QuickStartEngine Release Rss Feed

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.21

lordikon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:47:09 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

Shadow mapping
Character physics and controls

Things I can't guarantee, but hope that I'll get into this release:

Particle system
- Random cloud generation through particles
Skinned animation

Current progress:

Now using frustum culling for all rendering, large improvement in framerates when less objects are in view.
Character physics partially working, having issue with rotations
Shadow map being created, have to write shadow mapping versions of all shaders
Support for triangle mesh physics shapes is complete
Fixed a few bug with physics timesteps, physics much more stable now

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.21

lordikon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:45:04 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

Shadow mapping
Character physics and controls

Things I can't guarantee, but hope that I'll get into this release:

Particle system
- Random cloud generation through particles
Skinned animation

Current progress:

Character physics partially working, having issue with rotations
Shadow map being created, have to write shadow mapping versions of all shaders
Support for triangle mesh physics shapes is complete
Fixed a few bug with physics timesteps, physics much more stable now

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.21

lordikon — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:33:25 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

Shadow mapping
Character physics and controls
Skinned animation

Things I can't guarantee, but hope that I'll get into this release:

Particle system
- Random cloud generation through particles

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20 (Sep 13, 2009)

lordikon — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:37:37 GMT

Main Features

Clean engine architecture
- Makes it easy to make your own game using the engine.
- Messaging system allows you to communicate between systems and other entities without coupling your code in ways you wouldn't want to.
- Entity/Component system allows you to make your own objects and customize them very easily.
Terrain engine
- Quad-tree culling
- Multi-texture splatting
- Smoothing and scaling
Physics engine integration
- Uses JibLibX for physics
- Implementation of Phantom Physics, allows for triggering of actions based on entering/exiting a volume.
- Also implemented triggering of actions on and off contact with an entity.
Input and Camera systems ready to go
- Three camera types already implements
- Setting up input in your game is very easy.
Graphics system very easy to use
- Allows you to create your own materials.
- Easy to create shaders and have them properly receive the input values they need.

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

The entire Message system, Entity/Component system, and Physics interface was revamped. So much has changed I won't have room for all of the details on this page, so I'll give a brief outline, and in the engine download you'll find 'changelog.txt' if you care to read further.

Summary of main changes

Updated Engine to use XNA 3.1
Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID. Allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- Fog is back, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient as well.
Terrain updates
- Faster index buffer creation
- Terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system and shutdown methods.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading.
- Fixed bugs in the free camera causing erratic movement in some cases.
General code cleanup

Xbox 360 users.

I am currently the only developer on this engine, and I do not have the membership subscription to be able to test XNA on my Xbox 360. So I have no way to verify this version of the engine still runs, or runs well on on the Xbox 360. I also had to make some changes to some of JibLibX's Xbox 360 files as they were not compiling. It appears that the latest patch version of the engine may not be converted for the 360 yet, while I'm sure JigLibX 0.3.1b has been.

Released: QuickStart Engine v0.20 (Sep 13, 2009)

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:37:37 GMT

Main Features

Clean engine architecture
- Makes it easy to make your own game using the engine.
- Messaging system allows you to communicate between systems and other entities without coupling your code in ways you wouldn't want to.
- Entity/Component system allows you to make your own objects and customize them very easily.
Terrain engine
- Quad-tree culling
- Multi-texture splatting
- Smoothing and scaling
Physics engine integration
- Uses JibLibX for physics
- Implementation of Phantom Physics, allows for triggering of actions based on entering/exiting a volume.
- Also implemented triggering of actions on and off contact with an entity.
Input and Camera systems ready to go
- Three camera types already implements
- Setting up input in your game is very easy.
Graphics system very easy to use
- Allows you to create your own materials.
- Easy to create shaders and have them properly receive the input values they need.

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated Engine to use XNA 3.1
Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID. Allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- Fog is back, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient as well.
Terrain updates
- Faster index buffer creation
- Terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system and shutdown methods.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading.
- Fixed bugs in the free camera causing erratic movement in some cases.
General code cleanup

Xbox 360 users.

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20 (Sep 13, 2009)

lordikon — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:34:22 GMT

Main Features

Clean engine architecture
- Makes it easy to make your own game using the engine.
- Messaging system allows you to communicate between systems and other entities without coupling your code in ways you wouldn't want to.
- Entity/Component system allows you to make your own objects and customize them very easily.
Terrain engine
- Quad-tree culling
- Multi-texture splatting
- Smoothing and scaling
Physics engine integration
- Uses JibLibX for physics
- Implementation of Phantom Physics, allows for triggering of actions based on entering/exiting a volume.
- Also implemented triggering of actions on and off contact with an entity.
Input and Camera systems ready to go
- Three camera types already implements
- Setting up input in your game is very easy.

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated Engine to use XNA 3.1
Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- Fog is back, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient as well.
Terrain updates
- Faster index buffer creation
- Terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system and shutdown methods.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading.
- Fixed bugs in the free camera causing erratic movement in some cases.
General code cleanup

Xbox 360 users.

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20 (Sep 13, 2009)

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:56:56 GMT

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated Engine to use XNA 3.1
Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

Xbox 360 users.

