Hello all!

After two years of development it's almost ready for its first release. After some testing and additions to documentation a download link will be available here. It's about a week.

CAST II is a free and open source game engine (not only a graphics one). Currently implemented the core (scene graph, items manager, messaging), renderer (2D/3D), input (DirectInput and WinAPI implementations), collision detector, GUI.
A simple sound module is exists but probably will be totally redesigned.

The key points of the engine:
  • WYSIWYG world editor - you can easily build levels and adjust item properties. Visible items, resources, light sources, material properties including shaders, etc, can be created and modified in real time. All the engine features are available in the editor.

    Compatibility - the engine system requirements are lowest - its material system which is based on techniques approach allows to render the same scene with modern video hardware and with such old hardware as Intel 815 integrated video or Riva TnT.

    Cross platform, multi API - currently DirectX 8.1 renderer implemented but the engine is ready to have an OpenGL or DX 9c renderer module. The source code is compatible with Free Pascal Compiler and Linux/MacOS X platforms are planned in the future.

    Performance - the engine is designed and written to get high performance. Render states/shader/render target changes are minimized, vertex/index buffers are managed effectively and so on.


There are some predefined visible (and non-visible) item classes which represents planes, circles, [sky]domes, landscapes, imported 3D-meshes, particle systems and so on. The list will expand as development of the engine will continue and also I hope third-party classes will follow.

To make a game with CAST II engine you have to create some game-specific classes which implements all the game's logic, create artwork and build levels.

I will be happy to answer your questions.

A couple of screens:
Lake scene rendered with GeForce 7600:

The same scene rendered with Riva TnT2M64: