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Panda3D
Panda3D is a game engine that includes graphics, audio, I/O, collision detection, and other abilities relevant to the creation of 3D games. Panda3D is free, open-source software under the revised BSD license. Panda3D's intended game-development language is Python. The engine itself is written in C++ and utilizes an automatic wrapper-generator to expose the complete functionality of the engine in a Python interface. This approach gives a developer the advantages of Python development, such as rapid development and advanced memory management, but keeps the performance of a compiled language in the engine core. For instance, the engine is integrated with Python's garbage collector, and engine structures are automatically managed. The manual and the sample programs use Python by default, with C++ available as an alternate. Both languages are fully supported. Python is the most commonly used language by developers, but C++ is also common. The users of Panda3D include the developers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entertainment Technology Center
The Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) is a department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the Pittsburgh Technology Center. The ETC offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology (MET) degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science. Students enrolled in the ETC learn interdisciplinary skills in design, art and technology, and are prepared for environments where artists and technologists work hand-in-hand, such as theme parks, interactive museum exhibits, website design and development, and the creation of video games. History The ETC was co-founded by Donald Marinelli, a Professor of Drama, and Randy Pausch, a Professor of Computer Science, in 1999. The ETC has a history of having agreements with certain companies, such as Electronic Arts, Activision, and Rockstar Games, where the companies agree to hire a set number of ETC graduates each year. Cur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Software License
A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) of a piece of software can remove these restrictions by accompanying the software with a software license which grants the recipient these rights. Software using such a license is free software (or free and open-source software) as conferred by the copyright holder. Free-software licenses are applied to software in source code and also binary object-code form, as the copyright law recognizes both forms. Comparison Free-software licenses provide risk mitigation against different legal threats or behaviors that are seen as potentially harmful by developers: History Pre-1980s In the early times of software, sharing of software and source code was common in certain communities, for instance academic institutions. Before the US Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price; all users are legally free to do what they want with their copies of a free software (including profiting from them) regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program.Selling Free Software (gnu.org) Computer programs are deemed "free" if they give end-users (not just the developer) ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices. The right to study and modify a computer program entails that |
Open Dynamics Engine
The Open Dynamics Engine (ODE) is a physics engine written in C/C++. Its two main components are a rigid body dynamics simulation engine and a collision detection engine. It is free software licensed both under the BSD license and the LGPL. ODE was started in 2001 and has already been used in many applications and games, such as ''Assetto Corsa'', '' BloodRayne 2'', ''Call of Juarez'', ''S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'', '' Titan Quest'', '' World of Goo'', '' X-Moto'' and ''OpenSimulator''. Overview The Open Dynamics Engine is used for simulating the dynamic interactions between bodies in space. It is not tied to any particular graphics package although it includes a basic one called ''drawstuff''. It supports several geometries: box, sphere, capsule (cylinder capped with hemispheres), triangle mesh, cylinder and heightmap. Simulation Higher level environments that allow non-programmers access to ODE include Player Project, Webots, Opensimulator, anyKode Marilou anV-REP ODE is a popular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles Sound System
Miles Sound System (MSS), formerly known as Audio Interface Library (AIL), is a sound software system primarily for video games and used mostly as an alternative for low-end audio chipsets. It uses little Central processing unit, CPU time while providing adequate audio output. It was originally a middleware Device driver, driver library for Sound card, soundcards to use in DOS Application software, applications when no viable alternative was available. Bink Video, Epic Games Tools (formerly RAD Game Tools) acquired the technology from Miles Design in 1995. The 1992 AIL version 2 for DOS has been released by John Miles as open-source software, open-source (public domain without restrictions) in 2000. The package can be found on his personal site (''KE5FX.com'') and contains source code for both Real mode, real-mode and Protected mode, protected-mode programs. Reception The Miles Sound System was used in its history by over 7,000 video games across 18 platforms. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
OpenAL
OpenAL (Open Audio Library) is a cross-platform audio application programming interface (API). It is designed for efficient rendering of multichannel three-dimensional positional audio. Its API style and conventions deliberately resemble those of OpenGL. OpenAL is an environmental 3D audio library, which can add realism to a game by simulating attenuation (degradation of sound over distance), the Doppler effect (change in frequency as a result of motion), and material densities. OpenAL aimed to originally be an open standard and open-source replacement for proprietary (and generally incompatible with one another) 3D audio APIs such as DirectSound and Core Audio, though in practice has largely been implemented on various platforms as a wrapper around said proprietary APIs or as a proprietary and vendor-specific fork. While the reference implementation later became proprietary, there are open source implementations such as OpenAL Soft available. History OpenAL was origin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normal Mapping
In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a texture mapping technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents – an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons. A common use of this technique is to greatly enhance the appearance and details of a low polygon model by generating a normal map from a high polygon model or height map. Normal maps are commonly stored as regular RGB images where the RGB components correspond to the X, Y, and Z coordinates, respectively, of the surface normal. History In 1978 Jim Blinn described how the normals of a surface could be perturbed to make geometrically flat faces have a detailed appearance. The idea of taking geometric details from a high polygon model was introduced in "Fitting Smooth Surfaces to Dense Polygon Meshes" by Krishnamurthy and Levoy, Proc. SIGGRAPH 1996, where this approach was used for creating displacement maps over nurbs. In 1998, two papers were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distance Fog
Distance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance by shading distant objects differently. Because many of the shapes in graphical environments are relatively simple, and complex shadows are difficult to render, many graphics engines employ a "fog" gradient so objects further from the camera are progressively more obscured by haze and by aerial perspective. This technique simulates the effect of light scattering, which causes more distant objects to appear lower in contrast, especially in outdoor environments. Visibility in a natural haze declines exponentially, not linearly, with distance due to scattering. The colour of the light being scattered into the viewing path affects the colour of the haze; blue under blue skies, reddish near sunset, as with alpenglow. These more subtle details are represented in some graphics. "Fogging" is another use of distance fog in mid-to-late 1990s games, when processing power was not enough to r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya, commonly shortened to just Maya ( ), is a 3D computer graphics application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, originally developed by Alias and currently owned and developed by Autodesk. It is used to create assets for interactive 3D applications (including video games), animated films, TV series, and visual effects. History Maya was originally an animation product based on code from The Advanced Visualizer by Wavefront Technologies, Thomson Digital Image (TDI) Explore, PowerAnimator by Alias, and ''Alias Sketch!''. The IRIX-based projects were combined and animation features were added; the project codename was Maya. Walt Disney Feature Animation collaborated closely with Maya's development during its production of ''Dinosaur''. Disney requested that the user interface of the application be customizable so that a personalized workflow could be created. This was a particular influence in the open architecture of Maya, and partly responsible for it becoming popul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autodesk 3ds Max
Autodesk 3ds Max, formerly 3D Studio and 3D Studio Max, is a professional 3D computer graphics program for making 3D animations, models, games and images. It is developed and produced by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. It has modeling capabilities and a flexible plugin architecture and must be used on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is frequently used by video game developers, many TV commercial studios, and architectural visualization studios. It is also used for movie effects and movie pre-visualization. 3ds Max features shaders (such as ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering), dynamic simulation, particle systems, radiosity, normal map creation and rendering, global illumination, a customizable user interface, and its own scripting language. History The original 3D Studio product was created for the DOS platform by the Yost Group, and published by Autodesk. The release of 3D Studio made Autodesk's previous 3D rendering package AutoShade obsolete. After 3D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
