The Wii is now a little over a year old and its indie scene is still fairly young. Since Nintendo has yet to release any tools for its Wiiware, system development has been limited to simpler web-based methods such as (D,X)HTML, JavaScript, and Flash. This allows just about any game of the 2D variety, yet many people are aching to see the product of an indie developer's mind in 3D.
This is what Syndicate Development is attempting to provide with the Paradigm Engine. Based in Flash, the engine uses trig in conjunction with Actionscript's drawing API to render its 3D scenes. As of build 3 support has been added for basic polygons, models, and texture rendering. Albiet the current code for rendering a texture is slow (64x64 = loop executing 4096 times = 2fps). This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the engine's features which average 30-40 FPS. To provide support for the Wii controls the engine uses the MarioToo API (upgrading to the WiiCade API in build 4).
The engine also includes experimental netcode and Perl server. This allows for the sending of packets between multiple users allowing for multiplayer gaming. However, this may be replaced by the WiiCade multiplayer API in the future.
To go with this introduction Syndicate Development is releasing Build 3 of the Paradigm Engine. This build has several new features added since Build 2 in addition to upgrades and performance enhancements. Hope to see some interesting indie games come from this. See ya.
- Download Paradigm Engine
- Download Paradigm Engine Patch
It's a good start - but it'd be nice to see some more powerful software out there for budding Wii developers.
Star fox yey!!!!...I can't wait till we get to see some Wii mods :D
I actually found a bug with how the Wii-mote code was setup. I've fixed it and will be uploading a patch a little later today (after I wake up :D ). If anyone wants to go ahead and check out the compiled version its available at "http://www.freewebs.com/trisoftgames/wii3d/game.html". I had to host it on my old space while I look for a new one (newsit.es started showing ads and that interfered with all the stuff).
The controls for Wii are D-pad and button 2. The controls for PC (any OS) are arrow keys and space.
Wouldn't using an engine like Away3D be better than using your own proprietary engine? Judging by the performance description in your news post it would probably benefit vastly from using the Away3D code for 3d drawing to the stage and then slap all your logic in around there. Great job anyhow, I thank my lucky stars every day for the AVM2 as stuff like this wouldn't be possible without it =D. Again, really great stuff.
I actually started working on the engine just before development of Modern Warfare ceased. I'd never actually planned on developing it as far as I have. Just an interesting side project to expand my Flash knowledge and to see if I could do it.
As for performance wise, everything but textures runs at a good speed. Since Flash doesn't natively support external textures I created a quick (and very messy) texture system for it that renders pixel by pixel (64x64 = a loop of 4096). That is where the major lag comes from with textures. If I can get it to load the pixels into arrays for gradient lines that will cut render time a lot.
Wouldn't caching the texture as a BitmapData object and then stretching it to the poly edges via a Matrix be faster?
I can't, in order for the engine to work with the Wii it has to be done in Flash 7. Wiiwii.tv
Jeez Flash 7! I read that article and it seemed pretty lame on Adobe's part I mean you'd think they'd want people using their products on the Wii. Man if you had access to the AVM2 on the Wii it'd be hella quick.
I know.
I'd rather people just work to make the wiimote work for the pc. That is the only good thing about the console besides the nintendo games.
It already does, it's a piece of **** to pair the Wiimote with your PC and then access it via the library available at MSDN:C4F (http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2007/03/14/1879033.aspx).