JohnK Blog

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 02:51:58 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!

SunBurn Game Engine: A Whole New Level of Flexibility!

JohnK (WorkingOnTheSite) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:05:59 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Today we’re announcing the last couple of features in the upcoming SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.17 update, as well as a whole new level of modularity in the engine!

While the 2.0.17 update has some amazing new technology – like its advanced light mapping and blended transparencies:

We've actually been focused on making it as easy as possible for the community and team members to create, share, and use custom features / plugins.

Specifically we want to help support the great resources available for SunBurn like the IndieFreaks Framework, UjenT’s shader library, the fantastic BEPU integrations, as well as encourage new resources.

Over the past month we’ve released the SunBurn Resource SDK, which makes it easy to:

Develop plugins, examples, and other resources
Build and test resources on all SunBurn editions and platforms (regardless of the edition you use for development)
Package resources in a format that’s easily shared and installed

We’ve also launched the SunBurn Community Resources portal to provide a place to:

Upload, manage, and share your resources
Download and install released resources

And now the SunBurn 2.0.17 update includes enhancements to take resources and your own internal tools even further:

Opened up the SunBurn editor for custom plugins and enhancements
Automatic loading of plugins to add managers, components, editor enhancements, and custom code when the game starts up (requires NO code changes to the game, it’s all automatic)
Events for when components are added / removed from objects, and when objects are submitted / removed from managers
Objects are now aware of the managers that contain them, and managers of the scene interface that contains the manager (making it possible to locate the managers / scene interface associated with an object)

Let’s dive into some of the new features...

Editor Plugins and Customizations

Probably one of the most exciting new features; you can now plug in custom context menus, execute code, open windows / dialogs, and interact with objects currently selected in the editor!

This opens a whole array of new possibilities from custom property editors, to modifiers, even precision placement tools and more.

The api is also extremely easy to use, here is an example from the new SunBurn Plugin code template:

// This code shows how to register a custom editor context menu item that targets
// a specific type and its derived classes (in this case the code targets ISceneObject).
//
editor.AddCustomContextMenuItem<ISceneObject>("Example Rotate Command", "MyPlugin",
EditorSceneObjectContextMenuItemClick);

private void EditorSceneObjectContextMenuItemClick(SunBurnEditor editor)
{
// This code shows how the SunBurnEditor.SelectedObjects property can be used to
// manipulate objects selected in the editor.
//
Matrix rot = Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.ToRadians(90.0f));
foreach (object obj in editor.SelectedObjects)
{
ISceneObject sceneobj = obj as ISceneObject;
if (sceneobj == null)
continue;

sceneobj.World *= rot;
}
}

And of course this is completely compatible with the new plugin system – meaning your custom plugins can add editor menu items when loaded, providing any desired editor functionality along with the plugin’s engine features.

New Plugin Classes and Auto-Loading

We’ve also introduced an interface for plugins, which allows SunBurn to automatically load custom plugins and provide events for when the plugin should initialize and unload.

During initialization plugins can add custom managers to the scene interface, add editor context menu items, create necessary objects, and more. This means plugins can fully initialize and integrate into a game without making any changes to the game code. :)

Here is a sample from the SunBurn Plugin code template:

public class MyPlugin : IPlugin
{
/// <summary>
/// The plugin class receives a call to Initialize() for each
/// SceneInterface the game utilizes, and can use this event to add custom
/// managers to the SceneInterface, register editor context menu items,
/// run custom startup code, and more.
/// </summary>
public void Initialize(IManagerServiceProvider sceneinterface)
{
// This commented out code shows how custom managers are added to the SceneInterface
// during the Initialize() method:
//
// sceneinterface.AddManager(new YourCustomManager(sceneinterface));
//

#if !XBOX && !WINDOWS_PHONE
// This code shows how to register a custom editor context menu item that targets
// a specific type and its derived classes (in this case the code targets ISceneObject).
//
// The menu item will appear in the SunBurn editor context menu under the "Plugins"
// section when right-clicking on an object of the target type in the scene-tree,
// material list, or similar rollout panels.
//
// SunBurnEditor editor = (SunBurnEditor)sceneinterface.GetManager(SceneInterface.EditorType, true);
// editor.AddCustomContextMenuItem<ISceneObject>("Example Rotate Command",
// "MyPlugin", EditorSceneObjectContextMenuItemClick);
#endif
}

/// <summary>
/// Called when the game's graphics and disposable resources are no longer
/// used or are invalid (due to exiting the game or the graphics device
/// resetting). All resources should be disposed before exiting this method.
/// </summary>
public void Unload()
{
}
}

The plugin’s components and other “discoverable” classes are automatically made available when the plugin loads, so no extra code is necessary for these types.

