Irrlicht Engine - A free open source 3D engine

Welcome to the Irrlicht Engine

The Irrlicht Engine is an open source realtime 3D engine written in C++. It is cross-platform, using D3D, OpenGL and its own software renderers. OpenGL-ES2 and WebGL renderers are also in development. It is a stable library which has been worked on for nearly 2 decades. We've got a huge community and Irrlicht is used by hobbyists and professional companies alike. You can find enhancements for it all over the web, like alternative terrain renderers, portal renderers, exporters, world layers, tutorials, editors, language bindings and so on. And best of all: It's completely free.

05-Dec-04Irrlicht Forum hacked

Few hours ago, the Irrlicht Engine forum has been hacked. I don’t know exactly what they changed and how they did this, but it seems that they only changed the forum frontpage. I restored it, upgraded to a newer version of the forum and changed some passwords. That’s the only thing I can do. I you are a registered user in the Irrlicht Forum, please notice that your password may be insecure now.
From my personal point of view, I cannot understand why anybody would hack an open source project website like Irrlicht. I am doing this for free, and in my spare time, of which I currently don’t have a lot. I thought hackers have some honor, but obviously I was wrong here. The Irrlicht website isn’t the only 3D engine project which has been hacked recently: The one of Purple# is another example. I’m not pleased at all. Hey guys, if you want to stop people from creating great free and open source software, you are on the right way.

Some other, better news: This month, I received serveral submissions for the ‘shot of the month’. I chose the one sent in by Brent Cowan, which shows his game ‘Space Madness’.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News | Comments Off on Irrlicht Forum hacked

11-Nov-04New related projects

Some links to new Irrlicht related projects:

  • Bindenlicht is a Java(tm) binding for the Irrlicht Engine, bringing a high quality open source 3D engine to the Java(tm) platform.
  • 3D CakeWalk – a game development kit built around the Irrlicht engine. Discuss in the forum.
  • ProjectPSI is a project which aims to create a framework for a highly dynamic world simulation which will use Irrlicht for graphics.
  • My3DTools by ZDimitor, tools allowing to export lightmapped scenes from 3DMAX directly into Irrlicht.
  • IrrSED – Irrlicht Scene Editor

Updated the link page with these projects.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News, Projects | Comments Off on New related projects

25-Sep-04Irrlicht 0.7.1 released!

Irrlicht 0.7.1 is out. This is a non-SDK-release, which includes some major bug fixes, but no documentation, media files and examples. Only the source and precompiled binaries have been updated. If you don’t have any problems with Irrlicht 0.7, stay with it. Take a closer look at changes.txt if you want to know what was exactly fixed. You can get this release from the download section.

There is also a new shot of the week, sent in by Alvaro “afecelis” F. Celis. It shows a scene from his splitscreen demo and really looks cool. It looks even better in movement, so take a look into the forum and check it out. 🙂

By CuteAlien | Posted in News, Releases | Comments Off on Irrlicht 0.7.1 released!

18-Sep-04API documentation uploaded

I just uploaded the API documentation. As Irrlicht.NET is included in version 0.7, you’ll find a new entry in the left menu: API.NET. In addition, I updated some other parts of the webpage. This is the complete list of changes:

Please note that in version 0.7, there are some minor bugs with the setting of the correct renderstates. I’ll try to release a small bug fix package next week. If you cannot wait until then, visit the forum, you’ll find there bugfixes made by really quick people like jox. Another alternative would be of course IrrlichtNX, I think they’ve got most of the fixes included already.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News | Comments Off on API documentation uploaded

11-Sep-04Irrlicht 0.7 released!

Finally, after a lot of time, today I released Irrlicht 0.7. There are a lot of new features in it. This version was tested and made to work with 5 different compilers, 4 different IDEs and 2 operation systems. This was a lot of work, and I am really happy that it is out now. The new features are in short:

  • The first version of Irrlicht.NET is included in the SDK. It makes it possible to use Irrlicht from any .NET language like C#, VisualBasic and Delphi.NET. It is a very early version with very limited features, but it works.
  • Low level vertex and pixel shader programming support with the D3D8, D3D9 and OpenGL renderers.
  • VSync option.
  • Text scene node.
  • XBOX project setup support.
  • Better Linux support: all examples and the techdemo now runs on this OS.
  • Three new tutorials.
  • Lots of bug fixes.

