JohnK Blog

SunBurn 2.1 EA - Now running DirectX 11!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:56:46 GMT

Hello SunBurn Community!

Today we dive into some awesome details about the coming SunBurn Game Engine 2.1 Early Adopter!

And I thought the best place to start is with the exciting new support for DirectX 11.x, which brings new devices (Microsoft Surface RT and Pro, and Windows Phone 8), features, and lots of new possibilities to SunBurn!

DirectX 11.x Device

Like mentioned in my last blog, SunBurn's new platform layer supports a number of target platform APIs including: DirectX 11.x, XNA, and in the future OpenGL. This allows SunBurn to run a range of hardware and devices, from pc, to Xbox 360, to the latest Microsoft Surface and Windows Phone devices.

While DirectX 11.x is just one of the supported platform APIs, it's a very important one that provides a lot of new features, performance enhancements, hardware support, and more.

It also runs on a wide variety of OSs - from Vista on up, including Windows 8 RT and WP8 - and it even supports older legacy hardware, all the way down to Shader Model 2.0.

Which SunBurn Features are Supported by the DirectX 11.x Device?

All of them. :) For instance:

Dynamic lighting and shadows
Light mapped lighting and shadows
All material features
Post processing (HDR, Bloom, ...)
Volume lighting
And much, much more

(SunBurn Game Engine 2.1 - in editor)

It also fully supports the:

SunBurn Editor
SunBurn developer tools

More importantly it does all of this without a single line of platform specific code in the entire engine. Instead the SunBurn platform layer handles all of the details under the hood!

This also means your SunBurn based games and apps are fully portable and can run on any platform / device SunBurn supports (including DirectX 11.x).

Awesome, so what are some of the benefits?

One of the most noticeable benefits is higher rendering performance. The DirectX 11.x device takes advantage of performance enhancements like: faster state changes, faster effect parameter changes, shader constant buffers, and more.

Two dramatic examples of this performance boost are:

Toggling open the SunBurn Editor in game is now nearly instantaneous!
Light mapping (relighting) in the SunBurn Editor is now on average 2-4x faster!

This translates into much faster workflow, and the same enhancements also help with higher game performance in general.

Shader Model 4.0 and up Support

Another huge new feature - you can now write shaders targeting shader model 4.0 and higher!

Unlike the stock DirectX 11 shader implementation, SunBurn allows you to:

Continue using FX files and Effect objects
Mix shader models within the same FX files (for instance separate techniques targeting SM2.0, SM4.0, ...)
Use both DirectX 9 and 10/11 style hlsl coding conventions
Has automatic support for existing SM2.0/SM3.0 shaders

Which means all of your existing shaders cleanly move forward into SunBurn 2.1. :) You can then take advantage of newer shader features when ready and at your leisure.

Shader Model 2.0 Support

Wait, what? Yes, shader model 2.0 is old, but there are a large number of machines and devices still running SM2.0 hardware. SunBurn 2.1 (including the game engine!) fully supports shader model 2.0, allowing you to target more or less all graphics capable hardware.

Which SunBurn features are supported on SM2.0:

Light mapped lighting and shadows
All material features
Post processing bloom
Volume lighting
And much, much more

(SunBurn Game Engine 2.1 - running shader model 2.0!)

But how do you test games on older hardware you might not have access to? The DirectX 11.x device allows choosing the shader model it (and the game) runs under.

This means you can simulate running games on shader model 2.0 systems, even when running on a newer, beefier development machine.

More to Come!

This is part of a rather extensive series about the new DirectX 11.x device - later we'll go it details about how to use many of the new enhancements, features, and more that come along with it!

Want to be the first to get your hands on the new SunBurn 2.1? Then become a SunBurn developer today!

Have any questions, thoughts, or comments? Let us know!

-John Kabus

SunBurn 2.1 EA - the Countdown Begins!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:09:22 GMT

Hello SunBurn Community!

