Abyssal Engine Technology Features

Are you seeking more information about Abyssal Engine and Tools features? This page covers the features of the technology. If you have a specific question contact us

One of the most important subsystems is represented by the platforms tool chain. These tools are specifically designed to cover all the necessary artwork creation aspects.

Artwork creation export and import from 3rd party authoring tools
Visual effects creation and testing
Landscape editing and scene preparation

The Abyssal Tools technology supports integration with the most used 3D authoring package: 3D Studio Max. It supports exporting geometry, both static and animated, from 3DS Max (versions 6, 7, 7.1, 8, 9.0) via a special export plug-in.

Static meshes
Skeletal animations
Visual effects

All of these data elements can be extracted and saved in engine optimized storage formats.

While dealing with large data sets, the exporter permits batch exporting. Simply set your options, indicate the location of MAX data, click the export button and let the exporter do all the work. Entire directory trees are automatically exported by recursively loading the data from each folder.

The Geometry Editor is the tool for editing and viewing the geometric objects used by the engine. The place of this tool within the workflow is usually between the geometry modelling software (such as 3ds Max) and the World Editor or Terrain Editor tool. Its purpose is to assemble and optimize the exported raw geometry data into more complex geometry structures which can be used later as building blocks in editing new world configurations.

Scene lights
Particle systems
Lens flares, coronas
Environment settings and more


Edit and compile
Set rendering order
Preview


Create level of details
Set textures and shaders
Change texture mapping
Sectorize indoors

The Animation Editor is an editor specialized in handling animated entities that are engine specific. It can be used to assemble animation data, set character specific properties and create particle systems and other visual effects. All the exported engine animation elements must first pass through the animation editor so they are properly prepared for the game run-time. The editor has a simple user interface with floating windows for every animation element and a real-time preview viewport.

Complex skeletal and morphing animations: animation timing, animation blending, skeletal tags for weapons, rigid armor and other elements (eyeballs, mustache, hair etc.). Hardware skinning via vertex programs (ARB_vertex_program)
Character customization
Complex clothing layer system
Spells setup
Testing

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World Editor

The Terrain editor application gathers multiple world building features in one single software tool. Its main purpose is to synthesize the world terrain model and to assemble data resources into realm files. The terrain synthesis tools currently implemented in the tool allow for complex landscape shaping and texturing, therefore the terrain surface can be modelled entirely in the editor, without the need to divert workflow to some other modelling tool.

Landscape editing and entity management
Day and night cycles
Procedural terrain geometry and textures generation

Geometry spawning and transformation

Spawn entire cities with a mouse click
Use the object brush tool to easily spawn vegetation

Client-side Engine Features

Visual Effects

Complex scripted particle systems
Customizable spells linked to character animations and events
Screen post processing filters

Complex Character Systems

Animation blending: multiple animations on the same character
Detachable body parts with customizable colors and shading
Attachable items

Huge Worlds

Produce Infinite sized worlds
Large visible field made possible by the visibility algorithms for outdoor environments while the optimized portal based system links to indoor scenes.
Terrain rendering with dynamic level of detail including detailed textures, multi patch support and quad tree visibility
Fast collision detection and response suitable for large environments with thousands of moving entities (various implementations: BSP, spherical, range based, object oriented trees)
Environmental settings changeable from one zone or patch to another to give each a distinct look and feel.

Shader Driven System

Rendering priorities
Offscreen surface rendering
Support for pixel and vertex shaders

In-game User Interface

Fully customizable and skinnable user interface supporting multiple types of controls

Immersive Sound System

Dynamic loaded music with buffering
3D sound positioning with doppler effects
Event based sounds

Optimized Gaming Platform

Engine data structures and critical code are optimized for modern processor architecture (instruction and data cache friendly formats)
OpenGL 2.1 hardware acceleration with optimizations for NVIDIA Geforce and ATI Radeon
Texture and vertex memory prioritized management (video, AGP and system). Vertex buffers implemented through Vertex Array Range (NVidia - Geforce), Vertex Objects (ATI - Radeon) or common ARB path (vertex buffer objects)
Animation optimized with hardware accelerated vertex programs and CPU optimized SSE instructions
Support for audio hardware via Direct Audio (Direct X) and OpenAL. Compressed music in .OGG format

Extensible Architecture

Modular structure with separate libraries for main engine parts
Interface driven C++ code for functionality and data encapsulation
Built-in memory leak detection mechanism
Runtime type checks
Debug tools (bug reports, memory dump triggered at exceptions)
Extensible scripting language
Artist oriented documentation built in the tools with context help, searching and indexing
SDK with comprehensive programming documentation including tutorials, examples and class hierarchies