Will-o'-the-wisp (engine)

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Will-o'-the-wisp

Irrlicht new logo.png
Per-pixel lighting in will-o'-the-wisps

Screenshot of an example program, which was written with Irrlicht
Basic data

developer Nikolaus Gebhardt
Current  version 1.8.4
( July 9, 2016 )
operating system cross-platform
programming language C ++
category Graphics engine
License zlib license
German speaking No
irrlicht.sf.net

The Irrlicht Engine is a free graphics engine that is being developed by a small team led by Nikolaus Gebhardt . Irrlicht is cross-platform and runs on Linux , macOS , Sun Solaris and various Windows versions.

features

OpenGL , DirectX or a software render are used for the graphic representations . Similar to other graphics engines , a scene graph is used. Irrlicht supports the developer of vertex or pixel shaders by simply integrating them. A built-in particle engine makes it easy to generate your own particle effects.

The integrated XML parser, irrXML , can also be used independently of the engine. It is possible to read files from a ZIP file like from a normal folder structure.

Irrlicht also supports the direct output of 2D graphics as sprites and has its own GUI engine. There are also classes and functions for matrix and vector calculations and simple collision queries. The source code is open , written in C ++ and is under the zlib license , which also enables use in commercial products without the publication of the source code.

documentation

The engine has a well-documented API and some understandable tutorials .

development

The integration of vertex buffer objects was planned for version 1.5 and further features such as a new light manager for managing different light sources are being worked on. In the meantime, there is also a (still incomplete) German documentation available as a wiki.

Community

Will-o'-the-wisp has now found a lot of fans. The English community is the world's largest will-o'-the-wisp community and has around 8,600 members (as of May 2008). In July 2007 around 7,000 users were registered, in April 2007 around 6,000. In Germany there was a community early on, but it disintegrated over time. Since March 2007 there is a new, still quite young and small German community. In other countries, such as B. France and Italy, there are also will-o'-the-wisps communities.

application

Projects that use will-o'-the-wisps include: B .:

  • Bolzplatz 2006 by Xenoage Software, a comic-style football game developed with Irrlicht and Jirr (a Java interface to Irrlicht).
  • Eve, a robot simulator from the Biologically Inspired Robotics Group (BIRG) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
  • Galactic Dream: Rage of War from Evolution Vault, a commercial space strategy game.
  • Gekkeiju Online , a free fantasy multiuser role-playing game that has been running since 2003.
  • H-Craft Championship, a commercial science fiction racing game.
  • Amulet of tricolor, a 2D game
  • SuperTuxKart (from version 0.7), a 3D kart racing game
  • Minetest , an open world game similar to Minecraft
  • Codesys , for displaying 3D simulations in the Depictor

Wisdom kinship

IrrKlang

IrrKlang is a powerful 3D sound library for C ++ and .NET languages. It is available for Linux and Windows, from version 1.0 RC1 (released on July 26, 2007) also for Mac OS X. The engine is free of charge for non-commercial use, a fee has to be paid for commercial projects. IrrKlang appeared for the first time in version 0.1 on September 23, 2006 and has been continuously developed since then up to the current version 1.5.0.

IrrXML

IrrXML is a fast and freely available XML reader for C ++ , which is already integrated in Irrlicht, but is also available separately. Like Irrlicht itself, IrrXML is cross-platform. IrrXML is published under the zlib license and can therefore be used freely. IrrXML is no longer being developed, the current version is 1.2.

IrrEdit

IrrEdit is a free 3D world editor. He can export the worlds in the will-o'-the-wisp .irr format , which facilitates cooperation with will -o'-the-wisps . All elements required for a scene, such as lights, particle systems, animations, etc. can be set. However, it is not possible to create 3D objects (apart from individual graphic primitives).

3D objects have to be created by other applications, IrrEdit can then import them. Irrlicht supports many 3D formats that are also supported by inexpensive and free 3D modeling software, for example: .3ds ( 3ds Max ), .blend ( Blender ), .x ( Milkshape ) and .obj ( Delgine DeleD )

IrrEdit is being actively developed and is currently available as version 1.5. Since April 2010 irrEdit has been further developed by Ambiera as part of the commercial editor CopperCube , but all Irrlicht-related features can still be used free of charge.

Supported formats

Irrlicht supports the following 3D formats:

  • Irrmesh ( .irrmesh )
  • My3DTools 3 ( .my3D )
  • OGRE meshes ( .mesh )
  • Pulsar LMTools ( .lmts )
  • Quake III Arena levels ( .bsp )
  • Quake II models ( .md2 )
  • DeleD ( .dmf )
  • FSRad oct ( .oct )
  • Wisp scenes ( .irr )
  • Microsoft DirectX ( .x ) (binary & text)
  • MilkShape 3D ( .ms3d )
  • STL 3D files ( .stl )

Irrlicht supports the following graphic formats:

The following types of animation are supported:

  • Morph target animation
  • Skeletal animation

gallery

  • Sample program

  • Lightmaps and vertex lighting in will- o'-the-wisps , rendering of a simple dungeon scene

literature

  • Building games with open source engines - iX 09/2006 page 52

Web links

Commons : Irrlicht Engine  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikibooks: Irrlicht - from Noob to Pro  - learning and teaching materials

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ sourceforge.net .
  2. ↑ a b Irrlicht Engine Features. Retrieved March 5, 2016 .
  3. ↑ German Wiki
  4. ↑ irrKlang Pro. Retrieved March 5, 2016 .
  5. ↑ irrKlang Change Log. Retrieved March 5, 2016 .
  6. ↑ IrrXML website
  7. ↑ IrrEdit website
  8. ↑ IrrEdit Change Log