Hurra, now we've got more than 30.000 posts in the Irrlicht Engine forum! Some additional statistics: We've got 1517 registered users, 57.29 posts and 9.79 new topics per day, and a database size of 47.68MB. So our community is quite active. :) Some other good news:

• Reinhard Ostermeier created a website with some of his extensions to Irrlicht: Currently you can find an image list, a tree view and his addition for making it possible to load 32 bit bmp's in Irrlicht.
• James K. Aladar created an alternative Irrlicht engine logo. Can be usful if you want to use it inside of your games for example.
• As you can see to the right, we've got a new shot of the month. It shows a project of Dusan Benasic.

Major tutorial update and announcement of a new localization of this webpage:

• After the russian version of irrlicht.sf.net, there is now even a complete official irrlicht engine webpage in the czech republic, thanks to Filip Janek and Martin Kocí. It is a complete translation and must have been really a lot of work. Thanks!
• Updated first three tutorials with some corrections sent in by Erik Zilli. He also added a section with possible problems and their solution to them, thanks a lot!
• Fixed problems with <'s and the corresponding &lt;'s in HTML-Code in tutorial9b, thanks to Domenico De Felice for reporting this.
• Fixed a minor spelling mistake on the tutorial page, thanks to Ids Braam for reporting it.

Another short list of new interesting Irrlicht Engine related projects:

• Arena of Honor is a multiplayer first person shooter created by Artur Hallmann and Nils Keller which uses Newton for physics, RakNet for networking, Audiere for sound and, of course Irrlicht for graphics. The game already looks quite well and is entertaining, there is a demo waiting for you to download. You can discuss the project in the Irrlicht forum in this thread. I've added the Arena of Honor homepage to the link section.
• IrrSED - A scene editor for Irrlicht created by Tom Williams with export into .h and .cpp files and particle editor. The new shot of the month shows it in action. Notice that IrrSED uses Irrlichts internal graphical user interface system. ;) I added IrrSED to the link section. (forum thread)
• Paul Zirkle aka Keless released his ICE framework in version 2.0. Very cool.
• IrrGame - A gamestate system for easily creating games by Friedrich Schick. (forum thread)
• Drac's Irrlicht GUI Designer, a tool for creating Irrlicht GUIs. (forum thread)

There is a russian Irrlicht Engine webpage available, created by Panchenko "Andrushka" Andrew. He already translated big parts of the site and also some tutorials. Added the page to the link page.
I added a sphere file to irrlicht.sf.net for the exWARE German Irrlicht Portal. And if you haven't taken a look at the GMax Video Tutorials by afecelis yet, I'd recommend to to that now.

Few hours ago, the Irrlicht Engine forum has been hacked. I don’t know exactly what they changed and how they did this, but it seems that they only changed the forum frontpage. I restored it, upgraded to a newer version of the forum and changed some passwords. That’s the only thing I can do. I you are a registered user in the Irrlicht Forum, please notice that your password may be insecure now.
From my personal point of view, I cannot understand why anybody would hack an open source project website like Irrlicht. I am doing this for free, and in my spare time, of which I currently don’t have a lot. I thought hackers have some honor, but obviously I was wrong here. The Irrlicht website isn’t the only 3D engine project which has been hacked recently: The one of Purple# is another example. I’m not pleased at all. Hey guys, if you want to stop people from creating great free and open source software, you are on the right way.

Some other, better news: This month, I received serveral submissions for the 'shot of the month'. I chose the one sent in by Brent Cowan, which shows his game 'Space Madness'.

Some links to new Irrlicht related projects:

• Bindenlicht is a Java(tm) binding for the Irrlicht Engine, bringing a high quality open source 3D engine to the Java(tm) platform.
• 3D CakeWalk - a game development kit built around the Irrlicht engine. Discuss in the forum.
• ProjectPSI is a project which aims to create a framework for a highly dynamic world simulation which will use Irrlicht for graphics.
• My3DTools by ZDimitor, tools allowing to export lightmapped scenes from 3DMAX directly into Irrlicht.
• IrrSED - Irrlicht Scene Editor

Updated the link page with these projects.

I did several website updates:

• Uploaded the slides of my lecture about Irrlicht at the os04. Please note that I had to remove some slides and that they are all in german language.
• knightoflight wrote a tutorial on "How to use the terrain engine libmini with Irrlicht". You can download a demo from his homepage.
• Alvaro F. Celis created some video tutorials on how to use Relo + MSVC with Irrlicht. And he finally got his author entry ;)
• Updated some links at the link section:
  • IrrlichtRPG
  • IrrlichtTetris
  • The ICE project
  • 2080 Spacecolonization
  • And some others
• Removed dead links from the link section. If I removed your project by mistake, let me know. If your project isn't listed on the link page, let me know too.
• Somehow tutorial5 contained the same text as tutorial4 after the last update. Thanks to Jacob Linz for sending me a notice. Fixed.
• Added a new shot of the week, created by arras. It shows a scene of his space flight demo, and simply looks cool. You can discuss it in the forums.
• Jox modified the .x exporter for blender, which now works better with Irrlicht and has additional features. Take a look at this thread in the forum.

