Hello @all,

as you might have read in the VL: ThreeDee blog post, we see two major workflows with vl/xenko. To get familiar with xenko we jumped on a project where the second mentioned workflow, "Xenko game as a host for VL" makes sense.

First contact was better than expected and we were quickly able to patch with the original xenko entities. The nodes we created so far allow to setup the scene graph and also combine it with scenes or prefabs made in xenko's game studio.

We also tested custom 3d drawing á la vvvv dx11 and the performance is crazy good so far! We implemented some pretty complex shader pipelines like a 3d fluid simulation and particle systems and we see insane frame rates, even on laptops.

Scene Graph Nodes

The scene graph is a high level system that has concepts like light, shadow, materials, physics, audio etc. Patching with the scene graph feels quite easy since there is no need to work with shaders directly. Let's see how this looks like:

The entry point into the rendering is the RootScene:

Much like a vvvv Renderer you connect the content to its input. Each object in the scene is a so called Entity. Or in other words, entities are the building blocks of the scene graph. They can be as simple as a Quad or as complex as a complete level of a game. For example the Box or the AxisAndGrid node are entities. Entities can also have children, so we modeled the almighty Group node as an entity with two or more inputs for child entities:

For a basic setup we can connect an AxisAndGrid and a DirectionalLight to the Group:

It might feel odd to vvvveterans to connect AxisAndGrid and DirectionalLight to the same Group. But this is what the engine manages for you, it picks up all entities in the scene graph and builds the correct shaders, render calls, physics setup and so on from it. That is how most modern game engines work, the concept is called entity/component/system (short ECS) and xenko has a nice documentation about it here if you want to know more.

Of course you can still work with custom shaders when needed. More on that in an upcoming blog post.

Now let's finish our little scene by adding a floor plane and a box:

There you have it, doesn't it look nice?

Next Demo

If you want to see more vl/xenko in action, join us at the next vvvv meetup where we will give a bit more insight into the current state of the library: vvvv meetup #5

See you there,
devvvvs

previously on vvvv: vvvvhat happened in August 2018

we did it,

vvvv 50beta37 is out! and you're hopefully using it already. since we haven't gotten any problematic reports since, it seems fair to say that we managed to get out another quite stable release. if you find otherwise, you know how to reach us in the forum or chat. we're here to help!

so what next?
ouright, let's wrap this up a bit: our goal for the vvvv 50 series was to add vl as a first class patching citizen. and obviously there are still a few ideas of how to make it even better, but for the biggest parts we'd argue: mission accomplished. we hear people are using it to their favor, we're using it ourselves, time for the next big steps.

as announced previously we've started work on implementing a 3d-engine, which will, when done, add the biggest still missing set of nodes to vl. and we're lucky to having found a perfect project to work on alongside implementing the engine. together with marshmellowlaserfeast we're working on their new multi-person vr-installation. it will be fully implemented with what we still call vl-standalone using the xenko powered engine. it feels a bit like in the early days of vvvv, when we were working on the very first vvvv project with a pre-public version of vvvv that didn't yet have spreading and a lot of nodes were developed specifically for the project. anyway, the project is scheduled to open in december. we're kinda half-way there and things look and feel very smooth so far...

so if all goes according to plan we should have a good understanding of xenko and standalone by the end of the year. which should include an announcement of how and when it will be available for you.

can also report from our little workshop we had a week ago: it was the first ever time we handed out a version of vl-standalone to unsuspecting participants. 15 out of 20 haven't even used vvvv before and it was interesting to see that those seemed to have less issues with using it than those coming with preconceptions of how things used to work in vvvv. good..

changing topic once more: as a direct outcome of talks at LINK we've launched our multi-language chat initiative hoping to get closer with people who are not native english speakers. if you know anyone who could be interested in this, please point them to it.

and finally: tonfilm wrote about fancy way for debugging dx11 frames with nvidia nsight he found recently.

has this just turned into a full-blown monologue? geee..

Contributions

and a couple of new works in progress:

• VL.ndi by motzi
• DMX to TPZ Converter by io
• Form Menues by sebl
• VL.NetMQ by joreg

Gallery

• Art Vision Vjing 2018 2nd prize by eps
• A Political Automaton called 33 notes by Patxi7
• Pitch! - Interactive Baseball Installation by Zepi
• UEFA Champions League 2018 - 13 Real Madrid by colorsound

that was it for september. anything to add? please do so in the comments!

Who refik anadol, schnellebuntebilder, lasal, analognative, kerim karoglu, robert thomas & many more.
When Thu, Sep 27th 2018 - 22:00 until Tue, Oct 2nd 2018 - 22:00
Where walt disney concert hall, Los Angeles, United States

Walt Disney Concert Hall,

tonight!

Who maarja, id144
When Mon, Sep 17th 2018 - 10:00 until Sun, Sep 23rd 2018 - 17:00
Where Centro de Cultura Digital, Paseo de la Reforma S/N, Mexico City, Mexico

Me and Andrej Boleslavský are happy to invite you to experience our VR project DUST at Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City soon.

The exhibition will take place during Connecting the Dots festival featuring lots of other interesting talks, discussions, round tables and workshops.

Connecting the Dots fb pagehttps://www.facebook.com/pg/connectingthedotsmx/about/?ref=page_internal
Dust websitehttp://vrdust.org.uk/
Dust trailerhttps://vimeo.com/210757167

Supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council