3D Engines List Source & Hierarchical obj. This list contains 26 hierarchical object engines with source code.

27.04.2000 Orion3D

27.04.2000

Orion3D is a 3D engine for Windows 95/98 from Gabriel Peyré ( nikopol0@club-internet.fr ).

• Shaded, perspective texture mapping
• Support for OpenGL
• Mip mapping
• Fog effect
• Static lights
• Hierarchical objects with animation
• Support for bmp textures
• Support for 3D Studio Max via export plugin
• C++ source for Visual Studio

More information, the OrionViewer and source to the Orion3D engine can be found on the french Orion3D Homepage.

12.04.2000 Genesis 3D

11.08.1998

G3D is a commercial 3D game SDK from Eclipse Entertainment.

• Lightmapped perspective texture mapping
• Animated textures, procedural water textures
• Translucent textures
• Texture morphing
• Dynamic shadows
• Light diffraction
• Multiple colored light
• Fog.
• Vertex morphing
• Real time water surface distortion
• Real time light diffraction
• Mirrors
• Integrated rigid body physics simulation support for world objects
• Hierarchical and seamless, soft-skin polygonal characters
• Support for 3DS MAX animation files
• LOD support
• Area portals allow selective rendering of world geometry
• Software rasterizer, 3DFX Glide, and D3D support
• Open scripting API
• Level editor
• 3D sound positioning and attenuation
• Support for network streaming of geometry, animations and textures ( Hollywood 3D )
• OpenSource distribution

More information, screenshots, the SDK and some demos can be found on Genesis 3D Homepage.

12.04.2000 Blitz Engine

05.10.1998

The Blitz Engine is a Windows rendering engine from Richard Turnbull ( rt71@hotmail.com ).

• Perspective, lightmapped texture mapping
• Sub-pixel and Sub-texel accuracy
• Coloured Lighting and dynamic shadowing with filtering
• Improved dynamic lighting - via span level RGB interpolation
• Span level MIP-mapping
• Multitexturing using OpenGLs ARB_multitexture extensions
• Surface cacheing at span or surface level
• Level of Detail bezier curved surfaces
• Texture mapping system for wrapping around curves and creating a smooth edge look as seen in Quake 3
• Translucent surfaces with upto 20 simultaneous layers
• Reflective surfaces
• Environment Mapped Bump Mapping (Matrox G400)
• Animated textures
• Collision detection including with curves
• Span and Z-Buffering
• Binary Space Partitioning Tree creation and traversal
• Direct Draw and Direct Input Support
• Point based particle rendering
• Shaded, colored smoke particles
• Spherical and standard volumetric fog
• Coronas and Lensflares on lights
• B-Spline movement system
• Hierarchial objects
• Portal rendering combined with BSP Tree
• Support for OpenGL and Direct3D
• Console system
• 32 bit MMX optimized span level RGB interpolative rasterizer with span level mip mapping.
• Network support
• Written in Visual C++ 4 and the Netwide assembler (NASM)

More information, screenshots and a demo, SDK 1.2 and source can be found on the Blitz Engine Homepage .

11.02.2000 Blaxxun Contact 3D

11.02.2000

Blaxxun Contact 3D is an OpenSource VRML 97 Viewer from Blaxxun Interactive.

• Support for OpenGL and Direct3D
• VRML 97 and VRML 2_0 EAI support, Javascript support
• Streaming Video support
• Trimmed NURBS extension
• MIP-mapping and trilinear texture filtering
• Sorted alpha blended transparency
• Anti-Aliasing
• Scene graph support
• Collision detection
• 3D sound
• BSP tree support
• ActiveX Control and standalone Version
• VRML node editor in the standalone GLview application
• C++ source with Documentation

More information about the Blaxxun Contact 3D Viewer can be found on the Blaxxun Contact Developers Homepage, the source and documentation can be found on the Blaxxun Contact 3D Source Homepage.

02.02.2000 OpenGL

06.09.1995

OpenGL® is a software interface for applications to generate interactive 2D and 3D computer graphics. OpenGL is designed to be independent of operating system, window system, and hardware operations, and it is supported by many vendors. OpenGL is available on PCs, Macintosh and workstations.
OpenGL provides a wide range of graphics functions: from rendering a simple geometric point, line, or filled polygon, to texture mapping NURBS curved surfaces.

