The last year started with the first release candidate of Ogre 1.7 [Cthugha] which technically was brought together and published in the twilight of December 31st 2009 and brought an explosion of amazing new features and improvements to Ogre.

Amongst the biggest changes and additions, was the new compositor framework, and our new all-in-one Sample Browser Framework from the Google Summer of Code Student “omniter”, along with the new powerful Terrain component, the RTShaderSystem for on the fly shader generation and an official Apple iOS port for the iPhone and iPad, and let’s not forget the biggest change: Ogre’s switch to the MIT licence.

Since the middle of January we got a new official funny and fearless 3D mascot named ‘Sinbad’ also modelled and animated by “omniter” that comes with the OgreSDK and is used in the Samples and throughout the SDK.

“Nir Hasson” officially joined us in February as a new Ogre Team member, after he has been operating as a member of the team in all but name for quite some time. Nir’s work on the RTShaderSystem was introduced in Ogre 1.7.

In March, we switched from the Sourceforge Subversion repository to Mercurial hosted by BitBucket. Through this switch, we gained far more flexibility in terms of distributed development, allowing everyone to easily fork the Ogre code base, manipulate it and merge back changes that may be interesting for the whole community.

At this point in time, we did not yet know how important  this would become, as the Ogre Founder and Project Leader, Steve ‘Sinbad’ Streeting, in the middle of April suddenly shocked us all by announcing his immediate retirement. With him we lost the most active team member that invested a lot of time and strength in the development of Ogre which unfortunately led to his severe health condition that forced him to step back. Yet Steve assured us that he won’t be entirely gone but stop by from time to time as a regular community member and supporting the Ogre Team where necessary to make sure that his great work still carries on.

The start of a busy summer was marked by months of discussion and countless weeks of transitional work, especially from the community members “jacmoe”, “betajaen” and “spacegaier”. In the end it was worth the trouble, when in June the new TikiWiki replaced the MediaWiki that previously ran for many years. We now have a much more powerful tool at our fingertips to share knowledge about our favorite rendering engine.

Approximately at the same time a secret group of loyal long-time Ogre community members and supporters gathered in the hidden areas of the World Wide Web, organizing a special farewell present for our outgoing project lead in the form of a unique metal statuette, again featuring our newly created Ogre 3D mascot. It was the least we could do, to commemorate the efforts of Steve!

Besides all these more or less official topics, there also was a fast amount of community project work going on. Many great and promising games, applications, libraries and frameworks were published or developed further. To name them all would be extensive, so here are a selected few: Alien Dominion, Blocks, CT Visualization, CloakWorks Shroud, Dynastica, Family Farm, Gorilla, Handball Simulator 2010, Hovercraft, Island Hopping, Kromaia, MOGRE, NeoAxis Engine, Nimbus, NxOgre, Ogitor, OgreKinect, OgreParticleLab, OgreProcedural, OpenSpace3D, Particle Universe MediaPack, Proun, QuickGUI, Spacescape, TopGunner, Zen Engine and ZeroGear.

With the so far most highly accredited game title using Ogre, Torchlight, exceeding the 750,000 sold units milestone and therefore probably making it the most widely spread Ogre application, our beloved rending engine showcased once more it massive power that will hopefully lead us in another bright year of 3D rendering.

Thanks to the new source code control system, a great Ogre Development team and our stunning administrators and moderators, we have no worries that Ogre will grow further in the upcoming year!

All the best, and have a Happy New Year!

The Ogre community

January 12th marks the official release date of the PC kart game Zero Gear by NimbleBit! For the low price of only $19.99 you can beat up your friends in 18 different levels, in customizable karts and characters. Play with physically based weapons, earn achievements and compete in many different game modes.

To help get you into the actions with your friends, Zero Gear is also offered in a 4-pack for $39.99. Thats 50% off each copy!

Still not satisfied? Take your friends and try the full game for FREE this entire week! Zero Gear will be free to play on Steam until Jan. 18th! If you are STILL on the fence, lets keep it 25% off for the entire week. Get Zero Gear now or be sorry later!!11!

ZOMG, LETS GO PLAY!! http://store.steampowered.com/app/18820/

Congratulations to the guys at NimbleBit on their release!