Tuesday, July 28, 2009

tutorials, comming soon

Thank you everyone that follows this project. Today I just want to say that i'm preparing a few tutorials about the basics of using revolution engine and will release them as soon as I can, probably this week.
Thank you

Edit: However, you can post whatever you want to know in the forum. This way I can directly answer your questions, which may help others, and know more about the topics that tutorials should cover.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Revolution Engine 0.4 alpha 1

The day has come. The new version of the very first 3D Game Engine for Wii is here.
Full of new features, improvements and optimizations. The list is long, so I'm posting just the major changes and letting you discover the rest.
-Full support for transparency. Many transparent objects can be superposed one after another and change position dinamically without causing render bugs.
-Software Vertex lighting: You finally can render lighted scenes. Multiple lights, specular lighting, diffuse lighting, etc...It's so basic in alfa 1 but will be improved n future alfas.
-Multiple viewports and cameras: Now you can divide the screen into multiple viewports, for multiplayer gaming, for example.
-Materials system: Will be improved in future alfas, but it alredy is quite powerful. Difuse and specular colors and materials, different flags, specularity, glossiness.
-2D system: buttons, true type texts (GX based), windows...
-Automatic pointers: forget about programming all those things about the IR pointers etc...it's done by default.
-Discover the rest yourself ;)

Another important change is about naming conventions. Now function names, flags, macros, definitions, etc...are all in full english. Say goodbye to Spanglish because English is the convention for all versions now on. Names start in Lowercase and Uppercase is used for separating words.

You can download the engine at Revolution engine, downloads zone.

Enjoy

Saturday, July 18, 2009

How to release 0.4?


This post is because I'm preparing the first release of revolution engine 0.4
Yes, the first one, but not the only one. Why?
Well, Revolution engine 0.4 is a huge, ambicious porject. It's big enough to take many months on development and carry a lot of bugs inside, and me, i'm just one developper. So there are two options: First, after a few more months, I finish the engine and release it with many bugs and absolutely no documentation. Everybody has to wait a lot for the engine and when it finally arrives, almost no one can use it. It doesn't look like a good option, right?
The other posibility is: I finish a part of the engine, and release it, at the same time, I release some short tutorials on how to use that part. People can start using it and learn about it step by step. As they use it, they tell me about bugs they fing or features they miss. So, as I prepare the next release, also fix those issues. More documentation, less time to wait, faster bug-fixes, easier learning curve...better for all, right?
So you can expect the first release within a week. Revolution engine 0.4, coming soon.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Node Based

Hello everyone!
Today I'm talking about nodes. 0.4 is the first version of Revolution engine that allows us to work with some kind of hierarchy. This means that both in 2D and 3D subsystems, every entity (panels, buttons, objects, lights, cameras, etc...) is at the same time a node in space (either 2D space or 3D space). This way you can use the same functions to move a camera, an object, a light, whatever. Futhermore, nodes let us attach some objects to others and simplify move functions so much(because child nodes alwais move relatively to their parents, instead of in the absolute space). Let's see some examples:
-You can attach a camera as a child to the player, and the camera will automatically follow that character.
-You can attach wheels to a car and so, when the car moves wheels will move. But at the same time you can make the wheels rotate respect to the car. Later you can de-attach the wheels when you blow up the car and throw them far away ;)
-You can create a complex 2D menu for your game, made of many panels, buttons and texts, all of them attached to a single node, or to differents nodes that are also attached to a single node. This way you can show or hide the whole menu just by showing or hiding the parent node. Just one instruction to hide or show hundreds of panels.

I'm sure you can imagine so many more uses for this feature ;)

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Back 2 Work

Long time without news, right?
Ok, I'm back. I'm back working on the new version of the engine, that i think will make the difference in Homebrew. You'll have more news soon, but by now I just can say that I'm preparing the release of Revolution engine 0.4 alfa version.
keep an eye on the web or on the blog and you won't regret ;)
bye!