• Geometric primitives (points, lines, and polygons)
• Raster primitives (bitmaps and pixel rectangles)
• RGBA or color index mode
• Display list or immediate mode
• Viewing and modeling transformations
• Hidden Surface Removal (depth buffer)
• Alpha Blending (transparency)
• Antialiasing
• Texture Mapping
• Atmospheric Effects (fog, smoke, and haze)
• Polynomial Evaluators (to support Non-uniform rational B-splines)
• Pixel Operations (storing, transforming, mapping, zooming)
• Accumulation Buffer
• Stencil Planes
• Feedback, Selection, and Picking
• OpenSource

The OpenGL functions described are provided on every OpenGL implementation to make applications written with OpenGL easily portable between platforms. All licensed OpenGL implementations are required to pass the Conformance Tests, and come from a single specification and language binding document.
More information and the source of the sample implementation can be found on the OpenGL Sample Implementation Homepage.

02.02.2000 Apprentice

11.12.1996

Apprentice is an Inventor emulation library that reads and displays .iv files from Eric Victor Powers (powerg@deltanet.com).

• Perspective texture mapping.
• Gouraud shading.
• Multiple lights.
• Hierarchical objects.
• NURB patches.
• Support for Windows 95 (with OpenGL) and X11-Windows (using Mesa or OpenGL) on SGI, SunOS, Solaris and Linux.
• C++ object-oriented concept.
• Source is available to educational institutes, staff members, and students for non-commercial, educational use only.

More information and the license agreement can be found on the Apprentice Homepage.

23.12.1999 Quake 1

23.12.1999

ID Software's lead programmer John Carmack has released the full source code of Quake, including the WinQuake, GLQuake, QuakeWorld, and GLQuakeWorld versions.

• Lightmapped, perspective texture mapping
• Transparency and alpha textures
• Support for OpenGL
• BSP and PVS support
• Surface caching
• Hierarchical polygonal models
• Particle systems
• Collision detection
• Dynamic lights
• Multiplayer network support
• Sound support
• Console
• The C/ASM source for Visual C++ 6 is under GPL (gnu public license)

The source is available at the Q1 Source Download Homepage.

22.12.1999 Quesa

22.12.1999

Quesa is a high level 3D graphics library, released as Open Source under the LGPL, which implements Apple's QuickDraw 3D API on top of OpenGL. Quesa was started by Dair Grant (dair@webthing.net), although substantial amounts of code have since been contributed by other developers.

• Support for retained and immediate mode rendering
• Extensible file format
• Hierarchical models
• Objectoriented API
• Support for MacOS, Linux and Windows - ports to Be and Mac Mac OS X are in progress
• Portable ANSI C source

More information, screenshots and links to download the source can be found on the Quesa Homepage

03.09.1999 Crystal Space

25.08.1997

Crystal Space is a 3D engine for Unix from Jorrit Tyberghein ( Jorrit.Tyberghein@uz.kuleuven.ac.be ).

• Shaded perspective texture mapping.
• MIP-mapping.
• Sub-pixel and sub-texel accuracy.
• Portal rendering.
• Static lighting with precomputed shadows.
• Dynamic colored lights with shadows
• Transparent and semi-transparent textures.
• Support for mirrors.
• Support for BSP rendering.
• Support for curved surfaces.
• Support for depth-correct and colored volumetric fog.
• Hierarchical Bounding Box collision detection system.
• New c-buffer (coverage buffer) type visibility culling.
• Sound support (for Windows and Linux only currently).
• Moving objects and scripts controlling the movement.
• 3D triangle mesh sprites with gouraud shading and LOD (Level of Detail)
• Skeleton animation for 3D triangle mesh sprites
• Support for 8, 15, 16 and 32-bit displays.
• Support for unix (linux and solaris are tested) and DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, Windows 95 version, BeOS, NextStep, Rhapsody and OpenStep ports.
• Optional MMX support.
• New ports to OS/2 and GDI.
• OpenGL port works very well now for Linux, Windows, and BeOS.
• Hierarchical objects (not used in current programs, but implementation exists)
• Glide port works good for Linux and Windows.
• Optional Direct3D hardware acceleration for Windows port.
• 3D sound support
• Reading of Quake II MD2 and 3DS objects
• Low-level networking support.
• C++ source.