Irrlicht 0.7.1 is out. This is a non-SDK-release, which includes some major bug fixes, but no documentation, media files and examples. Only the source and precompiled binaries have been updated. If you don't have any problems with Irrlicht 0.7, stay with it. Take a closer look at changes.txt if you want to know what was exactly fixed. You can get this release from the download section.

There is also a new shot of the week, sent in by Alvaro "afecelis" F. Celis. It shows a scene from his splitscreen demo and really looks cool. It looks even better in movement, so take a look into the forum and check it out. :)

I just uploaded the API documentation. As Irrlicht.NET is included in version 0.7, you'll find a new entry in the left menu: API.NET. In addition, I updated some other parts of the webpage. This is the complete list of changes:

• C++ API documenation uploaded
• .NET API documenation uploaded
• Tutorial update, also the new shader tutorial is online now
• Development page update
• Screenshot page rebuild
• Changed some names on the author page
• Added a link to ex-ware.de.tc, a german irrlicht engine related development page, to the link section

Please note that in version 0.7, there are some minor bugs with the setting of the correct renderstates. I'll try to release a small bug fix package next week. If you cannot wait until then, visit the forum, you'll find there bugfixes made by really quick people like jox. Another alternative would be of course IrrlichtNX, I think they've got most of the fixes included already.

Finally, after a lot of time, today I released Irrlicht 0.7. There are a lot of new features in it. This version was tested and made to work with 5 different compilers, 4 different IDEs and 2 operation systems. This was a lot of work, and I am really happy that it is out now. The new features are in short:

• The first version of Irrlicht.NET is included in the SDK. It makes it possible to use Irrlicht from any .NET language like C#, VisualBasic and Delphi.NET. It is a very early version with very limited features, but it works.
• Low level vertex and pixel shader programming support with the D3D8, D3D9 and OpenGL renderers.
• VSync option.
• Text scene node.
• XBOX project setup support.
• Better Linux support: all examples and the techdemo now runs on this OS.
• Three new tutorials.
• Lots of bug fixes.

A detailed list of changes can be read in changes.txt. Irrlicht 0.7 can be downloaded from the download section. Happy downloading! I added some new names of contributors to the author page. Maybe I forgot someone, please drop me a line.

I just finished the first implementation of the new material system for the upcoming release of the Irrlicht engine. This change makes it possible to use D3D8 & D3D9 vertex and pixel shaders and OpenGL vertex and fragment programs with the engine. In 0.7, only assembler will be supported, but I'll add support for higher level languages like HLSL and GLSL later too. I added a screenshot of the first version which worked with all drivers into the screenshot section, and made it shot of the month.

The next steps for the new release are: Linux port, tutorial and documentation updates, testing, testing, testing.

Another bigger news:
Eve-corp was moved to IrrForge. I changed the links on this webpage to the new page. Irrforge is the free project hosting service for Irrlicht based applications by John Goewer, aka saigumi.

mm765 and erSitzt created Irrlicht NX, a version of the irrlicht engine with added patches and cvs support. This project looks promising, they are running their own cvs server and they've got a forum and a wiki. In addition, there is also an up-to-date API documentation available. I would recommend to use and support this great service, if you need a bug fixed, a more stable engine or cannot always wait for me to make a new release. They could need some help:

• Of course, they need people for sending in patches. Simply post them into their forum.
• They are searching for maintainers of parts of the library.
• They could need someone to create a better website.

Many thanks go to the maintainers and creators of this project!
I updated the link page, adding IrrlichtNX, jirr and a pointer to the IRC channel.

Time to add some new links to this page:

• Jirr, the java port of the Irrlicht Engine created by Stefan Dingfelder can be found at jirr.sourceforge.net. There are already some interesting files available for download.
• For those who didn't know yet: There is an Irrlicht IRC Channel available. The server is irc.freenode.net, the channel is #irrlicht. If you need help joining, you can take a look at this thread in the forum.
• The monthly discussion about the CVS has started again. Mike Ennen even started a CVS petition this time. Thanks for the effords, but it won't change anything, sorry. Read and discuss in this thread in the forum why.

Also, it was time again to post a new shot of the month. This time, it is a shot stolen by me from the website of the project goretek.

