Crystal Space Updates its Beta Version

Crystal Space is a free and portable 3D Game Development Kit written in C++. The new version, release 0.18r001, is basically a stability release but also includes multiple new features. Crystal Space offers support for most major 3D requirements, including true six degree's of freedom, colored lighting, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency, reflective surfaces, 3D sprites (frame based or with skeletal animation), procedural textures, radiosity, particle systems, halos, volumetric fog, scripting, multiple display support and multiple renderer support. This release of Crystal Space was tested more thoroughly on Windows to eliminate stability problems. In addition, it offers various new features. In an effort to increase the capabilities of the engine while retaining simplicity, the 3D sprites, 2D sprites, and particle systems have been removed from the engine and are now available as plugins. Crystal Space supports hierarchical transformations using these newly made plugin objects. Loading and unloading big world areas has been made faster and easier with the ability to classify areas as “regions”. This version also includes a new font editor, a new csfx library and a new plugin for playing AVI/MPEG videos on textures. The next version of Crystal Space is expected to be version 1.0 and is due out in about 3 months. Crystal Space currently runs on GNU/Linux, general Unix, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, OpenStep, MacOS/X Server, DOS, and Macintosh.