Ethanon 2D game engine

[andresan87]

I would like to share with you my 2D game engine, called Ethanon engine. It is not yet finished and I know there is still a lot of work to do, but give it a try. And if you do so, give me a feedback on your impressions about it.

Ethanon Engine is a free 2D game development tool focused on the recent video cards for hardware acceleration and shader effects. EE is best suitable for 2D games with a top-down view, but it can also be used to develop other styles, such as side scrollers and shoot'em up games. The main goal of this engine is to provide high-quality lighting, shadow and particle effects with an easy to use visual interface and a simple and direct scripting system.



Official home page: http://www.asantee.net/ethanon/

[TheAncientGoat]

Looks really nice, can't wait for a linux port The lighting is amazing indeed

[michalg]

I will try it, and write some simple game, when you will add support for linux

However i'm not sure if my computer is strong enough. I have laptop with intel x3100 graphic card. Will there be a chance to launch this on such card? It supports shader model 4.0.

[andresan87]

I will try it, and write some simple game, when you will add support for linux

However i'm not sure if my computer is strong enough. I have laptop with intel x3100 graphic card. Will there be a chance to launch this on such card? It supports shader model 4.0.

The engine will certainly run very smooth on your laptop. I have developed it on an old laptop myself. It has a Radeon x600 (seriously) and it runs smooth most of the time here. I like programming on old computers because it is easier to detect overheads. This way, if it runs smooth for me, it'll will probably do so on most of computers.

About the linux port:
the library in which the Engine is based (GameSpaceLib, made by me) has a WIP OpenGL version that would probably compile on Linux without major changes. I'm working on my spare time, so I can't promisse anything so soon, but it's going to be my priority as soon as I finish my university paper later this year.

[michalg]

Great to hear that

After that your project could use a bit of advertising

Ps. I've entered a page for gamespacelib. Pity that it's not in english

Update:

I've tried to run in under wine. Didn't work Well, i guess i will wait for linux version.

[michalg]

Hello,

I think you could also promote your engine on tigsource forums:
http://forums.tigsource.com/

Maybe in feedbacks, devlog or here:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=66.120

First introduce yourself here:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=45.3450

[michalg]

Andre has released version 0.7.3

* New entity type added: Layerable (ET_LAYERABLE).
* New ETHEntity::Set/GetLayerDepth methods that manipulate layerable entity depth.
* Several safety adjustments and bug fixes.
* Added a DLL-based plug-in system to bind custom functions and objects to AngelScript.
* The executable files were renamed to machine.exe and editor.exe to be more UNIX friendly (cross-platform version is under development).
* Shadow rendering technique was improved.
* New method ETHEntity::HasHalo.

[TheAncientGoat]

Awesomeness

[andresan87]

Thank you guys. I'll check the TIGSource forums.
I'll start the OpenGL port next weekend.

[charlie]

I'm quite eager to try this out when you have ported it to Linux.

What is the scripting language? Are you creating your own or using an existing one?

[andresan87]

I'm quite eager to try this out when you have ported it to Linux.

What is the scripting language? Are you creating your own or using an existing one?

It uses AngelScript. A C-like scripting language with OOP programming features such as objects, templates, inheritance, etc. I like it and recommend it.

[andresan87]

Just to keep you up-to-date:
I'm working on the cross-platform version of the main lib (SDL/OpenGL). I'm commiting the SVN very often, so you may follow its progress at: http://code.google.com/p/gamespacelib/

[TheAncientGoat]

If you have a blog or something like that, you could ask qubodup to add it to the planet feed

[michalg]

Yeah, you could use some blog. And some forum - with projects subforum, for projects created in ethanon.

[qubodup]

Do you not approve of google group mailing lists? http://groups.google.com/group/ethanon?pli=1

I do, but I don't like that news and discussion are mixed, otherwise I would be able to add the news' mailing list's feed to the planet. http://groups.google.com/group/ethanon/ ... 0_msgs.xml

If anybody 'has his hots'* for cutting-edge updates, check out http://code.google.com/feeds/p/gamespac ... nges/basic

*strongbadtalk

[michalg]

I think that forum is more friendly to most users than google groups.

PS. For example openMW has switched from google groups to forum.

[andresan87]

Thank you for your suggestions. I'm afraid it's too soon for a forum. I don't think the engine is popular enough for a forum yet, but I'll consider your suggestions and give it a try.
I wish I had more time to write a blog and to work harder on tutorials and more samples about the engine. By the way, I would appreciate comments and suggestions about the engine.

[michalg]

If you want to have comments and suggestions about engine, you need to convince ppl to use it. And i think it would be easier to do it, if there will be some games that use it.

So hardest thing IMHO would be create first game. Maybe if you will release linux version, we (ppl from freegamedev community) could try to create some simple community game What do you ppl think? I could code that. But it should be some simple, yet entertaining game. So we could do it quite fast. We probably could use art from opengameart.

[svenskmand]

This engine truly look so awesome I sincerely hope that there will come a game in the style of diablo or nox using this engine It looks so nice, I really love the lighting effects and bump-mapping

[andresan87]

If you want to have comments and suggestions about engine, you need to convince ppl to use it. And i think it would be easier to do it, if there will be some games that use it.

So hardest thing IMHO would be create first game. Maybe if you will release linux version, we (ppl from freegamedev community) could try to create some simple community game What do you ppl think? I could code that. But it should be some simple, yet entertaining game. So we could do it quite fast. We probably could use art from opengameart.

You are absolutely right. I think good tutorials also convince people. At the moment I'm working on my university conclusion project, so I don't have enough time at the moment. But soon I'll start working on it.
I'm looking forward as hard as any of you guys to make an entire game with it

[michalg]

Andre, there is a topic about ethanon on wesnoth forum:

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29645

[andresan87]

Thanks for the link!

[andresan87]

Hi again,
I took a little time off the linux port this weekend to implement some improvements to the editor:

1. A new tab system to ease the switching between editors:



2. I added a selection bar to ease entity selection in the scene editor. The user no longer needs to browse between available entities using the mouse wheel anymore:


The new version has also several relevant bug fixes.
The current source code is already available in the SVN repository. The binaries will come out soon.

[michalg]

Hello,

Any progress with porting to linux?

[andresan87]

Yes, the sprite system is finished (although it hasn't been tested yet), but I had to stop it during the last two weeks because of my course paper.