Robomaniac launched the second Irrlicht Development Contest. The goal is to create the best looking tech demo. The demo must be themed around summer relaxation 2004: what your doing, what you want to do, or anything summer related. All entries must be submitted by June 30. And there are prices to win: For example 1 year of Webhosting donated by Saigumi! (Further donations are welcome.) For more informations, take a look into this thread.
Another news is that Eve-Corp 2.0 is now online. Eve-Corp hosts Irrlicht-based programs. It is a free service, created by Saigumi. (A lot of thanks go again to him!)

The development of the .NET port of Irrlicht is making progress, and it is already possible to use the most important parts of the engine, I already posted a screenshot. But there is going on more: Stefan Dingfelder is currently working on a Java port of Irrlicht, and it really looks promising: He already got the techdemo working with it (see this shot).
Seems that the engine is getting more and more portable, it is now working on a lot of rival and competiting technologies:

• Linux and Windows. (Some people even sent me notice that they've been porting the engine to MacOSX, AmigaOS and XBOX but they never published their work.)
• OpenGL and Direct3D.
• Java and .NET.

Again, I added some links on the link page to some Irrlicht Engine related projects, both from russia:

• Stalker3D.net
• Russian Irrlicht Engine forum

And last: Robomaniac posted a very useful FAQ link page into the forum. Sorry for posting this that late. With this update, I also updated the development and the author page.

In version 0.7, together with some other enhancements of the engine, I'll include the first version of Irrlicht.NET. This will be a .NET class library, making the engine available for C#, VisualBasic.NET, Asp.NET, Delphi.NET and whatever. From then on, Irrlicht.NET will be included in every SDK release and become an important part of the engine.
The first version of Irrlicht.NET will not be complete at all, but you'll be able to do a lot of things already. My first test with C# worked with no problem and looked like this:

using System;

using Irrlicht;

using Irrlicht.Video;

/// <summary>

/// Example application using Irrlicht.NET

/// </summary>

class ExampleApp

{

  [STAThread]

    static void Main(string[] args)

    {

      IrrlichtDevice device = 

          new IrrlichtDevice(DriverType.SOFTWARE);



      device.ResizeAble = true;
      device.WindowCaption = "Irrlicht.NET test";      while(device.run())

        if (device.WindowActive)

        {

          device.VideoDriver.beginScene(true, true, 0);

          // draw something here.

          device.VideoDriver.endScene();

        }

    }

}

I uploaded a new shot of the week, which shows a scene created by afecelis. You can find more informations in the Irrlicht engine forum in this thread.
Some news about the development of the next version of Irrlicht: I am currently working on a new material system. The current material system is easy to use, but it is unflexible and only provides a very limited amount of materials (currently about 15). The new one will be 100% backward compatible with the current material system, but it will be extensible. It will be possible to add easily new materials and to access every renderstate of OpenGL, D3D8 and 9, even vertex and pixel shaders if you like. So for example, if you want per pixel lighted, normal mapped polygons in the engine but they are not built in yet, you will be able to simply add them as you can currently add new customized scene nodes.

If you are new to Irrlicht, there is a very objective article available on freshmeat.net, giving a short overview about the engine. It was written by Ian Gowen and also comments my rusty english, which I commented in return. ;)
There are several new projects using the Irrlicht Engine. I added links to all homepages of them to the link section:

• 2080 - Space Colonisation, a space game hosted by sourceforge and eve-corp, there is already a tech demo available
• Necor, a 3rd-person network action game.
• Project Urbanus, an adventure/quiz-like game with a 3rd person view, playing in a real city in the 1920's.
• Tower, a role playing game hosted by sourceforge.

I also replaced the lemon team icon with a newer one. I chose the new shot of the month from a posting by s32_weaselType, it is a first person shooter he is working on.
And last, I updated the DevCpp tutorial, several people sent corrections for it, thanks to all!

Jerome Nichols created a comprehensive Ruby/Irrlicht interface. It is called Irr or IrrRuby and its homepage is located at irr.rubyforge.org. A good reason to try out ruby at least now. :)
Another good news comes from the Lemon Team. They created a game called 'Paco Jones' during a fast game competition. It is available at their homepage for free download, more details and screenshots can be read in this thread in the forum.
I added and updated links in the link section and the contributors list for this.
And last, I am sorry for the recent lack of updates, I currently have a lot to do at university. At least I created a blog where I post from time to time to show that I am not dead already. :)

Game Maker is a freeware tool for making it easy to create games. It seems to target at non-programmers, but I think this tool is also useful for quick prototyping. Xception now created a plugin .DLL for GameMaker, which makes it possible to use the Irrlicht Engine in this tool and to create 3d games with it.
A Link to to Xceptions page was added to the link section and I updated the link to 'the agency' project, which is now hosted on sourceforge.net. I also updated the development page.
And last, I uploaded a new shot of the month. It shows the Irrlicht Engine Meshviewer, which comes with the Irrlicht Engine SDK. I enhanced it to load also Quake 3 .pk3 files and I'll include this little change with the next release.

