The C4 Engine is one of the most technologically advanced 3D game
engines available today for the Windows XP/Vista and MacOS X platforms.
The C4 Engine contains a comprehensive suite of robustly implemented
game programming tools. Not only is it a powerhouse of a graphics
engine, but it also includes integrated support for sound, music,
networking, input devices, resource management, and much more. See the
features page for details, or head over to the download page to see the
demo in action.
Full-scene dynamic lighting and shadows
Support for five different fundamental light source types. More
All lights and shadows rendered in real time at global scale.
Spot and cube light texture projections.
Three fully orthogonal shadow rendering techniques.
Shadow volume clipping and scissor optimizations.
Advanced per-pixel shading capabilities
Support for arbitrary custom shaders (see Shader editor below).
Comprehensive bump mapping capabilities.
Enhanced parallax mapping.
Horizon bump mapping.
Ambient lighting volumes.
Gloss-mapped specular reflections.
Cube environment mapping.
Cook-Torrance microfacet surface reflection.
Bumpy reflection and refraction.
Realistic water shading.
Scene graph
Extremely clean class hierarchy for scene graph nodes, including
geometries, cameras, lights, sounds, zones, portals, triggers, markers,
and special effects.
General state serialization support for saving worlds.
Quick save and quick load capabilities.
Separation between per-instance and shared data.
External scene graph referencing from within another scene graph.
State-of-the-art portal system
Efficient large-scale visibility determination.
Advanced interzone lighting analysis performed in real time.
Special support for mirrors and remote portals.
High-level controller system
Powerful hierarchical animation blending system.
Handles state messaging in a multiplayer environment.
Powerful scripting system that can be extended with custom actions.
Cleanly extensible design and integration with the tools.
Special effects
Full-scene cinematic motion blur. More
Volumetric fog with multiple density functions. More
Interactive in-game interface panels. More
High-quality procedural fire effects.
Fully extensible particle systems.
Real-time fluid surface simulation.
Real-time cloth simulation.
Surface markings on arbitrary geometry.
Emission glow and specular bloom effects.
Sound manager
Fully spatialized 3D sound effects.
Doppler shift and other frequency effects.
High-precision sound travel delay.
Atmospheric absorption effects.
Reverberation with multiple simultaneous environments.
Directional sounds with cone attenuation.
Obstruction attenuation applied to direct and reflected paths.
Frequency-dependent volume settings for all effects.
Permeation system determines how far sounds travel through interiors.
Unlimited streaming music channels with seamless looping and concatenation.
Networking / Multiplayer
Fast, reliable network implementation using UDP/IP.
Solid fault tolerance and hacker resistance.
Advanced security measures, including packet encryption.
Automatic routing of messages to object controllers.
Cross-platform internet voice chat.
Core system
Resource management with support for pack files and caching.
Mathematics and geometry library.
Extensible system commands and variables.
Tool module plug-in architecture.
Full-featured integrated world editor
World editor is part of the engine itself and runs within the engine's own windowing system. More
Powerful and intuitive interface design that allows fast level creation.
Zero build time, so results are immediately visible while editing a level.
Palettes for geometries, lights, sound sources, zones, portals, markers, and special effects.
Support for multiple undo.
Voxel terrain
Terrain is based on voxel maps that can be edited in real time. More
Can create vertical cliffs, overhangs, caves, arches, etc., that are impossible with height-based terrain systems.
Editor provides sculpting and texture painting tools.
Shader editor
Shaders are edited graphically and work on all platforms. More
A wide variety of packaged components are provided for easy shader design.
Shaders automatically work with all types of light and fog.
Graphical script editor
Scripts are edited graphically for easy artist/designer access. More
Games can easily define custom script components, and these automatically appear in the editor.
Controllers can advertise custom function calls that can be accessed from scripts.
Scripts support variables, looping, and conditional execution, all shown in a concise graphical manner.
Interface panel editor
Fully interactive in-game interface panels can be created graphically. More
Custom scripts can be attached to panel items for limitless interactivity.
Panels have an extensible animation system with many built-in techniques.
Model, animation, and texture import tools
Support for the Collada scene format, enabling models to be imported
from 3D Studio MAX, Maya, XSI, Blender, and other content creation
packages.
Full skeletal hierarchy support for skinned meshes.
Bump map, parallax map, horizon map, and ambient occlusion channel calculations.
Texture compression and automatic mipmap generation.
