Any suggestions on getting a full(er) physics engine into the template would be great. I'd love to make this more of an engine, as it would be much more useful at that point. Right now it is more of a learning tool. I may put in a gui when XNA 2.0 comes out with built-in winform support.

Here's a little peek (video) at the next version, a bit more physics. Includes simple water physics and point gravity sources. In this case, I shoot white spheres into the scene. Then you'll see me shoot a red sphere which is the gravity source.

I started writing a rigid-body simulator in XNA back in march/may.  Here are a couple of videos I captured of it back then.  I uploaded them to my web space:

http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~holewins/xna_videos/

I haven't had the time to work with it much lately (like the swaying at the beginning?), but if you're interested in some collaboration to develop something useable, let me know.  Obviously it has stability issues, but like I said I haven't had much time to work on it lately.

It'd be a great learning experience and something to work on in my spare time. Just got a programming job (for the first time!), so I won't have as much spare time, but I wouldn't mind at all working on it whenever I did have time.

Oh, and it looks pretty sweet, reminds me a lot of bulletX.

If you'd like you can send me your project and I'll see how difficult it would be to integrate into the template. Or I can send you the newest template version and you could try the same. The framework of the two may not be very compatible and could require a re-design/re-write.

For instance, I've set the template up to be very easy to add and remove components, and I've tried to make it so every component will work with any other, or without any other. This makes things very user-friendly I believe, but may also lower performance.

Either way, just let me know.

Shaw, some things we've been talking about got me thinking. This engine needs a lot more than I alone can give it. For instance, I've been doing a lot graphically, and it has been great practice, however there is only so much I know at this time, it would benefit greatly from someone more seasoned with shaders. Not only that, but this seems more like a scene template at the moment, which might be great for getting a scene set up, but other than that and input and entity management, the rest of the game is up to the player. I would like to implement things like A.I. features: Chase, evade, enemy and player spawn points, triggers. Also, things like skinned animation, and a player class, which can be associated with a camera and input. When XNA 2.0 comes out a gui would be nice. Possibly even a scripting system. I guess what I'm saying is it would be cool if this could end up an engine, albeit a simple one compared to others like Visual3D.net. Although free and open source.

If anyone is interested in adding/optimizing/contributing to this project let me know. Of course you'd get full credit. This project isn't intended to make money, don't think I'm implying that in any way, it is merely a good chance to learn and help the community in the process. Maybe even get a little recognition in the end.

By the way, I will be posting a link to a 3-4 minute video of the main features thus far, it is difficult to describe them all in text, it is easier, especially for newbies, to see it in video.

I think that would be wonderful for the community.  There are a lot of samples of graphical effects, sound management, etc. out there, but nothing that really explains how to tie it all together into a working 3D game.  Your template is very valuable in this regard.  Definitely keep up the good work!

If external contribution is a direction you want to take, I would seriously consider looking into a project web-space.  Or at the very least, an SVN server.  Otherwise, merging contributions would be a nightmare.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a community-led effort to develop a free, open-source game engine in XNA for Windows and Xbox.  I'd be more than willing to contribute to a project like that, as long as I can find some free time between classes.

That is a great idea, an open-source project with versioning and a site. I wish I knew how to set that up. I'm open to learning how. Not sure if my website server would allow it or not. Open to suggestions.

http://www.codeplex.com or http://www.sourceforge.com they have code control, wikis and all sorts built in and best of all are not dependant on paying someone for hosting or anything.

There are several XNA projects on both sites - personally I prefer codeplex as its more visual studio friendly.

For codeplex, is Visual Studio Team Suite required, or are there source-control plugins that integrate into Visual Studio Pro?  I know command-line tools exist, but I'm curious about the IDE integration.  Personally, I use SVN for all of my stuff.

There's a fair choice http://www.codeplex.com/CodePlex/Wiki/View.aspx?title=Source%20control%20clients&referringTitle=CodePlex%20FAQ

Apparntly you don't need the full team suite product to get the VS add in - you can download it from that site. Of course nothing integrates with express.