Thomas Suter updated his Irrlicht Engine ODE tutorial to make it work with the new engine version. The irrlicht.sf.net copy of this tutorial is now updated too. Also, there is a completely new external tutorial available: Mercior wrote one, showing how to use Irrlicht with a new physics engine named 'newton game dynamics'.
This means the engine seems to work now with three popular physics engines: ODE, Tokamak and Newton. Links to all tutorials are available in the tutorial section.

Exactly 365 days ago, the first version of the Irrlicht Engine (0.1) was released. This means, the Irrlicht Engine today celebrates its first birthday. Time for some statistics:

• In the course of the last year, Irrlicht evolved from a totally unknown C++ project to one of the most popular open source 3d engines. As for example sourceforge's software map reveals.
• Thousands of programmers downloaded the Irrlicht Engine SDKs. Unfortunately, the sourceforge download statistics currently do not work, but for example: During only 2 months, version 0.4 has been downloaded 14000 times.
• There have been 10 official releases: 0.1, 0.1.5, 0.2. 0.2.5, 0.3, 0.4, 0.4.1, 0.4.2, 0.5 and 0.6. This means one release about every 35 days. That was a lot of work. Really.
• We've got a constantly growing community. Every day, there are 45.66 new posts in the forum. The database already has a size of 24 MB, and 2.5 new users are registering every day. Soon we'll reach the 10000th post in the forum. ;)
• In version 0.1, there were 28.512 lines and 739KB of code in 183 source files. The latest version, 0.6 has 116.000 lines and 3473KB of code in 455 files. The engine now consists of 4 times more code than a year before.

As you can see, the engine is very young, compared to other open source 3d engines, but it is evolving rapidly.
A brief overview about my future plans:

• Head for version 1.0. Within the next year, we should find an end of adding new features to the engine and try to make everything stable and run without bugs.
• I've got an idea of creating a donation button on the homepage using paypal or sourceforge's system to be able to buy more hardware and books for further development. But I don't know yet if it works fine with austria, where I live. And also, I don't think a lot of money would be donated, so I am still guessing.
• Maybe a top level domain for the engine would be cool. But I am unsure in this case too. irrlicht.sf.net is also cool.

Thanks to all users and supporters of the engine! All this would not be possible without you. Lets go on, for the next release. :)

Today, I released Irrlicht 0.6. The new SDK can be downloaded from the download page. You might consider upgrading to the new version, if you need something from this list:

• Improved .X file reader. Now loads, displays and animates 99% of all .x files it was tested with.
• Integrated XML parser and writer. Reads UTF-16 as well as ASCII text, and directly out of compressed .zip files if needed.
• Lots of new GUI widgets like ComboBoxes, ToolBars, PushButtons and ImageButtons.
• A new tutorial which shows how to create a complete mesh viewer application.
• Resizeable rendering window.
• Full Filesystem support in Linux. (as well as some other bug fixes for this OS)
• Lots of small additions and bug fixes.

A detailed description of all changes can be read in changes.txt. I also uploaded the new tutorial to this webpage, where it can be read online.

During the last days I was adding some missing features to the engine. In fact, I had a long list with lots of user requests. One of the most basic missing features was fog. It was not very difficult to add, took me about 20 minutes to update the D3D and OpenGL renderer. In 0.5 it will be possible to choose between pixel and vertex, exponential and linear fog, and also range based vertex fog is supported. You can see the result at the left.
But the shot does not only show the new fog, there is also another new feature. Take a closer look. Okay, you cannot see it? Hint: It is a shot of the OpenGL renderer, not D3D. Right, if you are an Irrlicht Engine user, you should now see it. Another long missed feature. ;)
As always, the screenshot was added to the screenshot section.

As you can see at the screenshot on the left, I am currently working on huge improvements of Irrlicht's user interface environment. I already fixed lots of API problems and made it easier to use. And I added new widgets:

• Menus: complete with submenus and also cabable of being used as context menu (when you do a right click for example)
• Editboxes: with support for clipboard copy & pasting, scrolling, unicode text, short cuts and a lot more.
• Tabcontrols: everything you need to get more user interface elements on the screen.

