README.md

• What is TDME2?

  • ThreeDeeMiniEngine2 is a lightweight C++11 based 3D engine including tools
  • TDME2 is open source
    • please check the license
    • you find the source code at https://github.com/andreasdr/tdme2
    • you find binary alpha builds at http://drewke.net/tdme2
    • you find developer documentation including collaboration graphs and private API as well as public API for current alpha build at http://drewke.net/tdme2-documentation/alpha
      • RapidJSON is included, but not yet integrated into documentation, please see http://rapidjson.org/

• What is already working

  • 3d engine
    • model parsing
      • WaveFront OBJ
      • DAE parsing with skinned meshes and animations
        • group names/ids must not have whitespace characters
        • requires baked matrices
      • FBX via FBX SDK
      • TDME Model file format
        • this is a much more efficient model file format for TDME
        • can be read and written
      • DAE and WaveFront OBJ files require triangulated meshes for now
    • objects/entity types
      • 3d model based objects with
        • animations
          • supports model object base animation and animation overlays
          • supports animation blending
        • skinning via
          • CPU on GL2, GL3+/CORE, GLES2
          • GPU via compute shaders with GL4.3+/CORE, Vulkan
          • which also supports several instances of the same object to reduce compute and render calls
        • both animations and skinning have some sort of configurable LOD functionality
        • texture transformations/animations
          • via texture matrices
      • objects with support for LOD
      • render group objects for foliage and such including LOD support
      • particle systems which
        • are object based
        • or point based, including sprite sheet animation support
        • or for fog purposes
        • and support
          • basic/point emitter
          • sphere emitter
          • bounding box emitter
          • circle on plane emitter
          • ...
        • there is also support for particle system groups
      • lines based objects
      • entity hierarchy objects
    • object/entity transformations
      • scaling
      • rotations
      • translation
    • color effects on objects/entities
      • color addition
      • color multiplication
    • lighting
      • supports phong lighting
      • supports phong shading on GL2, GL3+/CORE,
      • supports gouraud shading on GLES2
      • supports diffuse mapping on GLES2, GL2, GL3+/CORE, Vulkan
      • supports specular shininess mapping on GL3+/CORE, Vulkan
      • supports normal mapping on GL3+/CORE, Vulkan
    • custum shaders that currently include
      • lighting + depth fog
      • lighting + foliage + depth fog
      • lighting + tree + depth fog
      • lighting + terrain + depth fog
      • lighting + water + depth fog
      • solid(no lighting + no depth fog)
      • sky(no lighting + no depth fog + fragment depth at maximum)
    • shadow mapping
    • early z rejection
    • post processing
      • depth blur
      • SSAO
    • object picking
    • camera control
      • set up look from, look at, up vector can be computed
      • frustum culling via oct tree
    • supports offscreen instances
      • rendering can be captured as screenshot
      • rendering can be used (in other engine instances) as diffuse texture
    • screenshot ability
    • multiple renderer
      • GLES2, GL2, GL3+/CORE and Vulkan(still experimental)
  • physics via ReactPhysics3D 0.7.0
    • have sphere, capsule, obb, convex mesh, concave terrain mesh bounding volumes
    • have multiple bounding volumes per body
    • have static, dynamic rigid bodies and collision bodies
    • uses discrete collision detection
    • rigid body simulator
    • ray tracing
    • for RP3D internals and additional features see ReactPhysics3D website
  • path finding
    • uses A*
    • is paired with physics world to determine if a "cell" is walkable
    • optional custom walkable test
  • 3d audio
    • decoder
      • ogg vorbis decoder
    • audio entities
      • streams
      • sounds
  • GUI system
    • borrows some ideas from Nifty-GUI regarding XML and layouting
    • borrows some ideas from AngularJS like
      • all nodes are in the GUI node tree and can be made visible or unvisible depending on conditions
    • adds some improvements like
      • support auto keyword with nodes width and height attributes
      • layouting on demand in combination with conditions
    • supported primitive nodes from which compounds are built of
      • element
      • image
      • input
      • layout
      • panel
      • scrollbars
      • space
      • text + multiline text
    • supported compound elements
      • button
      • checkbox
      • dropdown
      • image button
      • input
      • knob
      • progress bar
      • radio button
      • scrollarea both
      • scrollarea horizontal
      • scrollarea vertical
      • selectbox
      • selectbox multiple
      • slider horizontal
      • slider vertical
      • tabs
    • includes a simple script language
      • to react on events with like on-mouse-click, ... and on-change for elements
      • to manipulate conditions of elements, values of element controller and node properties
    • supports position and color based effects
  • Networking module, which consists of
    • UDP server
      • n:m threading model with non blocked IO via kernel event mechanismns(epoll, kqueue or select)
      • supports safe messages with acknowledgment and automatic resending
      • support fast messages
      • can be used in a heavy multithreaded environment (the networking module is thread safe)
      • IPV6 ready
    • UDP client
      • has single thread with a simple threadsafe API
      • supports all features required by UDP server
      • IPV6 ready
    • Simple HTTP client
      • uses a blocking TCP socket, thus it has a simple blocking API
      • Ready for REST providing all methods, setting content type and body
      • be able to set GET and POST parameters via unordered map
      • supports basic authentification
      • IPV6 ready
    • HTTP download client
      • supports basic authentification
      • uses a separate thread to download to file
      • IPV6 ready
  • Operating system abstraction layer
    • file system
      • standard file system
      • zlib based compressed archive file system and a tool to generate it from ./resources and ./shader folder
    • multi threading
      • barrier
      • condition
      • consumer/producer queue
      • mutex
      • read write lock
      • semaphore
      • thread

