RuneEngine V2 is currently somewhere near the 50,000 line mark in C# and C++/CLI code. All Visual Studio 2010 developed. Most of which is 2008 compliant which I intend to update in order to be 100% 2008 compliant. RuneEngine is developed against XNA 4.0 and .NET 4 runtimes. I want to make a few minor changes to allow XNA 3.1 compilation, but I may never do this unless at some point I am asked to do so. The C++ Native build is in a semi skeletal structure, but has no executable implementation at this time.
Recent Changes-
I have recently updated the assemblies and consolidated them to be more concise and promote stronger modularity. The new list of the core dlls is as follows:
- RuneEngine.dll
- RuneEngine.Content.dll
- RuneEngine.Components.dll
- RuneEngine.Components.Baseline.dll
- RuneEngine.Graphics.dll
- RuneEngine.IO.dll
- RuneEngine.Physics.dll
- RuneEngine.Scene.dll
I have removed the Math, Threading and Sorting dlls. And moved their contents to the RuneEngine.dll. These 3 DLLs were being used or intended for use across many parts of the engine and made more sense to be in the core kernel assembly.
RuneEngine.Components.dll and the RuneEngine.Scene.dll were rewritten against C++/CLI in order to improve performance. This improvement will only apply to Windows Games if I cannot get the new dlls to compile for XBOX 360, though to my understanding this is possible.
RuneEngine.Components.Baseline.dll was added as a C# features dll or test bed for components that will be added. In this DLL you're going to find core features needed for most to all games. Such as health information components, event system related components, terrain system, and tile map systems for 2D and 3D. In the RuneEngine.Components.dll there will be all minimal requirements for a game. Core implementations for rendering, movement and sorting logic. Everything here should be used in every game unless your game is strictly 2D or strictly 3D. A 3D game will generally use every component in this DLL, but it does not HAVE to use the 2D features here. Also, any base component objects are here and are available for inheritance to expand upon them.
Performance-
So, how is performance looking? I can get, on my machine, 17,000 moving and rotating textured cubesrendering with a basic lambert lighting algorithm in a deferred rendering environment at 30FPS with ~20% CPU usage. Machine specs are expected to vary, but this is greatly optimized from comparison to before. 65535 non-moving textured cubes can be rendered at ~300-400 FPS.
I have consolidated my largest bottlenecks in performance to XNA itself. There are a few areas of overhead from the engine, but primarily they are minimal issues and can be ignored as they can not be improved easily or they already have to a point I have not found methods for further improving them at my current ability.
What's To Come? --
Ok, this is something not being mentioned enough. What is all of this for and what will it be used for? So, there has been some mention of a game being built with the engine. At this time it is scoped to be a 2D side scroller. If things change on a resources standpoint it will transition to 3D. The game is still being kept pretty thoroughly underwraps as far as what it's about etc etc. Once a playable prototype is running there will likely be a more official announcement and video for it.
Is RuneEngine only going to support core engine features? This is not going to be the end result of RuneEngine V2. As I develop the working title many of the components will go into a new assembly RuneEngine.Components.Sidescrolling.dll This dll will contain many components and features necessary for any side scrolling game. And yes, there will be side scrolling features for 3D games as well regardless of the projects end platform.
That being said, will RuneEngine V2 only have features for sidescrollers? I hope no one thought this would be yes. I actually have plans and some layout for many other features such as this. Here is a list of component assemblies which are intended to be added as well:
- RuneEngine.Components.Sidescrolling
- RuneEngine.Components.RolePlaying
- RuneEngine.Components.Adventure
- RuneEngine.Components.Strategy
- RuneEngine.Components.FirstPerson
Ok, this list has actually received a lot more thought than it may appear. I know there is not Action, Shooter, Racing and many other genres. However, if you pay attention to this list carefully and think about each of these basic subsets and what they may contain. This list is a compilation of the genres which actually contain substantial unique elements to their genre. Adventure for example is going to contain components for 3D platformer elements like puzzles and basic action combat. Features easily extending to make the next hack and slash Action game like God Of War. RolePlaying is going to contain primarily data components for handling statistics and algorithms for damage and experience. Adjustable parameters for curve adjustments etc. Strategy contains elements for unit manipulation and resource gathering. There will be many unique data components here as well which are simpler than the RPG elements since they need to happen on a larger frequency.
Those reading this are probably starting to wonder, what if I don't want to make a turnbased RPG? Like I mentioned earlier though this is mainly data and some UI components. Basic movement can be handled by the baseline components however, if you use the Adventure components for movement and combat and RPG for stats you have the next Action RPG. A fairly compelling approach to making games like Kingdom Hearts for example.
The Strategy components are not restricted to turn based or real-time either way. There will be a few unique components for each, but overall we're looking at a pretty broad topic.
First Person should be self explanatory, but if not here it goes; IT WILL NOT EXIST!!!! First Person shooters only have one or two unique factors so they will not justify a unique Assembly. The first person movement and the mechanics for firing a weapon will be between two separate components in the baseline assembly and can easily be implemented a new for custom behaviors. If with this development pattern I do find that shooters are difficult to complete with the Engine as it is, I will add a Shooter components assembly, but it is not intended for initial features.
Time Line--
No, I'm not going to wait for all the above to be completed before making potential releases. However, the working title game will be released first. There may be some alpha/beta release builds of the engine though.
The components DLLs mentioned above will be built in the same order they were written above. Which is funny since the next title I have in mind after the current one is a RTS. It will pull from RolePlaying and Adventure features so they will come first. Also, RolePlaying may be used for the current working title though that is undecided as even if its features are used the working title will have no visible exterior of a RPG.
At this time I do not have the means to put official dates or even presumable dates on any of this, but I did want to give a little scope as to how things are progressing and where things will progress towards.
Thanks,
