BRender

BRender (short for Blazing Renderer) was Argonaut Software’s flagship game engine during the 1990s and early 2000s. As part of developing Croc: Definitive Edition, I made significant changes to BRender to ensure it could run on modern systems.

This version of BRender ultimately shipped as the engine for Croc Classic, which was bundled with the Croc Remaster.

Download

Source Code

Current Features

This modernised version represents a cross-platform, 64-bit capable version of BRender with restored legacy functionality.

Complete feature set of version 1.3.2, the last known release
OpenGL renderer targeting the 3.3 Core Profile
Cross-platform support (Linux, Windows, macOS) and cross-architecture support (x86, x86_64, ARM)
Restored software rendering support (x86 only)
Restored DOS support (MCGA and VESA modes)

Development History

Initially based on the version contained within the Croc source leak
Early OpenGL support was sufficient for Croc but little else
- The game relied on only a relatively small subset of the engine’s features
- At the time, no reference material was available for the rest
Once BRender was officially open-sourced, I gained access to newer versions and reference applications
Backported all changes from version 1.3.2, file-by-file
- My branch already included CMake, Linux, and 64-bit support, so it was easier to backport than forward-port
Enhanced the OpenGL renderer with missing functionality¹ using the newly available references
Restored full software rendering support (x86 only)
Restored DOS support (MCGA and VESA modes)

Videos

Demos

Device Pixelmap Testing Tool

DOS Support

Almost. There’s one feature, light volumes, that isn’t supported, as no references or documentation have been found to determine the intended behaviour. ↩︎