C4 Engine

C4 Engine version 2.10.3 is now available to licensed users. This release includes another set of minor improvements and bug fixes that were back-ported from the version 3.0 development builds.

C4 Engine version 2.10.2 is now available to licensed users. This release includes several minor improvements and bug fixes that were back-ported from the version 3.0 development builds.

Terathon Software LLC today announced that its widely respected game engine known as “C4” is being made available for Sony Computer Entertainment’s PlayStation®4.

A hefty new book entitled C4 Engine 3D Game Editing & Programming is now available in electronic form for licensed users of the C4 Engine. At over 1000 pages in length, this book packs an enormous amount of information into one place and covers topics ranging from effective use of the World Editor for both simple and complex techniques to programming a wide variety of common game mechanics. The book is written by 11 advanced users from the C4 Engine community.

The Standard Edition of the C4 Engine is now on sale for 50% off the regular price through the end of 2012. Happy holidays!

C4 Engine version 2.10.1 is now available to licensed users. This release simply includes a few minor bug fixes.

C4 Engine version 2.10 is now available to licensed users. This release includes a new proprietary cross-platform movie format, new built-in controllers, new background loading capabilities, editor enhancements, and several minor feature additions.

Our postmortem series continues with the game Gremlin Invasion: Survivor, which was released earlier this year. This article describes some of the things that went right for the developers, and it talks about the one big challenge that they experienced.

The second edition of The Beginner’s Guide to the C4 Engine is now available in print from Amazon.com. This 594-page book is the perfect resource for newcomers to the C4 Engine and experienced users alike, and it covers everything from installation to programming completely functional games.

C4 Engine version 2.9.1 is now available to licensed users. This release includes several miscellaneous performance improvements, a couple new features, and some minor bug fixes.

We kick off our series of postmortems for games using the C4 Engine with Wingball. Even though the game is still being actively improved, there was a quasi-final release of an early version at the end of 2010. This article describes some of the successes and challenges experienced during its development.

C4 Engine version 2.9 is now available to licensed users. This release includes official support for the Linux platform. There are also a few new features and several miscellaneous improvements.

C4 Engine version 2.8 is now available to licensed users. This release includes several big new features and many improvements to existing systems.

As demonstrated in the screenshot to the right, version 2.8 includes a new “paint space” feature that allows you to paint information onto arbitrary geometry. This information can then be used for any purpose by a shader, ranging from a simple spraypaint effect to a complicated combination of moss, cracks, and water puddles.

Version 2.8 also includes a new scene organization system that substantially increases the performance of visibility determination, collision detection, and proximity testing in large scenes.

Finally, this version includes new tools in the World Editor that make it easier to manipulate objects in the 3D viewport, and the tools used in the Script Editor and Shader Editor have been streamlined.

Eric Lengyel will be giving a lecture entitled “Fundamentals of Grassmann Algebra” at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week. The one-hour session is scheduled for Thursday, March 8 at 5:30pm in Moscone West room 2006.

In the December 2011 issue of Game Developer Magazine, C4 Engine has been named as one of the five finalists in the game engine category for the 14th annual Front Line Awards! A big thanks goes out to all of the users who helped nominate the engine so it could be acknowledged in this venue. The winners in each category will be announced in the January 2012 issue.

The creator of the C4 Engine, Eric Lengyel, will be giving a one-hour lecture at GDC 2012 in March entitled “Fundamentals of Grassmann Algebra”. This session will provide a thorough introduction to the basic geometric properties of the wedge product and multivectors as they would be used in game development. Particular focus will be given to the geometric manipulation of points, lines, and planes in generalized homogeneous coordinates. It will also explain how seemingly quirky behaviors in everyday graphics programming, such as the transformation of a normal vector by the inverse transpose of a matrix, arise naturally when viewed from a larger algebraic context.

C4 Engine version 2.7.1 is now available to licensed users. This release contains a number of miscellaneous improvements, driver workarounds, and bug fixes.

The C4 Engine has been nominated for the 2011 Front Line Awards! These awards are given out every year by Game Developer Magazine, and they are bestowed upon professional game development tools that deserve recognition for excellence. Please help us earn a nod for the incredibly hard work that we do by taking a moment to vote for C4 in the following survey:

C4 Engine version 2.7 is now available to licensed users. This release includes several new features and many improvements to existing systems.

As shown in the example to the right, version 2.7 includes new voxel-based blob particle rendering capabilities. The engine uses a parallel fixed-polarity marching cubes implementation to triangulate blobs (a.k.a. metaballs) in real time using all available processor cores.

Version 2.7 also includes a substance registration system that lets substance types be assigned to materials and physics shapes. Theses substance types can then be accessed through collision functions and physics contacts to distinguish among various substances like metal, wood, or stone. Some uses include playing different footstep sounds and applying different bullet hole decals depending on the type of substance.

Finally, this version includes a new animation cue track that can be edited in the Model Viewer tool. Cues can be added to existing animations so that they trigger a callback when the animation passes specific points. These cues can be used to signal things like when to play footstep sounds, when to throw or shoot projectiles, and when to apply damage to a target.

The Professional Edition of the C4 Engine is currently on sale for 25% off the normal price for a limited time. As an extra bonus during this promotion, each new purchase of the pro license, or upgrade from the Standard Edition, also includes free copies of the hardcover books Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics, Third Edition and Game Engine Gems 2, shipped to you for free.

C4 Engine version 2.6 is now available to licensed users. This release includes new large-scale water simulation capabilities and a new plugin that allows a fully-functional web browser to be embedded in user interfaces and in-game panel effects.

Ten years after the first edition was published and became an instant bestseller, Mathematics for 3D Game Programming and Computer Graphics has entered its third edition and is now available for the first time in a beautiful full-color print. This updated revision includes new and expanded coverage of topics ranging from shadow rendering to cloth simulation. Since it is written by C4 Engine creator Eric Lengyel, this book also provides many insights into the mathematical and algorithmic foundations on which the C4 Engine is built.

C4 Engine version 2.5.5 is now available to licensed users. This update includes enhanced shadow mapping capabilites, new user interface features, and a number of miscellaneous improvements.

C4 Engine version 2.5.2 is now available to licensed users. This is another minor update that includes several enhancements and bug fixes.

The new book Game Engine Gems 2 will be released on March 2 at GDC 2011. Eric Lengyel, the series editor, will be at the A K Peters booth on the expo floor all day on Thursday, March 3.

C4 Engine version 2.5.1 is now available to licensed users. This release includes several minor enhancements and bug fixes.

C4 Engine version 2.5 is now available to licensed users. This release includes a new unified user interface system and a thoroughly beefed-up panel editor that's used to create everything from dialogs to HUDs to in-game interactive interface panels. Many other smaller features and miscellaneous enhancements are also included.