PLUGIN + EDITOR: CharacterD3D v0.3 (31 Oct 2010)

Started by Besh, Thu 11/02/2010 17:49:24

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Besh

CharacterD3D is a new 3D plugin for AGS. It's based on the old Character3D plugin and uses the powerful Irrlicht Engine to create a realtime 3D world in your game with animated characters and objects, lights, shadows, special effects, ecc..

Current version: 0.3 (31 Oct 2010)

Requires AGS v3.1



The plugin: my idea isn't make an Irllicht's interface to AGS but make something useful in adventures creation. Ideas for next release: improve talk system, add spot light, particle system, ...

The editor: besides the plugin there's a new .NET editor plugin. Now includes the "Walk Area Builder" utility.

At the moment the editor supports only two rooms! The #1 is for the plugin initialization and the #2 is for the game.

The demo: need some free time...


From 0.2 to 0.3:
   * (Plugin) - Added light billboard.
   * (Editor) - Added preview control.
   * (Editor) - Added "Walk Area Builder" utility.
   * (Editor) - Added room object (supports only one room).

From 0.1 to 0.2:
   * Update to Irrlicht 1.7.1
   * (Plugin) - Fixed bug in function CD3DPlugin::GetObjectAt that in window mode returns wrong cursor coordinates.
   * (Editor) - Added CD3DEditor COM plugin.


Downloads (files are in 7z format) :


About version: the first number will be zero untill someone (maybe you) will say: "Hey man! This is ready to make some nice game!" or even better it will be used to make a game. The second number is the revision of the plugin.


Please reports any bugs, suggestions or comments ;)

Again: if someone is interested in this project (demo, documentation, also fixing English mistakes, ... ) please contact me:
besh81@virgilio.it
http://www.webalice.it/besh81

Have fun!
"Spread our codes to the stars,
You can rescue us all"
- Muse

NSM

Just had a look at the demo now.  It looks incredible!  I'll make a more concerted effort to play around with it tomorrow, but it really looks fantastic thus far.

GarageGothic

Motherf***er! Now everyone will have shadows in their games! I hate you!  ;)

Just kidding, this is very impressive work - and a nice development for those who have considered moving on to Wintermute and other 2.5 engines. Have you made any tests of how large environments can be without dropping the fps to unacceptable levels - it seemed to go up and down quite a lot depending on which direction I was facing?

Theme

Wow!  :o  :o  :o Amazing stuff!
Really nice, ran very smooth here
Waiting for more!
o/

Kweepa

Pretty awesome!
I got about 200FPS without shadows and about 15FPS with them... ouch!
Still waiting for Purity of the Surf II

DavidCB

In Win7 32bit dll error: Irrlicht.dll not found

Ubel

#6
FPS stayed at around 50-60 with and without shadows. This is really impressive!! A wonderful improvement over your Character3D plugin. Once you manage to make an editor plugin out of this it will take AGS to a whole new level!

Ps. Good choice of music for the demo! :=

Dualnames

Liked the Cream - At the Station song! Also, have to say it's really impressive, and I had it over 164 FPS all the time (constantly around 185) with shadows on! ;)
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

abstauber

Wow, it's indeed impressive. Is it possible to make 2.5D games as well?

Btw. with shadows enabled, my framerate drops from 180 to 3  :-X

TheMagician

What a great plugin!  :o

I get 260 FPS without shadows and about 200 with shadows.

Great great work:)

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

I'm getting a steady 290 fps with shadows so this shows great promise.  I'd definitely like to see it integrated with the engine or the editor expanded to offer the room edit functionality (but for 3d).

Besh

#11
Thanks for the feedback!

@GarageGothic:
No I haven't but I think the fps matter isn't related to "how big is the environments" only but also to the hardware. As our friends say, the got fps from 3 to 200 with or without shadows with the same polygons on screen.

@DavidCB:
If you try to run the demo from within the AGS editor you have to copy Irrlicht.dll to cd3d_demo folder (Irrlicht.dll is in cd3d_demo/compiled folder).

@abstauber:
Yes but... thinking... about 2.5D games... there's no walkbehind and.. I have to try ;)


By the way playing around with .NET plugin I rewrite the sample in managed C++ (feel free to add to download page):
.NET plugin sample
"Spread our codes to the stars,
You can rescue us all"
- Muse

GarageGothic

Quote from: Besh on Sat 13/02/2010 09:39:49@GarageGothic:
No I haven't but I think the fps matter isn't related to "how big is the environments" only but also to the hardware. As our friends say, the got fps from 3 to 200 with or without shadows with the same polygons on screen.

With shadows in the initial gameplay view (with the trees and doorway in background) I get a consistent 157FPS, but if I exit the screen to the left (to the view with only a piece of fence and a tree) it shoots up to 340FPS. Without shadows the two camera angles have respectively 357 and 394 FPS, so the amount of of polygons on screen do seem to matter (not that anyone cares as long as it's 60+ FPS).

Does the plugin support pre-rendered lightmaps?

Besh

no :-( sorry
I'm not an expert of lightmaps and if you are interested in or you think that lightmaps are a good improvement for this plugin please tell me where to find some documentations or sample.
"Spread our codes to the stars,
You can rescue us all"
- Muse

Theme

lightmaps are texture that contain light information, actually is just a normal texture used to fake shadows. But you calculate bounced light information on it from a 3d render like mentalray - 3dmax and them combine normal texture and the lightmap texture.
Various moderns game engines use them to "fake" light.


http://www.flipcode.com/archives/Light_Mapping_Theory_and_Implementation.shtml

And if possible, would be better to use lightmap with models supporting two uv maps. Like one for the texture and other for the lightmap.

Do you plan to support normal maps and Does the plugin have pathfinding on the walkable area?

o/

Besh

#15
OK, thank you so much....

Irrlicht supports that kind of solution, so it should be easy to implement also into CD3D... Added to TODO list.
I'll see to add also the following methods (from Irrlicht docs):
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/docu/namespaceirr_1_1video.html#ac8e9b6c66f7cebabd1a6d30cbc5430f1

Yes CD3D uses Recast-Detour as nav-mesh path-finding solution... anyway there's still some work to do to achieve good results.
"Spread our codes to the stars,
You can rescue us all"
- Muse

Peter Bear

Not much time for gaming neither creating, but keeping an eye on everything :)

TheMagician

Great idea to implement lightmaps using two sets of UV-coordinates!

Besh

Again thanks for the feedback!

I just upload a new vesion (0.2) that include the first release of the .NET editor.
Please let me know what do you think about it...

CIAO
"Spread our codes to the stars,
You can rescue us all"
- Muse

None

May I request someone write a tutorial on the setup. I've placed the proper .dll's in both the AGS and Compile folder. I set the appropriate settings in General Settings. And I thought I copied the necessary function out of the demo room code to start a simple render.
But it gets to like the first line 'on room load/CD3DPlugin.SetAmbientLight( 50, 50, 50 ); and says there's an error. I simply can't seem to find what the Demo is doing that I am failing to do.
If you could create a basic tutorial covering in-editor setup, it would help me immensely. I've been waiting for a fully 3d Plugin and intend on making a game with this.

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