Sundog Software

Triton 1.3 improves ship wakes, geocentric support

Frank Kane — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:58:58 +0000

The Triton Ocean SDK version 1.3 is now available for Windows and Linux. We’ve enhanced our support for ship wakes substantially – in addition to tuning the Kelvin wakes behind a ship, which displace the ocean surface in 3D, we’ve added propeller backwash and the turbulent wake resulting from it. This results in visually identifiable trails behind the ships in your scene, which are important for training purposes and for realism. The new WakeGenerator class allows you to specify a ship beam width and ship length, and the trail behind the ship will grow at a realistic rate given these parameters. We’ve also added a configurable distance between the optional spray effects and the wake itself, so you can simulate spray at the bow of a ship, and a wake emanating from the stern.

We’ve also made a lot of improvements to our support for geocentric / ECEF coordinate support in Triton. With Triton 1.3, you’ll get the same visual quality using WGS84 ellipsoids or spherical coordinate systems as you’ll get in flat coordinate systems, free of precision issues. You’ll get more visual detail on the waves and foam, and wind-blown spray effects that move fluidly.

You’ll also find that height tests conducted with Ocean::GetHeight() are much more accurate in choppy seas now. View the full Triton release notes for a complete list of improvements; there are quite a few, so we recommend this update for everyone.

New Support Plans, and a New Binary License

Frank Kane — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:03:10 +0000

We’ve made a few improvements to our support plans and licensing options – don’t worry, we lowered the cost!

Previously, extended product support was available at $500 for 3 months at a time, which added up to $2,000 per year. We’ve discontinued the quarterly support product in favor of an annual, 12-month extended support product, at $995 per year - over half off.

Product licenses still include 3 months of support as part of the license cost. But, extending your license means you’ll get continued access to SDK updates, as well as up to 10 hours per month of email-based technical support. We’ve also created a new process for obtaining SDK updates for our licensed customers – you’ll be receiving an email soon with the details.

We’ve also added a new binary license for SilverLining at $1500 USD. This creates a less expensive option to the $2500 full source SilverLining license.

Finally, we’re offering full-service integration services now on a contract basis. We can connect you with software engineers who are experts in SilverLining and Triton around the world, to help you get the most out of our products in your application. Contact support@sundog-soft.com to learn more!

Triton 1.22 Adds Direct3D9Ex Support

Frank Kane — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:18:23 +0000

A new version of the Triton Ocean SDK for Windows is now available for download. This latest version includes support for Direct3D9Ex devices, alongside our existing support for Direct3D9, 10, and 11 as well as every OpenGL version from 2.0 onward.

This latest release also adds support for shallow water effects under DirectX. Licensed, full source SDK users will also find cmake files that work under Windows, with the option to exclude DirectX dependencies from being linked in if you’re targeting OpenGL exclusively.

US Navy Licenses Triton

Frank Kane — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:08:47 +0000

The Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, has purchased a license for the Triton Ocean SDK. We’re really proud that our real-time visual simulation technology for the ocean under specific sea states caught the attention of the Navy itself! NAWC joins the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, and Lawrence Livermore National Labs among our high-profile government customers that we’ve sold to directly. Thank you, NAWC/WD!

Triton 1.21 adds Lightspeed, Visual Studio 2005 support

Frank Kane — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:57:30 +0000

Version 1.21 of the Triton Ocean SDK for Windows is now available. This update includes three main new features:

Sample code for Gamebryo Lightspeed 3.2 (Core Runtime) is now included with the SDK
Libraries for Visual C++ 2005 are now included for OpenGL and DirectX9, in addition to Visual Studio 2008 and 2010
A new Ocean::SetRefractionColor method has been added, allowing you to change the water color at runtime

Let us know of any trouble at support@sundog-soft.com.

2012 User Survey

Frank Kane — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 20:29:15 +0000

Got two minutes to answer ten quick questions? Please take our 2012 user survey! Your input is really important to us, as it helps us figure out how to improve our products, and what products to build next. Help ensure Sundog’s direction is one that benefits your organization by participating in the survey.

Thank you!

