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 shader-based, this meant no visible result at all for several months.

In addition, STL is not particularly suitable for games.  Read here for some of the many reasons why.  I had to rewrite much of the standard template library from scratch and a sturdy, fast, and feature-rich memory manager as well.  In order to make a proper model file format I had to write a compression algorithm (similar to LZW, but modified), and I made nearly all of the sound library in the meantime.  It is no wonder it has taken so long to get a visible result.

But finally there is a result:

Hard to believe this is going to be a next-generation game engine, isn’t it?  But it will.

The early results are not impressive (it doesn’t even support texturing yet), but there is an impressive amount of technology behind this result, which will be explained in posts in other categories, and on the forums.

There isn’t much to see now but it is off to a great start.  It is 100% stable and has no memory leaks.  Because I have no deadline I can implement each feature properly and fully before moving on, and every square inch has been tested.

Sort these blog entries by category to read about the parts that are of interest to you.  I will be posting in chronological order in each section, building on what was said in previous posts, and I hope you will find this site helpful and entertaining.

L. Spiro