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Engine Details

BigWorld MMO Technology Suite

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The BigWorld MMO Technology Suite is a complete technology solution, consisting of a tightly integrated suite of high performance server applications, tools, advanced 3D client and APIs designed specifically for the fast and efficient creation of MMOGs.

Author

BigWorld Pty Ltd

Graphics API

DirectX

Operating Systems

Windows

Programming Language

C/C++, Python

Status

Productive/Stable

Documentation

Yes

Features

General Features

Object-Oriented Design, Save/Load System, Other:

•	Complete MMOG solution
•	Integrated client, server and tools
•	Scalable, fault tolerant distributed server architecture
•	Entity and world persistency
•	Next-generation 3D engine tailored for MMOGs
•	Professional level documentation and tech support

Scripting

•	Scriptable client, server and tools.
•	Fully functional Python 2.4 interpreter embedded
•	A Python API provides access to 3D engine, network, resource management and all other core systems
•	Entire MMOG can be written without resorting to C++ code
•	Telnet to access python console on server and client
•	On-display Python console on client and tools

Built-in Editors

•	WYSIWYG indoor and outdoor map editor
•	Intuitive terrain sculpting & painting tools
•	Concurrent editing allows a team of level builders to work together on the same map.
•	Embedded version control system
•	3D Sudio Max and Maya model exporters
•	Model viewer/material and animation editor
•	Comprehensive particle effects editor
•	Fully data-driven art pipeline
•	Client Acess Tool: fully scriptable tool for game tweaking. Runs python code and change engine parameters remotely
•	Run-time watchers: fine grained performance profiling , memory usage, parameter tweaking. On screen stats and graphs

Physics

Basic Physics, Collision Detection:

•	Network ready physics engine
•	Tailored for MMO RPG and shooters
•	BSP-trees and octrees for performance
•	Polygon level collision detection
•	Ray vs. skeleton collision queries
•	Line of sight queries

Lighting

Per-vertex, Per-pixel, Lightmapping:

•	Directional, point and spot light sources
•	Up to 8 simultaneous dynamic light sources
•	Unlimited static light sources

Shadows

Shadow Mapping:

•	Self shadowing
•	Dynamic shadow maps for entities
•	Shadows of outdoor objects vary with time-of-day
•	Lightmaps used for clouds shadows

Texturing

Basic, Multi-texturing, Bumpmapping, Mipmapping, Projected:

•	Bump mapping
•	Normal mapping
•	Parallax mapping

Shaders

Vertex, Pixel, High Level:

•	Uses Effect Files and HLSL for maximum flexibility
•	Takes advantage of shaded model 3 if available
•	Runs on low end cards with no shader support
•	Sub surface scattering
•	Additive reflective map (with optional transparency)
•	Glow map (with optional transparency)

Scene Management

General, Portals, LOD:

•	Seamless indoor/outdoor transition
•	Portal culling for indoor scenes
•	On-demand background data loading

Animation

Inverse Kinematics, Forward Kinematics, Keyframe Animation, Skeletal Animation, Morphing, Facial Animation, Animation Blending:

•	Fully featured animation system
•	Action matcher minimizes bandwidth usage and streamlines tweaking
•	Bones and morph targets for facial animation
•	Action queue and blending for seamless transitions
•	Animation compression for reduced storage requirements

Meshes

Mesh Loading, Skinning, Deformation:

•	Support for skinning and morph targets (blend shapes)
•	Proprietary model format (exporters for Maya and 3D Studio Max)
•	Out-of-the-box SpeedTree(TM) support

Special Effects

Environment Mapping, Lens Flares, Billboarding, Particle System, Sky, Water, Fire, Explosion, Decals, Fog, Weather:

•	Weather system with wind, clouds, rain, snow
•	Pre-rendered or procedural sky dome with full day/night cycle
•	Fully featured particle system for all range of special effects
•	Multiple particle sources: 3D mesh or 2D sprites
•	Interactive particles: wind, collision, barriers, forces, streams, tints, flares, jitters
•	Realistic interactive water
•	Cubic environment maps
•	Full screen filters: bloom and heat shimmer
•	Foot prints and decals

Terrain

Rendering:

•	Detail objects rendering (flora)

Networking System

Master Server:

•	Fully scalable distributed server
•	Dynamic load balancing
•	Seamless worlds architecture
•	Fault tolerance and disarter recovery
•	Millions of simultaneous players
•	Server monitoring and management tools

Artificial Intelligence

Pathfinding, Scripted:

•	Precomputed navigation meshes
•	Fully scriptable entities on client and server

Rendering

Fixed-function, Render-to-Texture, Fonts, GUI:

•	Model batching to minimize state changes
•	Model compounding to minimize draw call overhead
•	Object level z-sorting for additive blending
•	Triangle level z-sorting for non-additive blending

Features:

Ease of Use:

Stability:

Support:

Date Added

Wed, 12 Apr 2006

Last Updated

Wed, 3 May 2006

There are currently 3 reviews for this engine

License Name	Price	Source Code	Comments
Other/Custom	Not public	Yes	pricing available under NDA

Screenshots:

Member Reviews

NOTE: The ratings and reviews below reflect the opinions of their respective authors and as such, do not reflect the opinions of DevMaster.net or its staff. The reviews are not moderated and some are completely inaccurate. Therefore, most reviews should be taken with a grain of salt. If you find any inaccurate or inappropriate reviews, let us know by stating in detail why you think the review should be removed and any links/documents that support your contention.

Incorrect information

Posted by: soconne at Apr 28, 2006

I think the PRICE needs to be changed. This engine is not free judging from the licensing web page on their site.

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Not suitable for Indies

Posted by: jogi at May 24, 2006

The engine is nice, but they won't do anything with indie devopers. Only big professional projects will be supported and according to their web site there are already some on the way. There is no opportunity to get in touch for free.

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Powerful but complicated

Posted by: Goz at May 20, 2007

You can create amazing work wsith this engine as the screenshots on the website demonstrate.

I've found the support to be amazing. You ask these guys a question and they answer it quickly and comprehensively.

Unfotrunately, the code is very badly documented but it works extremely well.

Working out how to get the best performance from your application can be hard work as well, alas. I've foun the documentation to not be very artist friendly and have had to spend a lot of time working out how the engine works to figure out how we can get best performance from it. I've come across many basic problems with getting good performance out of what should be a very decent engine. It needs a few basic changes that take a lot of the work that, at present, must be performed by the artists and pre-calcualted in the engine. A lot of basic work, that every engine i've written does, is not performed and Ive found myself increasingly frustrated by the lack of standard terminology used throughout the code (and especially their lack of explaining what these random terms they use to describe features actually are). I'm sure, however, with more time I will get better with this engine. I am, however, very impressed with how they have approached certain complex problems and solved them. Wish i'd thought of some of their solutions :)

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