2003-05-18 New MDK and demo released

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Carsten
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2003-05-18 New MDK and demo released

Post by Carsten » 2008-01-15, 13:53

I'm proud to release the latest Ca3DE demo today, as well as an updated MDK! Here is an overview about the most significant news:
  • Added a multi-purpose particle engine. (Which is currently very underutilized. I intend to much better utilize it in the next releases.)
  • Added 3D sound effects, including Doppler effects. They make the Ca3DE worlds much more vivid! :-)
  • Made a lot of weapons work, and there are many new entities as well.
  • Slanny much enhanced the existing weapon models by re-modelling and re-skinning the hands and arms.
  • Peter Kleiner created new state-of-the-art sky-domes exclusively for Ca3DE.
  • I replaced all old textures with new, high-quality textures from WadFather.
  • Players can climb ladders now!
  • Wrote CaPVS (one of the compile tools) entirely new. It is much faster now.
  • Speech recognition with Microsoft Speech API 5.1 as a byproduct for the USAF (disabled in the demo).
  • Much enhanced the network code, and fixed some problems with it. It's faster and more robust now. Also added support for signaling entity events.
  • A really huge amount of other improvements. Please refer to the change log for full details. And of course, also get the demo and see for yourself. :-)
All this adds up to really impressive enhancements.
I think the most important message today is that the DeathMatch MOD is finally PLAYABLE! Okay, it's technically still quite simple. But keep in mind that it is far from finished. And the point is that for the first time, it works. That means, you can invite your buddies to a party now, and actually have some fraggin' fun with Ca3DE!

Unfortunately, this release took much longer (nearly half a year!) than I expected. The delay was mostly caused by the extensive work that Peter, Slanny and I had to put into the artwork. Therefore, I'm looking for people who are interested in helping me with artwork. Please have a look at the Artists Wanted site for more information. This way, I could focus more on the programming part in the future in order to speed things up again.

Oh, and here is a short outlook to what I've definitively planned for the next release:
  • Many many many improvements to the DeathMatch MOD.
  • Music support.
  • Linux support.
  • Many more particle effects (like smoke, muzzle flashes, decals, beams, blood, ...).
  • Dynamic lights and shadows. This is the most important part.
My plans are to finally employ the latest lighting techniques in Ca3DE, with the goal to have Ca3DE catch up with the most contemporary, cutting-edge 3D engines. It soon has to compete with D3 and HL2, after all. I'll tell you more about all the details later - stay tuned...
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