More information, screenshots, the source and a unix executable is available on the Crystal Space Homepage.

07.07.1999 MythOS

22.07.1997

MythOS is a (former commercial) OpenSource 3D library from Charybdis Enterprises done by Chuck Walbourn (chuck@charybdis.com).

• Perspective texture mapping.
• Gouraud shading.
• Z-buffer rendering.
• Hierarchical objects.
• Support for 8 and 15 bit devices with Windows 95.
• Support for 3D Studio object files, cameras, lights and materials.
• Network support.
• C++ class library.

More information, a demo and the source can be found on the MythOS Homepage.

20.05.1999 EasyGen3D

11.08.1998

EasyGen3D is an OpenSource wrapper for the Genesis 3D library from Matthew Ellis ( matt@magmagames.com ).

• Easy setup of Genesis3D
• Easy scene setup
• Support for Gravity, Coronas, Electric bolts and dynamic lighting
• Texture loading
• C source for Visual C++ 6.0

More information and the SDK can be found on Genesis 3D Homepage.

22.04.1999 Mesa

01.01.1995

Mesa is a 3-D graphics library with an API which is very similar to that of OpenGL by Brian Paul (brianp@ssec.wisc.edu).

• Mesa works on X11-Windows based systems, Windows, Linux SVGA, NeXT, Macintosh, DOS, Amiga, VMS and OS/2. Mesa was written with portability in mind.
• Support for PC 3D hardware (3DFX chip).
• Smooth shading, accumulation buffer.
• Dithering
• Fog/depth cuing.
• Shaded perspective texture mapping.
• Gouraud shading .
• Support for NURBS patches.

More info and links to download the source can be found on the Mesa Homepage

09.02.1999 Focus

27.10.1998

Focus is a simple 3D engine for Windows that is intended as a experimental engine for testing various new techniques from Jacco Bikker ( Jacco.Bikker@HTA.nl ) aka 'The Phantom'.

• Perspective correct (real) bilinear filtered texture mapping
• Tileable 8bit textures (with a palette per texture)
• Sub-pixel, sub-texel accuracy
• MIP-mapping
• Fast tree-based S-buffer rendering and Z-Buffer rendering.
• Curved surfaces
• 32/16/15bit output in a window (5/5/5 and 5/6/5 schemes)
• Light volume based illumination model.
• Lens flares.
• Bump-mapping.
• Real-time shadows.
• Portal rendering.
• Hierarchical objects.
• Supports 16bpp output using the MGL or PCT library.
• Edge anti-aliasing
• Scene smoothing
• Plane clipping: Z=0 or frustum clipping
• Clipping against arbitrary convex 2D region
• Support for Caligary Truespace file
• Import of Targa 24bit image files
• Support for PCT library
• Quake-like console
• C source, critical code in ASM (but C version can be used as toggle)

More information, screenshots, binaries and the souce can be found on the Phantom Cyberspace 3D Homepage .

27.10.1998 JTGame

10.11.1997

JTGame is a C++ interactive 3D game framework based on top of Microsoft Windows, MFC, and DirectX from John Thompson ( john@gildea.net ).

• Perspective shaded texture mapping.
• 3D display objects (worlds, actors, props, simple and compound mesh-based images).
• 2D display objects (decals, sprites, and backgrounds) .
• 3D sounds .
• Mesh primitives.
• Lights .
• Cameras .
• Animation control .
• Fogging.
• Hierarchical objects.
• Z-Buffer rendering.
• High and low level mouse, joystick, and keyboard support.
• Automated paths, collision detection, blocking, bouncing .
• Automated object translation and orientation for "watching" or "following" ther objects.
• Main and multiple scene windows .
• Inherit MFC's GUI components, i.e. menus, dialogs, events, etc.
• 3D sounds using DirectSound.
• Full C++ sources included .