These will be included in the next release, hope you'll find it useful. I added the screenshot to the screenshot page.
The shot also shows the prototype of a 3D game editor I am working on. I am just testing and playing around, it doesn't mean that I'll create a generic 3d game editor for the Irrlicht Engine. :)

I am constantly getting more emails. Besides about 150 spam mails, there are also 5-10 mails from Irrlicht Engine users every day. I am using some very agressive configured spam scanners to get rid of the spam, and in this way some of real mails might get lost. I am trying to answer each mail sent to me, and this is consuming a lot of time. So if you only have a basic question, consider posting it into the forum, you might get an answer more quickly.
If you didn't get an answer from me per mail after 3-5 days, simply send it again, maybe I didn't recieve it. I updated the author page with a similar text like in this news item, and I added 3 new answers to the FAQ. They are describing for example why there is no CVS, and when the next release will be available. I also updated the development page with the current status of the development, here some details:

• Working on the .x animation player, loading, triangulation and mesh optimization is already done.
• Modifying the GUI environment a little bit, also considering some useful hints by saigumi.
• Refactoring the internal engine. Trying to add some missing features spottet out by keless.

And last, but not least: I added a link to a new project of keless: IrrLichtRPG - Erring Light. I updated other parts of the link page too, for example the ICE Framework now has a new icon.

A lot of users were discovering strange holes in some Quake 3 levels when they were loaded and displayed with the Irrlicht Engine. Last night I debugged the whole thing and fixed the bug. I posted the code for this into the forum, and the fix will of course be included in next release.
The screenshots to the left (and also the new shot of the week) show a gothic style level created by Myth, with which I tested the bug. It now works perfectly. And as you can see on the shots, I also added a new material type: Because my onboard gfx adapter is not able to display texture + lightmaps modulated by 4, I added a material in which the lightmap is not multiplied but added to the texture. As always I added these nice shots to the screenshot gallery. I'm sorry for the bad render quality, but my onboard gfx adapter is trying its best. :)

There is no skeletal animated mesh included in the Irrlicht SDK, to show of what the engine is able to do with skeletal animated meshes. Because I am currently working on .x file loading and displaying, and I want to add a new tutorial in the upcoming Irrlicht 0.5 SDK, I need a free animated .x file.
Yago already sent in his model of a dwarf, you can see it on the left. But to make it fair, I'll announce this here in public.
If you think your animated model is also nice or even better, it should be included in the next SDK and your name placed in the credits, then send it to me (remove the .nospam in the adress).
You can create it in any 3d animation package, which is able to export .x files, like Maya or 3DS MAX. The exporter is included for example in the full DX9.0 SDK in DX90SDK\Extras\Direct3D\Plug-Ins\, or you can download it separetely as DXSDK Extras from microsofts homepage. To check if you exported it correctly, you can open it with Microsofts mesh viewer, also included in the DX9 SDK at DX90SDK\Bin\DXUtils\mview.exe. Note that some other 3d packages have native support for .x file exporting, and don't need the exporter plugin.

Again, there are some new Irrlicht Engine related and very interesting projects and addons, which Irrlicht Engine users might find useful:

• ICE - IrrLicht Common Engine Framework: is an attempt to provide a framework for Irrlicht which will enhance rapid production of new projects. It has its own homepage.
• 2D Image and Sprite classes: Extremely useful library extending Irrlichts 2d capabilities. Can be downloaded with documentation, examples and a cool demo from its homepage.
• Irrlicht Particle Editor: It does not have its own homepage yet, but you can find any informations at this thread in the forum, there are some cool screenshots available, and you can download it from here.
• AVI Reader, created by rt. Take a look at the full code and the tutorial in this and this thread in the forum.
• Opengame.org, a member organization formed to promote the development and use of opensource 3D game software. On the opengame.org homepage you can find links to Irrlicht, and to its competition, like fly3d, neo and ogre. [Hello from Irrlicht to all, if you read this! ;)]

As always, I added links to the projects with homepage on the link page.

Time for a new shot of the week. This time, it shows two screenshots from FMORG, a Free Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, using the Irrlicht Engine.

Some people keep asking me, how 'Irrlicht Engine' is pronounced. As I already posted into the forum, there is a .wav file in which you can hear a girl speaking it out correctly. I'm sorry for the bad quality, I don't own a good microphone. (Send me better .wav's if you like.) I also added a link to the file in the FAQ.

After I posted the long list of new projects (see below), I received some mails, pointing me to more projects using the Irrlicht Engine. So here are 3 more:

• FMORG, a Free Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, with its homepage at sourceforge.
• Galactic Racer, a racing game with futuristic racing cars/ships. There is a homepage with a downloadable demo already.
• Irrlicht Tetris, a tetris game made by Paul Zirkle, complete with source, downloadable from its homepage.

I added links to the projects with homepages at the link page. Didn't I list your game or irrlicht related homepage? Just send me a mail (remove the 'no.spam.' in the adress).