 

Of course, the express limitation won't be a problem once 2.0 comes out....which is hopefully very soon, as I would like to start a gui

Thought I'd let you guys know I've started up a CodePlex project for the template.

http://www.codeplex.com/XNAEngine

Could turn out to be pretty interesting, might not, only time will truly tell. I guess if it is a community project then it will only end up as good as we make it. Of course I'll always put what I can into it and keep the usual update info here. I agree with Shaw that it would be great to have a free, all-encompassing, open-source program out there that users could either use to get a decent 3d game started with ease, while at the same time having it open-source, which would be great to learn from.

I'm still learning CodePlex, and I believe I may have to add people before it will allow them access to contribute to the project. If this is the case and you feel you have something worth contributing, shoot me an email at nfoste(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll add you in.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, CodePlex may not work easily with XNA 1.0 because of the C# express requirement. If this is the case we can discuss a workaround until XNA 2.0 comes out and allows us to use VS C# (non-express). Again, this is my first time using CodePlex, if I've forgot anything please post or email me.

Oh, and I did just release v0.16 with the water-based physics, and a couple other small things, like tidal phases for the water component and some small fixes.

Lord Ikon:

As far as geomipmapping, I will look into it. I'm currently using a quad-tree implementation that I made. I'm sure it could use optimization. Are there any specific reports on any performance boost with geomipmapping? I'm assuming geomipmapping is a LOD algorithm with terrain, which is something I've got on my to do list.

I don't know of any reports, but GMM gave me a huge performance boost for larger terrains, 1025x1025 and larger are handled pretty easily by my card (GF6800 GT).

I've heard FarCry and WoW also use GMM (or CLOD), and I noticed some slight terrain popping in the Crysis Beta, too, which is an indicator for GMM as well.

The CodePlex page looks great.  Couple of questions though...

1. How are you going to handle the source distribution?  I saw the zip file in the "Releases" tab, but there's nothing in the "Source Code" section, and when I try to use the command-line tools from Codeplex, there's no files associated with the project.  I'm just curious if you plan to allow anonymous checkout of the latest code branches, like SourceForge SVN checkouts.
2. I'm assuming from the project site that you're using the Microsoft Permissive License for everything?  I'm curious how this relates to GPL/ZLib licensing.  I read the license, but like all legal documents, I'm sure there are important yet subtle points that I've missed.  If a commercial, closed-source project wanted to make use of the library, are they required to distribute source (GPL-esque), or are they free to distribute binary-only (Zlib-esque)?

By default you have to be at least logged in to see the source tree - but you should be able to anonymously download a zip. See http://www.codeplex.com/XNAEngine/Project/ProjectRoles.aspx for permissions. I'm not the owner on any projects so I don't know if you can change these.

The MS-PL, IMO, is a fine license. There are no viral source requirements and there are no specific restrictions on commercial use which are the 2 things I worry about in licenses. Other than retaining copyright messages and not redistributing under a non compatible license (e.g. you can't change some code and then release under GPL) there is nothing complex.

GPL - has the viral source requirement which can be a concern for commercial works

ZLib - seems fairly comparable to he MS-PL to my limited reading

Usual armchair layer disclaimer.... etc etc.

Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Permissive_License_.28Ms-PL.29

with various from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OSI_approved_software_licences

(though also assume wikipedia was written by folk with as much legal background as me)

I started it at 1am and was very tired. I haven't uploaded the source yet. I have never used a system like codeplex so I'll have to see how it is even done. I would like to get a couple of people added on there with near full permissions to the project. I'm pretty busy with full time school and full time work, and it would be nice if people could work on it independent of me. Of course that'll depend if this project really starts up or not.

I'll try and get the source code up in the next couple of days, until then you can get it through the .zip on the site, if you're having trouble on the site, you can always get it from the link in my sig.

I appreciate your guys' advice thus far, and welcome any in the future regarding the codeplex project or the code itself. Code critique would be great, but I know how time consuming and difficult it can be to look and analyze someone else's code.

I can definitely understand the schoolwork.  I've been spending the last few days writing up a 10 page latex document for one of my classes.  It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the nested logs... (log log log ... log n) :)  Sometimes I really miss undergrad assignments.

I should have some time here soon, and I'll try to see what I can do about getting some very simple rigid body physics in there.  Of course, "simple" rigid body physics is a bit of the misnomer, but I like working with numerical processing and physics so it should be fun.

