AGS 3D

[Kweepa]

I'm flattered by your correct spelling.

Shame I don't know your first name.

[Gregjazz]

Greg

[Kweepa]

Ok!
Finally ironed out the known bugs in the sorting and collision.
Please let me know if you see anything odd.
Also sped up the triangle clipping - the "game" runs about 50% faster on average.

There are some situations when the sorting goes really slowly - lots of big close together objects - it's a good idea to break up the objects into smaller pieces in that case, or make them unsorted if they are walls, floor or ceiling and you know nothing will ever be behind them.

Get it here.

[auhsor]

And it just keeps getting better. I noticed 2 things.
Firstly in the bar if you go to the middle of the tables you can sorta get on top of them without jumping. I don't know if thats a bug or not.
The other thing is with the tilting up and down, the characters (well all sprites really) seem like they are coming towards you. Like the camera rolls forward and up as opposed to just tilting.

[Kweepa]

Firstly in the bar if you go to the middle of the tables you can sorta get on top of them without jumping. I don't know if thats a bug or not.

Hmm, yeah. You mean if you jump into them and then walk forward a bit, and then you pop up on top? That's an artifact of the way I do collisions. I use a floating box that I collide in x-z plus a ray cast straight down to determine height. I think I'll leave it that way for now. I should probably fix it at some point - improve the interpenetrating collision case, make it a solid box, or collide the floating box in 3d.

The other thing is with the tilting up and down, the characters (well all sprites really) seem like they are coming towards you. Like the camera rolls forward and up as opposed to just tilting.

That's because I keep the feet fixed in position, rather than the centre point, so they don't look like they are sliding on the ground. There's not much I can do about it. Hmm, I could position them based on the feet and scale them based on their centre point... Thanks for making me think about it!

Cheers.

[Kweepa]

New version:
Collisions with characters and objects.
Fixed a bug with impossible to sort situations of 3 or more overlapping primitives. Previously the game would crash, exceeding max loop iterations.
Added but didn't test 8-loop views.
Characters and objects can now have a separate baseline height. The sprite is moved down that many pixels.
Initial support for multiselect (shift-click) in the 3d editor. Movement (and colour I guess) works fine. You *can* scale and rotate multiple things but it's not recommended since it's not yet relative to the largest selected object.
http://www.steporg.com/step/ags/games/ags3d.zip

[Gilbert]

Ha! Now I can select and move the invisible scene boundary "walls" (don't know since when it's possible), and I can jump off the edge again! Wheee! Though the invisible wall wires are not always drawn correctly in terms of priority (the "visible" wall blocks are sometimes in front sometimes behind), I think it's okay as that's edit mode only.

* Gilbot V7000a slaps SteveMcCrea to stop the agressive development of this awesomeless, at least for a while.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

<and Brisby slaps Gilbot to make him stop stopping Steve of the awsomeness>

[Kweepa]

Changes:
- now a script module called Ags3d
- with the same demo "game"
- basic sprite rotation
- editor can rotate multiple selected objects at once (around the largest object)
- key movement customization
- can turn on and off the 3d, the mouse look and the player movement independently
- tagging of objects, so you can easily identify an object in the room script
- can get the object or character being looked at

Needs
- documentation
- some comments, versioning in the module header
- ability to turn on and off the editor completely
- characters optionally follow ground height
- a "give me coordinates" ray cast option in the editor to make it easier to place objects
- user primitives?

Let me know what you think.
http://www.steporg.com/step/ags/games/ags3d.zip

[HeirOfNorton]

- editor can rotate multiple selected objects at once (around the largest object)

Would it be possible to add an option to group objects in the script, and rotate/scale them around a common center point, or some other predetermined point? This (the basic elements of Constructive Solid Geometry) would make user-created objects much easier to use in a game, if they could be constructed together from simpler primitives, and then moved/rotated/scaled as a single object.

