The Horde3D GameEngine now supports the Microsoft Kinect sensor for Full Body Interaction. It therefore integrates the FUBI (Full Body Interaction) framework. A sample using this new feature is included implementing can throwing with Kinect.

GameNetworkManager lets you create network-based multiplayer GameEngine applications. You don't need profound knowledge of network programming for that; GameNetworkManager will do the “dirty work” for you.

Take a look at the new Tutorial Multiplayer Networking. It describes how to set up a multiplayer GameEngine application with only a few lines of code.

Advanced Agent Animation (AAA) is an application designed for managing virtual social situations. It provides extended support for manipulating virtual agents and managing interactions between them. Interactions can be both verbally (TTS) and non-verbally (animations, gazing, orientations, positions).

For more details please visit the AAA Homepage

4 new Components have been added to the GameEngine:

• AgentAnimComponent → provides animation management for virtual agents (characters). The component is specially designed to use agent (character) animations by providing support for gestures, postures and idle animations. It also has a very powerful inter-animation blending system which enables a real-time animation playback. An animation can be loaded and started at any time and the blending system will generate a smooth and natural looking blending between the existing animations and the new one.
• AgentActionComponent → manages agent movement and interactions in a scene. The component also manages agent orientations and positions during interactions.
• BayesNetComponent → adapter for the SMILE library
• SocketComponent → provides basic socket server and client functionality

Here you can watch some projects done with the Horde3D GameEngine:

A new component has been added to the GameEngine. With the VideoComponent you can play avi videos as textures on arbitrary objects or as an overlay over the screen.

A new component has been added to the Horde3D GameEngine: IKComponent.
The IKComponent solves the inverse kinematics of a given kinematic chain using the Cyclic Coordinate Descent (CCD) method. After solving the IK, this component either applies it to the scenegraph or generates a keyframe animation with the two chain positions. It also houses the Gaze Algorithm, a specialized CCD Algorithm, which generates a gaze like movement with the heads and eyes of humanoids.
You can find an extensive tutorial here.

Alfred is updated to the new Horde3D Beta 4 format. If you have already registered for downloading Alfred, you can use the old links.

Following Horde3D the GameEngine code is now licensed under the Eclipse Public License v1.0 (EPL).

The EPL is less restrictive than the popular LGPL. It allows you to use the GameEngine in free and commercial projects as long as you contribute improvements like bug fixes, optimizations and code refactorings back to the community. The EPL allows static linking and is not viral, hence it does not affect any other modules of your application.

Our students Ionut Damian, Kathrin Janowski and Dominik Sollfrank won the GALA Audience Award 2009 at the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) in Amsterdam. They created virtual spectators watching a tennis match enriched with emotional behavior.