TARA is BT’s in-house 3D graphics engine technology and was conceived as a replacement for VRML as BT’s 3D graphics technology choice for new projects. It has been used in dozens of projects and has evolved into a robust, adaptable, high performance platform. TARA is composed of several components:
- C++ Core 3D Engine
- 3dsmax Export Plug-in (5.0, 6.0 & 7.0)
- TaraViewer, a simple end-user content viewer
- TaraExplorer, an advanced developer content editor
- ActiveX Control
My role in this project was Lead Developer; as such I was responsible for the overall design and its implementation. The C++ Core 3D Engine implements a hierarchical scene graph with a pluggable implementation. TARA exposes all aspects of the Direct3D8 fixed function pipeline, so operations such as environment mapping and render-to-texture are possible. Other notable features include:
- Fully extensible engine design, even for those developers without full source access
- XML based file format
- Video texturing from both live and pre-recorded sources
- Video matting for mixed reality applications