Features

[edit] Features

• Written using highly cross platform code that supports Windows and Linux. There are no major hurdles to supporting other platforms as well.
• Liberal LGPL license.
• Speed. Even in its early state, Yage can support tens of thousands of objects with thousands on screen at any given time. Yage is also highly multi-threaded in order to take advantage of multi-processor machines.
• Documentation. Although tutorials won't be written until more features are implemented, classes and methods are well documented with frequent examples.
• Modularity. Yage is extremely well organized into packages and modules with good coupling and cohesion. Interdependencies between packages are minimal.

[edit] Scene Graph

• Multithreaded - Each scene graph executes asynchronously in its own thread.
• Basic Physics (position, rotation, velocity, angular velocity, scaling). The Bullet Physics library will eventually be used.
• Lights, sounds, cameras, sprites, 3D models, and more all exist as nodes in the scene graph.

[edit] Sound System

• Supports wav and ogg vorbis file playback.
• All audio decoding/queueing/playback occurs in a separate thread.
• Complete positional 3D audio support with quadratic attenuation and Doppler.
• Uses an OpenAL backend to ensure maximum portability.
• Supports an unlimited number of virtual sound sources and only those close/loud enough to be heard will be played.

[edit] Rendering

• Uses vertex buffer objects to ensure maximum rendering speed.
• Automatically calculates which lights most influence each object in the scene graph and enables/disables them as necessary.
• Each camera renders to a texture to easily allow compositing effects.
• Uses an OpenGL backend to ensure maximum portability.
• Collada FX will eventually be used for easy materials authoring using programs such as Nvidia's FX Composer.

[edit] Resource Management

• Smart resource manager loads a resource once and returns cached resource upon additional requests.
• Supports textures, materials, shaders, models, sounds, and fonts.
• Supports a wide variety of texture formats, including png, jpeg, gif, bmp, pcx, targa, tiff, and more.

[edit] User Interface

• Mirrors the implementation of the scene graph but with 2D elements
• Supports a subset of CSS for styling elements.
• Pixel and percend units are both supported.
• TrueType font support via FreeType.

[edit] Notably Missing Features

See the Roadmap for a list of completed and planned features. Since Yage is still early in development, the following notable features are still absent.

• Collision physics
• Level loading / portal culling
• Good terrain support
• Good skeletal (character) animation support.
• Model LOD
• User interface widgets
• Picking (selecting a 3D object from a mouse click)
• Shadows