Happy new year 2004! Time to update the list of projects which are using the Irrlicht Engine. I googled the web a little bit and found these new projects:

• Aitolikon, an interactive, fun simulation of a fantasy world. They also created a MD3 loader for Irrlicht, available on their homepage.
• Imperial Guard, a FPS with RPG elements. Has a nice designed homepage which unfortunately doesn't work with my Opera browser.
• Project Aqua, a Schleichfahrt or Aquanox-style game, with a homepage at sourceforge. Attention: it's in german language.
• Heroes, a game developed by Dark Wood Games. Its a mix of Action, Strategy and RPG game, visit their homepage for more information. Attention again: Also a german page.
• Dusty Engine, a task engine based on Irrlicht, created by Dave Andrews, with its own homepage.
• 3D Pong, a game by Friedrich Schick. Its name says everything, but it is unfinished yet: Download.
• Centaur Force, a FPS. For more information read this thread.
• Razial Game, a kind of fighting game with a homepage at saigumis eve corp.

I added links to the projects with homepages at the link page. Didn't I list your game or irrlicht related homepage? Just send me a mail (remove the 'no.spam.' in the adress).

Anyone knows the girl on the left screenshot? Right, it is Microsofts well known tiny.x model from the DirectX SDK. During my very short holidays I implemented a .x file loader. It cannot play .x animations yet, but already loads ASCII .x files very fast. It only needs 50 ms to parse and create a model from the tiny.x file, which is 1.4 MB ASCII text. Because Microsoft created a very excellent .x exporter for Maya 2.5, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 and 3DS Max 3,4 and 5, it is now very easy to create content for Irrlicht with these professional 3d gfx packages. The reader will be included in next release.

During the next week, you won't get any answers from me in the forum or per mail. I'll spent the holidays in the deep mountains of Austria, without any internet, so don't get angry if I don't answer you as quick as usual. But you can mostly count on other Irrlicht Engine users, for example in the forum. Happy Holidays!
There is a new shot of the week as you can see: Robomaniac sent it in. It seems to be a 1st person shooter, anyway it simply looks cool. :)

As always, I forgot to upload the documentation for the new version of the engine. Sorry for that, it's uploaded now. :)
Some users have been very busy, thanks for supporting the engine that much! Look at this:

• Madinitaly created a MD3 file loader, more information in this thread
• Boogle created a Tokamak Scene node, take a look at this thread in the forum

Finally, here it is: Version 0.4.2 of the engine, waiting for you to download it from the download section. Sorry for the long waiting time, but at least I don't get any money for it. :) I have made a lot of modifications to the internal engine and changed some interfaces and enumeration names. There are lots of bug fixes in it and alpha versions of features which will be finalized in version 0.5. Here is a short overview of the changes and new features:

• Preview of the terrain scene node for outdoor rendering.
• The engine is not limited to 16 bit textures any longer. All other formats are working now too.
• Creation and loading of software images.
• PCX file support.
• Curved surfaces support. (Thanks to Dean P. Macri, also for the PCX loader!)
• New Materials
• Interface for Logging text.
• Bug fixes.
• More bug fixes.
• Really, lots of bug fixes.

For a detailed description, take a look at changes.txt.

There is a new tutorial available in the tutorial section, showing how to use Irrlicht with ODE, the popular open source physics engine. It was written by Gorgon Zola, a lot of thank you's go to him. :)
Note that the tutorial is available on his homepage too. I uploaded the demo and the source of the tutorial here, but I'll move it to the sf.net servers later.
So now Irrlicht officially works with both popular physic engines: Tokamak and ODE.

Sirshane set up an IRC Channel for Irrlicht. The channel's name is '#irrlicht' and it is located at irc.freenode.net. Happy chatting. :)
In addition, Sirshane created an SDL device for the Irrlicht engine. This allows Irrlicht theoretically to run on all platforms that SDL works on. This includes embedded devices, video game consoles, Windows, Linux, Irix, MacOS X, *BSD, Solaris, and more. You can download this device here. Sirshane only tested the device on Linux, and is asking for sending in enhancements or modifications to this device. Or just post them into the forum.

Saigumi announced a Irrlicht Engine programming contest in the forum. Make your best Winter Demo, try to use as many base Irrlicht functions as possible. The winner will receive a license for Milkshape.
The rules are:

1. All content, libraries, and tools used to produce the demo must be legitimate. No warez or stolen artwork and models. You may share artwork or models from other demos if the original author gives their expressed permission.
2. It must use Irrlicht, preferably version 0.4.1 or 0.4.2 when it is released.
3. The source code must be included with the entry. This is to raise the available examples of Irrlicht usage as well as allow other OS'es/Systems other than the one that was used to compile the application to run it.

