Horde3D

Next-Generation Graphics Engine

Documentation

for Version 0.10.x



Overview

Horde3D is a small open source 3D rendering engine. It is written in an effort to create a graphics engine that offers the stunning visual effects expected in next-generation games while at the same time being as lightweight and conceptually clean as possible. Horde3D has a simple and intuitive interface accessible from virtually any programming language and is particularly suitable for rendering large crowds of animated characters in next-generation quality.

Many other engines out there are offering a plenty of more or less complex ways to achieve one goal. Horde3D is usually trying to provide you with one preferably simple way that fits best to the majority of application needs. This helps to keep the engine's code pretty simple and clean and decreases the learning curve for people using the engine.

Although we are trying to keep everything as intuitive and easily comprehensible as possible the engine isn't intended for absolute novices in game or graphics programming. Horde3D is heavily based on shaders and some experience in this area is from great advantage to exploit the full power of the engine.


License

Horde3D is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

You can receive a copy of the license from this link.


Versions

Horde3D uses a versioning scheme with three numbers, like the following:

0.7.4

The first number is the major release. Currently everything here is in Beta state so the version is still zero. When the engine is considered to be fully productive this will be changed to one.
The second number describes the release version. Whenever important new features are added or changes to the programming interface or data formats are made this number will be increased.
Finally the last number indicates the service release. These releases are fully downwards compatible with the current release and fix primarily bugs or improve performance.


Tutorial

The best way to demonstrate how easy it is to use the Horde3D API is by showing a small example. The following sample initializes the engine, loads a character model with animation and makes it play the loaded walk cycle.

Small tutorial


Using Horde3D

For information on how to use Horde, see the following link:

Usage Guide


References

The API references and content creation guides are available here.

API Documentation

Utility Library Documentation

Flexible Rendering Pipeline Documentation


Other documents

FAQ

Change Log



Copyright © 2006-2007 Nicolas Schulz