Darkroom Studios provides a complete gaming development solution called the Lawmaker Game Engine. The Lawmaker Game Engine is a cross-platform high performance real-time 3D engine developed specifically for current and next generation games. Whether it is developing for the games of today and/or the games of the future - The Lawmaker Game Engine has been engineered with the needs of the developers and the demands of gamers worldwide. It also has benefits of providing a custom solution to a wide range of vertical applications that employ virtual reality systems, multimedia presentations and educational software. With the Lawmaker Game Engine, a development team and/or publisher is free to focus on the game design rather than the costly research and development cycle required to build a cutting-edge 3D engine.

For more screenshots, please visit the LAWMAKER GAME SECTION of the website.

Some of the features in the Lawmaker Game Engine:

• High performance real-time 3D rendering driven by an API independent graphics layer currently supporting Direct3D.
• Platform independence and Unicode support for easy localization.
• Advance Scene management system for seamless indoor and outdoor worlds.
• Character modeling and animation using skeletal and morph target animation.
• Particle system (CPU and GPU based) for advance visual effects.
• Optimized fast 3D math and container template libraries.
• Full ODE physics integration that allows for features such as rigid body interaction and vehicle support.
• Audio support using DirectX.
• Server\Client network system that allows for multiplayer network support.
• Shader system that supports both the fixed-function rendering system in DirectX and new shader based system (support all assembly shader and HLSL).
• Terrain rendering system for both indoor and outdoor scene rendering.
• Full Lua\Luabind integration for complete game scripting experience using OOP.
• API level abstraction between the various core components.
• Post-processing effects using shaders.

Rendering Features:

• Wide range of lighting model to allow game developers the option for creating current generation to next generation games. Traditional vertex-based lighting, global illumination via radiosity lighting-mapping and various shader lighting models (normal mapping, phong, blinn-phong, cook-torrence, environmental lighting, etc) can all be rendered simultaneously. Dynamic lighting and static lighting are seamlessly integrated into the scene.
• Full real-time shadows using stencil shadows and shadow mapping for all renderable Omnibus objects. This allows for accurate shadowing and self-shadowing of the scene geometry.
• All renderable Omnibus objects can be rendered using all the various lighting models. From bsp, prefab meshes, models, particles, sprites, etc.
• Scene-graph management system that ensures the optimal rendering path is performed on a per-frame per-scene basis.
• Indoor rendering system using BSP/PVS and portal technology.
• Outdoor rendering system using Octree rendering with static heightmaps.
• Terrain rendering using texture splatting through both fixed-function and shader-based.
• Material system featuring a wide range of vertex and pixel shader effects. Shaders are created using the omnibus shader scripting language that supports fixed-function shaders, assembly shaders and HLSL shaders.
• Post-processing effects that allow radial blurring, glow effects, motion blur and HDR simulated effects.
• Advance particle system that can be used to provide environmental effects such as dust storms, fire effects, volumetric fog, smoke stacks and much, much more.
• Built-in environmental effects such as volumetric clouds, cloth simulation, planar reflection, cubic reflection and water/ocean rendering systems.

Game Coding Features:

• Game entities in Omnibus are C++ objects built using OOP methodology with game developers in mind. This allows game developers to easily extend the game components of Omnibus for their specific gaming needs.
• Full Lua\Luabind integration into all aspects of the gaming system of Omnibus. This allows for game developers to fully employ the power of Lua and OOP to develop all their game code.
• Game code can be written entirely as C++ objects or extended (using inheritance) as Lua game objects.
• Integrate C++ objects and/or Lua game objects into Omnibus using the Omnibus Runtime system.
• RTTI and automatic class/object serialization.
• Well-structured API set that is exposed to all Lua objects including all game entities in Omnibus. This allows for bilateral communication of Lua objects to C++ and C++ objects to Lua. This also includes functions, variables, etc.
• Example of extendable objects are the global singleton game entity, Hud entities, GUI entities, weapon entities, player and AI entities are just a few examples.
• Change Lua code on the fly during game execution without ever recompiling or restarting the game engine.

AI Features:

• Advance goal-oriented based AI delivers a more intuitive development over its counterpart, state-based AI.
• Goal-based AI actions can be classified as atomic or composited to create complex goals.
• Through goal-based AI actions which are classified as atomic or composited actions, the developer is allowed to create multiple levels of abstraction and logic for his/her AI.
• Built-in locomotion system that provide autonomous AI movements. Examples are seek, flee, arrive, pursuit, evade, wander, obstacle and wall maneuvering.
• Built-in locomotion system also features group movement such as separation, alignment and cohesion. Group behaviors such as flocking and team pursuit are examples of this technology.
• Time-sliced path planning algorithms to allow for a constant CPU load during AI navigation through the level.
• Various search algorithms based on the criteria of the search: Dijkstra, A*.

Modeling and Animation Features:

• Multi-bone skinned animation with varying level of bone influence.
• Morph-target system for various animations other than skeletal animation.
• Blended animations through cycle or action animations that allows for complex animations to be built on top of pre-existing animations.
• Phoneme and Visime system for creating lip-sync character animation.

Physics Features:

• Mature ODE physics integration that allows for rigid body physic interaction between game entities. Also player interaction with game entities and game entity interaction with world geometry are currently supported.
• Vehicle-based physics

Toolset Features:

• Microsoft Visual Studio-like application that allows for the complete game development solution.
• True “What You See is What You Play” environment. Add and drop game entities and see how they react in a level without ever starting the game. This enhances development time because game objects can be modified/tweak on the fly without ever recompiling or starting the game engine.
• MFC based application that has the Visual Studio look and feel with multiple levels of undo/redo, copy/paste, dockable explorer windows, etc.
• Solution file that provides management and accountability of all game assets.
• Build levels using brush-based editing.
• Build curve surfaces using both Nurbs and Bezier patches.
• Add native game entities to the level or add extended game entities through the game sdk.
• Terrain editing system that allows you to paint texture sediments and even foliage such as bushes, shrubs, grass, etc.
• Particle editing system.
• Artist asset source control that allows for up-to-date builds with a single click.
• Lawviewer application that is a lightweight Omnibus viewer that allows for dynamic game content updating and viewing.

Network Features:

• Client\Server architecture for intense multiplayer gaming! For windows, IOCP server is used for optimal data transfer.
• Built-in authentication system.
• UDP/TCP support based on the need of the communication and data transfer.
• Optimized data delivery using UDP and packet bit streaming.
• Omnibus Runtime class allows for built-in serialization of game entity objects.
• Built-in client side prediction to eliminate latency for clients and providing important moves to eliminate snapping due to packet loss.

Audio Features:

• Audio support using Microsoft DirectX

Miscellaneous Features:

• 3DSMax plugin that allows exporting of skinned mesh or multiple skinned mesh and their skeleton. Along with the animation set.