walkthrough with MiniB3D?
BlitzMax Forums/MiniB3D Module/walkthrough with MiniB3D?
| ||
| Hi, ok, I am mostly architecture and either I have do animations, which means rendering all frames, or a walkthrough with prerendered textures, like in any 3D shooter. Now I hopefully will have the chance to do a new big project for which they want an animation/walkthrough. I used to work with Quest3D, but all this visual noding becomes very complex, so I was wondering if it could be done with BMax/MiniB3D?. Does anybody have any experience with highpoly scenes full of textures and lightmaps with MiniB3D. I guess bugs shouldn't be such a problem since the developer always hang around here :) Such nice things as bump-mapping or antialiasing doesn't seem to be implementable in the near future? I would work with xsi, don't know if Giles would be of any help? Would be glad for any tips&tricks&ideas/opinions etc... Thanks |
| ||
| What 3d modelling program do you use? This will help answer your questions. (Ooops sorry I see you use XSI - maybe somebody with experience with XSI can help, but I suggest you try exporting to a fairly standard format like .X or possibly .3DS for levels). Also Giles is an excellent program for lightmapping a .b3d (or .ase, .3ds, .x, etc.) file. You just load in your model and place lights, render and save to .b3d format. The lightmaps that you can make in Giles are superior (more optimised, easier to adjust) and more suitable for blitz3d than most commercial products. So XSI -> Giles -> Bmax/MiniB3D (LoadAnimMesh command) |
| ||
| @sonicfactory, I've got the pipeline worked out, I use xsi->Unwrap3D ( with the newest xsi plugins, which now even supports mocap and multihierarchy animation, clusters coming along too) ->b3d - >MiniB3D. Works like a charm. But my question is more towards if anybody actually DID a complex walkthrough, and if MiniB3D is powerful enough to handle all these polygons. Quest3D for example can handle up to 3.500.000 polygons with 30fps. If it were for fun I would try it with MiniB3D but investing much time and failing due to technical problems wouldn't be good. Have a look at Quest3d.com to see how it works, many many channels, easy to begin, complicated and complex after a while. |
| ||
| @Barbapapa: Why dont you change one of the demofiles to use your Unwrap3D exported model. That alone would give you a clue. |
| ||
| What clue? Normally I should take the time to do a complete test with an old project within MiniB3D, but I fear that I don't have enough time budget for this. Either I do it with one or the other. MiniB3D is what I would prefer, because I could use the gained knowledge and experience for future projects (and quest updates cost ~ 400€) Sure it's great, but every update costs the same or more and the new version is due in 5-6 months. Unfortunately I can't wait so long. But if I don't see any positive responses before I have to send my calculations I will have to go the secure way with Quest3D. |
| ||
| I'm not sure what you're asking really. Is it possible to have big levels with lots of textures? Yes. Why not try it? It's only a case of quickly loading a model. |
| ||
| I'm not sure what you're asking really. I can imagine ;) Mainly it's, can I have the same quality as in Quest3D, can it handle the mass of polygon and textures, will it crash on me, has anybody did it before? That should wrap it up :) Yes. Why not try it? Which I did :) I loaded up a recent model of a buidling with 40.000 polygons and it was much smoother and faster than with Quest3D. Only problem were transparent faces. In Objects, which contain both opaque and half-transparent faces, the opaque faces showed at 100% through the semi-transparent faces. Neither any color nor transparency value of the transparent faces were considered. Only the other objects, not belonging to the first, rendered up correctly. Is this an OpenGl problem? Quest which renders with DirectX doesn't show this behavior. Or is this a bug? Of course I could export all transparent faces apart, but I would prefer exporting/importing object wise. Another question, is antialiasing impossible right now? Any chances of having bump-mapping? |
| ||
| Antialias: Driver settings for OpenGL will at least for now help. Leadwerks posted some OpenGL code in the modules board months ago for general OpenGL AA :) Alpha: This is actually simply because you break "rule 1". Never mix alpha and non alpha in a single multi planar object unless you want to have trouble. Because to sort rendering problems you have to split alpha and non alpha, which is what Quest3D most likely does when loading the model. This is most likely the reason it is slower because depending on the model, this ends as a dozen or a few hundred meshes. Better split the model up before loading it and then load it as anim mesh. This will solve some problems and most likely take care of some problems as well. (only some because I don't think alpha sorting is in now. it works as it worked in Blitz3D ... which didn't have a seperate alpha render pass as well and thus would show a similar error if you try to break all game modelling rules I fear) |
| ||
| @Dreamora, thanks for the infos, are there more game modeling rules I should be aware of? Got any links you would like to share? :) |
| ||
| yeah cool, got the job, so I will be able to do a nice stress test with MiniB3D. I hope to be able to show some pics now and then. When is v0.42 coming up :) ? |
   |