The countdown begins! That's right, the new SunBurn Game Engine 2.1 Early Adopter is about to launch - and we're counting-down the next few weeks with blogs about all of the new features, tools, and supported platforms / devices.

So What is it?

(as Cat from RedDwarf would say "So, what is it?!")

SunBurn 2.1 eliminates the engine's dependency on XNA and allows us to support any number of platforms, apis, and devices.

As an example, for graphics SunBurn 2.1 now supports:

DirectX 11 / 10 - for desktop games, Windows Store games, Windows RT games, and more
XNA - for Xbox 360 games
And can support OpenGL in the future

Sounds like a lot changed

Actually no, we've ensured the platform changes did not affect the engine's api, game code, assets, workflow, and more.

Instead developing SunBurn games works exactly as it did before - the only difference is that you can immediately take advantage of SunBurn 2.1's new features, tools, and platforms. :)

How did you do that?

We've introduced the new SunBurn Platform Framework - a managed framework and toolset, which provides a common api for interacting with all supported platforms and devices.

This means code written for SunBurn Platform Framework will run on any and all platforms / devices supported by the framework.

The framework also adopted a similar api to XNA, meaning you can still easily migrate XNA games to SunBurn 2.1. :)

What's New in SunBurn 2.1?

Platforms, platforms, and more platforms! SunBurn 2.1 supports releasing games on the new Windows Store, running on Microsoft Surface devices (both Pro and RT!), and Windows Phone 8.

DirectX 11 and 10! SunBurn 2.1 supports a host of new graphics features including shader model 4.0 and up, inherent optimizations for shader constant buffers, state objects, and much, much more!

Legacy hardware! SunBurn 2.1 now allows targeting older and lower-power devices only capable of running shader model 2.0. And you still have access to SunBurn's advanced static lighting, materials, post processing, volume lighting, and more!

More to Come!

Like mentioned, we're counting-down the next few weeks with blogs about all of the new features, tools, and supported platforms / devices. Make sure to stay tuned for more!

Have any questions, comments, or thoughts? Let us know!

-John Kabus

Back from the Holidays and Happy 2013!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:02:43 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

We're back from the holiday break and hope everyone had an excellent time! It's exciting to be back, the holiday break is our favorite R&D period and we already have a ton of new toys lined up for 2013 (including SunBurn 2.1). :)

I notice the community stayed very active during the break, which is awesome! I'll personally be around to answer forum questions, check out the latest released SunBurn games, and check out new additions to the "Show what you're working on" thread.

While browsing the forums a couple of questions stood out, which it's helpful to answer here:

Does SunBurn 2.0 support developing on Windows 8?

Absolutely, in fact we use Windows 8 on many of our development machines! Make sure to install the prerequisite software before SunBurn 2.0.

Depending on your Windows configuration it may also be necessary to install:

.Net 3.5 runtime
Games for Windows LIVE redistributable

Skipping the SunBurn splash screen can cause an exception?

The engine gives you full control of when the splash screen is shown - it can be buried in a list of other splash screens or simply after your studio / publisher splash - however it will need to be displayed before calling into any SunBurn game code. Otherwise an exception is thrown in SunBurn stating that the splash screen has not yet been shown.

The splash screen sequence can be debugged in development by setting the static property SplashScreen.ShowInDevelopment to true.

Oh, and here's a photo from over the holiday when I was playing around with the latest SunBurn 2.1 preview shipped to contributors. It's SunBurn with full materials and advanced light mapping running on my new Windows RT Surface tablet. ;)

Have any questions or comments? Let us know!

-John Kabus

Announcing SunBurn 2.1 - Platform Independent Game Engine!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 01:06:00 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Over the past year we've quietly worked on several awesome new advancements to the SunBurn Game Engine - and now, at long last, we're ready to start announcing the details!

Platform Independent

Starting with the upcoming SunBurn 2.1 the SunBurn Game Engine is now platform independent - it no longer relies on XNA (or any single api) to run games. Instead your games can deploy and run on any number of target platforms and devices.

