Antigone Engine

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Antigone Engine
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Introduction

• Antigone Counter Generation
• Library of functions for simplifying 3D
  application development
• Written in C for speed (compatible with C, can
  make bindings for other languages)
• Wrappers for commonly used OpenGL functions
• Data structures for semantic objects

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Implemented Features

• Load, animate, and render MD2
• Load textures from a variety of formats
• Efficient camera management
• Frontend management (GLUT, SDL)
• Input API
• Debugging tools

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Planned Features

• Separation of rendering functions from data
• Loading geometry in BSP formats
• Efficient collision detection
• Progressive level of detail meshing
• Better animation control
• Multitexturing, environment mapping, bump mapping
• More support for model formats

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Internal Structure

• Engine is abstracted from some routines
• Two static libraries
• libmala (multivariable and linear algebra)
• Types for vector, plane, quaternion, matrix
  (3x3,4x4)
• Some numerical analysis methods
• libhemi (half edge mesh interface)
• Loads MD2 format mesh (more in future)
• Will have mesh operations for half edge meshes
• Will have more mesh types (for optimizations)

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Debugging Tools

• Assert ASSERT(ab, A not equal to B!)
• Logging wrapper for fprintf
• Profiling measure speed of predefined blocks of
  code (print min, max, average ticks)

startSample(Loop A) for (int
i0ilt100i) xxsqrt(y) endSample()
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Design Considerations

• Speed, Speed, Speed!
• mesh rendering optimizations (triangle strips)
• data structures (balance with memory constraints)
• Backwards Compatibility
• once API reaches some point, updates may
  deprecate but not remove interfaces
• Modularity
• should be able to easily add new systems (which
  operate efficiently), for example, sound and
  network

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Problems

• Feature creep, especially with formats
• Need to generalize data structures as much as
  possible
• Compatibility
• Defining multiple frontends and input systems
• OpenGL extensions / Hardware capabilities
• Support for those who don't have library X
• Lack of documentation on formats

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Research Goals

• Experiment with data structures
• Linking meshes with texture objects
• Flexible texture objects for multitexturing,
  mapping techniques
• Collision models (BVHs, AABBs, OBBs)
• How to store animations
• Localized collision maps
• Experiment with intermediately or simultaneously
  rendering to a mesh (for collision, etc.)