1) About:


nXng is a NEWTEK Lightwave based demo 3D-Engine. It barely works like any other 3D-Engine.
It is pure software, transformations/clippings/lightning are hand written the only calls made to D3D are SETRENDERSTATE and DRAWPRIMITIVE.
Audio output is done via BASS Dll 0.8 by Ian Luck.

Demos that use nX:

- Dash (Condense) uses x3 [CONDENSE Website or on my web site],
- LTP3 Intro-Invitation (Syndrome) uses X32 [Syndrome],
- FreeStyle (Condense & Syndrome) uses nX [Syndrome],
- and more to come (: ...

Requirements:

- Pentium class processor (MMX is not a plus),
- DirectX 7.0 with at least a DirectX compatible graphic card.

2) The GUI (User Interface):


2.0] Playlist and Sequences:

nX use the well-known system of playlist to allow user to view more than one scene in a go. But it also introduce the Sequence system so that user can create a mini-show just from the GUI.

A sequence can contain one or more Lightwave scene and an optional Audio track. If a sequence contains more than one scene then nX will render all of them, each new scene being drawn over the previous one. If a sequence contains more than one Audio track then only the last one will be played.
This system has several advantages like making easier integration of static layers over a complex moving scene for example.
When a sequence launch an Audio track it won't be stopped until another Sequence with Audio track is found.

A playlist contains informations about all your sequences in the Tree Control, you can Save [S] it to disk.

To add a sequence to playlist just right click in the playlist 'Tree Control' on the GUI.
To add Scenes/Audios to a sequence select the entry in the sequence that will be before the new item then double-click on it to bring up file requester.

2.1] General rendering options:

Most of buttons/items on GUI have keyboard shortcut. They are shown in brackets to the right of the button name, for example shortcut to quit is escape (Quit [ESC]).

Check 'Fullscreen at Startup [F]' item if you want to go fullscreen as soon as you press the replay button.

The 'Default Shading as Flat [D]' item changes nX default shading from no lightning to flat lightsource shading, useful if you are going to lightsource all of your world and do not want to specify lightsource for every surfaces.

The dragable item in MOA tab controls MOA quality. The checkbox 'Force MOA Update [M]' force nX to recompute MOA for the whole playlist before replaying it. Please refer to MOA section for informations on MOA itself.

The dragable item in Lightmaps tab controls Lightmaps quality. Please refer to Lightmaps section for informations on Lightmaps.

2.2] The 'nXng.ini' file:

In case you don't have it, simply cut and paste the following block in a file named 'nXng.ini' in program directory:

[--------------- CUT FROM HERE ---------------]

INI file for nXng (Syndrome 3D Engine)
--------------------------------------

' Set the path of your lightwave BASE directory (i.e: the directory
' containing your programs|plugins|images|scenes|objects folders NOT
' the directory containing the .exe (unless you moved them from their
' original folders), In most case this is 'c:\newtek\'

[NEWTEK]
c:\newtek\

[-------------- END OF INI FILE --------------]