With this SunBurn 2.1 adds support for a variety of new frameworks like DirectX 11+ and WinRT, which allow you to release games on the latest Windows devices (including WinRT devices).

Which device OS's are already supported by SunBurn 2.1:

Windows Desktop (XP - Windows 8)
Windows Metro / Modern (for apps and games released through the Windows 8 marketplace)
Xbox 360
Windows Phone 8
Windows Phone 7 / 7.5
And support for even more are planned in future updates (yes, including iOS :).

Free Update!

And of course SunBurn 2.1 is a free update, like all of the updates we release!

SunBurn Game Engine licensees will gain access to the SunBurn 2.1 update before the public beta. Which means the best way to get early access is to join the SunBurn developer ranks!

How Does it Work?

SunBurn now includes its own platform layer that looks similar to XNA and presents game developers with the same clean and easy to use api regardless of the underlying device / OS.

Under the hood the platform layer could be running XNA, DirectX, WinRT, or any future supported frameworks, but this is all transparent to the game and game developer.

Here are some details based on questions we've been asked:

Will my existing game code work in 2.1?

Yes, the SunBurn platform api is nearly identical to XNA and for most classes / methods it's a drop-in replacement.

Do I have to learn a new api?

No, as mentioned above the api is very similar to XNA, so there's not much to learn.

Can I access the underlying OS framework (like DirectX 11+, ...)?

Yes! The SunBurn platform api exposes the underlying OS framework (XNA, DirectX, …), which allows you to create platform specific features for games and take advantage of device specific features.

More to Come!

There is a lot more info to come and many new features to introduce, so stay tuned for more announcements!

So which devices would you like to see SunBurn support next? Let us know!

-John Kabus

Awesome new SunBurn and Community Updates!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:54:35 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Today we posted two new updates! The first is to the community site, which makes it even easier to browse the examples, plugins, and more you're looking for.

The other is to SunBurn 2.0 (version 2.0.18.F) - it includes a number of performance tweaks, enhancements, fixes, and more.

Community Site Enhancements

Probably the most noticeable update is in the Community Resources section and allows you to filter resources by SunBurn edition! Meaning you can now filter out resources that do not pertain to the edition you're using.

We also added the ability to deep-link into searches, making it easy to share the results with other community members.

As an example:

The SunBurn Framework "prerequisites" page was updated to include a link to Visual C# 2010 Express in the required software list, which should make getting started even easier for new users.

SunBurn Updates

The SunBurn 2.0.18.F refresh supports creating and sharing community resources that target the Framework and "splash screen-free" Studio editions (in addition to the existing Indie, Pro, and Studio editions).

SunBurn's 2D rendering now supports transparency sorting between multiple SpriteContainers, allowing you to layer sprites into several containers and use blended transparent materials on the sprites.

We also included fixes for issues like: a rare exception when sprite rendering on Windows Phone, and an XNA memory leak related to sampler states (a big thanks to Zman for finding how to avoid the leak!).

Check it out!

Make sure to check out the latest updates and let us know what you think!

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started
Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview! - integrated physics, enhanced terrain, and more!
SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller! - easily manipulating objects based on input from the player!
SunBurn 2.0.18 Released - Physics, Char Controller, More! - definitely one of SunBurn's most exciting releases!
New sgMotion Plugin and the SunBurn 2.0.18 Refresh! - integrate sgMotion automatically using the SunBurn plugin system!
Latest SunBurn 2.0.18 Update Available! - includes several new features, enhancements, as well as fixes.
New SunBurn Examples - Learn to Create Scenes in Code! - new example showing how to create scenes in code.
SunBurn 2.0 goes Gold! Framework Edition Ships Too! - it's official! SunBurn 2.0 is released!

SunBurn 2.0 goes Gold! Framework Edition Ships Too!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:05:00 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

We're very excited to announce we've shipped the official gold release of SunBurn Game Engine 2.0!

