As proposed earlier, the new, long awaited demo release is
available for download now!
The changes have both been
numerous and
very extensive.
However, it is important to know that most of these changes addressed code
design, extensibility, stability and speed. If you knew the previous Ca3DE
release of February, then maybe you cannot sympathize with my joy about the
current release, because it seems that not so much has changed since then. But
the reason is that most of the changes are under the hood. Here is a short
overview:
-
Entirely new engine core design that supports MODs:
The engine is controlled by dynamically loaded libraries (DLLs) now,
such that arbitrary games can be created with Ca3DE without altering
the Ca3D-Engine core! Read on for information how extensible and
flexible the new design actually is!
- I have written the first public "DeathMatch" MOD for the Ca3D-Engine,
which takes over all the functionality of the previously hard-wired entity
code and also adds some new code. This MOD will be included with all future
Ca3DE demo releases and will be further developed into a fully playable
DeathMatch game in the near future.
-
Entirely new network code for all network layers.
-
Entirely new model rendering code (but no new functionality).
- Some bug fixes. Among those a really silly network protocol bug that
caused ruggy movement.
The second big news:
Also the United States Air Force Research Lab (AFRL)
for Human Effectiveness employs the Ca3D-Engine in Warfighter simulation
experiments to study the visuo-spatial working memory of their
pilots.
I am very happy that they have chosen Ca3DE for their simulations, and that
Ca3DE is employed in this very interesting field of research!
During my creation of a specialized MOD for the AFRL, I found that I had to
make
no changes at all to the Ca3DE engine core! The entire
application is implemented in a dynamic link library, just as the DeathMatch
MOD mentioned above.
This shows not only that the new design is actually as flexible and extensible
as expected, but also casually "proves" the suitability of Ca3DE for other
purposes than action games: From games over scientific simulations or
experiments to applications in architecture - everything is possible with
Ca3DE!
Just got an email with another great news:
Dave Spurr permits me to use his excellent, high-quality weapon models
"Bazooka" and "Battle Scythe" with Ca3DE!
One of the major goals for the next Ca3DE releases will definitely be to make
them work with the DeathMatch MOD!
Dave, thank you very much!
Other model authors please note that I am still looking for more weapon models
for the DeathMatch MOD. If you have created weapon models (or other models) and
want to see them used in Ca3DE, please submit them!
For best compatibility with my converters, the weapon models should be designed
as replacement weapon models for the Half-Life deathmatch weapons and exist in
Half-Life .mdl model file format, as for example created with the well-known
tool
Milk-Shape.