Irrlicht Engine Tutorial

We start like in some tutorials before. Please note that this time, - the 'shadows' flag in createDevice() is set to true, for we want to - have a dynamic shadow casted from an animated character. If your this - example runs to slow, set it to false. The Irrlicht Engine checks - if your hardware doesn't support the stencil buffer, and disables - shadows by itself, but just in case the demo runs slow on your hardware.

- - - - -

#include <irrlicht.h>
-#include <iostream>

-using namespace irr;
-
-#pragma comment(lib, "Irrlicht.lib")
-
-int main()
-{
-  // ask user for driver
  video::E_DRIVER_TYPE driverType;
  
-  printf("Please select the driver you want for this example:\n"\
    " (a) Direct3D 9.0c\n (b) Direct3D 8.1\n (c) OpenGL 1.5\n"\
    " (d) Software Renderer\n (e) Apfelbaum Software Renderer\n"\
    " (f) NullDevice\n (otherKey) exit\n\n");

  char i;
  std::cin >> i;

  switch(i)
  {
    case 'a': driverType = video::EDT_DIRECT3D9;break;
    case 'b': driverType = video::EDT_DIRECT3D8;break;
    case 'c': driverType = video::EDT_OPENGL;   break;
    case 'd': driverType = video::EDT_SOFTWARE; break;
    case 'e': driverType = video::EDT_BURNINGSVIDEO;break;
    case 'f': driverType = video::EDT_NULL;     break;
    default: return 1;
  }	
-
-  // create device and exit if creation failed
  IrrlichtDevice *device = createDevice(driverType,
-    core::dimension2d<s32>(640, 480), 16, false, true);
-
-  if (device == 0)
-    return 1;
-
- video::IVideoDriver* driver = device->getVideoDriver();
- scene::ISceneManager* smgr = device->getSceneManager();
-

For our environment, we load a .3ds file. It is a small room I modelled - with Anim8or and exported it into the 3ds format because the Irrlicht - Engine did not support the .an8 format when I wrote this tutorial. - I am a very bad 3d graphic artist, and so the texture mapping is not - very nice in this model. Luckily I am a better programmer than artist, - and so the Irrlicht Engine is able to create a cool texture mapping - for me: Just use the mesh manipulator and create a planar texture - mapping for the mesh. If you want to see the mapping I made with Anim8or, - uncomment this line. I also did not figure out how to
- set the material right in Anim8or, it has a specular light color - which I don't really
- like. I'll switch it off too with this code.

- - - - -

	scene::IAnimatedMesh* mesh = smgr->getMesh(
-		"../../media/room.3ds");
-
-	smgr->getMeshManipulator()->makePlanarTextureMapping(
-		mesh->getMesh(0), 0.008f);
-
-	scene::ISceneNode* node = 0;
-
-	node = smgr->addAnimatedMeshSceneNode(mesh);
-	node->setMaterialTexture(0,	driver->getTexture("../../media/wall.jpg"));
-	node->getMaterial(0).SpecularColor.set(0,0,0,0);

Now, for the first special effect: Animated water. It works like - this: The WaterSurfaceSceneNode takes a mesh as input and makes it - wave like a water surface. And if we let this scene node use a nice - material like the MT_REFLECTION_2_LAYER, it looks really cool. We - are doing this with the next few lines of code. As input mesh, we - create a hill plane mesh, without hills. But any other mesh could - be used for this, you could even use the room.3ds (which would look - really strange) if you wanted to.

- - - - -

	mesh = smgr->addHillPlaneMesh("myHill",
-		core::dimension2d<f32>(20,20),
-		core::dimension2d<s32>(40,40), 0, 0,
-		core::dimension2d<f32>(0,0),
-		core::dimension2d<f32>(10,10));
-
-	node = smgr->addWaterSurfaceSceneNode(mesh->getMesh(0), 3.0f, 300.0f, 30.0f);
-	node->setPosition(core::vector3df(0,7,0));
-
-	node->setMaterialTexture(0,	driver->getTexture("../../media/stones.jpg"));
-	node->setMaterialTexture(1,	driver->getTexture("../../media/water.jpg"));
-
-	node->setMaterialType(video::EMT_REFLECTION_2_LAYER);
-

The second special effect is very basic, I bet you saw it already - in some Irrlicht Engine demos: A transparent billboard combined with - a dynamic light. We simply create a light scene node, let it fly around, - an to make it look more cool, we attach a billboard scene node to - it.

