Features
Tree Of Named Objects
- Nebula objects have a string name
- Nebula objects are arranged in a hierarchy, similar to a filesystem
- An object name can be converted to a C++ pointer, and back
- String names for objects are useful for scripting and persistency (you can´t save a pointer)
- Safe object access through RefCounting and smart pointers
- Class nRoot as common base class
Server Objects
- Nebula2 runtime consists of a number of server objects which offer central services
- Server objects live under a defined name: Graphics server: /sys/servers/gfx …
Scripting
- Scripting in Nebula2 means: invoking script commands directly on C++ objects
- Every nRoot derived class is scriptable
- Scripting languages are exchangeable (e.g. Tcl, Lua, Python)
- RadonLabs uses a special Tcl version: MicroTCL
- Reduced to 36 commands
- Only 160 kByte
- Portable (good for minimal environments like game consoles)
Object Persistency
- Nebula objects can save themselves into a file, and restore themselves from there
- This also works for hierarchies of objects
- ASCII and binary fileformats
- Persistency files are compatible with the used scripting language
- Just run a persistency file through the script server, it takes care of constructing the resulting objects
- Advantage: no extra loader code needed
Filesystem
- A fileserver object encapsulates the host filesystem
- Completely removes differences between Windows-, Linux- or Xbox filesystems
- OOP concepts: File and Directory as comfortable C++ classes
- Under Windows, the Win32 file routines are used, not the ANSI-C file routines (CreateFile(), WriteFile(), ReadFile(), etc…)
- Directory assigns -> textures:image.dds instead of C:\Program Files\…\textures\image.dds . Nebula cares about conversion to absolut path.
File Archives
- Similar to Quake´s PAK files
- Packs directory hierarchies into a single file
- No wasted disk space with many small files
- Drastically smaller loading time
- Cleaner application directory layout
- Integrated with the Nebula file subsystem
Multithreading
- Simple wrapper classes for multithreading when necessary: for blocking Socket routines or background loading of resources
Communication
- Nebula2 offers low level wrapper classes for Socket functionality
- Optional a simple client/server system or a simple peer-to-peer network
- Wrapper for TCP/IP address and a port number
Remote Control
- Telnet-like functionality for Nebula2 applications useful for game console development, or remote debugging
Built-in command console
- All Nebula applications have an integrated command console
Build-in debug tools
- All Nebula applications have integrated debug tools
- Texture Viewer
- Object Viewer
- Light Control Tool
- Display Adjustment
- System Information
Graphics Subsystem
- Complete rewrite for DX9
- Full support for DX7 and DX9 hardware
- D3DXEffects (.fx files)
- D3D´s HLSL (High Level Shader Language)
Audio Subsystem
- Hundreds of sound sources in a 3d environment
- Static and streamed sounds
- Simple usage
Input Subsystem
- Mouse, keyboard, gamepads, joysticks and more supported
- Simple and comfortable input mapping (via C++ or script interface)
Resource Management
- Resources are: meshes, textures, shaders, fonts, sounds, animation data
- Loading of resource data from disk
- On demand or preload
- Automatically restores resources when necessary (for instance after Alt-Tab)
- Optional: resource sharing
- Optional: asynchronous resource loading in background thread
- Class hierarchie designed to be extended easily by new custom resource classes
Animation Subsystem
- Animation data optionally completely in memory, or streamed
- ASCII or binary file formats (ASCII good for debugging)
- Streaming useful for large cutscenes
- Animation data compression
- Any type of 4-dimensional data, not just translation, rotation, scaling
- Rotation animation through quaternions, not Euler angles
- Weighted animation blending
Character Subsystem
- Vertex skinning with 4 weights per vertex
- Any number of bones per character
- Any number of skin meshes per character
- Skinning running completely in the vertex shader : no per-vertex operations on the CPU
Special Effects
- Particle System for smoke, fire, sparkles and more
- Moving Trees
- Shaders for grass, water, glass, metal and more
- Fog
- Bumpmaps
- Realtime Shadows
- Prerendered Lightmaps
- HDR Rendering