More Info

This is one of the most exciting releases to date, and we’re very happy to say it will be available in the next couple of weeks. We’re eager to see the new features help your games as well as make creating and sharing resources even easier.

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!

New SunBurn Community Resources Portal!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:45:07 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Two weeks ago we rolled out a powerful new resource system for the SunBurn Game Engine, which makes it easy to build, share, and use SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, and more.

Now today we launched the SunBurn Community Resources portal, an entire section of the site dedicated to downloading and sharing SunBurn resources with the community!

We are also using the SunBurn Community Resources portal to distribute the official SunBurn examples - which are already ported to the new resource format, uploaded, and ready to use.

How to Use Resources

SunBurn resources are very easy to use – simply browse the Community Resources portal to find a resource. On the resource page select the download associated with the SunBurn version your project uses, and launch the downloaded package to install.

If the resource is an example or source code, it’s now ready to use. If the resource is a precompiled plugin it can be included in your project using the SunBurn Plugin Manager (in Visual Studio under the Tools menu).

How to Create Resources

Creating resources is just as easy – the SunBurn Resource SDK provides tools for creating, building, and testing your resources.

In Visual Studio, create a library or example project you’d like to share with the community, open the SunBurn Resource Packager and create a new project that contains the resource name, description, other information, and points to your resource’s Visual Studio solution.

Then press build to automatically build, package, and test the resource against all SunBurn editions and platforms it supports. Finally upload the resource to the Community Resources portal via your Synapse Gaming account.

The new resource is now visible in your account and can be published (or unpublished) whenever it’s ready to be used by the community.

To add additional releases simply make changes to your resource, repackage it using the same Resource Packager project, and upload the new package (same way as before) – the new package will be added to the existing resource as an additional release.

To create an entirely new resource open the Resource Packager and create a new project, package, then upload it.

More Info

The new resource packages require the latest SunBurn 2.0.16 Preview (updated last night!), if you want to check out the new resources and do not have the latest release, please make sure to download it first.

During the site update we also posted the latest SunBurn API docs for version 2.0.16, which includes the audio classes and namespaces as well as other api changes that occurred in the last release.

Now that the SunBurn Resource SDK and Community Resources portal are both released, the site and infrastructure are ready for SunBurn 2.0.17 and we’ll start talking more about the awesome features coming up soon. :)

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

SunBurn Launches Powerful new Community Plugin System

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:16:35 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Last night we rolled out a development preview of the SunBurn Game Engine’s new community plugin and resource system! The update provides tools and an SDK that makes it even easier to develop and share SunBurn plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more.

SunBurn Resource SDK

There are two parts to the system – first is the SunBurn Resource SDK, which allows resource developers to build plugins, examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more that can be used with all SunBurn editions and platforms regardless of the edition the resource developer uses.

As an example: a resource developer using SunBurn Indie edition can share resources with community members who are using Pro and Studio editions, and vice-versa.

The SDK includes the Resource Packager, which is a combination resource compiler and testing tool. It packs resources into a common format that’s easily shared, downloaded, and installed by community members or between members of your own team. The Resource Packager also performs test builds when packing resources to ensure they compile correctly against all SunBurn editions and platforms.

SunBurn Game Engine Enhancements

The second part of the system includes enhancements to the SunBurn Game Engine for installing and managing resources within your projects.

SunBurn’s resource installer unpacks examples, code snippets, tutorials, and more into a directory you choose, and unpacks only the projects necessary for the SunBurn edition installed on your machine. This avoids any confusion from extra project and solution files meant for other SunBurn editions.

If the resource is a plugin the installer registers its assemblies with SunBurn, so the plugin can easily be added to your SunBurn projects.

The update also includes a plugin manager for SunBurn projects, which is integrated into Visual Studio (all editions, including Express and the WP7 Dev Tools edition – please see the Tools menu), and makes it easy to add and remove plugins in any SunBurn solution.

