Castle Game Engine - highlights, features, plans as of July 2024

Slides highlighting Castle Game Engine features and plans. These are a nice summary of what we do and why. Just 11 slides, deliberately a short presentation. I very recommend to read and share it with everyone who may be interested in our engine!

It has been prepared for Nicholas Polys to present our engine at SIGGRAPH 2024 highlights.

See https://castle-engine.io/wp/2024/07/31/documentation-slides-highlighting-engine-features-baking-lights-in-blender-variants-in-pascal-search-box-reddit-more/ .

1. Castle Game Engine
Cross-platform (desktop, mobile, console)
open-source
3D and 2D
game engine
using modern Pascal.

Features, recent developments , highlights.

2. Comfortable editor to design pretty games
See source: examples/fps_game

4. Open standards and tooling around them
●Perfect glTF support - https://castle-engine.io/gltf
○P.S. editor has built-in Sketchfab search + import
●Perfect X3D support
○Everything is loaded to X3D nodes
○X3D nodes are the core building block of everything
○https://castle-engine.io/x3d
●Model viewers and converters available:
○Castle Model Viewer (GUI viewer and converter)
○Castle Model Converter (converter and validator, command-line)
○Online Castle Model Converter https://castle-engine.io/convert.php

5. Also for 2D
Platformer ( https://castle-engine.itch.io/platformer ) Unholy Society ( https://www.unholy-society.com/ )

6. Cross-platform - many source platforms, and
even more target platforms
●Desktops (target+source) - Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, Raspberry
Pi
●Mobile (target) - Android, iOS
●Consoles (target) - Nintendo Switch
●Planned next - WebAssembly (target+source) and Oculus Quest (OpenXR;
target)
●Games released on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS…

7. Using modern Pascal, powerful API to do
everything, fast, safe
●Clean code (readable type-safe language)
●Code engine and games in the same language (every user is contributor)
●Compiled to native code
●Higher-level language that scales - OOP, units, generics
●Cross-platform (desktop, mobile, WebAssembly)
●General purpose, so existing libraries for everything
○database
○xml, json
○ai, blockchain
●Integration with any existing library with C API
○any renderer, sound library, physics - we can use everything

8. Castle Game Engine - Hello World
uses SysUtils,
CastleWindow, CastleSceneCore, CastleScene, CastleViewport, CastleCameras, CastleVectors;
var
Window: TCastleWindow;
Viewport: TCastleViewport;
Scene: TCastleScene;
begin
Window := TCastleWindow.Create(Application);
Window.Open;

Viewport := TCastleViewport.Create(Application);
Viewport.FullSize := true;
Viewport.Camera.SetView(
Vector3(0, 0, 10), // position
Vector3(0, 0, -1), // direction
Vector3(0, 1, 0) // up
);
Viewport.InsertBack(TCastleExamineNavigation.Create(Application));
Viewport.Camera.Add(TCastleDirectionalLight.Create(Application));

Window.Controls.InsertFront(Viewport);

Scene := TCastleScene.Create(Application);
Scene.Load('castle-data:/jetpack-cat/scene.gltf' );
Scene.RenderOptions.Blending := false;
Viewport.Items.Add(Scene);

Application.Run;
end.

9. More features
●Graphic effects - compasable shader effects, mirrors, shadows, PBR, bump mapping...
●Friendly to CI (continuous integration): command-line build tool, GitHub Actions,
GitLab CI, Jenkins, Docker image.
●User interface designer, with anchors, UI scaling.
●Open-source and free software
○Permissive license (you can develop proprietary applications too)
●https://castle-engine.io/features

10. Support us
We are looking for:
●Community (your!) support: https://www.patreon.com/castleengine
●Cooperation with companies (consulting, dedicated features, platforms…)
●See https://castle-engine.io/donate_other.php

11. Recent developments and future
●As of July 2024
○latest version of Castle Game Engine: 7.0-alpha.snapshot.
○Castle Model Viewer: 5.0.0
○Fresh: Castle Model Viewer for mobile (Android)!
■https://castle-engine.io/castle-model-viewer-mobile

●Planned soon:
○engine 7.0-alpha.3 (August 2024)
■see what is already done (physics, VS Code integration…):
https://castle-engine.io/new_features_in_castle_game_engine_7.0
○engine big 7.0 release (2024)
○https://castle-engine.io/roadmap