Simul at GDC / Game Connection
Saturday, February 27th, 2010Simul will be at GDC 2010 and Game Connection. Contact us at enquiries@simul.co.uk to arrange a meeting.
Spellbound chooses Simul Weather for ArcaniA – A Gothic Tale
Monday, February 1st, 2010Real-Time Volumetric Weather Effects
Simul Software Ltd has announced that Spellbound Entertainment AG, a leading independent studio based in Kehl, Germany, has chosen the Simul Weather SDK to generate real-time weather effects for the forthcoming multi-platform  fantasy action RPG ArcaniA – A Gothic Tale, to be published by JoWooD Productions Software AG.
The award-winning Simul Weather SDK allows developers to generate volumetric weather systems with clouds that grow and change in real time. The SDK works within a developer’s chosen rendering framework, offering full control of all aspects of weather rendering.
“Our Artists love the Simul Weather SDK because they have full control about the results while still having unique and non-repetitive clouds. Our programmers appreciate the low memory consumption as well as the performance.” said Andreas Speer, Studio Manager of  Spellbound, “All that made the Simul Weather SDK the tool of our choice.”
“We are delighted to be working with Spellbound,” said Dr Roderick Kennedy, Chief Executive of Simul, “and have been very impressed with the results they’ve achieved with the SDK. Simul’s aim is for middleware that’s completely painless to add to a new or existing project, and Spellbound have been instrumental in helping us achieve this.”
“ArcaniA –A Gothic Tale will be a new milestone in the history of interactive role playing games. For this reason, we dedicated ourselves to only use high-quality middleware and cutting edge techniques for ArcaniA. Our commitment to make ArcaniA an AAA game is still upright and is reflected in choosing only state-of-the-art technologies. “, says Clemens Schneidhofer, PR Coordinator at JoWooD.
About Simul
Simul Software Ltd was founded in Manchester in 2007 by games industry veterans. The Chief Executive and Technical Lead of Simul is Dr Roderick Kennedy, whose previous work includes the DID classics TFX and EF2000; and Evolution Studios’ WRC4 and WRC: Rally Evolved.
The Simul Weather SDK won the Research and Development Project Excellence Award in the British Computer Society’s IT Industry Awards 2008.
About Spellbound
Spellbound Entertainment AG is one of the leading German game developers. The company is based in Kehl and has created more than 20 games within the last 15 years. Spellbound obtained international attention with its Desperados and Airline Tycoon series that sold worldwide with great success. Spellbound is a registered developer on all established console platforms. In April they released their latest title Giana Sisters DS for Nintendo DS.
For more information, please visit: www.spellbound.de
About JoWooD
JoWooD publishes internationally competitive, high-quality entertainment software for all existing and future gaming systems. The attention is focused on the extension and the advancement of throughout the world known JoWooD game brands. JoWooD games are being distributed over a worldwide network of distribution partners.
Intel Middleware Advertorial in December’s Develop
Sunday, December 20th, 2009We’re part of a big seven-page advertorial by Intel in this month’s Develop magazine. For more information on Simul Weather – go here.
Simul live on Intel Software Network
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009Welcome to listeners from Intel Software Network – the Simul Weather video can be found here!
DarkCLOUDS videos
Saturday, September 19th, 2009Here are some videos from DarkCLOUDS, our plug-in for DarkBASIC Professional.
Simul Weather video
Saturday, September 5th, 2009This is one of the most awesome uses Simul Weather has been put to!
Intel middleware gallery
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 |
Intel®, the leading maker of computer hardware, have featured Simul Weather in their Middleware Gallery. Simul Weather is fully compatible with the latest Intel multi-core processors, featuring optional support for Threading Building Blocks – find out more here. |
Help that helps
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009Simul Weather version 1.4.0 is ready to hit, it’s uploading overnight. There are numerous improvements, but the best new feature is that every page of the help file has a web-form that sends us direct feedback about the documentation.
Dark Clouds
Monday, August 3rd, 2009DarkBASIC is a complete game-development system aimed at the amateur-to-professional developer.
We’ve put together a version of Simul Weather for DarkBASIC – it has a few limitations that aren’t in the main product. It’s called DarkCLOUDS is now available from The Game Creators – find it here.
Going from DX9 to DX10
Monday, July 27th, 2009Going from DirectX 9 to DirectX 10 in C++:
DX10 (at least the version of August 2007) seems to really dislike rendering to buffers that aren’t powers of two – e.g. rendering to a HDR buffer that’s 1280 by 720!
Here’s a table of roughly corresponding DX9 and DX10 expressions:
| D3DFORMAT | -> | DXGI_FORMAT |
| D3DFMT_… | -> | DXGI_FORMAT_… |
| D3DUSAGE_… | -> | D3D10_USAGE_… |
| D3DVERTEXELEMENT9 | -> | D3D10_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC |
| CreateVertexDeclaration | -> | CreateInputLayout |
| OnLostDevice | -> | not used? |
| D3DXCreateTexture | -> | ID3D10Device::CreateTexture1D, CreateTexture2D |
| D3DXCreateVolumeTexture | -> | ID3D10Device::CreateTexture3D |
| LockRect | -> | Map |
| UnlockRect | -> | Unmap |
| D3DLOCKED_RECT | -> | D3D10_MAPPED_TEXTURE2D |
| D3DLOCKED_BOX | -> | D3D10_MAPPED_TEXTURE3D |
| SetVertexDeclaration | -> | IASetInputLayout |
| ID3DXEffect::SetTexture | -> | ID3D10EffectShaderResourceVariable::SetResource |
| ID3DXEffect::SetVector | -> | ID3D10EffectVectorVariable::SetFloatVector |
| ID3DXEffect::SetFloat | -> | ID3D10EffectFloatVariable::SetFloat |
| D3DQUERYTYPE_ | -> | D3D10_QUERY_DESC |
| D3DXCreateTextureFromFile | -> | D3DX10CreateTextureFromFile |
| LPDIRECT3DSURFACE9, IDirect3DSurface9 * | -> | ID3D10RenderTargetView*, ID3D10DepthStencilView* |
| LPDIRECT3DTEXTURE9, IDirect3Texture9 | -> | ID3D10Texture1D, ID3D10Texture2D |
| D3DXHANDLE (for shader variables) | -> | ID3D10EffectScalarVariable*, ID3D10EffectVectorVariable*, etc. |
| LPDIRECT3DQUERY9, IDirect3DQuery9* | -> | ID3D10Query* |
| vs_1_1, etc. | -> | Not Supported |
| technique | -> | technique10 |
| cullmode=none | -> | SetRasterizerState( RenderNoCull ); |
| ZEnable = true; | -> | SetDepthStencilState( DisableDepth, 0 ); |
| AlphaBlendEnable = false; | -> | SetBlendStateNoBlend, float4( 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f ), 0xFFFFFFFF ); |