• What does it (maybe still) lack

  • physics
    • some more RP3D integration
  • example games
  • documentation

• What is WIP or planned

  • Makefile generator for TDME2 based projects
  • Installer
  • Water shader
  • Improve on Vulkan
  • PBR lighting shader for GL3/CORE+
  • Expose shader and post processing programs setup API
  • Some UI elements need some default skinning fixes
  • WaveFront OBJ model file reader is broken currently
  • Integrate a scripting language to be able to script TDME2 applications or sub logics
  • A release plan
  • A demonstration video

• Technology

  • designed for simple multi threading, but
    • 3D rendering engine uses multiple threads if using Vulkan renderer, or one thread only if using a GL renderer
    • UDP client has its own thread
    • UDP server can have multiple IO threads, multiple worker threads and always has its own server thread
    • HTTP download client has its own thread
    • physics or game mechanics can also run in a separate thread(s)
  • uses 3rd party libraries
    • need to be installed
      • GLUT
      • OpenGL
      • OpenAL
      • glew
      • pthreads
      • Vulkan(optional)
      • GLFW3(optional, required for Vulkan)
    • included in TDME2 repository
      • FBXSDK
      • libpng
      • ReactPhysics3D
      • RapidJSON
      • sha256
      • tinyxml
      • V-HACD
      • Vorbis/OGG
      • Vulkan
        • glslang
        • OGLCompilersDLL
        • spirv
        • VulkanMemoryAllocator
      • zlib
  • targeted platforms and its current state
    • Windows/MINGW(port completed)
    • Windows/MSC(port completed)
    • Linux(port completed)
    • Mac Os X(port completed)
    • FreeBSD(port completed)
    • NetBSD(port completed)
    • OpenBSD(port is WIP)
    • Haiku(port completed)
    • Android(port pending)
    • iOS(port pending)

• Links

  • TDME2 Engine, see README.md
  • TDME2 Model Editor, see README-ModelEditor.md
  • TDME2 Particle System Editor, see README-ParticleSystemEditor.md
  • TDME2 Level Editor, see README-LevelEditor.md
  • TDME2 How to build, see README-BuildingHowTo.md

• External references

  • "ReactPhysics3D" physics library, http://www.reactphysics3d.com
  • the world wide web! thank you for sharing

• Other credits

  • Mathias Lenz
  • Dominik Hepp
  • Kolja Gumpert
  • Mathias Wenzel
  • Sergiu Crăiţoiu
  • Chantal Zabel
  • others

• Interested in collaboration? Then drop me a line via mail or use the issues section on tdme2@github

  • You can help with testing and reporting bugs
  • I have easy to hard task regarding engine/tools development
  • I have tasks regarding documentation
  • I even might have system administrator tasks
  • If interested to get involved as software architect, I am currently looking for someone to review/improve parts of the architecture

• I have to pay my bills and beer, so if you have any use for this open source project, like educational, productive or fun, ..., consider a donation here https://www.paypal.me/andreasdrewke