Even better, you have complete control over which assemblies are assigned to each project within the solution, allowing you to choose only the plugin features and classes you want to use.

Some Background

We’ve envisioned a community resource system like this for a long, long time. However when we first launched SunBurn 1.0 a simple community resource wiki was more than sufficient for sharing code and ideas. Now that the community has grown significantly and there are many developers creating feature-rich resources the old wiki is no longer flexible enough.

The new community resource system takes over for the older wiki and provides a much easier way to create, share, and use community resources. And in the very near future we’re rolling out a section of the community site for uploading and browsing resources. :)

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

GameFest Wrap-up and SunBurn Developer Gathering

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:15:53 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

We’re back in the office this week after a fantastic GameFest, and finally getting settled back in. If you missed the conference or didn’t have an opportunity to stop by our booth, we had some amazing demos and games showing off the SunBurn Game Engine.

(Alex in the booth Monday morning before the expo floor opened to the public)

Featured demos:

Iron Hammer’s Crucible (on Xbox)
British Airways Mango demo (on both WP7 device and emulator)
Avatar Club (on Xbox)
SunBurn Editor (on Windows)

Included were two awesome SunBurn games for passers-by to play, and which kept us entertained for the entire conference:

Orbitron: Revolution by Firebase Industries
AvaGlide 2 by Haiku Interactive

(Alex racking up high scores on Orbitron: Revolution)

Our booth had a ton of traffic and there was a lot of interest in SunBurn as well as the featured games and demos. In fact during the GameFest party there was a fairly consistent line of people waiting to play Orbitron and AvaGlide.

Both Sunday and Monday night we held the first ever SunBurn Developer Gatherings, where developers had the opportunity to meet us and each other, ask SunBurn questions, see the latest features we’re working on, show off their projects, and generally hang out and have a good time.

The turnout was good and we received nice a group of developers, from old Pros like Adam Kane, the Firebase team, and MVP The Zman, to new SunBurn developers already working on some amazing projects.

(Adam Kane hanging with the Firebase team)

It was awesome to finally sit down and meet in person the people we interact with everyday. Thanks to everyone who joined us, and we’re looking forward to seeing you again! We’ll certainly keep an eye out for other opportunities to host future gatherings.

And if you missed GameFest this year definitely consider going next year, the conference is a lot of fun, relatively inexpensive, and a great time to meet other SunBurn and XNA developers. We hope to see you there!

-John Kabus

SunBurn Game Engine: Transparencies, Player Controller, and More!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 05:15:28 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

If you follow my blogs you know we’re adding a number of unannounced features to SunBurn Game Engine during the final phase of the early adopter. These features include things like; full material support when using light mapped lighting (see the screen shot below), workflow enhancements, and tightening up the api.

Now we’re ready to announce another block of new features, a new example project, and show a little sneak preview of our GameFest 2011 SunBurn demo...

Transparencies!

Yes, you heard correctly – we’re rolling out transparencies in the next SunBurn update! :) And not just any transparencies, SunBurn’s implementation supports both forward and deferred rendering, and renders in a single pass for optimal performance even in complex scenes.

The transparent rendering utilizes approximate lighting (aka composite lighting) to illuminate objects and even adds some transmittance of light through the surface (eg: inner glow).

SunBurn’s transparency modes now include:

None – the default, for opaque / solid objects
Clip – cuts out part of the material based on the diffuse alpha value (great for fencing, foliage, ...)
Blend – use blending to make the material partially transparent based on the diffuse alpha value (great for glass, crystal, ...)
Additive – make the material brighten objects behind it based on the diffuse alpha value (great for light beams, lasers, ...)

While there are very few limitations on transparencies, objects using Blend mode should be convex for best rendering quality (the other modes can render concave objects too).

Player Controller and Collision Sliding

We’re also introducing new features that enable you to drop objects into your games and have players immediately control them. First is the SunBurn InputManager, which maps key and button bindings to built-in and user defined events such as:

Object Move – with directional vector indicating player’s input on the bound keys, stick, or d-pad
Camera Move – with directional vector indicating player’s input on the bound keys, stick, or d-pad
Action (1 to n) – indicates the player press a button mapped to an action like jumping, firing, ...
User defined actions – easily add you own actions
As well as other built-in actions

These generic actions are used by the new player controller component to move and interact with the player object. Even better you can easily create custom events, key binding, and even controllers independent of each other, for quickly adding game specific controls.

