Category Archives: Engine Development

OK, so it may be April Fools Day — but there’s no fooling around going on here, only some serious coding!  I found the bug that was giving me problems in Orion Genesis.  It turned out to be an issue with the effect manager in the … Continue reading →

An important goal of the effect system in Orion Engine is that it can handle many types of shaders and/or effect files, while still remaining to be completely cross-platform.  So far, I believe I can handle HLSL and CgFX effect files quite … Continue reading →

I’ve been working nearly every day for the last month on the engine’s effect based rendering subsystem.  I now see why my friend reached burnout while designing the system.  He sure puts a lot of deep thought into these types of things.  It … Continue reading →

I’ve been extremely busy working on the effect file importers for the Orion Genesis world builder tool.  OK, maybe more on the HLSL (.fx file) importer, not so much on the CgFX (.cgfx file) importer.  Also, I’ve been ironing out how the effect parameter … Continue reading →

I’ve been working on the custom, cross-platform, Orion Engine effect system this week.  I’m trying to fill in all of the blanks that have been needing attention for quite a long time.  The effect system is used to drive our pixel shaders … Continue reading →

Wow, January disappeared fast! There just never seems to be enough time in the day, and the days just seem to keep getting shorter. I finished several hard problems last month. I also fixed a lot of little bugs that have been bothering me for … Continue reading →

I finally got busy and wrote the code that was needed to perform a ray-intersection test with the terrain height map data.  Not only will this be useful for determining where projectiles collide with the ground, I can now also keep the … Continue reading →

I finished the new “limits” scene object today. It’s used to show the selection state of objects within the Orion Genesis world builder. It can even be used to visualize a bounding volume within the tool. It’s also going to … Continue reading →

The core engine code is actually pretty stable now. In fact, I don’t have to make changes to this code very often at all. However, I decided it was time to finally go back and address a few problematic issues … Continue reading →

I’ve been working on a massively multiplayer online role playing game similar to Turbine’s Asheron’s Call game. I tested my game client and servers recently with a friend of mine that lives in North Carolina. We seemed to be getting … Continue reading →