3D bases and stations ?

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ezee
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3D bases and stations ?

Post by ezee »

Hi .

I dream to have 3D interior bases and stations .
I can make them in 3d , but actully the engine support only exterior scenes in space .
Do you think it could be done , c++ side ? ( basic doom level etc ... )

I know klauss was planning a different physics system for seamless planets , so i am wondering if before the seamless planets we could have 3d interiors ?

When we dock , we enter a base or station , and interact with NPC , computers , doors ,
stairways etc ...
I can use Blender and his engine to make a level , scripted with python i guess .
And also use the Bullet's physics engine .
Some say it is possible to exports physics data from Blender in collada format .
Could be a way , no ?
:?:

edit :

'found that :[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv-Oq5oe8Nw[/youtube]
and a topic here : http://bulletphysics.org/Bullet/phpBB3/ ... php?t=7820
Tech and specs for Bullet binary serialization :
Loading a .bullet file, creating objects and adding them to the world
http://bulletphysics.org/mediawiki-1.5. ... ialization
When loading a .bullet file, the BulletFileLoader library is needed to deal with endian-ness, 32/64 bit conversion. BulletWorldImporter, an example importer, takes the memory objects from BulletFileLoader and instantiates Bullet objects (btRigidBody, btCollisionShape etc) and adds them to the world. Do not mistake btBulletWorldImporter as a full featured loader, it is intended to be only a starting point. Anything past a very basic serialization of objects and positions will require that you derive from the class and make some improvements.
Technically , interesting things could happen , like create scripted animations created
with physics in Blender . If we had a good BlenderToVs exporter , we could export realistic
animations with pre-computed physics :
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2 ... s/Using_GE

Code: Select all

 if (!track.HasWeapons())
            {
                // So what are you going to threaten me with? Exhaustion gas?
                return ThreatLevel::None;
            }
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klauss
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by klauss »

ezee wrote:Hi .

I dream to have 3D interior bases and stations .
I can make them in 3d , but actully the engine support only exterior scenes in space .
Do you think it could be done , c++ side ? ( basic doom level etc ... )

I know klauss was planning a different physics system for seamless planets , so i am wondering if before the seamless planets we could have 3d interiors ?
Problem with walkable interiors, is that they require complex scene management.

In Ogre, we could do that by swapping scene managers at runtime, but with our current engine it's not so clear cut.

However, what I've been planning to support that could get you halfway there, is 3D scene support in bases. The base script could place a camera and a few meshes, and have the base loop render them without much extra effort.

Up till now, we haven't had much incentive to implement any of that, because we don't have the art or the manpower to produce it.

If you're willing to commit to producing the art, we can discuss the engine features that would be required. I would like to use a standard scene format too, so it would involve implementing that scene format.

The benefits of non-walkable scriptable click-only 3D scenes in bases is mostly for variety. 3D bases lend themselves for randomization and variability, and also animation. It could be worth a try.

From static meshes to portals is a small step. From portals to walkable bases is another small step (add ODE). So I guess this is a nice roadmap.
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by ezee »

That sound good !
If you're willing to commit to producing the art, we can discuss the engine features that would be required. I would like to use a standard scene format too, so it would involve implementing that scene format.
Of course . I can produce Art if there is someone to deal with it .
You can produce code if someone is providing art for it .
chicken and egg .
:lol:

What kind of " standart scene format " are you talking about ?
Gimme please the details as i will start to build a test base .
I think i will start with the 2D art of Atlantis , and port them in 3D .
_ That could at least serve as introduction video .
_ That don't break the already existing art and respect the actual universe with their creators .

About lighting : Do you have an idea about the numbers of dynamic lights i could use ?

But the most important is the exporter from blender to vs .
The last BlenderToOgre exporter is powerfull , able to deal with mesh , submeshs ( by materials ) , shape animation , bones animations ,textures and even shader exports .

Modify that exporter to deal with vegastrike's engine format is something that i think about .
We will need good python coders for that kind of project i guess .

You seem to don't want to have to deal with bullet .
Because of a rewrite of the actual system or there is an other reason ?
I have tried the actual collision code with the tutorial mission , and when i slowly advance to Oswald , the collision system fails . ( i enter in his mesh , and the audio enters in a bad loop ...)

I say that to argument the fact that sometime it's better to try an other method ,
than tweaking old code that can't evolve .

Ode is a good solution , but blender is able to export bullet physics data .
Anyway , physics is an other subject ( but it's better to envisage it right now ) ,
i'm glad to know that you are open with the 3D base content !

:D

Code: Select all

 if (!track.HasWeapons())
            {
                // So what are you going to threaten me with? Exhaustion gas?
                return ThreatLevel::None;
            }
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by klauss »

ezee wrote: What kind of " standart scene format " are you talking about ?
Gimme please the details as i will start to build a test base .
I think i will start with the 2D art of Atlantis , and port them in 3D .
_ That could at least serve as introduction video .
_ That don't break the already existing art and respect the actual universe with their creators .
I don't know. Something that can describe mesh placement and perhaps animation as well. What about collada?
ezee wrote:About lighting : Do you have an idea about the numbers of dynamic lights i could use ?
High-end shaders I believe can handle up to 2 lights per pass. They can run in multiple passes, but that makes things slower of course.

