#Foundation

##Game Engine and Tools

An (over)-ambitious project to create an experimental, cross-plaftorm game engine.

###Features

• Black boxed Game Components (Graphics, Physics, Window etc).
• Component based entity system inspired by Unity.
• EntitySystemGenerator can generate Components and Nodes from .xml files.
• Allows Entities to be defined easily within .xml world/level files.
• Bullet Physics library used to simulate 3D worlds
• Currently only supports basic 3D shapes (no mesh collision yet).
• Deferred rendering pipeline, with physically based lighting.
• Currently only supports DirectX 11.
• DirectInput support for controllers.
• Very basic 'mock' scripting support.
• An Entity's definition can include script names, but these are currently C++ classes, not compiled at runtime.
• Scripts only have access to their owning Entity's data.
• Uses Assimp to load 3D model files.
• Oculus Rift support (DK2).

###Future features

• OpenGL support.
• Including Oculus Rift support for OpenGL.
• Sound!
• Improved graphics.
• HDR, SSAO, FXAA, variance shadow maps, bloom etc.
• Mac and Linux support.
• Again, including support for Oculus Rift.
• Improved Scripting.
• More flexible interface.
• Replace 'mock' C++ scripts with Lua (or potentially another scripting language).
• World Editor.
• Log server (probably as a new project).
• There was support for this already but it has been removed (need to write a proper client).
• Write messages, warnings, errors and stats to a server.
• Web app to query logs- get common errors for different configurations etc.
• Server in Node js using MongoDB- already have basic implementation.

###Documentation

Run 'Doc/GenerateDocumentation' to generate the documentation using Doxygen.

• Note: Documentation is incomplete.

###Build/Run TestApp

A sample application (TestApp) is provided in the repository and can be found in Foundation/TestApp.

• Note: The model's textures are not provided (to keep the repository size down).

####Build

All projects require Visual Studio 2012 to build (untested in later versions).

To build this application:

1. Build and run the EntitySystemGenerator solution (in Debug or Release).
2. Build the DirectX11ShaderCompiler solution (in Release).
3. Build the Assimp solution in the Assimp directory (in Debug and Release).
4. Build the Bullet solution in the Bullet directory (in Debug and Release).
5. Build the Game solution (in Release).
6. Run CopyDLLs.bat in the root directory.
7. Run Configure_Win32.bat in Foundation\Configure.
8. Run DirectX11ShaderCompiler.exe in Foundation.

You have now built the Foundation Game Engine and TestApp.

####Run

To use the TestApp, run Launcher.exe in Foundation\TestApp.

###Customisation and Creating Games

Customisation is very limited at the moment and there is no GUI world editor, only .xml files.

####Changing the world

To customise the TestApp's world, you can edit the Foundation\TestApp\Resources\Worlds\sponza_test.xml file. This defines the Entities in the world by their Components (data), Nodes and Scripts (behaviour). There is no documentation around this as it should (and will) be handled by a UI, but the existing Entities and definition files in EntitySystemGenerator\Resources should be enough to make simple worlds.

Scripting is not really supported yet- there are only 2 'mock' scripts hard coded into the engine; CameraAnimationScript and OculusCameraAnimationScript to handle camera movement.

Any new models added to the TestApp should be placed in Foundation\TestApp\Resources\Assets\Models. They should also be defined in sponza_test_assets.xml, and be given unique names.

####Enabling Oculus Rift support

To enable the Oculus Rift in the TestApp, open Foundation\TestApp\ApplicationSettings.xml and find the Graphics node, then set the enable_vr attribute to true.

• The default free moving camera will probably make you sick with this turned on. To enable a more stable camera, open sponza_test.xml and find the 'Camera' Entity's Scripts node, and replace 'CameraAnimationScript' with 'OculusCameraAnimationScript'. This camera is always upright and works better with the Oculus Rift's head tracking.