The release is version 2.0.18.E, which we posted as a feature complete Release Candidate a few weeks back. Since then it's proven to be very solid and is now our official gold release!

Framework Edition is Back!

As promised the official SunBurn 2.0 release includes the fully updated and still free SunBurn Framework edition. :)

Of course the new Framework Edition now includes many of SunBurn Game Engine's latest features, like:

Dynamic lighting and shadows
Physics system
Audio system
Character controller
Full support for sgMotion and the sgMotion plugins
Access to the Dojo, WinForm, and Custom Physics examples

And did we mention it's still FREE? How awesome is that? :)

What's Next?

With the gold release of SunBurn 2.0 out, you can imagine we already have some amazing plans for SunBurn 2.1 (free upgrade, as always!) - which we'll start talking about very soon. ;)

Not to worry though! We're still posting service updates and fixes to SunBurn 2.0, its examples, plugins, and more. So if you find any bugs please let us know!

We also want to thank the SunBurn community for your awesome support, feedback, testing, and creativity during the SunBurn 2.0 early adopter. You've helped make this release awesome!

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started
Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview! - integrated physics, enhanced terrain, and more!
SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller! - easily manipulating objects based on input from the player!
SunBurn 2.0.18 Released - Physics, Char Controller, More! - definitely one of SunBurn's most exciting releases!
New sgMotion Plugin and the SunBurn 2.0.18 Refresh! - integrate sgMotion automatically using the SunBurn plugin system!
Latest SunBurn 2.0.18 Update Available! - includes several new features, enhancements, as well as fixes.
New SunBurn Examples - Learn to Create Scenes in Code! - new example showing how to create scenes in code.

New SunBurn Examples - Learn to Create Scenes in Code!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:39:00 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

This afternoon we released two new examples for the SunBurn Game Engine - as well as awesome updates to a number of existing examples!

Create Scenes in Code

The two new examples are modified versions of the existing Dojo and Custom Physics examples, which show how to create scenes and games entirely in code (without using the SunBurn Editor).

This is helpful when creating procedural levels, loading from custom level files, and even when spawning objects dynamically.

Other Updates

We've also updated several existing examples with new features and improvements, including:

Reflection / Refraction - support for standard transparent materials on reflection / refraction objects
Light Mapping - player character can now look in full range of motion (up, down, left, right)
Dojo - player character can now look in full range of motion (up, down, left, right)

Latest SunBurn 2.0.18 Update Available!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:54:32 GMT

Hello SunBurn Community!

Today we launched the latest SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 refresh! Just in time for Dream-Build-Play this update includes several new features, enhancements, as well as fixes.

What Does the Update Include?

The biggest enhancement is to SunBurn's physics, which makes manually rotating physics objects (via the object's World transform) much smoother.

The change disables motion-smoothing / buffered-states in the system by default. However object movement still looks just as good as in previous releases, so this should not affect existing games.

If you'd prefer to continue using the motion-smoothing / buffered-states, this can be re-enabled in code by setting:

PhysicsManager.BufferedStatesEnabled = true;

.. immediately after calling CreateDefaultManagers().

Another big update is to the BuildTangentSpaceDataForTriangleList() method available on SunBurn's vertex structs.

In the past the datatype of passed-in indices was assumed to be "short", and required converting the array to a short array if using a different datatype (for instance using "int").

Now however the method accepts the index datatype as a generic parameter, allowing you to pass-in indices of any datatype . :)

Some other great enhancements include:

Control of doppler effect on audio sources
Post processing manager now provides method for removing individual processors
GeometryExtractionHelper returns the correct cached geometry data even in highly complex scenes

More to Come!

While these features and enhancements are definitely awesome, they're just a very small part of the development we've been working on lately. :)

So keep an eye out for new features, announcements, and more! ;)

If you have any questions or comments about the update let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started
Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview! - integrated physics, enhanced terrain, and more!
SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller! - easily manipulating objects based on input from the player!
SunBurn 2.0.18 Released - Physics, Char Controller, More! - definitely one of SunBurn's most exciting releases!
New sgMotion Plugin and the SunBurn 2.0.18 Refresh! - integrate sgMotion automatically using the SunBurn plugin system!

