Posts Tagged ‘gamedev’

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DevIL 1.7.1

DevIL (also called OpenIL) seems to re-birth after almost two years of silence. DevIL is back in a new version 1.7.1. Developer’s Image Library (DevIL) is a cross-platform image library utilizing a simple syntax to load, save, convert, manipulate, filter and display a variety of images with ease.

More information here: DevIL’s homepage

As soon as possible I’ll publish a VS2005 C++ project with OpenGL and DevIL. Stay tuned…

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InteliShade Beta v3.0

InteliShade is a Visual Studio plugin allowing you to have code outlining and intellisense when editing HLSL code in your projects. InteliShade 3.0 supports Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 and is available as a free download.

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GameDeveloperTools.com Launched

GameDeveloperTools.com or GDT was created to provide a one-stop resource of available tools for game developers. Tools include books, tutorials, engines and utilities.

Cool, Demoniak3D is already listed in their database!

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New GPU Gems #2 Chapters Online

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NVIDIA ForceWare 177.89: OpenGL Extensions and OpenGL 3.0 Code Sample

[French] Voici la liste des extensions OpenGL supportées par les pilotes Forceware 177.89 WinXP 32 pour une GeForce GTX 280. [/French] [English] Here is the list of OpenGL extensions supported by Forceware 177.89 WinXP 32 drivers for a GeForce GTX 280. [/English]

[French]
Les ForceWare 177.89 sont les premiers pilotes à offrir le support OpenGL 3.0. Mais pour le moment, ce support n’est pas officiel. Il faut l’activer de manière logiciel grâce à l’utilitaire NVemulate de NVIDIA:

L’activation d’OpenGL 3.0 donne accès à une nouvelle extension WGL_ARB_create_context qui permet de créer un context de rendu OpenGL 3.0. Si vous souhaitez ouvrir la porte d’OpenGL 3.0, voilà le code nécessaire:
[/French]
[English]
Forceware 177.89 are the first drivers to offer the OpenGL 3.0 support. But currently, this support is not official. We have to enable it thanks to NVIDIA’s NVemulate utility:

OpenGL 3.0 activation gives an access to a new extension: WGL_ARB_create_context.
This extension makes it possible to create an OpenGL 3.0 rendering context. If you wish to explore the new world of OpenGL 3.0, here is the necessary code:
[/English]

// wglCreateContextAttribsARB prototype.
typedef HGLRC (APIENTRYP PFNWGLCREATECONTEXTATTRIBSARBPROC)\
(HDC, HGLRC, const int*);
PFNWGLCREATECONTEXTATTRIBSARBPROC wglCreateContextAttribsARB;

// Get a pointer on the create context func.
wglCreateContextAttribsARB = \
(PFNWGLCREATECONTEXTATTRIBSARBPROC) \
wglGetProcAddress("wglCreateContextAttribsARB");

// Create an OpenGL 3.0 context.
HGLRC gl3Ctx = wglCreateContextAttribsARB(dc, 0, NULL);

//
// Do something with this opengl 3.0 rendering context.
//

// Delete the context
wglDeleteContext( gl3Ctx );	
gl3Ctx = NULL;				

[French]
Ceci étant dit, voilà la liste des nouvelles extensions pour un contexte de rendu OpenGL 2.1 avec support OpenGL 3.0 activé:
[/French]
[English]
That said, here is the list of the new extensions for an OpenGL 2.1 rendering context with OpenGL 3.0 support enabled:
[/English]

• GL_ARB_draw_instanced
• GL_ARB_half_float_vertex
• GL_ARB_framebuffer_object
• GL_ARB_geometry_shader4
• GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object
• GL_ARB_vertex_array_object
• WGL_ARB_create_context

[French]Carte graphique utilisée[/French]
[English]Graphics card used[/English]: EVGA GeForce GTX 280 / 1Gb

- Drivers Version: Forceware 6.14.11.7789
- OpenGL Version: 2.1.2
- GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) Version: 1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
- OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GTX 280/PCI/SSE2
- Drivers Renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
- ARB Texture Units: 16
- Vertex Shader Texture Units: 32
- Pixel Shader Texture Units: 32
- Geometry Shader Texture Units: 32
- Max Texture Size: 8192×8192
- Max Anisotropic Filtering Value: X16.0
- Max Point Sprite Size: 63.4
- Max Dynamic Lights: 8
- Max Viewport Size: 8192×8192
- Max Vertex Uniform Components: 4096
- Max Fragment Uniform Components: 2048
- Max Varying Float: 60
- Max Vertex Bindable Uniforms: 12
- Max Fragment Bindable Uniforms: 12
- Max Geometry Bindable Uniforms: 12
- MSAA: 2X
- MSAA: 4X
- MSAA: 8X
- MSAA: 16X
- MSAA: 32X

OpenGL Extensions: 168 extensions

[French]
Les extensions des anciens pilotes ForceWare se trouvent ICI.
Vous pouvez utiliser GPU Caps Viewer pour récupérer la liste des extensions de votre carte graphique.
[/French]
[English]
The extensions exposed by the old ForceWare drivers are HERE.
You can use GPU Caps Viewer to retrieve the list of extensions of your graphics card.
[/English]

Read more…

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Real Time Realistic Rendering of Nature Scenes

A thesis about real-time realistic rendering of nature scenes with dynamic lighting has been published. This thesis includes all details about real-time grass rendering and about real-time tree rendering with indirect lighting.