They're not designed for interior scenes, so I guess you need not limit yourself to what they can do. We'll probably need to develop new shaders for interiors.

We'll most likely need some form of lightmap baking to make things look good, and the state of the art in lightmaps limit you to 4 overlapping lights (ie: you can have as many lights as you want, but there must never be places where more than 4 lights overlap).

I'd start with simple lighting, however. Bare in mind, that direct lights should be used sparingly in favor of image-based lighting which we support fully. xNormal can bake the radiance maps we need (the PRT it's called).
ezee wrote:But the most important is the exporter from blender to vs .
Export to Wavefront OBJ - it's the format that works best with mesher.
ezee wrote:The last BlenderToOgre exporter is powerfull , able to deal with mesh , submeshs ( by materials ) , shape animation , bones animations ,textures and even shader exports .
If we could build against the latest Ogre, mesher can also take ogre mesh files, but fixing mesher to work with the latest Ogre could take some doing.
ezee wrote:Modify that exporter to deal with vegastrike's engine format is something that i think about .
We will need good python coders for that kind of project i guess .
Nah, just use Wavefront obj.
ezee wrote:You seem to don't want to have to deal with bullet .
Cuz I don't :p

Bullet, ODE, whichever works best for interiors is fine. I just know ODE better.
ezee wrote:Because of a rewrite of the actual system or there is an other reason ?
I have tried the actual collision code with the tutorial mission , and when i slowly advance to Oswald , the collision system fails . ( i enter in his mesh , and the audio enters in a bad loop ...)
Bug report please (in the tracker).
ezee wrote:Ode is a good solution , but blender is able to export bullet physics data .
Um... that's a good point for bullet.
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by ezee »

Thank you klauss .
I just looked inside the sprites/bases folder , and some of the 2D scenes ( rendered from 3d ) are really awesome .

I think i should be able to reproduce them in 3d , my favorite is the mining base .
They used a lot of bloom effect , that would be cool to implement that with shaders in our
scenes .

I start my tests in Blender / Blender game with bullets for collisions detections .
Just to learn how to deal with walls , doors , etc ...

What kind of animation support do we actually have ?
I know there is sprite animation , but what are the mesher specs ?
( i will have to test myself anyway ... )

I imagine scripted animations for exemple when a station is under attack ...
:wink:

Code: Select all

 if (!track.HasWeapons())
            {
                // So what are you going to threaten me with? Exhaustion gas?
                return ThreatLevel::None;
            }
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by klauss »

Well, the animation support we have now is quite crappy, so you can consider it to be basically nothing. We'll have to implement most of it according to collada specs.

Just don't go into skinning unless you really really really need to - it takes a lot of shader coding ;)
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by DarkVixen »

I do like 3D bases and planet surfaces, but only if there is no combat or real-time fighting there. Interacting/dialogues with aliens on the bases would be neat. We already do that in space with the comm with friendly/hostile messages.

Imagine the Rocky planet, where you could land and go out and explore caves and find treasures, special cargo like artifacts/stolen-pirate-bounty that are worth a lot.

I do not like the idea of flying through atmosphere (seamless planets), I appreciate the option, but I would rather fly though spaces and walk through bases in this game.
ezee
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Re: 3D bases and stations ?

Post by ezee »

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I do not like the idea of flying through atmosphere (seamless planets), I appreciate the option, but I would rather fly though spaces and walk through bases in this game.
Yeah , i think the same .
But we could have a large base exterior , with traffic in the sky , landing etc ...
An IA active in the base .
I am studying the IA options :
Image
https://github.com/memononen/recastnavigation


For the simmers , i imagine a " cold and darlk cockpit " waiting for you in the dock .
The fun will be to program the ship to leave the atmosphere , follow a flight plan via the
nav computer , things like this .
The cargo could be in real 3D , and you watch robots doing their work while you inspect your ship before takeoff .
If the damages could be visible in the models , would be a greater experience.


Just don't go into skinning unless you really really really need to - it takes a lot of shader coding
:lol:

The good point with Blender/Blender game engine , is that they use Opengl .
The same specs that we have .
And the very very useful thing is that Blender game engine can produce a .exe standalone.

Yeah , the level designer create the scene , and the devs can see ( by playing with the pseudo game ) how the scene works in BE , and try to find the same result in VS .

I have already made a mini space simulator with a base and a vessel with BGE, years ago .
So i feel confident with that project .
:)

Code: Select all

 if (!track.HasWeapons())
            {
                // So what are you going to threaten me with? Exhaustion gas?
                return ThreatLevel::None;
            }
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