New sgMotion Plugin and the SunBurn 2.0.18 Refresh!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:49:54 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

We just rolled out two exciting new updates for the SunBurn Game Engine!

The first is a complete sgMotion animation plugin for SunBurn - it includes editor integration, animation components, and more.

And second is a refresh of SunBurn 2.0.18, which provides correct plugin integration and an updated Resource SDK for resource developers.

sgMotion Animation Plugin

There is now an sgMotion Animation Library plugin for SunBurn, which provides complete integration of sgMotion features in the engine. As well as full access to the sgMotion and plugin source code for rolling your own changes, enhancements, and modifications.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

What do we mean by complete integration with SunBurn?

Import sgMotion Models into the SunBurn Editor

The plugin allows importing any model with embedded animations (like FBX and X files), and choosing the sgMotion model / animation processor for it in the SunBurn editor. The sgMotion models can be dropped into the scene and immediately used like any other model.

The SunBurn editor provides access to sgMotion's complete range of model and animation processor options, meaning you can setup models imported through the editor with same options as those imported in code.

Animation Component

Also included with the plugin is a simple and lightweight animation component that automatically detects any sgMotion model used by the scene object, extracts the available animations, allows you to play / switch animations, and handles updating the active animations for you.

To use this feature simply add the sgMotionAnimationComponent to any scene object with an sgMotion imported ModelAsset. Then call SwitchToAnimation() on the component to animate the object!

Integrated Animation Clip Editor!

Probably the most exciting feature is the Animation Clip Editor, which is completely integrated into the SunBurn editor! :)

You can right-click on any scene object in the scene-tree that contains an sgMotion model, select "Plugins -> sgMotion -> Edit Model Animations", and then add / modify / remove animation clips based on the model's root animations.

And of course there's a slick little animation viewer that shows the current object's model playing the selected animation. :)

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started
Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview! - integrated physics, enhanced terrain, and more!
SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller! - easily manipulating objects based on input from the player!
SunBurn 2.0.18 Released - Physics, Char Controller, More! - definitely one of SunBurn's most exciting releases!

SunBurn 2.0.18 Released - Physics, Char Controller, More!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:46:49 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

This morning we launched the much anticipated SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18! The update is definitely one of SunBurn's most exciting releases and contains tons of new features and enhancements, including:

Integrated Physics - we've introduced a lightweight and fast built-in physics system for SunBurn! It replaces SunBurn's collision system and provides realistic movement, reactions, adds friction support, and objects now conform to surfaces they rest on. The system also includes ray casting for calculating projectile impacts, line-of-sight, and more.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Both the new physics system and legacy collision are contained in a new assembly named "SynapseGaming-SunBurn-Physics.dll" which is entirely optional. If you don't need physics or collision simply omit the assembly from your project and the game / product will not include them.

Built-in Character Controller - we've added a character controller, which provides an easy and flexible way to move objects, cameras, and more around the scene. The controller exposes movement and rotation methods, as well as information about the object's physical state (whether on a surface, sliding, crouching, ...).

The new character controller is featured in the Dojo and Light Mapping examples, which show how to setup and handle input for the keyboard, mouse, gamepad, and touch controls.

Enhanced Terrain - the terrain system now supports physics / collisions, material properties like elasticity and friction, and control over terrain tiling. The terrain bounds is reduced to only the area covered by the tiles, meaning the terrain now culls based on visibility like other objects.

Much More - there are a ton of other features, enhancements, and improvements in the update! Things like:

New events on objects and components to indicate if created in the editor
Ability to search for objects by unique id
Additional editor camera controls and support for non-qwert keyboards
And much, much more!

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started
Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview! - integrated physics, enhanced terrain, and more!
SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller! - easily manipulating objects based on input from the player!

SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:50:15 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Last night we delivered a feature-complete preview of SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 to contributors! The release is now in testing and should be available very soon. :)

Along with SunBurn's new physics system and terrain enhancements, the release also includes a character controller for easily manipulating objects based on input from the player!

Character Controller

SunBurn's new character controller provides an extremely easy (yet flexible!) way to move objects, cameras, and more around the scene.

The controller exposes movement and rotation methods, as well as information about the object's physical state (whether on a surface, sliding, crouching, ...), and allows the developer to determine what input drives the controller.

So for example you can tie character controllers A, B, and C to gamepads 1, 4, and 2, while letting your AI drive controllers D, E, ... :)

You can also adjust properties per-object like speed, jump force, maximum height the object can step up onto obstructions, movement smoothing, and more.

Sounds easy? Well we've made it even easier!

The character controller is also an ICollisionMove object, meaning to control any object you simply set the controller on the object's CollisionMove property, then move it around. :)

As an example:

// grab control of the object...
ICharacterController controller = new PhysicsCharacterController();
objectToControl.CollisionMove = controller;

// now take charge of "objectToControl"!
controller.Rotate(angle);
controller.Move(Vector2.Forward);
...

Looks cool, but what if you'd prefer to assign controllers in the editor?

We've got you covered there too. :) SunBurn 2.0.18 also includes a wrapper component called CharacterControllerComponent, which allows you to control any scene object simply by assigning the component to it.

Better yet you can assign the component in either the editor or in code - and the component (as well as its wrapped controller) serialize with the parent object, meaning you can save the controller along with its properties to the scene and it will load again later with the scene.

Likewise the controller component can be included in prefabs, making it easy to create custom character templates / prefabs for use in your games.

And More!

This release is absolutely packed with new features, enhancements, and possibilities for your games - make sure to check out my previous blog for even more release details!

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started
Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview! - integrated physics, enhanced terrain, and more!

Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:00:58 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

We're kicking the year off with a huge new update to the SunBurn Game Engine!

Last night we released the SunBurn 2.0.18 preview to contributors for feedback, testing - and so they have a chance to update their awesome add-ons, frameworks, and resources with the latest features.

And very soon the update will be available to the entire community, after we add some finishing touches and run it through testing!

So what new features are in the SunBurn 2.0.18 preview?

Integrated Physics

That's right, we've introduced a very lightweight and fast built-in physics system for SunBurn! It replaces SunBurn's collision system and provides realistic movement, reactions, adds friction support, objects now conform to surfaces they rest on, and much, much more.

We've also added ray casting to SunBurn for calculating projectile impacts, line-of-sight, and more.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

The physics system uses a heavily modified, streamlined, and compact version of the Bepu Physics library. And a big thanks goes out to Ross Nordby creator of Bepu for help with the integration!

But what if your project uses the legacy collision?

No worries, the legacy collision system is still available and supports the same features as in previous SunBurn versions. :)

The CollisionManager and CollisionMove classes were moved to the "SynapseGaming...Collision.Legacy" namespace, but nothing changed in the implementation.

What if your project doesn't need physics or the legacy collision?

Again no worries. :) Both the new physics system and the legacy collision are contained in a separate assembly named "SynapseGaming-SunBurn-Physics.dll" which is entirely optional.

If you don't need either system simply omit the assembly from your project and the game / product will not include them.

That said the assembly is extremely small and adds only 160KB (compressed) to your distributable package. :)

Enhanced Terrain

We've also enhanced SunBurn's terrain system, adding collisions (via the new physics system), collision material properties like elasticity and friction, and much more.

But probably the biggest addition is control over terrain tiling, which was a hugely requested feature! :)

The terrain now defaults to a single tile and you can increase this (in the editor or in code) to tile as much or little as needed. Along with this the terrain bounding box is reduced to only the area covered by the tiles, meaning the terrain will now cull based on visibility like other objects in the scene.

Much More!

