Support for textures on 3D models took quite a while to add. There were many sub-systems to put into place so that I could make a texture system easily upgradable to support multi-textures, normal maps, reflection maps, etc. These changes spread across the graphics library and model library, and included foundation groundwork related to the [...]
29
Jul
Organization for Multi-platform Support
Overview Support for multiple platforms is a huge selling point for any game engine, and I consider this necessary for my project. This article is about how to handle support for many platforms without creating spaghetti code. L. Spiro Engine supports DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, OpenGL, and will support, OpenGL ES, Nintendo Wii U, PlayStation [...]
24
Jul
L. Spiro Image (.LSI) Format
Overview On low-end devices such as iPhone and Android, small files are essential. On high-end devices with large disc capacity, small files at first seem not to particularly matter, but since the target of L. Spiro Engine is next-generation machines, it is worth assuming that developers will have a substantial amount of resources to put [...]
23
Jul
3D Model Format (Compression)
Overview My goal with all proprietary formats associated with L. Spiro Engine is to be as small as possible as long as the loading times are reasonable. To this end I developed a compression algorithm based on LZW—with modifications for improved security—which decompresses very quickly. However that alone is not enough to achieve the best [...]
23
Jul
3D Graphics Overview
Overview L. Spiro Engine at the time of this writing supports DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and OpenGL. OpenGL ES and the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation API’s will be supported. It uses Phong (per-pixel) shading rather than Gouraud (per-vertex) shading and is entirely shader-based (necessary for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11). The shader language [...]
23
Jul
A Humble Start
I started the engine January 2011 from scratch. There was a lot of groundwork to be laid before any visible result could be obtained. In order to support all of the target platforms I wish to target, I had to make an entirely new shader language (L. Spiro Shader Language). Since my engine is entirely [...]
06
Jul
Introducing L. Spiro Engine
I am L. Spiro. Welcome to my site. I live in Tokyo, Japan, and I make video games and video-game engines for a living. I was a developer on Ghost Recon 2 Online, 187 Ride or Die, Catz 5, Dogz 5, Imagine Happy Cooking, Ready Steady Cook, Leisure Suit Larry Beach Volley, HOT PIXEL, After [...]