Balder - 3D engine for Silverlight

New Post: could not load type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Color' from assembly 'System.Windows,'

yandol — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:29:51 GMT

the problem has been fixed already - by downloading the source code and recompile it, and surprisingly found that there was a system.window.dll file included.

Anyway, thanks indeed.

New Post: could not load type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Color' from assembly 'System.Windows,'

yandol — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:59:21 GMT

A wired problem occurred when I used balder silverlight5 to build a new silverlight application. I sat up a new silverlight project in vs 2010, and included new references of balder silverlight5 - totally 5 dll files.

I created a new game like this:

Game game = new Game(){Width = 400, Height = 300};

when I tried to run the application the error above happened.

Not sure this is a bug of new balder silverlight5 or what else, would like to get some guidance.

New Comment on "Features"

yandol — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:17:19 GMT

I think the balder SL5 version is great because many new features are described, especially the hardware acceleration - but as I looked back to previous documents, where should I set the hardware acceleration parameter in the project?

Source code checked in, #cb7556066460

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:18:30 GMT

Fixed lighting for Texture mapped materials - use specular property of the material, not just WHITE.. Damn oversight!

Source code checked in, #dc469b675c11

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:58:52 GMT

Fixed Programatic sample to override OnUpdate() not replace it - making it not getting called from Balder.

Source code checked in, #8e56880dada1

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:58:01 GMT

Get the Dispatcher from the Deployment instead of from the root visual - it will cause an UnauthorizedException when running on a different thread because the RootVisual is a FrameworkElement, non accessible from other threads!

Source code checked in, #4c65874982b2

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:48:56 GMT

Added dispatcher support for Notifications

Source code checked in, #b33e9e5916f9

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:21:12 GMT

Ditto - same as previous, only this time for the SL5/Xna based SpriteContext

Source code checked in, #03cc64f088e9

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:59:04 GMT

Added null check for the World matrix - it appears to be Null at times. This is more of a symptom from something else, but temporarily sticking in the null check and setting the Identity matrix if so, for now.

Source code checked in, #3201ad103d49

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:34:26 GMT

References added by adding MVVM Light as a Nuget package has now been removed and fixed for the sample browser

Source code checked in, #d302201f90c4

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:33:50 GMT

Added null check for Matrix - it should never be null, but there might be some synchronization issues

Source code checked in, #0ec2161c4042

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:28:35 GMT

Added locking around sorting of nodes

Source code checked in, #d9dad2c924c9

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 22:04:04 GMT

Removing more platform support other than Silverlight

Source code checked in, #8eab36935214

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:56:15 GMT

Officially started killing of iOS, Desktop and general Xna support - Silverlight FTW

Source code checked in, #128d209bb72b

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:40:43 GMT

Started working on the fallback scenario for untrusted SL5 sites and Mac OSX - for now the fallback will be software rendering. Aiming for an inbetween fallback with WebGL for browsers that support it.

New Post: Memory Issues

roconnor62 — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:40:46 GMT

I have added finalizers in many classes clearing memory and other bits. I found that there were RenderFaces and RenderNormals that were never being released. I have also added cleanup for many of the materials related operations. I have found quite a bit of relief in doing this. I was seeing 30-50 MB growth across ~1500 objects on re-render. I am now down to 10MB (some of my own issues were cleaned up as well). The biggest gains came from cleaning up the rendering objects as they expire rather than waiting.

I can send more details, as I have been in the midst of an intense memory profiling and cleanup effort for 2 days now...

New Post: Memory Issues

roconnor62 — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:02:08 GMT

I have seen several discussions on memory issues with Balder. I am using it in an extreme case, where we render more then 2000 objects (approx. 50-75 polygons per object). During rendering, we see the memory spike up about 60-80 MB. Not a problem, but it never lets go of the resources, and grows by 50MB every render. I have been able to get some of it back (about 20% of the growth) by implementing finalizers on some of the geometry classes. Now, it only jumps by 35-40MB every render.

I am trying to locate the references to objects that are being held as well as trying to find a way around the LOH. Most of the issues revolve around memory allocated for images (about 262KB per image). These are LARGE objects and will not be GC'd and end up pinned in memory. A 256 x 256 pixel image ends up in this range.

Can someone help me understand how to find the referneces (or where the refs are actually being held), solve the LOH problem or help me in correctly using the cache clearing methods that were added some time back...

Please help...

Source code checked in, #b022de08d601

Einar Ingebrigtsen — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:52:00 GMT

Status Quo - Balder working as before on SL5 RTM now. Will continue to work on Material and lighting to get it as I want it.

New Post: Point primitive

kbeal2k — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:13:23 GMT

Any plans to add a point "primitive"? I've been looking for an easy way to render point clouds.

Updated Wiki: Home

adept — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:10:58 GMT

Project Description

A 3D graphics engine for Silverlight.

The name Balder comes from Norse Mythology. Balder is the modern Norwegian, Swedish and Danish form. He is also known as Baldr or Baldur (icelandic). Balder is the god of innocence.

The second son of Odin is Baldr, and good things are to be said of him. He is best, and all praise him; he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr's brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body. He is the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious; and that quality attends him, that none may gainsay his judgments. He dwells in the place called Breidablik, which is in heaven; in that place may nothing unclean be. - Brodeur's translation

Balder on Wikipedia

The feature set of Balder
News
Getting started screencast
Coding4Fun : Rubik's Cube for Silverlight and Windows Phone 7
Integrate Balder in your Silverlight application by Xianzhong Zhu, part 1,2,3
Programmatically creating a mesh tutorial
Tutorial section
Limitations

A full samplebrowser can be viewed here or here. Silverlight 5 samplebrowser here.

Balder in the wild

ESRI map viewer

Follow us on Twitter: Balder on Twitter

Donators

Documentation

The goal for Balder is to provide an extensive Documentation in the MSDN Style with code samples and full documentation of the public API. The Balder project has been lucky enough get a donation from Innovasys in the form of licenses for their DocumentX product to help make this possible.

Books / external resources

Gastón C. Hillar has written a book about 3D games development in Silverlight with focus on using Balder as engine. You can find the book here. In the book there are a lot of samples, all these samples are available for download from here

Balder - 3D engine for Silverlight

New Post: could not load type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Color' from assembly 'System.Windows,'

New Post: could not load type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Color' from assembly 'System.Windows,'

New Comment on "Features"

Source code checked in, #cb7556066460

Source code checked in, #dc469b675c11

Source code checked in, #8e56880dada1

Source code checked in, #4c65874982b2

Source code checked in, #b33e9e5916f9

Source code checked in, #03cc64f088e9

Source code checked in, #3201ad103d49

Source code checked in, #d302201f90c4

Source code checked in, #0ec2161c4042

Source code checked in, #d9dad2c924c9

Source code checked in, #8eab36935214

Source code checked in, #128d209bb72b

New Post: Memory Issues

New Post: Memory Issues

Source code checked in, #b022de08d601

New Post: Point primitive

Updated Wiki: Home

Project Description

Table of Contents

A full samplebrowser can be viewed here or here. Silverlight 5 samplebrowser here.

Balder in the wild

Donators

Documentation

Books / external resources