Kambi VRML game engine 2.2.0 release

[michalis]

A new version of my Kambi VRML game engine is released It's a cross-platform open-source 3D engine for FPC/Lazarus, using VRML/X3D (can be exported from any 3D modeler) as it's main scene format.

Together with new engine version, we also release new view3dscene 3.7.0. view3dscene is our "swiss army knife", a browser/viewer for 3D files using our engine underneath.

For developers, the main page with engine sources and documentation is here.

New features in this release:

• Screen effects allow you to use and easily create screen-space effects, like a nice flashlight, edge detection, color processing and such. view3dscene has a couple of effects built-in (see the View -> Screen Effects menu), and you can define new effects in VRML/X3D files or you can define new effects in Object Pascal. In all cases, basic GLSL knowledge is all you need to create new effects.
• New VRML/X3D features are implemented, including drag sensors (you can make 3D sliders and generally allow user to edit 3D world), Billboard suppport (for sprites) and more.
• Many fixes and improvements to existing VRML/X3D features, in particular animating transformation is much more optimized.
• Many camera improvements, including better "Examine" camera mode support, smooth animations of camera between viewpoints and more.
• Many improvements to our 2D GUI (simple buttons, panels rendered in OpenGL), we can make nice buttons with images and tooltips and so on.
• A lot of the documentation for developers was improved.

[fredycc]

Amazing engine

Thanks.

[Iliya.St]

Engine is good, but I can't run some demos, for example vrml_browser on Ubuntu 10.10. In terminal:
progname=vrml_browser; RGBA=on
[WARNING] Out of OEM specific VK codes, changing to unassigned
[WARNING] Out of unassigned VK codes, assigning $FF
TAutoSizeCtrlData.FixControlProperties aligned sides can not be anchored Browser:TKamVRMLBrowser a=akBottom old=PanelBottom:TPanel new=nil
The program 'vrml_browser' received an X Window Systemerror.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'.
  (Details: serial 464 error_code 8 request_code 128 minor_code 5)
  (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
   that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
   To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
   option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
   backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

[michalis]

The program 'vrml_browser' received an X Window Systemerror.

The different examples use two different methods to initialize OpenGL context. The examples using Lazarus components and forms initialize OpenGL context by Lazarus standard TOpenGLControl component. So if only lazarus/ examples, like lazarus/vrml_browser, fail for you --- then I suspect a problem on Lazarus side. The error message with Xlib error confirms it, as in case of vrml_browser --- only standard TOpenGLControl deals with X directly.

Can you confirm that other examples from my engine (like in examples/vrml/ or examples/glwindow/) work OK?

Can you test example examples/openglcontrol/openglcontrol_demo.lpi in Lazarus sources?

That said, I tested on Ubuntu 10.10 (i386, FPC 2.4.0, Lazarus 0.9.28-2, Intel GPU) and vrml_browser works fine. So it may also be a problem with your GPU / OpenGL. What graphic card do you have? What OpenGL (did you enable some NVidia/ATI proprietary drivers, and does enabling/disabling them change anything)?

[Iliya.St]

Other examples from your engine are working (except lazarus/ examples).
examples/openglcontrol/openglcontrol_demo.lpi won't run with same error but another error code:

(Details: serial 446 error_code 8 request_code 128 minor_code 5)

My configuration is Ubuntu 10.10 (i386, FPC 2.4.0, Lazarus 0.9.28-10ubuntu beta, GeForce GT 220 (GPU 0)). Disabling proprietary driversn doesn't changed screen resolution to 640x480, but vrml_browser still won't work. So problem in my Lazarus, I'm thinking.

[michalis]

examples/openglcontrol/openglcontrol_demo.lpi won't run with same error but another error code:

Yeah, this definitely is a problem with Lazarus. If TOpenGLControl doesn't work, then lazarus/ examples from my engine also will fail (as my TKamOpenGLControl / TKamVRMLBrowser is a descendant of TOpenGLControl). You should submit it as Lazarus bug.

Disabling proprietary drivers doesn't changed screen resolution to 640x480

You mean? Once you disabled NVidia drivers (and restarted system), did the error disappear? (It would indicate a problem with NVidia drivers for this particular GPU, which seems reasonable as I cannot reproduce the trouble here, on the same configuration but Intel GPU.)

[Iliya.St]

I will try to re-install Lazarus from SVN. Maybe then error wil dissapear.
P.S. Sorry if my english is not very good.

[michalis]

I will try to re-install Lazarus from SVN. Maybe then error wil dissapear.
P.S. Sorry if my english is not very good.

Cool. Don't worry, your English is good Let me know (e.g. in this thread) how this goes --- even if the error is on Lazarus side, I'm still very interested what is wrong and how it will be fixed.

[Iliya.St]

Problem was in rgba module installed on my Ubuntu. I just deleted this module, and now all works fine.