You can grab the thesis here: PhD thesis

It’s a pity there is no real-time 3D demo. Screenshots are cool but a real demo is better!
—-
[via]

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NVIDIA SDK 10.5: New OpenGL and Direct3D Samples

Screen-Space Ambient Occlusion demo

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New Features of DirectX 11 Explaned

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Boost 1.36 Released

The new version of Boost is available. Boost is set of C++ librairies that extend the functionality of C++. Boost can be used with both open and closed source projects.

Links:
- Boost homepage
- Boost C++ Libraries
- Boost 1.36.0 Changelog

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Dev.Mag: Game Developers Free Online Magazine

Dev.Mag is a free online magazine for game developers.
Filled with tutorials, features, interviews, tech-pieces and so much more!

Contents of the issue # 24:
- Interview with German developers, Irrgheist.
- Blender App Engine introduction
- Penny Arcade Adventures review
- A guide to home-made sound effects for your games
- And much, much more.

Issue 24 can be directly download but to enjoy the other issues, just subscribe at Dev.Mag.

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OpenGL 3.0 Specifications Released

SIGGRAPH 2008: Khronos Group has announced the release of the OpenGL 3.0 API specification and the GLSL 1.30 shading language specification.

The OpenGL working group has defined a set of OpenGL 3.0 extensions that expose potential new functionality for the next version of OpenGL that is targeted for release in less than 12 months, and a set of extensions for OpenGL 2.1 to enable much of the new OpenGL functionality on older hardware.

According to Dr. Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research, a leading graphics market analyst based in California, the installed base of graphics hardware that will support OpenGL 3.0 exceeds 60 million units. AMD, Intel and NVIDIA have made major contributions to the design of OpenGL 3.0 and today all three companies announced their intent to provide full implementations within their product families

More information here: OpenGL 3.0 Specifications to Support Latest Generations of Programmable Graphics Hardware.

You can download OpenGL 3.0 specifications right here:

and OpenGL Shading Language 1.30 specifications here:

Related links:

• The ARB announced OpenGL 3.0 and GLSL 1.30 today @ OpenGL forums
• phoronix.com
• OpenGL.org
• beyond3d.com

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DirectX SDK August 2008

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Ray-tracing the way to go for game developers?

TG Daily has interviewed Daniel Pohl, an engineer who is making some impressive progress in ray-tracing research, about Intel’s ray-tracing efforts.

Q: What is Larrabee from your perspective. What is the underlying architecture and the programming model?
A: Larrabee was primarily built as a rasterizering processor. Therefore you have support for DirectX and OpenGL. But it will also be a freely programmable x86-architecture. That means you could, for example, write your own rasterizer with your own API, a ray tracer, a voxel renderer or combinations of those. You could also use it for non-graphical applications that benefit from parallelization.

Q: What API is Intel using to showcase ray tracing demos?
A: We wrote our own API. The shading system uses a HLSL-like syntax that allows you also to shoot new rays within a shader. Using that API the programmer has no need to manually multi-thread the rendering and does not need to optimize the shading with SSE as this is done by the shading compiler automatically.

Read the complete interview here: Intel graphics update: Ray-tracing the way to go for game developers?

More news about Larrabee: Larrabee @ Geeks3D

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Collada 1.5 Specifications

The Khronos Group announced the release of a new COLLADA specification, which includes new features and expanded functionality designed to further broaden the applicability of the 3D digital asset standard.

Links:

• Collada Homepage
• Collada 1.5 Specs
• Collada Wiki

COLLADA defines an XML-based schema to make it easy to transport 3D assets between applications – enabling diverse 3D authoring and content processing tools be combined into a production pipeline. The intermediate language provides comprehensive encoding of visual scenes including: geometry, shaders and effects, physics, animation, kinematics, and even multiple version representations of the same asset.COLLADA FX enables leading 3D authoring tools to work effectively together to create shader and effects applications and assets to be authored and packaged using OpenGL Shading Language, Cg, CgFX, and DirectX FX.

[via]

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NVIDIA GeForce PhysX Performances Tests

This is the continuation of the previous post on PhysX Performance with GeForce.

The PhysX Pack provided by NVIDIA contains a PhysX fluid demo:

The primary purpose of the NVIDIA PhysX Fluid Demo is to illustrate Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)-based particle simulation technology accelerated by the NVIDIA GPU.

The pack also contains the Unreal Tournament III PhysX Mod:

The PhysX pack will be publicly available on August 12, 2008. The package consists of a new graphics driver that will enable PhysX on graphics cards equipped with GeForce 8, GeForce 9, and GeForce GTX GPUs, a downloadable PhysX software pack containing free Unreal Tournament 3 maps, the full version of NetDevil’s Warmonger, NVIDIA demos, and a first look at Object Software’s Metal Knight Zero and Nurien Software’s Nurien social-networking service.

Related reviews:

• A first look at Nvidia’s GPU physics @ techreport.com
• NVIDIA GPU PhysX Pack Preview @ hothardware.com
• nVidia PhysX Starring the Zotac 9800 GTX+ @ hothardware.com

[via]

Update (2008-08-08)

• PhysX by NVIDIA – A review of what to expect @ guru3d.com

Need more news about PhysX? Click here: PhysX @ Geeks3D