More information, screenshots, documentation, sample programs, tutorials and the source of the library can be found on the JTGame Homepage.

22.10.1997 3D Engine (Link Problems!)

13.08.1996

3D Engine is a PC 3D engine by Jean-Francois Dube (deks@videotron.ca) aka 'Deks' of IncaMaster.

• Perspective, shaded texture-mapping.
• Flat, gouraud, phong and bump lightning.
• Environment mapping.
• Z-buffer rendering.
• Multiple RGB light sources.
• Lens-flares.
• 24bit internal rendering, 8 to 24 bit output.
• Simple motion blur.
• Multiple objects.
• 2D clipping.
• Support for portal and BSP rendering.
• Support for 3D Studio ASC, GEO and GEM object files.
• C++ source with some ASM extensions.

More information, screenshots and the source can be found on 3D Engine Homepage .

16.09.1997 Project SpandeX

01.01.1995

Project SpandeX (previously known as Latex) is a 3D engine from Paul Nettle (midnight@www.grafix3d.tzo.com).

• Commercial quality engine, written by commercial game developer.
• Open-GL like
• Texture-mapping, environment-mapping, bump-mapping, solid-color polygons, Phong shading, Gouraud shading, Lambert.
• Perspective correct, and affine texture mapping both supported
• Sub-pixel, sub-texel accuracy
• Z-buffering and sorting.
• Triangles, lines, points, text (mono or proportional).
• Up to 100 dynamic light sources.
• Material support with Ka, Kd and Ks variables (may change on the fly).
• Support for any resolution.
• Multiple cameras that can act JUST like 3DS cameras.
• Hierarchical database design with forward kinematics and inheritance.
• 100% Pure C for portability with small inline ASM parts.
• Over 250 API calls for maximum flexibility.
• Support for DOS and Linux/X11.
• Latest version is completely true-color.

More information, screenshots, the source and demos can be found on the Project SpandeX Homepage.

08.07.1997 Player Project

08.07.1997

The Player Project is a C++ class wrapper to Direct 3D and OpenGL from Eric Victor Powers ( powerg@deltanet.com ).

• Simple collision detection.
• Hierarchical objects.
• Multiple lights.
• Material support.

More information and the source can be found on the Player Project Homepage.

04.04.1997 Alpha Engine

24.10.1996

The Alpha Engine is a PC 3D engine from Jacco Bikker (Jacco@LostCity.nl). The AE is the followup to his E3Dngine.

• Gouraud shaded, perspective texture mapping.
• Phong shaded polygons.
• Environment mapping.
• Color mixing tables.
• Transparent texture mapping.
• Full 2D portal clipping.
• Hierarchical relative rotation and displacement of objects
• Z-clipping.
• Fast tree-sorting.
• Scaled, transparent 2D sprites.
• Support for 3D Studio ASC and 3DS, PLG and GEM files.
• Support for PCX texture files.
• VESA linear framebuffer support.
• Protected mode using TMT Pascal.
• All sources available (TMT Pascal).

An older version of the engine also supported

• Bump mapping.
• Planar mirrors.
• Lens-flares.

More information, the sources and some tutorials (clipping, texturemapping, rotations...) can be found on the Homepage of Jacco Bikker.

11.03.1997 Virtual Reality Toolkit Lightning Eagle

08.07.1997

VLE is a OpenGL / CosmoGL C++ / Mesa class wrapper from Martin Faust (faust@informatik.uni-bremen.de ).

• Support for Windows 95/NT, PC 3D cards, Sun (Mesa), Linux (Mesa) and SGI computers.
• Object hierarchies.
• Animated backdrops.
• Primitve objects.

More information, the source, libraries and documentation can be found on the (german!) VLE Homepage.

27.01.1997 VRend

06.11.1995

VR is a 3D renderer from Kenny Hoff (hoff@cs.unc.edu).