Linux support expanded for The Triton Ocean SDK

Frank Kane — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:47:57 +0000

In addition to Ubuntu 11, we’ve added binary evaluation packages for the Triton Ocean SDK for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1 and OpenSUSE at our download page. We’ve also had enough people use Triton for Linux successfully that we’ve taken the “beta / experimental” label off of these packages.

Be sure to have the GLUT, Xmu, and Xi packages installed in order to run the OpenGL sample application included. For example, under Ubuntu you’d do this with:

sudo apt-get install freeglut3 freeglut3-dev libxmu-dev libxi-dev

We’ve also gotten the OpenSceneGraph samples working under Linux – just make sure you have the OSG_DIR environment variable defined, and you should be able to use the cmake files provided. Thanks to Trajce Nikolov for adding polish to the OSG samples for Linux for us.

SilverLining 2.30 Improves Performance, Visuals

Frank Kane — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:18:21 +0000

SilverLining 2.30 is now available from our download page. In addition to several bug fixes and better compatibility with a wider range of graphics cards, it also includes substantial performance improvements for cumulus cloud types. In addition to being about twice as fast as in previous versions, our GPU ray-casted volumetric stratocumulus clouds are also much more realistically lit and are rendered with higher quality. This higher quality has also reduced sampling artifacts in stratocumulus clouds, but if you still see any, try increasing the MAX_SAMPLES setting defined at the top of the stratocumulus fragment shaders in the resources/shaders directory. Visit our gallery to view some new screenshots of stratocumulus clouds in SilverLining 2.30.

New video for Triton 1.2

Frank Kane — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:48:00 +0000

We’ve posted a new video of Triton 1.2 on the Sundog Youtube Channel. Static images don’t really do the new spray effects in 1.2 justice, so a video seemed to be in order. It also illustrates shoreline effects, where waves align with the coastline and are steeper and more transparent in shallow water. We threw in some sun reflections and ship wakes to round it out. The Triton Ocean SDK 1.2 is available now at our download page!

Sundog Brings Breaking Waves to Games and Simulations

Frank Kane — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:36:54 +0000

New release of the Triton Ocean SDK provides fast, realistic water and waves for developers

Seattle, WA – November 18, 2011 – Realistic ocean waves with foam and spray as they break near the shore are coming soon to games and simulations worldwide. Sundog Software’s latest version of its Triton Ocean SDK provides developers with a toolkit for adding convincing open-ocean and shallow water effects to their virtual environments.

“Our top customer request was the handling of coastlines, and Triton 1.2 does this with unprecedented performance,” said Frank Kane, founder of Sundog. “Developers simply provide the depth and slope of the seafloor, and Triton automatically adjusts the wave heights, direction, and transparency to match the scene. As the waves break, foam and spray effects add to the realism. Even with tens of thousands of spray particles running alongside tens of thousands of individual waves, we’re still seeing performance of hundreds of frames per second.”

Triton takes full advantage of multi-core processors and general-purpose GPU computing capabilities to achieve its performance. Its new support of breaking waves and shallow water rests alongside Triton’s previous features, including simulation of specific wind conditions, water reflections, ship wakes, and support of virtual environments that span entire planets.

“Some big names in both the computer gaming and the simulation and training worlds have already adopted Triton,” said Kane, “and we’re excited to bring these industries the same level of realism to water that we provide to the sky with our SilverLining Cloud, Sky, and Weather SDK. Together, these products form the basis of outdoor scenes that replicate any given conditions.”

A free demo application, evaluation SDK, images, and videos are available at Sundog’s website, at www.sundog-soft.com.

About Sundog Software LLC

Founded in 2006, Sundog Software specializes in the real-time rendering of natural environments. Its SilverLining and Triton C++ libraries provide OpenGL and DirectX developers with visual simulation of the sky, ocean, 3D volumetric clouds, and weather effects. Sundog’s software is used worldwide by professional game developers, large military contractors and aviation companies developing flight training simulators, architectural visualization companies, and broadcast video application developers. Its customers also include NASA and the FAA.

Sundog Software is located outside of Seattle in Sammamish, Washington. To learn more, please visit http://www.sundog-soft.com.