Subversion

Revolution Engine has become rather a big project. It always takes me a lot of time to prepare a new release. And what if someone suggests a small change? what if I want to add a little fix? Working only with big releases is not practical.
Those are some of the reasons why I've decided to set up a subversion repository for Revolution Engine.
I'll keep doing big releases for each complete version, and since this system will also increase the development speed, it will allow me to add more content to these releases.

Right now, Subversion holds the WIP 0.6 version. It basically implements everything that was in 0.5 version except for material system, that I'm rebuilding into something more powerful and even easier to use. Those of you who want to keep an eye on development can track the subversion log or checkout the last version (feedback is greatly wellcome)

This is the project link Revolution Engine SVN at google code

Bye

Developer console, scripting system

Wii is relatively a low power machine, and thus, one of the goals of revolution engine has always been to get the most out of those limited resources. Optimization.
That's why i didn't ever think of adding a scripting system to it. Scripts are low, and everything you can do with a script you can do it by code. But the thing is that, one other of the main goals of the engine is ease of use also. And develop a game is much easier if you have a console and a script system that allows you to modify things on the fly, fine tuning your game to the very best of it. About a month ago, however, adding a script system to Rev wasn't the best of the ideas because lighting system consumed A LOT of resources and computation time was gold-priced. But due to the recent advances in Hardware lighting, CPU is almost free all the time, and this re-opens the door for many resources-consuming subsystems like Physics, AI, and scripting.
So that's all, hardware lighting freed the CPU, so many new and interesting features can now be expected for the next version, more news on them (and probably some videos) as soon as I finish my exams :)

More hardware, more triangles in screen

Revolution engine lighting system is something that makes me feel proud. It can light objects in a very realistic manner and is very extensible. However, it's very slow since it's all software based, almost all calculations (except for some blending between layers and a couple of things more) are done by software. This decision was made because wii hardware lighting system doesn't work right in homebrew, and if I wanted to have a realistic lighting system, I had to write it.
But, after all, not All of the hardware is working bad, so some parts of the lighting system can be ported to hardware.
And that's what I'm doing: port everything I can from software to hardware (and it's working quite well). Remember that 8% speed boost from 0.5 to 0.5.1? well, now I expect about a 30-40% speed boost :)

Looks familiar?

Maybe some of you recognize what this screenshot means. Personally I wouldn't have recognized it a couple of days ago, but I started to work on this yesterday, and now I'm proud to show the first screenshot of this in-dev new feature of the engine. I'm pretty sure it will be a big step in the right direction. Post a comment if you know what this is :)

(More screens soon)

Quick note about image formats

Rev-0.5.2 will add support for more texture formats by the use of the freeImage lib

REV-0.5.1 Released

Here you can download the latest version of Revolution engine.
This is a minor update featuring some optimizations and bug fixes along with better memory management, better use of TEV and some other things like a screenshot function.
You can see the whole changelog at wiibrew
Enjoy!

In-dev screens of Model Viewer

These are the first screenshots of model viewer.
It's still in development stage, so there are many things missing, but you can see how easy you can view your models and edit your materials.
Hope you like them :)







PT:These screenshots were taken with the new screenShot functionality in REV-0.5.1

Rev 0.5.1 speed boost

Due to lighting algorith enhancements, Rev 0.5.1 will be about 8% faster rendering polygons. Currently it lights more than 400.000 faces per second (about 7000 faces per frame)

Some of the changes in this minor version will be:
-Lighting speed boost
-Better memory management
-Advanced screenshot function
-Added offClick onOver and offOver functions to buttons
-Added getType, getParent, getNext and getChild methods to N2D and NODE classes
-WINDOWs for 2d system
-Custom expansion data for nodes and 3d nodes

Comming soon.

Demos are Up

Demos are already uploaded to the wesite.
You can get them here wwww.revolutionengine.tk

Enjoy!

Rev 0.5 Released!!

Yes!!
The final version of Revolution Engine 0.5 is finished, uploaded and ready to be downloaded.
I really think you all will enjoy it. Demos will be released in the next 24 hours.
As alwais, you can download it at Revolution Engine and see specifications at www.wiibrew.org