Amber have just open sourced Copperlicht, a WebGL 3D JavaScript engine. Copperlich was previously available for 99 Euro per year.
Here is an overview of Copperlicht’s functionality:
- 3D World editor: CopperLicht comes with a full 3D world editor named CopperCube.
- Many supported 3D file formats: 3ds, obj, x, lwo, b3d, csm, dae, dmf, oct, irrmesh, ms3d, my3D, mesh, lmts, bsp, md2, stl, ase, ply, dxf, cob, scn and more
- Built-in Collision detection: Throw a polygon soup into the engine and walk around the 3D world.
- Lots of 3D graphics features, see below.
- Incredibly fast: CopperLicht is highly optimized and able to render and animate even huge 3d scenes.
- Character/Skeletal animation: supports playing back animated meshes with an unlimited amount of joints and an unlimted amount of weights
- Simple to use: easily understandable SceneGraph API with lots of tutorials and examples in the documentation
- Binary compilation: Unlike other WebGL 3D Engines, CopperLicht compiles your 3D meshes into a small, binary file which downloads quickly, reducing bandwith usage for your users. Simply import your 3D files into the CopperCube editor and publish it as CopperLicht scene.
- Totally free: CopperLicht is free to use. And open source. Just download and go!
You may notice the strike through that Copperlicht includes a 3D world editor; this isn’t entirely true with the open sourced version. There is a commercial editor available named CopperCube, however it is a commercial product
I have to say, I like this move. You can create a full game using Copperlicht without the editor, while the editor is available on a 14 day trial. This means people can contribute to a Copperlicht project without paying money, but there is a value add sell that means the developer can eat! I hope this will result in an increase in popularity for Copperlicht that in turn increases sales for Coppercube, which would be win/win. I personally would like to see the demo extended to 30 days, or preferably be 14 actual days, not 14 calendar days.
This announcement is quite timely, as I just recently had this conversation on Twitter:
I feel almost prescient!
This is a slightly different business model, but one I firmly support. On the whole I think this is a great change. I have used Irrlicht in the past and was impressed by the engine. Now I am going to look closer at Copperlight and possibly due a tutorial series on it in the future. Now that Copperlicht and Coppercube are a bit less intwined, I wonder if Coppercube could move to being more agnostic and be of use to say… Three.js or Turbulenz.
Are you at all interested in hearing more about the Copperlicht engine here on GameFromScratch?
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