Team Nutshell

NutshellEngine’s 2nd anniversary!

Today marks the second anniversary of NutshellEngine.

This devblog won’t be as long as the first anniversary one, as most of what happened between the 1st anniversary and now is described in the 1st release devblog.

But a few things still happened

Between the first release and now, 2 months passed, so a few things happened:

• In the first release devblog, I said “It’s not yet possible to specify values for scripts variables in the scene file (and editor) but it’s still being designed.”, well not only it has been designed, it’s also released in the 0.1.0 version of NutshellEngine! It’s pretty basic at the moment and is done by parsing the script instead of a complex compiler analysis, but it works for the supported types (these supported types being boolean, integers, floats, string, mathematical vectors and quaternion). The editor adapts the Scriptable component widget when a new editable variable is detected, it’s then written into the scene file and read by the runtime, which saves a lot of time when experimenting and avoids script duplication just to change a few values.

Editable Script Variables, here, the background color is modified in the editor and read by the runtime

• A lot of Editor UX improvements, with less clicks to do basic things, guizmos, general improvements, and the possibility to edit NutshellEngine’s own file formats files (like ntml Material files) directly on the right panel of the editor, which is way more practical than opening a new window. And talking about materials, they got improved, they used to only accept images for textures, they now accept colors and values directly. This allows to experiment with some parameters without having to draw a 1x1 pixel to get the color needed.

Editing Materials on the right panel, directly updated, and guizmos

• The runtime got some improvements, with some new functions for some modules, a new light type (Ambient) and a way to control the light’s intensity, and even though the Editor got worked on way more than the runtime in this period, I estimate that the runtime is in a pretty good state at the moment so I can take some time to work on the Editor and make the engine more accessible for everyone.

Light intensity can be specified on the editor and controlled in scripts

Conclusion

A short article, as said earlier, most of what happened between the first anniversary and the first release is on the 1st release devblog.

Releases and patch notes are available on itch.io.