Delta3D is a widely used and well-supported open source game and simulation engine. Delta3D is a fully-featured game engine appropriate for a wide variety of uses including training, education, visualization, and entertainment. Delta3D is unique because it offers features specifically suited to the Modeling and Simulation and DoD communities such as High Level Architecture (HLA), After Action Review (AAR), large scale terrain support, and SCORM Learning Management System (LMS) integration.

The Delta3D Engine

Delta3D is an Open Source engine which can be used for games, simulations, or other graphical applications. Its modular design integrates other well-known Open Source projects such as Open Scene Graph, Open Dynamics Engine, Character Animation Library, and OpenAL. Rather than bury the underlying modules, Delta3D integrates them together in an easy-to-use API -- always allowing access to the important underlying components. This provides a high-level API while still allowing the end user the optional, low-level functionality.

For a full list of features, please see The Delta3D Feature List. Delta3D renders using OpenGL and imports a whole list of diverse file formats (.flt, .3ds, .obj, etc.).

Supported Platforms

Delta3D is developed and tested on Windows XP using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (7.1) and Fedora Core 5 and 6 using gcc. All the underlying dependencies are cross-platform as well, so just about any platform should be compatible with a few minor modifications to the source. Unofficially, there is general support for Mac OSX and many users are successfully developing Delta3D applications on that platform.
Support

Support for Delta3D is provided via the web Forums (web registration is required).

Licensing

Delta3D is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The underlying modules may have their own licensing, but are at the minimum, considered Open Source and are freely distributable.

The STAGE source code which uses QT is licenced under the GNU General Public License (GPL). All modifications and contributions to the editer are considered to fall under the same license.

Features

Delta3D is an Open Source engine which can be used for games, simulations, or other graphical applications. Its modular design integrates well-known Open Source projects such as Open Scene Graph (OSG), Open Dynamics Engine (ODE), Character Animation Library (CAL3D), and OpenAL as well as projects such as Trolltech’s Qt, Crazy Eddie’s GUI (CEGUI), Xerces-C, Producer, InterSense Tracker Drivers, HawkNL, and the Game Networking Engine (GNE). Rather than bury the underlying modules, Delta3D integrates them together in an easy-to-use API which allows direct access to important underlying behavior when needed. Delta3D renders using OpenSceneGraph and OpenGL.

The primary goal of Delta3D is to provide a single, flexible API with the basic elements needed by all visualization applications. In addition to the underlying components, Delta3D provides a variety of tools such as the Simulation, Training, and Game Editor (STAGE), the BSP Compiler, the particle editor, a stand-alone model viewer, and a HLA Stealth Viewer. Further, Delta3D has an extensive architectural suite that is integrated throughout the engine. This suite includes frameworks such as the Application Base Classes (ABC) for getting started; the Dynamic Actor Layer (DAL) for Actor Proxies and Properties; signal/slot support for direct method linking; the Game Manager (GM) for actor management; pluggable terrain tools for reading, rendering, and decorating terrain; and high-level messaging for actor communication.

dtCore

Contains all the common base functionality

* Input device mapping (Keyboard, Mouse, Joystick, Trackers)
* Motion models (Fly, UFO, Walk, Orbit, First Person)
* Environment rendering (clouds, haze, skyboxes, time of day)
* Particle System Effects (Smoke, Explosion, Custom)
* Terrain Rendering (Infinite Procedural terrain, Heightfield-based terrain)
* File loading
o .3dc, .3ds, .ac, .dw, .flt, .geo, .ive, .logo, .lwo, .lws, .md2, .obj, .osg, .tgz, .x, .zip
o .bmp, .dds, .gif, .jpg, .pic, .png, .pnm, .rgb, .tga, .tiff, .txp
o .wav
* Camera controls (Field of View, Tripod)
* Multiple camera support
* Multiple window support
* Physics (Rigid Body, Collision Detection, Auto-bounding shapes)
* Open GL Lighting
* Bezier path nodes
* Full OpenGL 2.0 support
* GLSL Vertex and Fragment Shaders

dtChar

* Animation blending
* Ground following
* Avatar feet correspond to world positioning

dtABC

High-level Application Base Components. Useful for some application development.

