NPLRuntimeAPI

NPL C/C++ Architecture

This section covers cross-platform modules written in C/C++. These modules are exposed via NPL scripting API so that they are called via NPL.

C++ Modules

NPL Scripting Engine:

• NPL state (or NPL virtual code environment): a single NPL thread, has its own memory allocators and manages all files it load.
  • NPL state can load NPL/Lua script or C++ dll.
  • Mono state: can load C# dll.
• NPL Networking: Manage all local or remote NPL states via NPL HTTP/TCP connections.

Graphics Engine:

All GUI objects must be created in the main NPL thread, which is the same as renderer thread. 2D/3D Engine are all object oriented. All 2D objects are organized in a parent/child tree. 3D objects are organized in a quad-tree in additional to parent/child tree.

Video/audio Renderer

A static/dynamic buffer, textures, draw 3d/2d api, fonts, etc.

• DirectX fully supported renderer.
• OpenGL renderer: a cross-platform renderer(limited functions used in our linux/android build)

PaintEngine

It is like a GDI engine used by 2D Engine for drawing 2D and simple 3d objects, like lines, rectangles, etc.

2D Engine: GUIBase is the base class to all 2d object.

• GUIRoot: root node of all GUI objects.
• GUIContainer, GUIButton, GUIText, etc

3D Engine: BaseObject is the base class to all 3D object.

• ViewportManager: manages 2D viewport into which we can render 3d or 2d objects.
• SceneObject: root node of all 3D objects. It manages all objects like adding, deleting, searching, rendering, physics, etc
• TerrainTileRoot: it is a quadtree container of all 3D objects for fast object searching according to their 3d locations and current camera frustum.
• CameraObject: camera frustum. several derived class like AutoCamera, etc
• MeshObject: base class static triangle mesh objects in the 3d object.
• MeshPhysicsObject: it is a static mesh with physics.
• BipedObject: it represents an animated object.
• MinisceneGraph: it is a simplified version of SceneObject, which usually manages a small number of 3d objects which can be rendered separately in to a 2D texture.
• TerrainEngine: infinitely large terrain with a heightmap, and multiple texture layers. It is rendered with dynamic level-of-detail algorithm.
• Other Scene objects:
• BlockEngine: it manages rendering of 32000x32000x256 blocks.
  • BlockRegion: manages 512x512x256 blocks, which are saved into a single file
  • ChunkColumn: 16x16x256
  • Chunk: 16x16x16, a static renderable object.

Physics Engine

It uses the open source Bullet physics engine for static mesh objects in the scene. Block physics is handled separately by the BlockEngine itself.

Asset Management:

Usually each static asset file is a asset entity. AssetEntity is the based class to all assets in the system. Assets provides data and sometimes rendering methods to be used any other 2d/3d objects. All assets are loaded asynchronously by default from either IO disk or remote network.

• TextureEntity: 2d textures
• MeshEntity: static mesh file like .x
• ParaXEntity: animated mesh file which can be loaded from .x, .fbx
• Audio, bmax model, database, font, etc.
• EffectFile: shader files, which can be loaded from directX .fx.

IO and Util

• FileManager: manages all files and search paths.
• CParaFile: manages a single file read/write.
• math: 2d/3d math libs like vectors and matrices

ParaScripting API:

• C++ --> NPL: exposing all above functions and modules to NPL scripting environment.
• See all C++ bindings in NPL scripting reference