ColdSteel Update: Windows, Mac, and Linux support!

Update 0.9.4 of the ColdSteel SDK Early Adopter has been released. The changes are the following:

- Mac and Linux modules for BlitzMax added! (Some features like .fx shaders and joystick support not included).
- Improved OpenGL renderer.
- When a .b3d file does not contain normal info for the vertices, now it is generated automatically.
- Material types from .b3d files are loaded better now (specially for material with alpha or mask info).
- Removed .my3d support in the Material Editor, and added .b3d.
- Fixed a bug which caused that a 16 bit screen mode was used if the stecil bufffer was enabled.
- Added csNodeSetMaterialFlag().
- Fixed the csLibInit/csLibFinish issue with the readme of each port (replaced by csCoreInit/csCoreFinish).

The Mac and Linux support is experimental yet. There is no support for .fx effects (and there will never be), no joystick, rendering in an external window does not work, and it comes without the editors. I'll fix these issues in future updates, but remember that the version which has the priority is the Windows one (basically because it is the primary platform of at least 90% of my customers, and I have been working for much longer on this). Also have in mind that the OpenGL renderer in ColdSteel is not as polished as the DirectX one, so some things may not look as good or even not work.

Please visit the official website for more information.

Cool. All it needs now is Collada support, and I reckon it'll be pretty complete (at least as far as for my current needs).

Congratulations Jedive, you've come a long way since BSPFactory ;) I'll certainly be checking this out.

One thing I would suggest is include a walkthrough to getting up and running with it, perhaps with bmax as this is probably your biggest customer base.

Thank you for your comments.

@sonicfactory: I plan to add several samples, but until the engine reaches version 1.0, I am focusing on adding new features and bugfixes. As soon as I complete the features for the next update, I release it, without giving time to make tutorials or examples.

But version 1.0 will definitely come with samples showing usage of all the features in the engine.

@FlameDuck: Isn't Collada a fairly complex format? It may hard to write a loader which imports a collada mesh exported from any modelling package. I recommend to use the .b3d format.

A simple demo.bmx with a simple room would go a long way with me at least - it looks fairly daunting right now :D

Define complex? It's basicly just an XML file.

The .b3d format is neither as widely supported, nor as feature rich as Collada. For starters it includes physics information.

Its also a massive pain in the arse trying to create a b3d file, unless you use 3dsmax.

Why do you need OSX Tiger to be able to run it? That's a pretty narrow market. People still have panther and jaguar which is why Bmax itself has that compatibility.

Hmm... well. It probably runs on Panther if you use the PowerPC library. If someone has Jaguar or Panther, I'd like to send him a small executable to see if it works.

About a small sample demonstrating how to setup ColdSteel, I think I might write one. Just give me a few days to do it.

Looks nice but you need to display more examples and demos.
Also I tried the demo release with blitz3D and the commands
CSLibInit and CSLibFinish aren't recongnized. But the program works fine othrwise.

i checked out the blitz+ decls file.
is this decls file a full functional 3d egnine?

anyhow, can you please include more samples :D
thx