Xenko Game Engine 1.9Beta Released

 

Xenko Game Engine, previously known as Paradox 3D, just released version 1.9 and frankly it’s a rather impressive update.  We reviewed the Xenko game engine in the Closer Look series, including a brief tutorial series should you wish to learn more.  Xenko is a (currently) free, C# powered full featured cross platform game engine with a comprehensive editor.  This release brings dozens of minor improvements as well as a handful of rather major ones including an integrated code editor, a switch to standard .NET projects instead of the somewhat awkward PCL format, vastly improved copy and paste, new starter templates ( FPS, TPS and Top Down RPG ) and a new NavMesh system.

 

From the changelog:

  • From now on, new projects are created as .NET Standard projects rather than PCL projects.
  • NuGet restore is automatically run on projects having a project.json file overview
  • Bumped FBX SDK to 2017.0.1
  • Mesh importing now supports ByEdge smoothing which was previously ignored. If you notice any difference with vertex normals for your models please check your FBX export settings.
  • Prerequisites installer will ask for UAC once instead of many times, and perform a silent installation for all of the prerequisites.
Game Studio
  • Previously, when an EntityComponent (i.e. script) couldn’t be loaded because game or plugin assembly didn’t compile properly, we kept a Yaml representation of it so that it could be saved or reloaded after a code fix. Now we allow it to happen anywhere, so that you can use and/or implement custom classes for any type of the engine in your game/plugin.
  • Improve asset logs and errors to properly display failure/warning icon on all assets, including the one with icon-style thumbnails.
  • Improve loading/refreshing of assets in the scene editor.
  • Asset editors will display a * in the tab name when an asset is dirty.
  • Add editor for C# source code.
  • C# files and .csproj files are automatically reloaded as they are modified on hard drive (using a Yes, Yes to All, No, No to All dialog).
  • C# files have their own undo/redo stack
  • Add a Save All button that saves both assets and source code files.
  • The Game Studio now uses AvalonDock as docking system
  • Improve DPI support (#454 and #470)
Assets
  • Asset YAML serialization has been changed to handle overrides in collection in a better way. More scenario of overrides are now supported.
  • SharpYaml has been integrated into our codebase as SiliconStudio.Core.Yaml. Most of the duplicated types have been merged back in the SiliconStudio.Core.Reflection.
  • Assets don’t use a ~Base section nor a ~BasePart.
  • Change Asset.Id to be of an AssetId type rather than Guid, to avoid invalid comparisons with other kind of ids.
  • Remove the Properties member of Package.
  • Introduce a new assembly Assets.Quantum
  • Overrides of properties is now handled using Quantum instead of ShadowObject.
  • Remove the asset diff/merge classes.
Engine
  • DataSerializers are now generated in a file with .pdb information, so that the user can debug them.
  • Add Local offsets to procedural models.
  • EntityComponent now implements IIdentifiable and has an Id property.
Audio
  • Add SetRange support to AudioEmitterSoundController
  • Improve compilation speed of audio files
Materials
  • Normal maps now have the option to Invert Y, supporting both textures where the green component is facing up or down
Particles
  • Minor optimizations around vertex buffer building
  • Add StopEmitters() method to the particle system, which prevents new particles from spawning without pausing the entire system
Physics
  • Add Cone collider shape.
  • Replace float with AngleSingle for MaxSlope of character controllers.

 

For more detailed information as well as a list of fixes in this release be sure to check out the complete announcement post.

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