Ok, I’ve released sourcecode for our demo engine/tools and the demo itself a while ago, now time to actually put up at least a minimal website, with some articles, download/build instructions and whatnot.

So, here it is: http://dingus.berlios.de (oh, and it has an rss feed of the recent changes, yay!).

Currently it’s half empty; I expect to write some more short articles soon. Maybe even put up some standalone tools… I know that the sourcecode is useless, but I thought “maybe the articles would be good”. Or maybe not, who knows.

On the other hand - maybe it’s the way to go. You’re designing the engine around some specific technologies and approaches, to be used in some 2-3 years.

That way, when fancy water reflections go out of fashion and are replaced by fancy waxed floor reflections, you’d throw everything out and restart from scratch. Predicting that this moment will occur only in the next console transition (hey, cur-gen can’t handle fancy waxed floors!).

Pretty reasonable I think, in 2-3 years it’s likely that the things will be changed in non-trivial way, so you’d need to rethink and possibly remake some parts of the technology anyway.

I’m reading API docs of one “really advanced” modern 3D engine (found them publicly available on their site, don’t know if that’s an error or not :)) and… it’s a strange feeling. Basically, everything’s hardcoded!

By ’everything’ I mean that, for example, possible shadow algorithms are hardcoded in the very base classes of the engine. Same for physics, lights, scene management, culling etc. Similar like you’d have a class VeryBaseEngineObject and that would have information “what shadows are on me?”, “am I physics body”, “cull me against the camera” and “render me for the water reflection”.

Huh? Is that how all engines are designed? You have functionality like “shadow map”, “a physics crate”, “a fancy reflective water” and “a fullscreen glow with light streaks Masaki Kawase style” in the core of the engine? I’d understand if that would be as helpers or some “premade” stuff on top of the core engine… but having that in the core? Why?

Is that what constitutes a “flexible” engine?

The demo I and some friends were working on in the last 5 months (spare time) is finally released. Heck, it even has a website: www.nesnausk.org/inoutside! Now waiting for results from ImagineCup…

I’ve been watching it too long to have any objective opinion. Some outsider comments are here. Enjoy!

Got this new computer chair from Paulius for my birthday. The one where you’re half-kneeled while sitting on it (some say it’s good for your back). It’s a bit strange at first, but overall pretty cool. After a week of chair-testing I’d say it’s good. My daughter there doesn’t sit properly :)