Released: QuickStart Engine v0.20 (Sep 13, 2009)

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:56:56 GMT

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated Engine to use XNA 3.1
Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

Xbox 360 users.

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20 (Sep 13, 2009)

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:56:26 GMT

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

Xbox 360 users.

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:55:51 GMT

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
- Other new physics features
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Added collision effects that can affect other entities when they collide with an entity emitting a collision effect.
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

Xbox 360 users.

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:54:42 GMT

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

Xbox 360 users.

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:54:02 GMT

Xbox 360 users.

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

More updates to come

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:49:13 GMT

Xbox 360 users.

Huge amount of changes since v0.196

Summary of main changes

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1 + newest patch (June 20th, 2009)
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
- No longer officially supporting NVidia PhysX, they're no longer supporting free use of their engine. Will likely be removing it from future version of engine.
  - Bug fix for physics box shapes physics being larger than their render mesh, making them seem to collide too soon with other physics.
  - Ability support for setting/getting linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Bug fix for issues that would occur when setting position or rotation of entities, setting these will no longer cause the entity to lose velocity.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
- This change altered the overall look of the engine, and allowed us to decouple things that should not have been coupled in code.
- Ability to send messages directly to Interfaces and the Scene Manager.
- Added about 25 new messages.
- Exceptions will now fire if messages are created or sent improperly, which fixes bug leaks associated with Messages we were sending improperly.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
- Fog is back in the engine, is more efficient, and is now thicker at lower elevations (optionally).
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to slow down at extremely high framerates.
- Fixed bug that would cause the free camera to move upward if it was facing upward.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.
- Made some abstract functions in BaseEntity and BaseComponent virtual instead, which prevents repetitive code in each.
- All kinds of misc cleanup in many files.

More updates to come

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:34:01 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

This release will represent a fairly large milestone in the engine:

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
  - Bug fixes to existing shapes
  - Ability to properly set position, rotation, linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.

More updates to come

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:11:41 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

This release will represent a fairly large milestone in the engine:

Updated physics engine to JibLibX 0.3.1
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
  - Bug fixes to existing shapes
  - Ability to properly set position, rotation, linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
- A couple new simple shaders for simple objects.
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.

More updates to come

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:26:26 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

This release will represent a fairly large milestone in the engine:

Updated to JibLibX 0.3.1
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
  - Bug fixes to existing shapes
  - Ability to properly set position, rotation, linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
- Terrain heightfields are no longer flipped along x, z from the images they're created from.
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
- Fixed freezing issue that occured due to multi-threading with physics.
- Fixed memory leaks that would occur when shutting down the engine.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.

More updates to come

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.20

lordikon — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:24:18 GMT

This describes the features we target for this release:

This release will represent a fairly large milestone in the engine:

Updated to JibLibX 0.3.1
- Lots of work on physics integration with the engine
  - Bug fixes to existing shapes
  - Ability to properly set position, rotation, linear velocity, and angular velocity of entities.
  - Added phantom physics component with support for collision detection and message triggers on enter/exit of phantom volumes.
  - Debug display of physics meshes, allows you to see your physics shapes (especially nice for invisible physics volumes).
Major work on the Messaging System
- Ability to send messages to any Entity in any scene based on the Entity's Unique ID.
Rendering updates
- Ability to sort rendering into three groups (first, normal, last)
Skydomes are finally back, missing since v0.182b. More efficient with render ordering.
Terrain updates
- Index buffer creation is now about 10% faster.
- Overall terrain creation is slightly optimized
- Normal mapped terrain is working again
- Added ability to draw the quad-tree bounding boxes (by pressing 'D')
Bug fixes
- Fixed memory leaks in the messaging system.
General cleanup
- All physics related code that was in BaseEntity and the Scene Manager has been moved to the new Physics Interface and the Physics Component.

More updates to come

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.196 (Jan 04, 2009)

lordikon — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:07:25 GMT

Minor update from v0.195:

You can now make changes to an Entity's position or rotation even if it has Physics. Previously any changes were overriden by the Physics system and the Entity's position/rotation would not change.
The camera's frustum is now checked for collision against terrain to keep it from going under the terrain. To turn this off there is a function in CameraComponent.cs called ForceFrustumAboveTerrain, set this to false anytime after you've created a camera component object.
The message system now allows for instantaneous messages to be sent/retrieved. This means you can now send a message and immediately be sure that the contents of the message have been filled with data for use. You can find an example of this in CameraComponent.cs in the ProcessFrustumTerrainCollision() function. To use immediate messages you need to use the SendMessage(), if you're sending a message that doesn't need to process immediately then use the QueueMessage() function to send the message. SendMessage should only be used in the case where you need that message to be processed immediately in order to use it results, or if you need that message to process before you can do other things that depend on that message having been processed. The reason for allowing messages to delay and not process immediately is because the engine is being designed for multithreading, and multithreading is easier with queued messages.
Updated to the XNA 3.0 Framework.

For all of the notes on v0.195 release, click here.

