Original Post
Having not seen it mentioned, I found this library with much the same interface as HGE and with lots of features. There is a sprite slicer and a font builder to download on the webpage, and the HGE particle editor can be used for effects. The webpage: http://www.hoek.inkblue.net/goblin/goblin.html Some features:
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- Built on Direct X D3D 8.1 for hardware acceleration and maximum compatibility (If the destination system has DX 8.1 or better then Goblin applications should run without any problems)
- Being built on D3D gives hardware tinting, alpha blending, scaling, rotating, filtering and other features Direct Draw couldn't deliver with hardware precision, quality and speed.
- Built for use by all skill levels from learner to those already familiar with Windows API and Direct X programming.
- Requires no prior knowledge of Direct X or Windows API programming. Just a basic knowledge of C/C++ should see you coding in minutes from easy to follow sample programs.
- Highly optimized 2D sprite system batches sprites and other objects for maximum throughput along the 3D pipeline.
- Powerful yet simple to use and flexible 2D sprite animation.
- Bitmap fonts with multi language support. (free font packs available for use)
- Collision spheres for fast, accurate collision detection between scaled and rotated sprites and/or animations.
- Collision pixels for fast, pixel perfect collision detection between non-scaled and non-rotated sprites and/or animations.
- Avi rendering with full sound support (decompressed frames onto texture or onto a bitmap in memory).
- Rendering of geometric shapes including lines, circles, sectors and rectangles.
- Ability to integrate 3D models (.X and .MD2) formats.
- Camera controls which allow the rendered scene to be viewed from any angle.
- Texture functions to load and manipulate textures. (Uncompressed A8R8G8B8 and A4R4G4B4 textures may be locked for direct manipulation)
- Highly optimized particle system that allows each emitter to have from 10 to 1500 particles.
- Full support with Sprite Slicer for importing fonts, sprites, animations and collision spheres. Load Sprite Slicer projects with 1 line of code.
- Sound support including 3D positional sound is via the BASS Sound System which if used needs to be purchased if you require any licensing
- Loading of resources from ZIP files that may be compressed and password protected.
- Ability to query the desktop video mode and all possible video modes before attempting to set a specific video mode.
- Full support for input using Direct Input 8.1.
- Easy to expand. Goblin applications are C/C++ so basically any C/C++ library could be used with Goblin. This may include but not limited to external physics, GUI and scripting libraries.
- Support for easily creating and rendering some lit 3D primitives (cube, sphere, capsule, plane and torus)