As an example you could use your own controller that responds to the existing InputManager and events. Or use the existing system and add your own events that are passed through it to a custom component. Or all of the above – it’s entirely up to you.

To support smooth player movement we’ve enhanced SunBurn’s collision system, which now supports both its existing collision response as well as sliding for objects that should conform to surfaces instead of bouncing away from them. Also we’ve added overloads to ApplyForce() that allow you to specify the maximum velocity of the object. :)

GameFest 2011 Demo and New Example

This year at GameFest we’re showing off a demo called “Ironhammer’s Crucible”. The demo features a ton of new SunBurn features including:

Advanced Light Mapping
Transparencies
Player Controller
Input System
Scripted Events (like player death and respawning)
Audio System
Custom Effects
And much, much more!

(an early development shot of “Ironhammer’s Crucible”)

Even more awesome: this demo will become the next SunBurn example, available for you to download, check out, and use in your games!

RVSP for the SunBurn Developer Gathering!

This is a reminder to RSVP via email if you’d like to join us at the SunBurn Developer Gathering at GameFest!

Please note you’ll need to RSVP for a copy of the schedule – as this helps us plan the event by knowing how many people are attending.

We’re kicking off the conference on Sunday with an informal gathering at the Synapse Gaming suite, where we’ll show off SunBurn’s latest tech and talk with attendees about their projects and experiences. On Monday night after the GameFest conference party we’re opening the suite back up for more informal mingling, hang time, and discussions. (read more about the gathering)

The gathering schedule will be sent out shortly and will include more details about the event. We’re looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you there!

-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 social gathering: GameFest 2011 - be there!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:51:07 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Join us at GameFest Seatle on Sunday, August 21 – Tuesday, August 23 for three fun-packed days of SunBurn Game Engine discussions and technology. See the latest tech and demos we’re working on, get a chance to show off your projects, and play new unreleased SunBurn titles.

We’re kicking off the conference on Sunday with an informal gathering at the Synapse Gaming suite, where we’ll show off SunBurn’s latest tech and talk with attendees about their projects and experiences. This is an excellent opportunity to meet with us and fellow SunBurn community members, as well as show off your games and projects.

On Monday night after the GameFest conference party we’re opening the suite back up for more informal mingling, hang time, and discussions. Come and ask questions about SunBurn, show off your work, or just hangout.

We’re also available at the Synapse Gaming booth all day Monday and Tuesday to chat and meet with SunBurn developers.

And of course make sure to follow us on twitter and our community blogs for the latest news from GameFest and to locate us at the conference.

Not registered for GameFest yet? There’s still time – register now and hangout with the Synapse Gaming team!

Interested in joining us? Please rsvp for the gathering schedule, and so we can plan adequate snacks!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

-John Kabus

SunBurn Game Engine: Advanced Static Lighting

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:13:53 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

With the SunBurn Game Engine early adopter nearly complete and going amazingly well, we have the opportunity to release several big unannounced features that enhance the engine even further. While these features were planned at the beginning of the early adopter we had to keep them under wraps just in case they were bumped due to time constrains – but thankfully that’s not the case. :)

This blog post focuses on the first group of new features; SunBurn’s new advance static lighting…

Advanced Static Lighting

Since SunBurn 2.0 was announced its static lighting has mainly focused on supporting Windows Phone 7, and as a means of running Xbox and PC games on the phone with few if any changes. The static lighting is also a great way to add additional lighting to Xbox and PC games with little or no performance impact, and it looks fantastic too:

But it doesn’t support the complete SunBurn materials system... until now. :)

Parity with Dynamic Lighting

SunBurn’s new advanced static lighting is all about parity between static and dynamic lighting, and making sure both support the same features, look near identical, and are, for all intents and purposes, interchangeable (and of course you can still mix static and dynamic lights together in your scenes for optimal performance).

As a brief refresher SunBurn provides several types of static lighting:

Light Mapping – bakes down illumination and shadows from static light sources into lighting textures applied to the object. Perfect for static / non-moving scenery.

Approximate Lighting – calculates per-frame approximately how much lighting an object receives from nearby static light sources. Perfect for dynamic / moving objects.