QuickStart Engine Forums, and SourceForge source repository

* You may have noticed the forums here are kind of quiet. We use a different site for our forums. Here is the URL: http://xnaquickstart.freeforums.org/portal.php.
* If you'd like to get the latest code that is in development between releases, our repository is at sourceforge, this URL has all the info you'll need: http://xnaquickstart.freeforums.org/get-the-latest-code-t73.html. Currently sourceforge is only updated to v0.195.

This is an intermediate release until we can release v0.2. v0.19 was released just to show the new framework of the engine for the first time. Now we're trying to make it easier to use, and more powerful.

In order to use this version you will need:

Visual Studio 2005 with C# (Express version will be sufficient)
XNA Framework, version 3.0

For Xbox360 development:

NVidia PhysX Driver http://www.ageia.com/drivers/drivers.html. You do not need an Nvidia video card or PhysX card to use PhysX, but you will not get hardware physics acceleration through PhysX without them.

In order to develop on the physics implementation you will also need

Visual Studio 2005 with C++
NVidia PhysX SDK (only for Xbox360 development, unless you want to use PhysX with Windows).

Released: QuickStart Engine v0.196 (Jan 04, 2009)

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:07:25 GMT

Minor update from v0.195:

You can now make changes to an Entity's position or rotation even if it has Physics. Previously any changes were overriden by the Physics system and the Entity's position/rotation would not change.
The camera's frustum is now checked for collision against terrain to keep it from going under the terrain. To turn this off there is a function in CameraComponent.cs called ForceFrustumAboveTerrain, set this to false anytime after you've created a camera component object.
The message system now allows for instantaneous messages to be sent/retrieved. This means you can now send a message and immediately be sure that the contents of the message have been filled with data for use. You can find an example of this in CameraComponent.cs in the ProcessFrustumTerrainCollision() function. To use immediate messages you need to use the SendMessage(), if you're sending a message that doesn't need to process immediately then use the QueueMessage() function to send the message. SendMessage should only be used in the case where you need that message to be processed immediately in order to use it results, or if you need that message to process before you can do other things that depend on that message having been processed. The reason for allowing messages to delay and not process immediately is because the engine is being designed for multithreading, and multithreading is easier with queued messages.
Updated to the XNA 3.0 Framework.

For all of the notes on v0.195 release, click here.

QuickStart Engine Forums, and SourceForge source repository

In order to use this version you will need:

Visual Studio 2005 with C# (Express version will be sufficient)
XNA Framework, version 3.0

For Xbox360 development:

NVidia PhysX Driver http://www.ageia.com/drivers/drivers.html. You do not need an Nvidia video card or PhysX card to use PhysX, but you will not get hardware physics acceleration through PhysX without them.

In order to develop on the physics implementation you will also need

Visual Studio 2005 with C++
NVidia PhysX SDK (only for Xbox360 development, unless you want to use PhysX with Windows).

Updated Release: QuickStart Engine v0.196 (Jan 04, 2009)

lordikon — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:03:34 GMT

Minor update from v0.195:

You can now make changes to an Entity's position or rotation even if it has Physics. Previously any changes were overriden by the Physics system and the Entity's position/rotation would not change.
The camera's frustum is now checked for collision against terrain to keep it from going under the terrain. To turn this off there is a function in CameraComponent.cs called ForceFrustumAboveTerrain, set this to false anytime after you've created a camera component object.
The message system now allows for instantaneous messages to be sent/retrieved. This means you can now send a message and immediately be sure that the contents of the message have been filled with data for use. You can find an example of this in CameraComponent.cs in the ProcessFrustumTerrainCollision() function. To use immediate messages you need to use the SendMessage(), if you're sending a message that doesn't need to process immediately then use the QueueMessage() function to send the message. SendMessage should only be used in the case where you need that message to be processed immediately in order to use it results, or if you need that message to process before you can do other things that depend on that message having been processed. The reason for allowing messages to delay and not process immediately is because the engine is being designed for multithreading, and multithreading is easier with queued messages.
Updated to the XNA 3.0 Framework.

For all of the notes on v0.195 release, click here.

QuickStart Engine Forums, and SourceForge source repository

* You may have noticed the forums here are kind of quiet. We use a different site for our forums. Here is the URL: http://xnaquickstart.freeforums.org/portal.php.
* If you'd like to get the latest code that is in development between releases, our repository is at sourceforge, this URL has all the info you'll need: http://xnaquickstart.freeforums.org/get-the-latest-code-t73.html. Currently sourceforge is only updated to v0.195.

This is an intermediate release until we can release v0.2. v0.19 was released just to show the new framework of the engine for the first time. Now we're trying to make it easier to use, and more powerful.

In order to use this version you will need:

Visual Studio 2005 with C# (Express version will be sufficient)
XNA Framework, version 3.0

For Xbox360 development:

NVidia PhysX Driver http://www.ageia.com/drivers/drivers.html. You do not need an Nvidia video card or PhysX card to use PhysX, but you will not get hardware physics acceleration through PhysX without them.

In order to develop on the physics implementation you will also need

Visual Studio 2005 with C++
NVidia PhysX SDK (only for Xbox360 development, unless you want to use PhysX with Windows).