That's awesome, thank you for the help. I've got a couple other of my classmates, who are graduating with me in a few months, that are going to join in. So that is at least 4 people willing to work on it "when they get the chance", and that's fine by me.

If you have any questions about the code (layout, structure), just let me know. I haven't had any comments on it at all, which is either good (if the framework is great), or bad (noone has given feedback on inefficiencies). I know I will be working on geomipmapping very soon, the framework doesn't do terrains of 1024x1024 easily when ALL components are active. I believe I can get it working slightly better, but it really is going to require geomipmapping to have full 60fps all the time.

For anyone (seriously) interested in joining the project:

• Sign-up for a CodePlex account (completely free), Email me a request and what you plan to contribute and I will add you to the project.
• I've got versioned builds in the source code section at codeplex.
• If you've never used CodePlex Client source control, it took me about 5 minutes to learn, here's the link to download it (only 400kb or so). And here's the link on how to commit your changes to the project.
• I've begun adding issues and feature requests if anyone feels like starting on them. Of course, you can always work on mods that aren't on the list, I would recommend issuing a feature request first however.
• I uploaded older versions of the code as well, not sure if I can think of a use for them, but maybe someone else will.
• Finally, I've created a walkthrough/tutorial if you're just getting started with the engine.

I'll be placing this info in the first post as well for easy access. Thanks guys.

Quick update:

• New version 0.17 has been uploaded.
• The new source code version is now working, the original 'Initial Build' was untested and incomplete. Proper versioning should now be possible.

Update:

• New version 0.172 has been released. Includes temporary fixes for both older and newer graphics cards that were experiencing problems.
• Main fixes will hopefully be out soon in v0.18, however this version was released to make it easier to use right now without having to make your own changes.
• This version also includes some small additions to the keyboard controls and cameras.

As a side note, we're also working on prototyping a new framework that will more easily support additions from multiple members, and will be easier to debug and understand. The prototypes will be available in the source code builds as they're released for testing.

Update:

• Terrain bug fixed!! Nobody should have issues with using the quad-tree component in the newest version (v0.175).
• Small memory optimizations.
• BoundingBox debug mode fixed.

Also more prototype version available in the source code section. Make sure when running prototypes to run the project that is inside the build directory of the project, otherwise you'll simply be running an old version of the non-prototype engine.

Oh, and any comments are welcome, any codeplex member, whether they're a member of the QuickStart project or not are free to comment or report issues on the engine through the codeplex site. Issues can be posted here as well.

Tagged for later.


Looks like it should be fun to pick apart. I just hope there are a lot of comments :p

Not as many comments as I'd like, but there is a tutorial that explains a lot of the basic stuff. Some of the functions have summaries which will support intellisense. If you have any questions specifically, feel free to post them here or on the codeplex site.

Update:

• Performance of the engine has been greatly improved. On older graphics cards framerate has roughly doubled, and on newer ones I've seen up to a 6x improvement! This is due to the LOD (Level of Detail) implementation for the terrain and water components. You can set the terrain to one of 4 different LODs for rendering, and then the water can choose a reflection and refraction LOD as well.
• Large scenes, like 1024x1024 went from an average of 10fps even on decent video cards up to 45-60fps. However, LOD at the moment does require more memory. This isn't significant unless you're using large terrains, like 1024x1024 or higher. We're looking into a way to reduce the memory requirement.
• Some other minor performance updates and commenting were done as well.
• Make sure to comment out these lines before you start using it, unless you specifically want to see your max framerate, as not doing so will mess up the physics of the game, they're located in SetupGraphicsDevice() in GameMain.cs:
• //Graphics.SynchronizeWithVerticalRetrace = false;
  //IsFixedTimeStep = false;

I have a couple of suggestions for this:

1) Pixel Shaders. FX and HLSL, that would pwn.

2) Raytracing. We need some more raytracing scripts like raytrace until it intersects a certain object (such as the terrain - for rts games), and they should return a Vector3 or similar with x/y/z coordinates of the collision.
Also nice would be the reverse of the ScreenToRay() function, this time something along the lines of Vector2ToScreen(), which (I guess) returns a vector2 containing screen co-ordinates.

If those two were implemented, it would also easen up RTS games a lot, too.