Custom Lighting – new option that allows you to specify the lighting amount / color received by an object. Great for fine tuning object lighting or intentionally highlighting objects in the scene.

Full Material Support

With advanced static lighting the complete SunBurn material system is now supported on all static lighting types. This includes support for:

Bump, specular, parallax, and emissive mapping
Color specular
Alpha clipped transparencies (including alpha clipped shadows) – for foliage, fencing, and similar materials
And more...

This has a dramatic effect on the scene’s visual detail, as you can see in the comparison below which shows both the original static lighting (which you can still get simply by removing the material normal maps) and the advanced lighting:

As mentioned above you can still mix dynamic and static lighting together for optimal performance, which is shown in the following comparison of the scene using only dynamic lights and then a mix of static and dynamic lights:

And the same awesome material features are also supported by approximate and custom static lighting, as seen in this screenshot of a few dynamic barrels using approximate lighting (using an unbarrel-like rock texture to show off the parallax):

Improved Light Mapping

We also improved the light map quality and detail – the lighting is more crisp, shadows are softer, and overall the lighting looks even better. This allows you to reduce the light map resolution even further, making the game’s package size and memory usage lower, while still getting the same great results.

You can also change the light map resolution per-object, setting the light map texture to any size in the range of 64x64 up to 1024x1024. This allows tuning both the lighting quality throughout the scene and the overall package size / memory usage.

Even with the new advanced static lighting SunBurn’s light maps take up very little space on disk and in memory. The new features add only a 6.5% size increase to the light maps (WP7 light map size did not increase) and still fully support texture compression with no loss of quality on bump, specular, parallax, or other material options.

More to Come

And there are a lot more exciting features to announce, but for now I’ll leave you with a little teaser:

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 Storms into Dream Build Play!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:41:00 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

As you’ve probably heard, this year’s SunBurn Dream Build Play entries already made quite an impression on XNA developers, gamers and the game media alike. There are a number of fantastic new games entered into Dream Build Play, developed by both new and prominent members of the SunBurn community.

One in particular; Orbitron: Revolution, is not even available to play - yet STILL landed an article on Kotaku based only on the trailer! Not to mention the trailer video racked up over 23,000 views in just a few days. :)

This year’s entries do an excellent job showing off how much talent we have here in our community and the power of the SunBurn Game Engine.

Here are just a few examples that come to mind...

Orbitron: Revolution

This unbelievably polished game was developed by Firebase Industries and community member FrontlineFire (an employee at Firebase). It builds on elements of the classic game Defender, while providing an updated experience, many unique game modes and power-ups, as well as online leaderboards.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

The game is simply stunning. Its visuals look like they’re straight out of a retail / boxed console game – and it proves indies can create AAA quality when given the right tools and a great team.

As mentioned above this game is extremely hot right now, the team landed an article on Kotaku using only the trailer, and the trailer itself has had over 23,000 views in the few days since it was posted.

AvaGlide 2

Haiku Interactive’s follow up to AvaGlide, one of the most relaxing and enjoyable games on XBLIG. Take your avatar to the skies and hang-glide through fantastic levels enjoying the scenery, or race against time to compete with other players’ online scores.

The guys at Haiku added several new game modes, new locations, and even more detailed and beautiful environments to AvaGlide 2.

While AvaGlide 2 is not yet available you can start enjoying the AvaGlide experience with the original, available on Xbox and PC.

Progenitor

An online multiplayer battle game developed by Exato Games and community member / Microsoft MVP Andy “Zman” Dunn. The game offers an incredible number of features including a mix of real-time strategy and action elements.

It also features both unit and opponent AI, as well as multiplayer game modes, which allow you to play coop or versus a friend.

Awesome Work!

We want to say "Congratulations!" to every SunBurn developer who submitted a game in Dream Build Play. As always we’re extremely impressed with the great games coming out of this community.

And we wish you all the best luck in the competition!

If you have a SunBurn game submitted in Dream Build Play let us know, we’d love to hear about it!

-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 powers British Airways demo at Microsoft's WP7 Mango event

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:55:00 GMT

Last week at the Windows Phone Mango event, Microsoft showed off a fantastic virtual check-in demo we helped develop for Microsoft and British Airways. The demo couples a traditional UI for ticket confirmation / flight details with an interactive 3D world for seat selection.