And there are a ton of other features, enhancements, and improvements in the update! Things like:

New events on objects and components to indicate if created in the editor
Ability to search for objects by unique id
Additional editor camera controls and support for non-qwert keyboards
And much, much more!

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!
New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example - lots of new resources to get started

New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:09:31 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

We’ve just updated the SunBurn Getting Started documentation to ensure it’s up to date with the latest SunBurn Game Engine features, and added several new articles covering topics like:

Silverlight WP7 Example

Today we’ve also launched the new SunBurn Silverlight WP7 example! It shows how to quickly and easily integrate SunBurn based games and projects with Silverlight WP7.

The example creates an abstract Game class that allows standard XNA games to run under Silverlight with few if any modifications. The design allows the same games and projects to continue running on Windows and Xbox, while sharing the same codebase, assets, and content projects.

Be sure to check it out and let us know what you think!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!
SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements! - Wow!

SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:45:45 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

It’s here! Today we released the SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.17 update – a massive update, which includes some fantastic new features and enhancements:

Advanced Static Lighting – adds support for SunBurn’s complete material system to static lighting, including bump, specular, parallax mapping, and even color specular textures. This brings static lighting like light mapping, approximate lighting, and custom ambient color up to par with SunBurn’s fantastic dynamic lighting!

Transparent Materials – adds blended transparency (like glass and plastic) and additive transparency (like illuminated huds and light sources) to SunBurn’s built-in materials. And these transparency effects can be combined with the material’s bump, specular, parallax mapping, and more.

Engine Plugins – easily add custom code, components, managers, and more to the engine. Then plug these features into your projects without writing any code.

Editor Plugins – create custom editor tools and dialogs, and add user access to them with context menus in the editor’s content rollout panel.

SunBurn Resource SDK – create and share custom code, components, managers, plugins, editor tools, and more.

Full WP7 Mango Support – integrate games and visualizations with Silverlight, take advantage of SIMD optimizations, and more.

And those are just the BIG features – there are a hundred other enhancements, improvements, fixes, and more we’ve added in this release!

Awesome Features not to Overlook

With so many new features and enhancements it’s easy to overlook some of the smaller ones, so we’ve picked three minor enhancements we think make development even easier and should not be missed:

Static Objects are now Indexed by Managers. That’s right, you can now search for any object by name using Manager.Find(“name”, out obj) regardless if the object is dynamic, static, ... it no longer matters, all objects are now indexed and searchable! :)

Friendly XNB File Names for Content Repository Assets. Assets contained in content repositories no longer use the default XNA filenames and instead use easy to remember names. As an example the model “.\Model\Scene.fbx” is now stored in the XNB file “Model/Scene.model” (instead of the XNA default “Model/Scene_<a number>”), and you can use this new path to load the model directly from the repository or content manager.

Remove Assets from the Content Repository. Yes, you can now remove unused assets from the content repository! :)

There are tons of other great features in this release, make sure to read through the release notes for details.

If you have any questions or comments let us know!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!
Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace! - Orbitron makes one hell of an impression on Xbox LIVE!

Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:51:00 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Talk about an exciting weekend! The awesome team at Firebase Industries just released Orbitron: Revolution - easily the most impressive looking game to ever hit the XBLIG channel!

Since its announcement Orbitron: Revolution has received a lot of attention, and even landed TWO articles on Kotaku:

Kotaku: The Prettiest Xbox Live Indie game You Ever Did See
Kotaku: This Indie Xbox Shooter is Pretty (and Cheap!)

And has made it onto the XBLIG Top Rated list - just check out the fantastic trailer to see why:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Other SunBurn Games

Orbitron: Revolution joins the ever growing ranks of SunBurn games on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Here are a couple fantastic titles to name a few:

AvaGlide - a fantastic game that takes your Avatar hang gliding over beautiful islands and active volcanoes.

Perkunas' Dragon - a new 2D game with an intriguing story line and featuring SunBurn's 2D rendering.

The $1 Zombie Game - a fun Zombie shooter that's stayed in the XBLIG Top 10 Downloaded games for months (congrats!).

Awesome work guys, we're wishing you all the best success with your titles!

Not a SunBurn developer yet? Get started now and build something amazing too!

-John Kabus

Other SunBurn 2.0 Blogs:

Announcing the SunBurn 2.0 Game Engine - free upgrade, new editions, and updated features
SunBurn 2.0 Collisions, Scenegraph, and Components - new collision system, components, and more
SunBurn 2.0 upgrade for our Torque customers - upgrade path for all of our previous TLK technology customers
SunBurn 2.0 goes Mobile on Windows Phone 7! - full Windows Phone 7 support, light mapping, and more
Holiday, Components, and more! - read about the new components and more
SunBurn 2.0: components, perfabs, and more! - more details about SunBurn's new component system
Festive SunBurn 2.0 Starter Kits, yum, yum! - first release of the new SunBurn Starter kit
SunBurn 2.0.10 update available - streamlined user experience and integrated starter kits
SunBurn Dev Journal: Scenegraph Optimizations - faster scenegraph and City Demo with 10,000 buildings
SunBurn 2.0.12 Update Now Available! - edit components and custom scene object types in editor
SunBurn Update: Windows Redistributable - ship Windows games using only the XNA Redistributable
SunBurn Dev Journal: Workflow Enhancements - background importing, shared materials, Visual Studio templates, and more
SunBurn 2.0.13 Update: Get it Now! - the latest goodies are now available
SunBurn 2.0.14 Update Available! - extended materials and sprite rendering on Windows Phone 7
SunBurn Dev Journal: Reflections and Clipping Planes - the return of the Reflection / Refraction example
SunBurn Game Engine: Audio System, Drag-Drop, and More! - announcing the new SunBurn audio system!
SunBurn 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap! - check out new the audio system and more
SunBurn powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event - Microsoft and British Airways chooses SunBurn for huge Mango event demo
SunBurn Game Engine Storms into Dream Build Play! - see the awesome SunBurn games in Dream Build Play 2011!
SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting - as awesome as SunBurn's dynamic lighting only faster!
SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More! - see the latest upcoming features
SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System - tools and SDK to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more
New SunBurn Community Resources Portal! - download and share the latest community resources!
SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility! - community resources, editor plugins, and more!

JohnK Blog

SunBurn 2.1 EA - Now running DirectX 11!

DirectX 11.x Device

Awesome, so what are some of the benefits?

More to Come!

SunBurn 2.1 EA - the Countdown Begins!

So What is it?

What's New in SunBurn 2.1?

More to Come!

Back from the Holidays and Happy 2013!

Announcing SunBurn 2.1 - Platform Independent Game Engine!

Platform Independent

Free Update!

How Does it Work?

More to Come!

Awesome new SunBurn and Community Updates!

Community Site Enhancements

SunBurn Updates

Check it out!

SunBurn 2.0 goes Gold! Framework Edition Ships Too!

Framework Edition is Back!

What's Next?

New SunBurn Examples - Learn to Create Scenes in Code!

Create Scenes in Code

Other Updates

More on the Way!

Latest SunBurn 2.0.18 Update Available!

What Does the Update Include?

More to Come!

New sgMotion Plugin and the SunBurn 2.0.18 Refresh!

sgMotion Animation Plugin

SunBurn 2.0.18 Released - Physics, Char Controller, More!

SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18: Built-in Character Controller!

Character Controller

And More!

Starting 2012 with style: SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.18 Preview!

Integrated Physics

Enhanced Terrain

Much More!

New SunBurn Documentation and Silverlight WP7 Example!

Silverlight WP7 Example

SunBurn 2.0.17 Released – Advanced Lighting, Transparencies, and tons of Enhancements!

Awesome Features not to Overlook

Orbitron: Revolution blasts onto Xbox LIVE Marketplace!

Other SunBurn Games