerful and flexible manner by easy to understand Lua scripts.
The GUI Editor is a component of the Ca3DE World Editor "CaWE", and it employs a new advanced user interface style that is already familiar to many users from other contemporary applications. We even have extended the same user interface technique to the well-known Map Editor component of CaWE as well.
Also finished is the new Font Wizard that you can use to convert regular font files for use in Ca3DE GUIs.
The conversion is fully automatic in just a few simple steps, and the Font Wizard guides you through the process. The image to the left shows the second to last and last steps of the wizard.
Under the hood, we employ the FreeType Font Engine, and thus our Font Wizard supports all font types that FreeType supports: Among others, these are TrueType Fonts (*.ttf), OpenType Fonts (*.otf;*.ttf), PCF Fonts (*.pcf), BDF Fonts (*.bdf), Windows Fonts (*.fnt), etc.
As shown in the image, the new release, compared to the previous 8.09 release:
- requires 27% less time for loading the huge TechDemo level,
- requires 18% less RAM due to much enhanced collision detection code,
- has improved in-game performance (mostly as a result of changed collision detection code),
- and at the same time adds(!!) support for the Bullet Physics engine!
The secret behind this wonderful new feature is a very clever sharing of collision data between Ca3DE's own code (used e.g. for player movement) and the new physics simulation. In fact, this sharing is the main contribution of the new RC compared to the last about one month ago, which suffered from way too high RAM and loading time requirements.
We're also happy and proud to announce the results of our first successful adventure into the world of movies!
Click the movie thumbnail in order to get to the movie website. The movie shows some of the new physics support described below. It is available in three levels of playback quality and can be played directly in your browser. We hope that you have as much fun watching the movie as we had making it, so please don't hesitate to post your feed-back either at the Ca3D-Engine forums or at the movies YouTube page!
Support for physics simulation has been added to the engine core, using the Bullet Physics library! The current maps don't yet show many examples of it's use, but you can observe great results by shooting or throwing grenades at the large crate in map Kidney.
Related enhancements to the Ca3DE "ClipWorld" collision detection and ray tracing code yielded improvements with player movement as well, and make CaLight (for computing Radiosity solutions) up to 30 times faster!
What is the Ca3D-Engine? (A brief introduction)
The Ca3D-Engine is an all-purpose, modern 3D graphics engine and game development kit for Windows and Linux.
It can be used to create a variety of 3D applications, including games, simulations, and training and architectural software.
The Ca3D-Engine includes a comfortable 3D world and assets editor and all tools to make new games.
Its main features include
- high-quality, real-time 3D graphics,
- a very powerful and flexible material system,
- cross-platform and cross-compiler portability,
- multi-player network support,
- physically correct lighting (radiosity based),
- dynamic per-pixel lighting and shadows,
- 3D sound effects, skeleton based model rendering,
- very large terrain rendering,
- scripting language support,
- live demos come with 3D editor, tools and sample source code,
- and easy extensibility by code and Lua scripts.
Further information and contact
For further and more detailed information about the Ca3D-Engine, please visit the official website at
http://www.ca3d-engine.de
The website has a detailed feature list, many high-res screen-shots and of course a download page where the latest demo and game development kit are available.
If you have questions, problems or comments, you're heartily invited to join the Ca3DE forums.
You can also contact the authors of Ca3DE directly as detailed at the Contact page.
Statistics: Posted by Carsten — Mon Jun 01, 2009 12:06 pm
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