2005-06-05 New demo of Ca3DE released!

[Carsten]

I am happy to inform you that both a new Ca3D-Engine demo as well as an updated development kit have just been released!

Its NEW features (since the previous release) include

• a completely new Material System,
• the new Ca3DE World Editor "CaWE",
• support for curved surfaces (Bezier patches),
• an importer for the "ase" model file format,
• discrete level-of-detail support for model rendering,
• and the presentation of Spherical Harmonic Lighting in my diploma thesis.

CaWE is a completely new and comfortable editor for making Ca3DE worlds.
Being included with the development kit, it is available both for the Windows and Linux platforms. Its easy-to-use user interface was modelled along the paradigms of other well-known mapping editors, so that it is easy to learn for beginners and at the same time assists experts.

The introduction of the new Material System was a great leap forward both in code design and user involvement: All surface materials are now defined in easy to write scripts. Mappers or texture artists may modify, augment or repair their materials even while Ca3DE is running!
The Material System handles all rendering of Ca3DE and is designed to be implemented on virtually anything:

• Operating Systems: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Pocket PC, Palm, DOS, ...
• APIs: OpenGL 1.2-2.0, DirectX 7-9, Cg, GLSL, software renderers, ...
• Hardware: NVidia, ATI, 3Dlabs, consoles, ...

The Ca3DE demo packages currently come with implementations for OpenGL 1.2, Cg with fp20/vp20 profile (for NV2X and higher GPUs), Cg with arbvp1/arbfp1 profile (for NV3X and higher GPUs), OpenGL 1.4+ extended with ARB vertex/fragment program (all modern GPUs from ATI, NVidia and others), and a "Null" renderer that is useful e.g. for performance profiling or dedicated Ca3DE servers.

A detailed list of the Ca3D-Engine features is available here.

Have fun!
Carsten