• Polygon-based model rendering includes convex, concave, and self-intersecting polygons.
• Fully-generalized hidden surface removal allowing for protruding surfaces.
• Shaded perspective texture mapping with tiling and transparency.
• Full 3D clipping to the viewplane and the sides of the viewplane window.
• Movable front clipping plane allowing a cut-away view of the "inside" of models.
• Phong shading.
• Complete hierachical modeling system.
• Independent object and world coordinate system transformations.
• Incremental depth-shading.
• C++ source.
• Support for X11-Windows and Windows 3.1.

More information (and lots of pictures) on the VRend Homepage or WinRend Homepage.
You also find some 3D tutorials and the source of the scanline-renderer on the Homepage of Kenny Hoff

12.11.1996 GRAFICA NATURA

20.09.1996

GRAFICA NATURA is a 3-D realtime rendering system which was primarily designed for realistic visualization of natural objects and phenomena, e.g. plants, landscapes, clouds and water. GN is written by Steffen Hauser (stephen@cs.tu-berlin.de).

• Linear, shaded polygon texture-mapping.
• Support for X11-Windows and DOS.
• Primitive objects (e.g. cube, disk, sphere, cone, cylinder, plane, bezier-patch, rotation curve, height field).
• Procedural plant models.
• Hierarchical object construction.
• Lambert and gouraud shaded surfaces.
• Unlimited number of light sources.
• Wireframe or solid rendering (gouraud shaded and textured surfaces).
• Z-buffer rendering.
• Transparent surfaces.
• Import:
  • Objects: 3DS, GEM, NFF, PLG, TRI
  • Textures: PPM, TGA
• Output:
  • Objects: VRML (no materials and textures yet)
  • Images: PPM, TGA
• Color specification with RGB-, HSV-, HLS- or CMY-format.
• Atmospheric effects (e.g. fog, haze).
• C++ source.
• Simple but powerful stack-based programming language with more than 150 build-in commands for definition of objects, surfaces, textures, camera movements and lightning effects.

The source and more information can be found on the GRAFICA NATURA Homepage.

01.01.1995 Dore

01.01.1995

Dore' is a powerful 3D graphics subroutine library, made freely available by the Kubota Graphics Corp. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for creating graphics applications. It is also easy to use, portable, and extendable. This version has interfaces/drivers to X11-Windows, PEX, IrisGL, OpenGL, Postscript and more. It has been ported onto most Unix systems, including Linux, NetBSD, and FreeBSD. It has also been ported to Windows NT 3.5. Dore is available on the Dore FTP Server

24.02.1997 Mirage

22.01.1997

Mirage is a unix port and followup of VR386 from Christophe Maurel ( maurel@electech.polymtl.ca ).

• Hierarchical linked figures.
• Animation state machine.
• Support for WorldToolKit NFF, AutoCad DXF and VR386/Render386 PLG and WLD files.
• Support for X11-Windows on SGI, SunOs and Linux.
• Tcl/Tk interface.
• Portable C source.

More information and the source can be found on the Mirage Homepage.

01.09.1995 REND386

01.01.1995

A 3-D Polygon Rendering Package for the 386 and 486 written by Dave Stampe (dstampe@sunee.uwaterloo.ca) and Bernie Roehl (broehl@sunee.uwaterloo.ca).

• Hierarchical linked figures
• Animation state machine
• Support of external io-device and display drivers
• No longer supported.

Source: sunee.uwaterloo.ca or at ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de. More info in the REND386 Readme.

01.09.1995 MultiVerse

01.01.1995

MV is a multi-user, non-immersive, X11-Windows based Virtual Reality system, primarily focused on entertainment. MultiVerse was written by Robert Grant (RGrant.LAX1B@Xerox.com).

• Client-Server based model, using Berkeley sockets.
• No limit to the number of users (apart from performance).
• Hierachical Objects (allowing attachment of cameras and light sources).
• Multiple light sources (ambient, point and spot).
• Objects can have extension code, to handle unique functionality, easily attached.

Source: ftp.u.washington.edu or at ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de . More info in the Multiverse Readme.

10.07.1995 VR386

01.01.1995

VR386 is the other followup to REND386, it was written by Dave Stampe (dstampe@sunee.uwaterloo.ca).

• better timebase for timing and control
• simplified programmer interface
• EMM386 for up to 4 megabytes of memory for object storage

Source: psych.utoronto.ca or at ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de