DIRECTX9 3D ENGINE

SUMMARY:
This is a directx9 framework I had o build as one ofmy assignments. The demo that you can see above shows some of the features implemented into the framework. The framework features/includes a fully functional (and abstract) scenegraph, complete with an abstract scene node class. I also have a fully functional state machine complete with a state class. All the objects in a game made using this framework would be scene nodes, for instance in the demo the vehicle is infact a scene node obviously a very specialised scene node. In the demo you can switch between different states via the use of the state machine. The demo has two levels you can switch between with the press of a button. These are implemented as states and can be switched back and forth by cycling through the state machine. Just to be clear there is only one instance of the scenegraph that exists in the application. I could have had it as a singleton but instead decided to have each state include a pointer to the scenegraph. The scenegraph takes care of the updating and rendering of the scene nodes in the current state. When the state is switched to a different state the scenegraph is emptied of all the current scene nodes and scene nodes from the new state are loaded into the scenegraph. I would also like to point out that the camera is also a scene node and it contains its own state machine. This makes it easier to switch between different camera views/states instead of having different camera node. Camera states simply change the behaviour of the camera thus enabling different camera views etc.

For user input the framework supports keyboard, mouse and a joy pad specifically a xbox360 controller. For the demo in particular the xbox360 controller is what is mainly used. To turn the vehicle the D-Pad is used, to accelerate the vehicle the Right Trigger button is used and to Brake/reverse the left trigger is used. Ofcourse as stated earlier keyboard input is also possible.

THE DEMO:
The demo as you can see is terrain based and as stated earlier is meant to show some of the features implemented in my framework. It features a particle system in the form of dust generated by the vehicle as it moves through the terrain. It also features collision between the terrain and the vehicle object. As you can see from the video the vehicle orients itself according to the height at its particular position in the terrain. The terrain itself is randomly generated. I used the midpoint displacement algorithm to generate the terrain but for the flat track or road I simply stenciled that part of the terrain. What I did was to load up a black and white texture. The texture has to be the same size as the terrain in order to have one to one mapping. If the part of the texture mapped onto the terrain was white then the height at that point would be the specified height which in my case was zero, and otherwise if the colour was black the heights would reamin as they were. Ofcourse this was only done after the terrain had already been generated.

I could have used hardware lighting for the terrain but I prefered to use slop lighting algorithm simply because it is much better performance wise to use this lighting technique as oppossed to hardware lighting. As I stated before, you can switch between two levels or terrains in the demo by either pressing the LB button on the controller or the RB button. Each of these terrains have different textures and parameters which define how the terrain is generated for instance how rough the terrain should be etc. Since the is random generation, each time you switch to the next terrain or you switch back to the previous terrain, the terrain itself will not be the same as it was before. Essentialy it will be regenerated randomly each time you switch.

CHALLENGES:
There were indeed quit a few challenges faced when implementing this. Firstly this was the first time I had used directX so there was abit of a learning curve when it came to figuring out how it worked and which functions did what etc. One other huge challenge was learning about scenegraphs and scene nodes, state machines etc. These were quit new concepts to me so it took quit a bit of time to again figure things out and try to understand how these structures functioned and how to ultimatly implement them in the framework.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT:
I will ofcourse keep developing this framework/engine until I finally make some sort of game from it. In future I would love to first of all clean up the engine abit more, refactor the code quit abit and remove some of the things that arent needed anymore. Having done this I would also like to some sort of collision detection between game objects. Something I would also like to add is a resource manager, which would make it easier for me to load and manage models, sound files, textures etc without much difficulty. Something else I would like to add is a sound engine most likely built ontop of f-mod or direct sound. There are plenty of ways inwhich I would like to extend my engine many which have not been mentioned for instance shader support.