V Engine 0.8 release, optimizations, new nodes

Our engine is released and site is opened - http://sheid.net/. You can try evaluation kit before buy. See “eval kit” chapter of our site. And development news:

SDK:

• Ray-casting sample.
• SSE sample.

Engine:

• SSE and SSE3 math optimizations.
• Rename WidgetSelect to WidgetCombo, WidgetScript to WidgetScroll.
• Rendering optimizations for meshes, terrains and sea. Ambient and directional light pass combined to one.
• Maximum distance for omni shadows.
• Access to config from scripts.
• Added App() class.
• Added ShaderGL() class.
• Added new scene node - NodeCameraPath, for creating camera movement along Catmull-Rom or linear spline.
• Added new scene node - NodeVolume.
• Added 'speed' parameter for vertex animation in material system.

GUI:

• Improve animation effects for windows when they opening, closing and mouse out effect.
• Added WidgetViewport::setRenderBackground() method.
• Added setData() and getData() methods into WidgetsBase class for attach user data.
• New list of  minimized windows.

Editor:

• GUI design improvements. Renewed track widget, list's scroll and checkbox.
• Sea has 'Aliasing' parameter.
• Sky has new automation scroll. There you can choose necessary automations, such as fog and light source.
• Spray tool has 'Count' parameter.
• Undo/redo.

Tools:

• Correct computing mipmaps alpha in DDS converter.
• Scale mesh function in mesh viewer.

Also, screenshot from our demo  in development which named 'Dark island':

SDK, Soft particles, Atmospheric scattering, SSS

SDK:

• Added 53 samples (script samples and C++ API).
• Update of documentation: added 27 new articles.

Engine:

• Engine was succefully compiled with GCC (4.5.0 and 4.6.1) and tested.
• Improved atmospheric scattering.
• Improved SSS (Subsurface scattering).
• Collision meshes support.
• Global time speed.
• Supported reflection color for water.
• Soft particles (also applies to clouds).
• Speedup searching file in archives, searching scene nodes and gui widgets. Using hash values instead of strings.
• Storing GUI settings in %skin_path%/config.xml
• Access to material parameters in scripts.
• Third-person view support.
• Сhangeable path to data. Using relative paths everywhere.
• Added methods Surface:enable() and Surface::disable()
• Added NodeMeshBase::setCollisionRadiusScale() method
• Added new kind of triggers: TRIGGER_ON_MOUSE_UP, TRIGGER_ON_MOUSE_OVER, TRIGGER_ON_INSIDE, TRIGGER_ON_OUTSIDE.
• DDS cubemaps support.
• Shadows has alpha value.

GUI:

• Added callbacks: ON_RIGHT_CLICK, ON_CENTER_CLICK
• Render speedup.

Editor:

• Save selected, add scene.
• Image browser for show textures.
• Automatic generation of terrain splatting texture.
• Сustomizable level of global ambient color in material editor.
• Accurate selection of nodes according their geometry.
• Change texture folder for meshes.
• New hotkey F - focus on selected node or group of nodes.
• Show collision meshes and show helpers flags in editor settings menu.

Tools:

• Mesh viewer:
• Normals inversion and recalculation (soft/solid).
• Centering mesh position.
• Surface list.
• Change texture path.

Plugins:

• 64bit versions of plugins for 3dsmax 2010/2011/2012.

Improved atmospheric scattering:

New SSS:



















Soft particles sample:

Lua, Post effects, Reverberation zones

Recent news:
The first SDK of our engine coming soon. Stay tuned.
Now you can contact our project manager/modeller via Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/xGild

Last changes in engine:

• Cube and ellipsoidal reverberation zones with soft edges.
• Sound sources now can has ellipsoidal shape as well.
• Stereo sounds now has volume modulation by distance.
• HDR rendering (64bit / 128bit).
• Support frosted surfaces.
• Improved snow.
• Improved directional shadows.
• Added Joystick::setAxisInverse() method.
• Added a lot of posteffects:
• brightness / contrast
• saturation
• color levels
• filter
• LDR
• noise
• negative
• thermovision
• nightvision
• chromatic aberration
• blur
• bloom
• DOF

Tilt-shift effect

• Added support for Lua scripting language. With wrapper you can bind external variables, functions, standart and abstract classes, methods, fields and operators. Bitwise operations and type casting for scene nodes and gui widgets available out of the box. Example of wrapper usage:
  

int add(int x, int y){ return x + y; } class Foo{ public: Foo() {} Foo(float x) {} float foo() {return 1.0f;} float foo(float x) {return x;} bool v; }; ... InterpreterLua *i = new InterpreterLua(); i->addExternalFunction("add",&add); ExternalClassBase *p_class = i->addExternalClass<Foo>("Foo"); i->addClassConstructor<Foo, float>(p_class); i->addClassMethod<Foo, float (Foo::*)()>(p_class,"foo",&Foo::foo); i->addClassMethod<Foo, float (Foo::*)(float)>(p_class,"foo",&Foo::foo); i->addClassField<Foo>(p_class,"v",&Foo::v); ...

GUI:

• Confirm dialog box.
• WidgetEdit, WidgetSelect, WidgetTrack and WidgetCheck now has read_only flag.
• WidgetCheck supports int external variables. 
• WidgetSelect supports custom id's for items.

Improved snow:

Reflections, Particles, OGG Theora, new plugins

Last changes in engine:

• HDR cubemap reflections. Different modes: static/dynamic, global/local. Infinity per reflections.
• Particles system. There are several presets (smoke, fire, snow, dust). Support wind.
• Added color jittering option for light sources.
• Two modes for terrain collision (absolute and standard CCD).

GUI:

• Support OGG Theora video files via new widget - WidgetVideoPlayer. Support sound synchronization and speed changing.
• Added int and float numeric modes for WidgetEdit.
• Support external variables for WidgetEdit (String, float, int). You can set float precision as well.

Editor:

• Render help directions for NodeParticles and NodeLightDir.
• Full adjustment and serialization for omni and directional lights.

Tools:

• Improvements of export plugins. Now you can select number of each texture channel or disable it.

Multiple per reflections:

Fire with smoke: