ShiVa

ShiVa3D is a 3D game engine with a graphical editor designed to create applications and video games for desktop PCs, the web, game consoles and mobile devices. Games made with ShiVa can be exported to over 20 target platforms, with new export targets being added regularly.

Numerous applications have been created using ShiVa,^[1] including the Prince of Persia 2 remake for Mobiles and Babel Rising published by Ubisoft.

With ShiVa 2.0, the next version of the Editor is currently under heavy development. ShiVa users with licenses newer than Jan 1st 2012 are invited to download the beta builds, test thoroughly and provide feedback.^[2]

Engine

Current core engine features include:

• engine runs natively on a wide variety of target platforms, including Mobiles, Desktop PCs, Web Browsers and Game Consoles
• support for both 32bit and 64bit operating systems
• Lua API with native C++ compilation support
• industry standard plugin architecture that can be used to extend the engine with libraries like NVIDIA PhysX, F-Mod, and ARToolKit
• rendering in OpenGL, DirectX 9 or 11, and OpenGL ES modes
• realtime point and directional lights with screen space blurred cascaded shadow maps
• full lightmap control (UV2, import, export, built-in shadow mapper with Ambient occlusion support)
• Material overrides, particle systems and Polygon Trails
• post processing effects like Bloom, Depth of Field, Motion Blur and Camera Distortion
• realtime mesh modification API with morphing support
• chunked terrain and ocean rendering
• ODE physics with compound bodies
• local and remote video, texture and content streaming
• 2D HUD system for on-screen information displays
• multiple viewports and scene cameras
• several stereoscopic 3D rendering modes with Oculus Rift support
• Built-in XML API and file exchange
• network API for Multiplayer games, best used in connection with ShiVa Server
• Stereo audio and 5.1 surround sound for 3D sound effects

Platforms

The ShiVa engine currently runs on the following platforms:

Desktop

• Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1 in legacy mode with DirectX 9 or OpenGL 2.0 (x86)
• Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 in DirectX 11 mode with Windows Store support as WinRT application (x86, x86 64, ARM)
• Mac OS X 10.6+ in x86 and x86 64 or as Universal binary
• Linux as separate x86 and x86 64 binaries

Mobile

• iOS 6+ devices including iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch
• Android 2.3+ including microconsoles like Ouya
• Windows Phone 7.5, 8 and 8.1
• BlackBerry Tablet OS and BlackBerry 10
• Marmalade (SDK) for targets like Bada and Symbian
• HP/Palm WebOS (legacy)

Game consoles

• Sony PlayStation 3 (requires Sony developer certificate)
• Microsoft Xbox 360 (requires Microsoft developer certificate)
• Nintendo Wii (requires Nintendo developer certificate)
• Sony PlayStation 4 (in testing)
• Microsoft Xbox One (in testing)
• Sony PlayStation Vita (in closed beta)

Web

• ShiVa Web Player (browser plugin) available for x86 and x86 64 on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux for Firefox, Safari (web browser), Opera (web browser), Internet explorer < v10 and Chrome (web browser)
• Adobe Flash 11.2+
• Google Native Client
• HTML5/WebGL in beta testing

ShiVa Editor

Games for the ShiVa Engine are made with the ShiVa Editor, a WYSIWYG RAD tool designed to let developers create 3D games and application in a fraction of the usual time.

ShiVa Editor 1.x runs exclusively on Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1. ShiVa 1.x games are being built by the ShiVa Authoring Tool, a free companion product to the Editor, which transforms game packages into native applications. Since not all platforms have SDKs for Windows, the Authoring Tool is available for Mac OS X as well as Windows.

ShiVa Editor 2.x runs natively on Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1 x86/x86 64, Mac OS X x86 64 and Linux x86 64. The once-separate Authoring Tool is now built into the Editor itself.

While the ShiVa Editor is capable of exporting ready to run games, advanced users may also use it to export Xcode, Eclipse or Visual Studio projects in order to modify their games further in their preferred IDE.

Editor key features

• WYSIWYG live preview of virtually any component of game development
• editor modules for creating materials, particles, polygon trails, HUDs, animations, terrains, and many more
• fully scriptable interface with custom modules (ShiVa 2.0 only)
• Lua code editor with auto suggestion and auto-completion, debugging, syntax highlighting, code folding and integrated help
• DAE, DWF and STE 3D asset import
• auto-conversion of imported sound, video, texture and model files
• fine-grained compression control for textures, sounds and videos
• export profiles (affects texture, sound and video formats)
• binary asset merging, SVN, performance analysis (Advanced license only)
• embedded server for Multiplayer testing
• Command-line interface (2.0 only)

Release timeline

ShiVa 1.5

July 4, 2007: initial public release

ShiVa 1.6

July 1, 2008: New Modules

• TerrainEditor and AnimClipEditor
• HLD script library

ShiVa 1.7

March 10, 2009: XML and previews

• live preview for Particles, Trails, Materials and HUDs
• XML API
• full light-mapping control
• DDZ texture streaming

ShiVa 1.8

November 16, 2009: Terrain and Ocean

• more than 150 new features, improvement and bugfixes
• more than 300 new api functions and constants
• projectors, ocean and post processing

ShiVa 1.9

November 2, 2010: Plugins

• over 300 new api functions and constants
• c++/C# plugin support
• dynamic point light shadows
• ShiVa Device Development Tools (local device testing without publishing)

ShiVa 1.9.1

January 10, 2012: Debugging

• more than 250 new api functions
• AI Debugger, unicode text support
• multiple viewports and soft particles
• SVN support, Asset Merger Tool

ShiVa 1.9.2

December 21, 2013: final 1.x release

• all engines updated to the current SDKs
• Flash, WindowsRT and NaCl exporters

ShiVa 2.0

On July 4, 2014, the first public beta version of ShiVa Editor 2.0^[3] was released to licensees who purchased a ShiVa license after Jan 1st 2012.

Licensing

ShiVa is proprietary closed-source software and licensed under the ShiVa EULA. Several license packages are available:

ShiVa Web Edition

ShiVa Web Edition is free to download and use. Exports are watermarked except for the ShiVa Web Player browser plugin, Adobe Flash and HTML5/WebGL.

ShiVa Basic Edition

ShiVa Basic Edition was built for indie developers and small development studios. All standard exporters are unlocked. Beta versions may be downloaded and tested. C++ Plugins can be designed and tested, but not exported.

ShiVa Advanced Edition

ShiVa Advanced Edition comes with additional tools typically needed by big development teams, like asset merging, SVN, performance analysis modules, Game Console export and full C++ Plugin development/signing/export.

References

External links

• Official site of ShiVa engine