- - - - -

	// create light
-
-	node = smgr->addLightSceneNode(0, core::vector3df(0,0,0), 
-		video::SColorf(1.0f, 0.6f, 0.7f, 1.0f), 600.0f);
-	scene::ISceneNodeAnimator* anim = 0;
-	anim = smgr->createFlyCircleAnimator (core::vector3df(0,150,0),250.0f);
-	node->addAnimator(anim);
-	anim->drop();
-
-	// attach billboard to light
-
-	node = smgr->addBillboardSceneNode(node, core::dimension2d<f32>(50, 50));
-	node->setMaterialFlag(video::EMF_LIGHTING, false);
-	node->setMaterialType(video::EMT_TRANSPARENT_ADD_COLOR);
-	node->setMaterialTexture(0,	driver->getTexture("../../media/particlewhite.bmp"));
-
-

The next special effect is a lot more interesting: A particle system. - The particle system in the Irrlicht Engine is quit modular and extensible - and yet easy to use. There is a particle system scene node into which - you can put particle emitters, which make particles come out of nothing. - These emitters are quite flexible and usually have lots of parameters - like direction, amount and color of the particles they should create.
- There are different emitters, for example a point emitter which lets - particles pop out at a fixed point. If the particle emitters available - in the engine are not enough for you, you can easily create your own - ones, you'll simply have to create a class derived from the IParticleEmitter - interface and attach it to the particle system using setEmitter().
- In this example we create a box particle emitter, which creates particles - randomly inside a box. The parameters define the box, direction of - the particles, minimal and maximal new particles per second, color - and minimal and maximal livetime of the particles.

Because only with emitters particle system would be a little bit - boring, there are particle affectors, which modify particles during - they fly around. They can be added to the particle system, simulating - additional effects like gravity or wind. The particle affector we - use in this example is an affector, which modifies the color of the - particles: It lets them fade out. Like the particle emitters, additional - particle affectors can also be implemented by you, simply derive a - class from IParticleAffector and add it with addAffector(). After - we set a nice material to the particle system, we have a cool looking - camp fire. By adjusting material, texture, particle emitter and affector - parameters, it is also easily possible to create smoke, rain, explosions, - snow, and so on.
-

- - - - -

	scene::IParticleSystemSceneNode* ps = 0;
-	ps = smgr->addParticleSystemSceneNode(false);
-	ps->setPosition(core::vector3df(-70,60,40));
-	ps->setScale(core::vector3df(2,2,2));
-
-	ps->setParticleSize(core::dimension2d<f32>(20.0f, 10.0f));
-
-	scene::IParticleEmitter* em = ps->createBoxEmitter(
-		core::aabbox3d<f32>(-7,0,-7,7,1,7), 
-		core::vector3df(0.0f,0.03f,0.0f),
-		80,100, 
-		video::SColor(0,255,255,255), video::SColor(0,255,255,255),
-		800,2000);
-
-	ps->setEmitter(em);
-	em->drop();
-
-	scene::IParticleAffector* paf = 
-		ps->createFadeOutParticleAffector();
-
-	ps->addAffector(paf);
-	paf->drop();
-
-	ps->setMaterialFlag(video::EMF_LIGHTING, false);
-	ps->setMaterialTexture(0, driver->getTexture("../../media/particle.bmp"));
-	ps->setMaterialType(video::EMT_TRANSPARENT_VERTEX_ALPHA);

As our last special effect, we want a dynamic shadow be casted from - an animated character. For this we load a DirectX .x model and place - it into our world. For creating the shadow, we simply need to call addShadowVolumeSceneNode(). - The color of shadows is only adjustable globally for all shadows, by - calling ISceneManager::setShadowColor(). Voila, here is our dynamic - shadow.
- Because the character is a little bit too small for this scene, we make - it bigger using setScale(). And because the character is lighted by - a dynamic light, we need to normalize the normals to make the lighting - on it correct. This is always necessary if the scale of a dynamic lighted - model is not (1,1,1). Otherwise it would get too dark or too bright - because the normals will be scaled too.

- - - - -

	mesh = smgr->getMesh("../../media/dwarf.x");
-	scene::IAnimatedMeshSceneNode* anode = 0;
-
-	anode = smgr->addAnimatedMeshSceneNode(mesh);
-	anode->setPosition(core::vector3df(-50,20,-60));
-	anode->setAnimationSpeed(15);
-
-	// add shadow
-	anode->addShadowVolumeSceneNode();	
-	smgr->setShadowColor(video::SColor(220,0,0,0));
-
-	// make the model a little bit bigger and normalize its normals 
	// because of this for correct lighting
	anode->setScale(core::vector3df(2,2,2));
	anode->setMaterialFlag(video::EMF_NORMALIZE_NORMALS, true);

Finally we simply have to draw everything, that's all.

- - - - -

	scene::ICameraSceneNode* camera = smgr->addCameraSceneNodeFPS();
-	camera->setPosition(core::vector3df(-50,50,-150));
-
-
-	int lastFPS = -1;
-
-	while(device->run())
-	{
-		driver->beginScene(true, true, 0);
-
-		smgr->drawAll();
-
-		driver->endScene();
-
-		int fps = driver->getFPS();
-
-		if (lastFPS != fps)
-		{
-		  core::stringw str = L"Irrlicht Engine - SpecialFX example [";
		  str += driver->getName();
		  str += "] FPS:";
		  str += fps;

		  device->setWindowCaption(str.c_str());
		  lastFPS = fps;
		}
-	}
-
-	device->drop();
-	
-	return 0;
-}
-
-
-

	- - Tutorial 8. Special Effects - -
- - This tutorials describes how to do special effects. It shows how to - use stencil buffer shadows, the particle system, billboards, dynamic - light and the water surface scene node. - The program which is described here will look like this: - - - -