* Application template
* Weather interface (visibility, cloud coverage)
* Window integration with Fast Light Toolkit (FLTK)
* Widget class to ease intergration with other window toolkits

dtHLA

Interface to HLA networking. Integrates internal components with user-supplied RTI.

* Coordinate system conversion
* Detonation interface
* HLA entity interface

dtTerrain
Provides a framework for implementing terrain loading, rendering, and decorating. Pluggable architecture for renderers, reader, and decorators

* Paged terrain tiles, image utilities, and noise generation
* DTED reader
* SOARX renderer with continuous level of detail
* Procedural vegetation placement – land cover classification (LCC) support
* Image overlay decorator – GEOTIFF support

dtDAL

The Dynamic Actor Layer provides a generic infrastructure for creating, accessing, and manipulating Actors.

* Actor proxy and actor property architecture
* Library management (Actor Registries)
* Project and map loading (XML)
* Actor property types: Sound, Terrain, Character, Texture, Static Mesh, Particle System, Enumeration, Actor, Color, Vec2/3/4, String, Int, Double, and more
* Base engine actor proxies

dtGUI
Direct interface with Crazy Eddie’s GUI.

* UI Drawable and renderer
* Extensisble skinning interface
* Default GUI art

dtGame

Provides a complete architecture for building complex games and training applications. The Game Manager (GM) is a high-level infrastructure for communicating between actors and components whether locally or in a client-server environment.

* Game Actor and Proxy
* GM Component architecture with plugin support - default message processor, rules component, and logger component
* Message infrastructure – message and parameter factories
* Network agnostic – support for single client, client/server, and playback
* Message streaming for sending, receiving, and recording messages
* Base client and server game managers

dtUtil

Basic utility objects used throughout Delta3D.

* File logging and Xerces XML utilities
* Texture, noise, matrix, and string utilities
* Library Management
* Type safe enumerations

dtBSP

Automatically breaks up loaded Objects into an optimized BSP format

* Works best with interior Scenes
* Exports to .osg and .ive

dtAudio

Provides high-level functionality for audio playback.

* 2D/3D sounds
* Full control of sounds (gain, pitch, position, play, stop, pause, rewind, etc.)
* Doppler effect
* Efficient use of audio hardware

dtNet

Provides high-level API for use with multiplayer networking.

* Server/Client architecture
* Reliable/unreliable packet transmition

dtPython*

Provides access to the API though a Python scripting interface.

* Full API access

*requires additional download of Python and Boost

STAGE – Simulation, Training, and Game Editor

A complete visual editor for building your 3D maps. STAGE

* Map editing – project resource and library management
* Visually create and manipulate actors
* Property editor and actor linking with undo/redo
* Split screen viewports – Perspective plus top, side, side orthographic views
* Wireframe, lighting, and textured modes
* Reconfigurable user interface with undo/redo
* Actor searching and global actor management
* Texture, mesh, sound, and particle browsers

Tests

Delta3D provides an extensive suite of example applications and unit tests to get you started.

* 29 Example test applications covering almost aspect of Delta3D
* Over 22,000 lines of unit tests

Cross Platform

Supports Windows and Linux (Fedora Core 4) binary and compilation.

* MS Visual Studio 2003 solutions and projects
* Complete SCons scripts

Utilities

* Graphical Particle Effect Editor - Provides a convenient GUI and display for editing Particle Effects.
* 3D Model Viewer - An easy-to-use, standalone Viewer to preview 3D models.
* BSP Compiler - Loads, compiles, and save generic Objects into a BSP optimized file.
* HLA Graphical Stealth Viewer - A simple 3D representation of all entities on the HLA network.