A detailed list of changes can be read in changes.txt. Irrlicht 0.7 can be downloaded from the download section. Happy downloading! I added some new names of contributors to the author page. Maybe I forgot someone, please drop me a line.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News, Releases | Comments Off on Irrlicht 0.7 released!

30-Aug-04Irrlicht 0.7 with shader support

I just finished the first implementation of the new material system for the upcoming release of the Irrlicht engine. This change makes it possible to use D3D8 & D3D9 vertex and pixel shaders and OpenGL vertex and fragment programs with the engine. In 0.7, only assembler will be supported, but I’ll add support for higher level languages like HLSL and GLSL later too. I added a screenshot of the first version which worked with all drivers into the screenshot section, and made it shot of the month.

The next steps for the new release are: Linux port, tutorial and documentation updates, testing, testing, testing.

Another bigger news:
Eve-corp was moved to IrrForge. I changed the links on this webpage to the new page. Irrforge is the free project hosting service for Irrlicht based applications by John Goewer, aka saigumi.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News | Comments Off on Irrlicht 0.7 with shader support

01-Aug-04IrrlichtNX

mm765 and erSitzt created Irrlicht NX, a version of the irrlicht engine with added patches and cvs support. This project looks promising, they are running their own cvs server and they’ve got a forum and a wiki. In addition, there is also an up-to-date API documentation available. I would recommend to use and support this great service, if you need a bug fixed, a more stable engine or cannot always wait for me to make a new release. They could need some help:

  • Of course, they need people for sending in patches. Simply post them into their forum.
  • They are searching for maintainers of parts of the library.
  • They could need someone to create a better website.

Many thanks go to the maintainers and creators of this project!
I updated the link page, adding IrrlichtNX, jirr and a pointer to the IRC channel.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News, Projects | Comments Off on IrrlichtNX

19-Jul-04Jirr, IRC channel and others

Time to add some new links to this page:

  • Jirr, the java port of the Irrlicht Engine created by Stefan Dingfelder can be found at jirr.sourceforge.net. There are already some interesting files available for download.
  • For those who didn’t know yet: There is an Irrlicht IRC Channel available. The server is irc.freenode.net, the channel is #irrlicht. If you need help joining, you can take a look at this thread in the forum.
  • The monthly discussion about the CVS has started again. Mike Ennen even started a CVS petition this time. Thanks for the effords, but it won’t change anything, sorry. Read and discuss in this thread in the forum why.

Also, it was time again to post a new shot of the month. This time, it is a shot stolen by me from the website of the project goretek.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News, Projects | Comments Off on Jirr, IRC channel and others

19-Jun-04Robomaniac 3D Engine Foundation Contest

Robomaniac launched the second Irrlicht Development Contest. The goal is to create the best looking tech demo. The demo must be themed around summer relaxation 2004: what your doing, what you want to do, or anything summer related. All entries must be submitted by June 30. And there are prices to win: For example 1 year of Webhosting donated by Saigumi! (Further donations are welcome.) For more informations, take a look into this thread.
Another news is that Eve-Corp 2.0 is now online. Eve-Corp hosts Irrlicht-based programs. It is a free service, created by Saigumi. (A lot of thanks go again to him!)

By CuteAlien | Posted in Contests, News, Projects | Comments Off on Robomaniac 3D Engine Foundation Contest

12-Jun-04.NET and Java

The development of the .NET port of Irrlicht is making progress, and it is already possible to use the most important parts of the engine, I already posted a screenshot. But there is going on more: Stefan Dingfelder is currently working on a Java port of Irrlicht, and it really looks promising: He already got the techdemo working with it (see this shot).
Seems that the engine is getting more and more portable, it is now working on a lot of rival and competiting technologies:

  • Linux and Windows. (Some people even sent me notice that they’ve been porting the engine to MacOSX, AmigaOS and XBOX but they never published their work.)
  • OpenGL and Direct3D.
  • Java and .NET.

Again, I added some links on the link page to some Irrlicht Engine related projects, both from russia:

And last: Robomaniac posted a very useful FAQ link page into the forum. Sorry for posting this that late. With this update, I also updated the development and the author page.

By CuteAlien | Posted in News, Projects | Comments Off on .NET and Java