OGRE now runs under OpenGL (with SDL providing window management) as well as Direct3D. Thanks to temas for doing most of the work on this during the Linux port, we’re all working on it now to finish off the rough edges but basically it’s there. On Windows you can now choose a render subsystem, and of course on Linux GL is the standard. Early indications are that frame rates are pretty much identical between the 2 subsystems, which is a sign that we’ve done our jobs properly (after all the hardware is where it all happens – if there were differences it would suggest we had a bottleneck in our RenderSystem code somewhere).
A number of enhancements have been made to particle systems, with emitters now able to turn themselves off after a finite duration, and repeat if required after a delay (all of these parameters are randomisable). Tels has also submitted some new emitters, including cyclinder, ring-shaped and ellipsoid (solid or hollow) emitters.
We’re also planning the feature list for the 1.0 release. Currently we consider the must-haves to be:
- Completed Linux/GL port
- Skeletal animation
- Collision detection framework
Other things under consideration are a replacement terrain engine (since we removed ROAM because of it’s excessive CPU overhead) and view-independent progressive meshes (VIPM).
So, it’s all ‘go’ here, except for the unfortunate fact that Neverwinter Nights is being released about now, which could dampen productivity a little! 8)