The app was demoed live by Derek Snyder (senior product manager in Microsoft’s Windows Phone division), and has been featured on a number of media sites.

The 3D world is of course powered by the SunBurn Game Engine, and features its beautiful lighting and rendering as well as full Silverlight integration, collision detection for seat selection, and more. More importantly, using SunBurn allowed us to develop the entire 3D demo from scratch in only two days.

The demo also takes advantage of the Windows Phone’s built-in gestures like flicking, tapping, and dragging, which (along with SunBurn) meant we did not have to worry about input handling.

Overall working on the demo was amazing, and a lot of fun. As a bonus the demo is a huge success – it’s catching a lot of media attention, and it sounds like Microsoft will be using it even more in the future.

“We are impressed with Synapse Gaming’s demo, rendered with all their superb lighting skill and know-how. It looks *amazing.*” – PAUL FOSTER, Developer Evangelist, Windows Phone at Microsoft

Creating the Demo

So how did we create the demo? The demo was surprisingly easy to build thanks to the SunBurn Game Engine and also Microsoft’s project ideas which were well defined and easy to conceptualize.

Microsoft’s core goals:

Run the demo on Mango with full integration of the Silverlight UI
Provide an interactive top-down 3D view of the plane for initial seat selection
Provide a 1st person flythrough to the selected seat
Allow selecting a different seat while in the 1st person perspective

Not bad, but we only had two days to build the entire 3D demo from the ground up.

Silverlight Integration

We were surprised how easy Silverlight integration was. While conceptually Silverlight’s 3D rendering and game management is very different than XNA, its design is exactly like the standard xaml page layout.

After checking out a lot of examples that showed how to modify a game to match the new Silverlight design, we instead opted to connect Silverlight to the existing XNA Game class, allowing both the new and old designs to work together.

We started with the default Silverlight Windows Phone 3D Graphics Application project template, added the default SunBurn Starter Kit Game.cs to the project, and wired up Silverlight to XNA with the following code (from the GamePage.xaml.cs):

public partial class GamePage : PhoneApplicationPage
{
GameTimer timer;
ContentManager content;

// Demo classes.
AbstractedGame abstractedGame;

...

protected override void OnNavigatedTo(NavigationEventArgs e)
{
IGraphicsDeviceService graphics = SharedGraphicsDeviceManager.Current;
graphics.GraphicsDevice.SetSharingMode(true);

GameServiceContainer services = new GameServiceContainer();
services.AddService(typeof(IGraphicsDeviceService), graphics);

// Demo class.
abstractedGame = new AbstractedGame(graphics, services, content);
abstractedGame.LoadContent();

timer.Start();

base.OnNavigatedTo(e);
}

protected override void OnNavigatedFrom(NavigationEventArgs e)
{
timer.Stop();

abstractedGame.UnloadContent();

SharedGraphicsDeviceManager.Current.GraphicsDevice.SetSharingMode(false);

base.OnNavigatedFrom(e);
}

private void OnUpdate(object sender, GameTimerEventArgs e)
{
GameTime gametime = new GameTime(e.TotalTime, e.ElapsedTime, e.IsRunningSlowly);
abstractedGame.Update(gametime);
}

private void OnDraw(object sender, GameTimerEventArgs e)
{
GameTime gametime = new GameTime(e.TotalTime, e.ElapsedTime, e.IsRunningSlowly);
abstractedGame.Draw(gametime);
}
}

So why use this method? In addition to integrating Silverlight and XNA it has the added benefit of:

Simpler integration – allows you to maintain the game’s existing XNA design
Compatibility – allows you to run the same game on Windows, Xbox, and WP7 (pre-Mango)

Why is this helpful? We were able to run full Silverlight integration on the Mango developer tools – yet still test 3D performance on existing non-Mango phone hardware. It also allowed us to run the SunBurn editor on Windows for editing – and would have made an Xbox build easy. And all without any duplicate code.

Interactive Flythroughs

Because the airplane cabin was longer than the screen height we implemented a path system for the top-down camera to scroll along based on user interaction. The same system was also used for the 1st person flythrough, where the camera travels down the aisle to the selected seat.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

For each path we added an scene group, which contained waypoints (scene entities) with sequential names (“waypoint_1”, “waypoint_2”, ...).

