Well, I’m still working hard on the NewtonPlayGround to get it out of the door not too long after the final bugfix release of Newton 1.5, so here is a media update to inform you on what’s up with it.
And so to show how much I did with the PlayGround, here are some screenshots :
And here are the descriptions (from left to right) :
Shot 1 : This is the most recent scene, and I just finished it some minutes ago. It’s a model of our solar system and all the planets are connected to disks that are connected with each other using the new custom gear joint. This means that when you rotate a disc, all planets will rotate according to the gear ratio that was set up. Looks fun and also is fun.
Shot 2 : You already saw the catapults, and this is just the graphically spiced-up version of that scene. The environment is loaded from an .X-file for which I wrote an importer to use Direct3D .X-files with OpenGL. And instead of simple spheres, the catapults now throw some real stones which make for a much more interesting flight-path.
Shot 3 : New scene to demonstrate all the joint types included with Newton/Playground. Nothing too different from the scene that was in the old PlayGround, but this one shows how many joints Newton actually has (no Upvector in there!), though you could do all the joints you ever need with the custom joint interface.
Shot 4 : Convex-hull madness at it’s best. This is a bowl full of famous teapots that are maed up using convex hulls. Though it get’s slow at times, framerates still are not too bad for Newton (and rendering also takes it’s time, especially with shadows enabled).
Shot 5 : As already posted on my blog, one of the new Features is a character controller included in the PlayGround, and that house is the scene to show it off. Using it is simple : Just open up the dialog and set up the size, forces and position of the character controller and off you go. Oh, and you can also grab stuff like in the ego-mode, just think of HL².
And behind the scenes I fixed much stuff and spent a whole lot of time for bug-fixing. I even fixed bugs that I was aware of for months, but until recently was too lazy to fix. So I’m pressing hard to get this thing done, both codewise and in terms of content and I think that I’ll have it ready for release short after the bugfixed version of Newton 1.5 is out.
Finally, here is the feedback thread for the NewtonPlayGround on the newton forums. So if you want to know more about what I did since the last official release or want to post feedback, just head on over there.