MetaBalls Demo

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Fri May 16, 2008 11:09 am

Metaballs at 60+ FPS, based on killthesand's original MetaballSceneNode (Big props go to him).

Optimizations include:
- Meshbuffers with dynamic vbos.
- Colour calculations are now done in vertex shader.
- Normal calculations are now done in vertex shader.
- Proximity checks for only calculating values near the metaballs.
- Other optimizations, preallocations, set_used, etc. (Thanks to hybrid for tips.)
- I even went to the lengths of implementing the algorithm using SSE intrinsics, but I ditched it because it ended up slower than just normal C++.

Shader features include:
- Background refraction based on the spheres normals.
- Reflection mapping.
- Fresnal to alternate between refraction and reflection based on view angle.
- Specular with shine-through.

Press Z/X to increase/decrease the quality at runtime (Lower sample width = higher quality).
Press Space to pause the metaballs animation and benefit from VBOs. You can still change the quality while they're paused.

Screenshots:

Download:
http://irrlichtirc.g0dsoft.com/BlindSide/Metaballs.zip

Cheers

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri May 16, 2008 11:17 am

Oh no, Windows-only binary and no source code

I want to use it under Linux, please give me your code

JP · Post by JP » Fri May 16, 2008 11:28 am

Holy finickering fangledoms Batman!

They look gorgeous!

I do love how good reflections and refractions make things look!

I get 138fps on startup

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Fri May 16, 2008 11:46 am

hybrid wrote:Oh no, Windows-only binary and no source code I want to use it under Linux, please give me your code

During the process of optimization, the code quickly became rather messy and unorthodox, so I'll PM it to you later to save me the public humiliation.

Either that, or I can compile you a Linux binary, whats your arch? 386? AMD64?

Lekane · Post by **Lekane** » Fri May 16, 2008 11:55 am

no source code? what's that shader code then?

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri May 16, 2008 12:08 pm

I want all source code, not just some...

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Fri May 16, 2008 12:17 pm

Holy gwakamoly. That's awesome!

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Fri May 16, 2008 12:26 pm

It's mainly due to the passing of uniform variables to the vertex shader. I didn't want to go through the headache of (Unsupported on ATI) uniform arrays in GLSL, so I passed the Balls' location as singly named variables. This makes the code very unadaptable. Until I think of a better way of handling this I can't release it as a viable solution. Currently the only solution I can think of is to convert it to DirectX, trying to use CG in OpenGL might also somehow work. Oh, or I could use some string manipulation here and there and emulate the arrays somehow, but that would get messy quite fast.

The shaders are free for you to look at and modify, they are pretty much the same as the ones from my refraction demo with a few additions here and there.

Cheers

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Fri May 16, 2008 12:32 pm

Wow BlindSide that is amazing. Big props to you bro!

Nadro · Post by **Nadro** » Fri May 16, 2008 1:37 pm

This demo looks very good:)

arras · Post by **arras** » Sat May 17, 2008 8:40 am

Well ...what a nice piece of coding and math ...good work BlindSide

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Sat May 17, 2008 11:08 am

I posted the demo over at Gamedev.net.

Looks like Irrlicht is gaining some more popularity

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Sat May 17, 2008 6:01 pm

Yes, our world takeover has commenced!

EDIT: It always seems that your images get featured on gamedev, as they should.

Blue Hampster · Post by **Blue Hampster** » Sun May 18, 2008 12:00 pm

Hey, could I also get a copy of the source for the metaballs as well? pleasssseeeeeeeee

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Sun May 18, 2008 12:28 pm

Blue Hampster wrote:Hey, could I also get a copy of the source for the metaballs as well? pleasssseeeeeeeee

I wanna work on it some more first, make it faster than this and easier to use then release it.