The paths were extracted on load and assigned to the camera object when the camera should follow the path (based on events like selection that occur during the demo).

When in the top-down view or after finishing the 1st person flythrough the user is given control of the camera and can use gestures to move around the cabin using:

Flick – fly quickly through the cabin with smooth momentum
Drag – move small distances with accuracy
Tap – stop moving or select a seat

Seat Selection and Highlighting

Seat selection and highlighting was actually the easiest part of the project. While many of the seats were joined into a single object (to reduce draw calls during rendering), the open / selectable seats were kept separate to allow interacting with them individually.

To perform selection the demo simply casts a ray from the users touch location into the scene to determine which, if any, seats are hit. If a seat is hit it becomes the selected seat and the camera follows the 1st person path to the seat location.

For highlighting, the open and selected seats are rendered with an additional pass that tints the seat color. The effect we were looking for was achieved with a single BasicEffect with no texture assigned, the selection color in the DiffuseColor property, and using additive blending.

Optimization

The performance of the final demo was very smooth, however we did hit a few performance issues along the way – oddly all of them related to the number of vertices in the cabin model.

Unlike a more traditional gpu, phone hardware operates on very, very ,very little power, and unfortunately has similarly low performance. This makes minor issues like overdraw and vertex count much more noticeable than on Windows / Xbox.

After some heavy testing we determined a cabin model around 30K-40K polygons (~32K vertices) would keep the scene running smooth even at full resolution and with some overdraw (from the overlapping seats).

However the model still needed a second uniquely mapped uv channel for light mapping, and this would split vertices at the edge of light map uv islands, increasing the vertex count (and reducing performance).

As a test we tried SunBurn’s built-in unwrapper, which was surprisingly efficient considering the complexity of the model. While it only inflated the vertex count to around ~39K it was still more than we could allow in the scene.

Instead we manually unwrapped the second channel and were able add light mapping without affecting the vertex count and performance very much.

Polish

For some final polish we included a fade transition between the top-down and 1st person flythrough cameras.

The transition uses SunBurn’s post processing system and performs a simple transparency blend between views rendered to texture from the two cameras.

Get SunBurn!

If you’re a SunBurn developer make sure to check out the latest release (SunBurn 2.0.15) for new features like automatic unwrap, the audio system, and more.

And if you’re not get started today!

Let us know if you have any questions or comments!

-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 2.0.15 Released - Audio System, Reflections, and Auto-Unwrap!

JohnK "bobthecbuilder" — Fri, 27 May 2011 07:33:17 GMT

Hello SunBurn community!

Today is the day – the much anticipated SunBurn Game Engine 2.0.15 update is now available! :)

This release includes a number of awesome new features, and several requests by the community for Dream Build Play.

Latest Features

Audio System

As announced in my last blog SunBurn now includes a full audio system with 3D location-based sounds (volume and direction change relative to the listener), ambient sounds (constant volume, not based on location or listener), looping and single-shot sounds, and support for both *.wav and *.mp3 file formats.

The system is fully integrated into the SunBurn editor and allows importing sounds, and creating / editing emitters in your scenes.

And like all of SunBurn you have direct access to the same great features in code.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Automatic UV Unwrap

In previous releases light mapped models required a second uniquely UV-ed texture channel for light mapping. This involved manually creating the channel and ensuring it was unique (eg: all geometry has its own dedicated area on the texture map) before light mapping the model in SunBurn.

Now SunBurn provides the option to automatically unwrap (uniquely UV-map) your model for you. This makes it easy to import virtually any model and light map it without editing the source model.

And of course SunBurn will leave any existing UV channel intact, allowing you to create a more optimal UV-map and use it instead.

Reflections and Refractions

This update also includes the recently announced return of reflection and refraction. The feature works exactly like SunBurn 1.x and even includes an updated version of the SunBurn Reflection / Refraction example!

(Please visit the site to view this media)

And Lots More

And there are a ton of other features like:

Add custom rendering passes to your objects / entities
Modify asset build options in the SunBurn editor
Assign assets to your custom objects / entities using drag and drop properties (in-editor)
Render custom icons and helpers for your objects / entities (in-editor)

Get it Now!

The release is now available in the Downloads section, and includes the previous seven examples plus the updated SunBurn Reflection / Refraction example. So check it out now, and let us know what you think of the new features!

If you have any questions or comments please 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!