XenEngine

(also known as ) is a third-party branch using licenced code, created by the Crowbar Collective for . It is a modified version of with additions from , whose development was influenced by the limitations of . Although initially only Cascade Shadow Mapping was planned, Crowbar Collective gained much more knowledge while working on the engine, which allowed for more experimentation and improvements, eventually leading to the introduction of a completely new lighting system, and . Besides using 's engine version as a base, this engine version is also a hybrid of the and .
== Features ==
* Engine
** Entity and Displacement Limit upgraded from 4k to 8k.
** Backported a lot of optimizations and some entities from and that doesn't have.
** Improved AI, whose behavior depends on the current difficulty level (some NPCs also support Main and Assault Behavior Trees from the folder).
** Dynamic lights on a lightmap were swapped with new deferred lights.
** Gbuffer that allows the addition of some modern, difficult-to-make effects.
** Made from scratch Qt UI with the ability to be customized and add new stuff without limitations (VGUI can be reenabled with -oldgameui launch parameter).
** Using (FXAA) instead of (MSAA) for anti-aliasing 
*** MSAA does not work correctly on Xengine's deferred lighting, and is worse for performance. 
** New and extended Post Processor.
** Native support.
** Improved DirectX 9.0c shaders
** Enhanced multiplayer with fixes for the client and server.
** Dynamic music system.
** Shader Model 3.
*Visuals
** 4Way blends with support for 4 bumpmaps and tri-planar mapping, enabling all the options from other material shaders.
** Cascaded Shadow Mapping with viewmodel self-shadowing.
** Parallax Occlusion Mapping.
** Procedural Moss.
** Deferred lighting.
** Dynamic lighting system with PBR-based lighting and speculars.
** PCCS-based soft shadows.
** Light cookies for both new point light and new spot light, the last can be animated.
** Support for up to 2K dynamic lights per scene and all rendering features on secondary render targets (reflection/refraction, monitors, TV screens, etc.)
** Upgraded flashlight using the new deferred lighting system.
** Godrays with disk for both the sun and local lights (which also support the "Fancy" godrays type).
** Screenspace Fog ("Xog"), that can be applied globally or locally using cuboid/ellipsoid volumes.
** Flowing water.
**Swaying trees.
** Cinematic lens flares.
** Web shader.
** Upgraded tonemapping with bloom which uses a modified version of the Reinhard filter.
** Optimized shaders for faster compilation and better runtime performance.
* Tools
** In-game new lights editor and xog editor.
** Multiple VRAD upgrades, such as support for Alpha-Tested textures, 4-way blends, baked Ambient Occlusion, Real Sky Ambient Light, and more.
** 64-bit shader compiler.
=== Removed ===
*; DirectX compatibility levels support lower than 9.0 ().
: Support for DirectX 8.1 and 8 GPUs has been dropped.
*; Projected textures.
: The entity was removed because it renders scene twice, making it very expensive.
*; Reflections from .
: The entity is still available, but the shader is not ported, it shows wireframe instead of reflection.
*; WorldVertexTransition.
: The shader is not ported. All the features is available in LightmappedGeneric.
== System Requirements ==
== Media ==
					
==Availability==
* 
** (restored version)
** 
** 
== See also ==
* Engine branches
*
*
*
*
== External links ==
*Chetan Jag's Blog about XenEngine
*Qt Qml 6.8.1- half of the documentation for Qt UI. You'll need it if you want to edit Qt UI for your mods.
Category:Third-Party Engine Branches