Hilva XNA Graphics Engine » Hilva

Custom material sample (XNA 4.0)

Mahdi — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:31:29 +0000

A new sample demonstrating how to implement a custom material using XNA’s Effect class and Hilva’s base classes is released. The sample can be downloaded from Tutorials page or by clicking here.

Hilva XNA Engine for XNA 4.0 Beta

Mahdi — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:12:24 +0000

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine for XNA 4.0 Beta is out and some of the samples have been updated to current release. Check out Downloads page for more.

Download Hilva XNA Engine v1.8 for XNA 4.0 Beta.

What’s New:
- The library has ported to XNA Game Studio 4.0 Beta. Most shaders re-compiled and optimized for this version of XNA Framework.
- A new post process effect, HSL, added to the library to add support for Hue-Saturation-Lightness manipulation of the output frame and/or any other texture.

Changes:
- Hilva.Graphics.Materials.dll and Hilva.Graphics.PostProcess.dll assemblies are merged. The new assembly’s name is Hilva.Graphics.Extensions.dll. This library is only built for Windows and Xbox360 and there is no support of this assembly on Windows Phone since it does not support custom shaders.
- Fixed an small bug in Pinch effect.
- A better implementation of ModelAnimationPlayer class in Hilva.Graphics.dll assembly. No breaking changes in the public members of the class.

Known Issues:
- On Windows and Xbox360 libriaries, an InvalidOperationException may occur when instanciating certain materials and post process effects. The thrown expection contains the following message:
“Cannot mix shader model 3.0 with earlier shader models. If either the vertex shader or pixel shader is compiled as 3.0, they must both be.”

Hilva for XNA 4.0 CTP Refresh

Mahdi — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:27 +0000

The version 1.8 release of Hilva is now out!
This release focused on fixing bugs and ensuring that the new XNA 4.0 CTP Refresh APIs were stable and the engine runs on Windows Phone Emulator. Additionally, the content pipeline framework was completely overhauled to better support model importation and animation playback. This should be the most feature-full and stable release of Hilva yet.

Hilva is now more XNA 4.0

Mahdi — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:56:27 +0000

The new release of Hilva XNA Graphics Engine brings more functionality from XNA 3.1 to XNA 4.0. This version includes Hilva.Graphics.Materials.dll library along with several bug fixes.

Please download the new release and check out the Release Notes for more details.

Hilva for XNA 4.0 CTP

Mahdi — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:10:10 +0000

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine for XNA 4.0 CTP has released now.

Regarding the breaking changes in XNA 4.0 CTP and support for Windows Phone platform, Hilva has broken into several libraries to support all of the three platforms supported by XNA 4.0; Windows, Xbox 360 and Windows Phone.

In addition, Skinned model sample ported to the new version of the engine so it can run on Windows Phone Emulator. The updated sample can be downloaded from here.

The old sample is still available on the Tutorials page.

Please visit the Download page to get a copy of the engine.

Skinned model sample updated.

Mahdi — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:02:05 +0000

Skinned model sample updated to use lastest build of Hilva. The sample will show you how to play animations on an skinned model, update the bone hierarchy and to draw a debug skeleton with lines.

Please download the updated sample from Tutorials page.

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine version 1.7.1

Mahdi — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:23:29 +0000

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine version 1.7.1 is now online. it has several bug fixes and improvements. Bvh (Biovision Hierarchy) importerRead the Rest...

Post Process Sample Updated.

Mahdi — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:04:54 +0000

Post Process Sample has been updated to feature more screen effects including Twirl, Sepia and Bloom effects. Please download the newly updated sample from Tutorials page.

Skinned Model Sample

Mahdi — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:54:59 +0000

A new tutorial showing how to load and play Skinned Model animations has been added to Tutorials page.

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine v1.7.0.2

Mahdi — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:36:55 +0000

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine v1.7.0.2 has just released and can be downloaded from Downloads page.

Release notes for this version:

A new implementation of High Dynamic Rendering pipeline.
Added support for Biovision Hierarchy (BVH) motion files.
Improved animation playback for skinned models to support bone-name instead of bone-index.
Model class splitted into StaticModel and SkeletalModel. This may break your current codes.

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine v1.7.0.1

Mahdi — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:34:44 +0000

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine v1.7.0.1 has just released. This version adds Twirl post process effect, fixes a bug and has few optimizations.

Please visit Downloads page to see release notes and download the newest version.

Deferred Rendering Sample (XNA 3.1)

Mahdi — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:47:23 +0000

Another sample covering deferred rendering with Hilva XNA Graphics Engine is placed on the tutorials page. Refer to that page and download the sample.

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine version 1.7 released

Mahdi — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:56:44 +0000

Hilva XNA Graphics Engine version 1.7 has just released and is ready for download. There are some performance optimizations in the new version. Also few basic AI modules added to the engine, but Path Finding is postponed for future releases. HDR rendering has temporarily removed from this version.

Hilva & Artificial Intelligence

Mahdi — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:53:11 +0000

I am proud to unleash next release of Hilva will possess some AI modules
such as Graphs, Graph Searches, A* Path Finding and Finite State Machines (FSM). All of the modules will have a generic design, enabling third party applications/libraries to extend its class library using interfaces. Fuzzy Logic is scheduled for future releases.

Omnidirectional shadow mapping in Hilva (XNA 3.1)

Mahdi — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:56:16 +0000

The sample covers generation of omnidirectional shadow maps based on a point light. It also features different shadow smoothing techniques such as VSM and PCF.

Download omnidirectional shadow mapping sample.

Hilva & parallax mapping material (XNA 3.1)

Mahdi — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:12:57 +0000

Parallax Mapping is rendering technique to create virtual bumps on a flat surface based on a normal map and height map texture. This sample shows you how to use Hilva’s parallax mapping feature to bring more visual stimulation to your XNA games.

Download parallax mapping sample.

Post Process sample for Hilva (XNA 3.1)

Mahdi — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:43:30 +0000

In this sample you’ll learn to add post process (screen) effects to entire the scene in your XNA games. The sample features Radial Blur, Pixelate, Ripple and Smart Blur. You can also disable the post effect to see the original scene without any processing on it.

Download the sample.

Shadow mapping sample for Hilva (XNA 3.1)

Mahdi — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:07:57 +0000

The sample demonstrates how to add a dynamic light to the scene and generate dynamic shadows for scene objects based on the light in your XNA games.

Download the sample.