What is this?

This is the dev blog for the Irrlicht 3D Xtra, an Adobe (formerly known as macromedia) Director extension which adds 3D functionality to Director and the Shockwave plugin.

The current state of the Xtra is somewhere between late alpha and early beta level. Its size is under 700Kb, everything included.

Do you plan to make the Xtra Shockwave-safe?

Yes, for both platforms.

But there is no Mac version of the Xtra?

I will try to create a Mac version of the Xtra, either with interested developers or by myself, as soon as I got enough money again to buy me a decent MacOS machine and CodeWarrior, which is needed to compile the XDK code.

What are the features of the Irrlicht engine?

Have a look at the Irrlicht engine feature page, as well as the screenshot gallery.
Quick rundown:

• small filesize,
• fast rendering,
• platform independent engine (Windows, Mac, Linux)
• Directx3D8, DirectX3D9, OpenGl rendering,
• 2 (!) software renderers,
• several model and bitmap file formats supported,
• Pixel and Vertex Shaders 1.1 to 3.0
• ARB Fragment and Vertex Programs
• HLSL
• GLSL
• billboards,
• collision detection,
• octrees for scene optimization,
• character animation supports morph targets and skeletal animation
• Realistic water surfaces
• Dynamic lights
• Dynamic shadows using the stencil buffer
• Billboards
• Bump mapping
• Parallax mapping
• Transparent objects
• Light maps
• Customizeable Particle systems for snow, smoke, fire
• Sphere mapping
• Texture animation
• Skyboxes
• Fog