I took a month off to pursue other hobbies and have now returned to continue work on Dorian, Sojour 2’s new graphics engine.

Dorian is needed because Sojour 2 will use Microsoft’s latest .NET framework, and that framework comes with a development environment that can only compile 64-bit applications. Alas, Ionian, the graphics engine used in Sojour 1, is only 32-bit, hence the need for a new engine.

On the plus side, Dorian can render to multiple windows simultaneously, which has huge implications for Sojour 2, including the ability to project a DM-only view of a map during in-person games.

During this development tranche, the ECS engine received a major overhaul. I now have a much deeper understanding of the ECS architecture, which enabled me to make some significant performance improvements.

I’ve also added the ability to import external 3D models, giving the engine feature parity with Ionian.

Finally, the lighting engine has been improved, although there is still a long way to go.

Here is a video showing the current version being put through its paces. The measured frame rate is accurate, as verified using NVIDIA’s FrameView tool.

I’m running Dorian with VSync disabled and letting it run flat out, which explains the rather high frame rate.

Unfortunately, game engine videos on YouTube never look quite as smooth as they do in person, but the engine itself is ultra-smooth. You can watch the video here:

There is still a great deal more to do, but once Dorian is complete, I can turn my attention to developing Sojour 2 itself, which will incorporate this graphics engine.

As noted in previous posts, Sojour 2 will be free for all existing Sojour customers.

Have fun!

RobP