On December 20, 2003 12:01 AM, saigumi will grab all the demos and announce the winner before December 25th.
For more informations, visit the forum.
The new shot of the week was sent in by KnightoFlight, it shows his new snow tutorial. Maybe a possible contest candiate. :)

Seems that the Irrlicht Engine is getting more popular these days. In the current C't, a very popular german computer science magazine, a big article about Irrlicht can be found. It is about game programming, and Irrlicht is introduced next to only 3 other game dev kits: Microsofts DirectX, Conitec's 3D Gamestudio and TGC's DarkBasicPro. Irrlicht is reported to have lots of mature features and very clean and good documentated code. Arudil scanned the whole article and posted it into the open discussion forum.
There is also a large screenshot of Irrlicht in action in the article. I think it is a very nice article and I am a little proud that my name appears in it. Gives me lots of motivation to keep on coding. Cool!
Last update I forgot to add a link to zenprogramming on the link page, I did this now.

Ttom sent in some demo code for or picking up items in 3d. You can download the code and demo from here. Thank you ttom!
I corrected some small typing errors in the Splitscreen tutorial causing code fragments like <s32> disappear in the code.
The external terrain renderer has now it's own homepage, it can now be found here: zenprogramming.tripod.com. I added this link to the download section.
And finally, as you can see on the screenshot at the left, I had some time to work on 0.4.2, and built in curved surfaces. Dean P. Macri sent in code for this, and I adapted it a little bit. Looks really nice. You can find a big version of this shot in the screenshot section.

Lots of users are waiting for version 0.5 of the engine, and I have to say sorry for the long waiting time. I've got a lot to do, currently. I'll create a small release (0.4.2) including the terrain renderer for those of you who can't wait. Hopefully coming this or next week.
Max Winkel wrote a tutorial on how to do splitscreen games with the Irrlicht Engine. It is now available on the tutorial page.
Scott Brundage sent in a shot of a multiplayer deathmatch game he made with Irrlicht, looking forward to a playable demo. I made one of the shots the new shot of the week.
And last: I added the 'Welcome to the Irrlicht engine' thing on top as you can see. I'll start a small discussion in the forum about it. ;)

Brian Conner sent in some impressive shots of a project he is doing with the Irrlicht engine. I made one of the shot of the week, you can see it to the right. I also added the shot to the screenshot section.
If you would like to use the portal rendering method with the Irrlicht Engine, you are now able to do this: Maarten Bosma sent in an Addon to the engine, which does portal rendering. It is not yet finished and a little bit unstable and Maarten is asking for help to bring it to an end. You can find a link to it in the offtopic forum.

Torsten Damberg published the source of his Iso-LevelLoader for the Irrlicht Engine on his homepage. (Beware, it is in german language.) Maybe a good place to learn how to create games with the Irrlicht Engine.
Another news item: We've got a forum moderator: After creating eve-corp.com providing free web space for Irrlicht Engine related projects, writing lots of tutorials for the Irrlicht Engine at his homepage, and helping hundreds of Irrlicht Engine users in the forums, he finally became the official forum moderator: Who can it be, if not saigumi. I don't know how to thank you, guy ;)

I added some new tutorials on the tutorials page:
If you need a physics engine in your program or game, you should take a look at the new tutorial, which was written by Matthew Couch. It shows how to integrate Tokamak into Irrlicht.
Saigumi wrote a Howto on orthogonal 3D rendering with Irrlicht. You can find it at this homepage, saigumi.net. It shows that it is quite easy to create isometric games with the engine. I added links to all his tutorials on the tutorials page too.
And as you can see, we've got a new shot of the week. I stole it from Shane Parker's venom page. It shows a scene created with venom (a phyton binding using Irrlicht) with only 13 lines of phyton code.
And last but not least: There are a lot of new game projects using the Irrlicht engine: "Project 84 Shadows of the past" made by Carlos Jose Ortiz and his team, a fps/RGP game, located at sls.webcindario.com. "Raptor", which will be a remake of the cool game by Cygnus/Apogee, there is already a small demo waiting for you at the raptor homepage. "Heartland" by saigumi and pharoseer, which uses the orthogonal 3D technique described in the new tutorial. You can find some nice screenshots of the game on the homepage of heartland. In addition, I added links to the already mentioned projects "Monsoon" and "The Scout".

Shane Parker is working on 'Venom' which is a Irrlicht binding for Perl, Phyton, Ruby, etc. and it sounds very promising. Take a look at the venom homepage, which is also hosted by sourceforge.
But that's not the only cool news: Fabian Kranen is working on 'Extenic'. It will be a portable layer on top of Irrlicht, which provides a generic way of managing a complete virtual world.
As always, I've added links to these two new projects on the link page.

