Dark Reign 3 Status Updates

Unarekin · Post by **Unarekin** » Sun Jul 25, 2004 12:13 pm

Suggestion!

You may want to actually resize your thumbnails that you have for the screenshots on the site, there. The images are 1024x768, and using HTML to resize them won't change their actual file size. With just two images, it isn't that big a deal. When all four work, and you add more, it can be a pain in the butt for people like me, with crappy dial-up connections (I'm connected at 19.2. I don't expect to get much better, I'm in the middle of nowhere

) who happen to be downloading nearly 22 megs worth of crap.

While I'm at it, in the future when you have more than the four images, please don't end up with 11ty billion little thumbnails on one page. Especially when they're full-blown 1024x768 images that've been resized with HTML. I think I'll be forced to shake my fist and give you funny looks if that happens.

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:04 am

FRICK!!! That'll teach me not to check stuff!

*Can't believe he made such a stupid mistake...*

I get the point about the big images too

I only spent 10-20 minutes on the site, it does need work.

I'll make it up to to you all then

I've just got a VERY cool feature working. So I'll post screenies of it and I'll also fix those 404s... AND I'll add some thumbnails

And yes I will be organising them later...

PS. Howcome Irrlicht can't load compressed TGAs?

I thought it could...

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:54 am

Yay! 4 new screenies + thumbnails!

Second Update

I spent ages working on getting Cal3D in (Didn't realise you needed the CVS version of Cal3D...

) but now it works and it's absolutely AWESOME

Best thing ever for my game and I'm really looking forward to using it

I may even consider doing ragdolls using it...

The rewrite seems to be going well so far... No major problems and the results should be spectacular

The project finally has a site, now all I need is a forum and the whole system is ready to go!

Electron · Post by **Electron** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 12:48 pm

I'm curious, which modeler are you using with cal3d?, as far as I remember it only works with max,maya, and blender

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 10:16 pm

Cal3D also supports MilkShape3D and of course they've released the source to their exporters. They also made an XML converter or something..

I personally use 3D Studio MAX 6 but I also have MilkShape for low-poly stuff.

Robomaniac · Post by **Robomaniac** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:13 pm

Um... Just noticing something.

Window Title, Set: Realtime Stencil Shadows with multiple lights on q3 maps:

"Quake 3 RTLight Example - Irrlicht Engine (fps:12[\b]) Triangles: 5694"

I'm sorry, but ragdolls, units/battles the size your talking about. Fps: 0.1 Its going to run slow. i'd either think about optimizing a lot[\b] of irrlicht, especially the shadows [they're very slow].

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:30 am

Robomaniac:
I mainly did this as an experiment

Just to see if it could be done... I may not even have shadowing in my game... I'll have to wait and see but for now those shadows won't be used

PS. That map had WAY too many lights. ie. 86 or so lights on a tiny map

AssiDragon · Post by **AssiDragon** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:03 am

No matter to what point you optimize them, shadows will always be slow. Unless you hack them to not notice some lights or cap the maximal shadows a unit can cast + detail level of shadows...

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:32 pm

Assi:
That's why I probably won't use shadows

There are other 'techniques'...

Quick question to anyone:
I have Cal3D in OK but the problem is it uses a different rotation system to Irrlicht. This is OK for static models cause i can rotate em and stuff to get em up the right way, but if I apply rotations using say, a camera, the model gets buggered up

So close to getting it all working too!

Would anyone be able to help if I gave them my code?

buhatkj · Post by **buhatkj** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 4:11 am

I know cal3d is a character animation library, but what is the advantage of using it?? what does it offer that isnt already in Irrlicht? Just wondering why because you have said it is very helpful, and i wonder if it might be useful in my engine and why.
Thanks!!

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:12 am

buhatkj:

Cal3D:
http://cal3d.sourceforge.net

Using Cal3D with Irrlicht:
http://thomas.webtracker.ch/jahia/Jahia ... ce/pid/672
(You need the CVS version of Cal3D!)

Enjoy!

Cal3D is an awesome animation library. It's commercial level and very powerful plus it's LGPL licensed

The advantages are it's simple to export models out from a whole range of programs and it's possible to do animation blending VERY easily. Just goto the Cal3D site and download the Cally demo. It shows off alot of the cool features. (The newest version supports bumpmapping, vertex programs and other cool stuff

)

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:32 am

Cal3D scene node example (Unzip into your Irrlicht Visual Studio Bin folder)
http://eve-corp.com/darkreign3/Cal3DSceneNode_Bin.zip

Cal3D scene node source (Requires downloads below too...)
http://eve-corp.com/darkreign3/Cal3DSceneNode_Src.zip

My modified Irrlicht engine. Contains numerous fixes/addons, including MD3 support and a special RTS camera
http://eve-corp.com/darkreign3/IrrEngine_Src.zip

Compiled CVS Version Cal3D LIB + DLL (MS VC6)
http://eve-corp.com/darkreign3/Cal3D_Bin.zip

Here's a fair chunk of my code

Includes some features you all may find useful. Use it how you want but at least give credit. I haven't really commented it all that well so the easiest way to see my changes is to WinDiff it against the normal Irrlicht source

Also, you'll probably have to change around some of the project settings and stuff

I'm also releasing my code because I'm hoping someone may be able to help me fix the model orientation problem

(The model problem also applies to MD3s...)

Captain_Kill · Post by **Captain_Kill** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:46 am

Help? Someone?

Surely someone must know how to fix this Cal problem... I KNOW what the problem is I just don't know how to fix it. My math skills aren't the best

Third Update
Coding is kinda weird at the moment... Mainly because I'm very tempted to do stuff the easy hacky way and not take the time to do it all properly. Then I go back later and do it properly anyhow! But I am making progress in a lot of ways

I've just done 2 test buildings. One is a barracks and the other is a vehicle factory. Of course, I'm not really a mapper and mapping buildings is very different to map mapping (If that makes sense!

) so they may not looks as good as what I'd like them to but they'll do. Plus they'll give me something real to work with

I'm thinking of making a simple standalone 2D map editor for my game... It'll use code from an RTS programming book I own. So it won't be open source but if people want to use it's map format for their own projects then that is definately possible.
One question you may ask is why am I using a 2D map editor for a 3D game

Well, because of DR3's map loader and map format, this is possible and relatively easy to do. And it has one VERY major advantage

It'll make it possible to add import functions for map files from other strategy games

eg. RA1, RA2, TA etc...
Of course, this is only an idea I've been considering but it may just work...

There'll be regular updates here, however there will be less code stuff and more other stuff

I've decided I haven't really nailed down DR3 well enough so I'll be doing alot of planning and just generally chucking ideas around. But I still will post code snippets and stuff.

PS. Help?

If someone could fix that Cal problem it would be MUCH appreciated.

Electron · Post by **Electron** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 1:02 pm

Perhaps try to explain the problem (what rotation system cal3d uses) to us here
What is it? quaternions? polar coordinates? different matrix ordering?

Unarekin · Post by **Unarekin** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 1:45 pm

Someone a little while back had the same problem, and fixed it. Try doing a search for Cal3d and see if it turns up.