Christian Lins sent news to me, that there is an other forum for the Irrlicht engine, in German language. It can be found here. I added a link to it from the link page.
Taking a look at the eve-corp webpage, you can see, that there are already 4 new projects with the Irrlicht engine on it. I'm looking forward to see the first screenshots of these games.
Some development news: The next version of the engine will have a lot more new features than planned, because some users sent in their personal enhancements, which I will integrate into the engine. I will talk about details later, but be prepared: It will be very cool. ;)
And last: I updated the shot of the week, with an image you maybe already know.

You are doing a project with the Irrlicht Engine and need some free webspace for it, including a forum and an email adress? Take a look at www.eve-corp.com. Saigumi set up this free site for Irrlicht Engine projects only. I think this is a very great service. A very big THANK YOU! goes out to Saigumi. For details take a look at the eve-corp site or into the open discussion forum.
Another interesting news: There is a new project using the Irrlicht Engine. It is a game AID for the role playing game 'Shadowrun', created by WhytWulf. Seems that he has used Ogre before and now switched to Irrlicht.
I added links to saigumis eve-corp and the shadowrunonline.sf site on the link page and updated the author page.

I played around with terrain rendering last week, and because the results look really nice, I will definitely include a terrain renderer in the next release. Take a look at the new screenshots, they show the alpha version of the renderer, drawing some ultra realistic looking terrain.
And as you can see, we've got a new shot of the week: Cleves sent in this picture showing a scene from a game he is working on. The game has not a name yet, but he says he will think about it soon. :)

Hunter Poitevint announced that he and his team are developing a 3D action game with the Irrlicht Engine, called 'Supa-G'. They've set up a webpage for it at www.supa-g.com, I already added this to the link section.
Just a few words on the current development status: I implemented now the new texture loading code and everything seems to work perfectly. From the next release on, the engine will no more be limited to 16 bit textures. I added two new screenshots which show 32 bit textures in action to the screenshot gallery. But I don't know yet when this release will be out, I've got to fix some bugs, and add some additional features.
I updated the development page with the new status and added a new question to the FAQ.

Saigumi, Jrnovoa, Joi, and Gorgon Zola now posted 5 example applications using the Irrlicht Engine with source code included into the offtopic forum. Gorgon Zola for example posted a very impressive quad tree terrain scene node, with LOD rendering. I made screenshots of 4 examples, you can take a look at them on the left or in the screenshot area.
I also added one of the shots representatively of the others as shot of the week.

The API documentation for 0.4.1 is uploaded now.
I also updated the development page and changed some colors of the website.
If you take a look into the forum, you'll see that I've splitted the help forum into a beginner and an advanced developers category. Hope the forum is a little bit clearer now.
There are some new interesting threads in the offtopic forum, started by saigumi and jrnovoa, who posted some demos they made with the Irrlicht Engine, source code included. Maybe some other users want to post their demos (with source) too, to let other people be able to learn from it?

I released version 0.4.1 today. It comes as non-sdk-release, which means that there are no examples, media, tools and tutorials in it. And there are no very big changes, just some little new features and lot of bug fixes. Here is a short overview:

• New GUI elements: Message Boxes, Multiline Text and modal dialog windows.
• Faster input processing.
• Non default MD2 animations are now supported.
• Automatic event processing for cameras.
• Keymapping for FPS camera.
• Compressed TGA loading.
• Version checking.
• Converting 3D coordinates into 2D and the other way round.
• Quadratic gravity acceleration with the CollisionResponseAnimator, fixing the wall climb bug.
• Lots, lots of bugs fixed.

For detailed descriptions, take a look at changes.txt. You can find a link to the release in the download section. I also updated the author page with a new credit, and added a new screenshot showing new gui elements in action.

I am currently working on a new release (0.4.1), already implemented are: Faster input event processing, compressed TGA loading (thanks to Jon Pry), collision helper methods, more GUI elements, version checking, refactored event receiver system, bug fixes and a lot more. I think 0.4.1 will be out next week, so stay tuned.
And as you can see, I uploaded a new shot of the week showing a scene from the techdemo 0.4.

Knightoflight wrote a terrain renderer for the irrlicht engine and is asking for help to extend it. You can contact him using the forum. Download the renderer from the download section.
I uploaded a screenshot of the renderer and added two new questions/answers to the FAQ.
And last, there seem to be some problems with the CodeWarrior tutorial: Some applications seem to crash. If you find a solution for this problem, would be nice to post it into the forum. Thanks!

There is a new tutorial written by André Simon, which describes how to create applications using the Irrlicht Engine with Metrowerks CodeWarrior. Thus, now 5 IDEs are supported: The last 3 versions of Microsoft Visual Studio, Bloodshed DevC++ and Metrowerks Codewarrior.