---

Unrelated note: I'm getting the DOOM-style texture mapping, mostly. It basically works, but there are a couple points where the textures are distorted. One is because of an error somewhere in the Z-clipping code (whice is based on the old Z-clipping and needs to be redone anyway). The other occurs at a certain distance from the "walls" from one direction, but not the other (I have no idea why THAT distortion is happening). I'll fiddle with it a bit more and, if I can't get it fixed, I'll post it as-is and see if anyone else can help fix it.

HoN

[Kweepa]

Would it be possible to add an option to group objects in the script, and rotate/scale them around a common center point, or some other predetermined point? This (the basic elements of Constructive Solid Geometry) would make user-created objects much easier to use in a game, if they could be constructed together from simpler primitives, and then moved/rotated/scaled as a single object.

Hmm. I'll have to think about it. Preferably when I'm more sober... Sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure how it would work exactly. If you have a specific process in mind let me know.

Unrelated note: I'm getting the DOOM-style texture mapping, mostly. It basically works, but there are a couple points where the textures are distorted. One is because of an error somewhere in the Z-clipping code (whice is based on the old Z-clipping and needs to be redone anyway). The other occurs at a certain distance from the "walls" from one direction, but not the other (I have no idea why THAT distortion is happening). I'll fiddle with it a bit more and, if I can't get it fixed, I'll post it as-is and see if anyone else can help fix it.

I'd be interested to see it. I'm sure we can sort it out!

[Gregjazz]

It seems like all you have to do is add texture mapping, and someone could really make a cool game out of this. You can do a lot if you have good textures, I find.

[Kweepa]

Pah, textures schmextures.
We don't need no steenking textures.
Etc.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

How odd. When I go into Scid's and go STRAIGHT to George, when I get as close to him (and the counter) as I can get I can't talk to him. WHILE I'm travelling to that point the text "George" does appear - rather too early - but when I acually get there, no go.

[comicguy]

I instead would be very interested if you add textures. I am an old 2d/3d game artist. I used to visit these forums,(so long ago that I don't find now any post of mine other than some reference of someone about the links and tuts I used to post) and now in the position to start a serious AGS project. We only need some basic 3d added to AGS.  And...well...I get your point, but textures are...really important for a 3d project...Well, in my pov, at least

Anyway, many congratulations for job done. I have tested now and looks impresive. I think we could do with this quite some decent project, we're a dedicated team.

BTW, besides that vote for textures....I wanted to ask if...Well, is it possible to use AGS3d for making a game (basic in concept, just overloaded of many hard worked 2d/3d graphics)  without coding, or just changing/adapting some script variable or something by any absolutely non programming (artist)

I never used AGS, was only here sharing tips for 2d gfx and some 3d making to help the people. And was very long ago, but even then AGS was able to be used for making a basic graphic adventure without coding (but knowing well the application).


As a difference with Wolfenstein, you allow tilt camera up and down, which is really cool. But if that avoids the use of textures... Good would be to have both, but imho is better to have textures.. With that you are free to go solid only, or textured if you wish (our only option)

-I guess there's no possible antialiasing of edges, nor goruaud shading(normals) for the bits I have read from this long thread. Well, yet so we probably could manage.

-neither is possible to import 3d uvmapped meshes...That is, the workflow would actually be importing only the textures and mapping to code generated primitives only, like boxes, pyramids and the like, is it so?

[strazer]

Please edit your previous post instead of double-posting. Thank you.

[Kweepa]

WHILE I'm travelling to that point the text "George" does appear - rather too early - but when I acually get there, no go.

I haven't adjusted his collision box it seems, which determines where you need to focus to talk to him. If you look up or down it should work.

comicguy,
Textures on walls and so on just aren't possible with the current AGS engine. I don't particularly want to get into writing a plugin that links to allegro and draws a perpsective correct textured triangle. I don't even know if it's possible (to convert an AGS sprite into an allegro texture). If there was such a thing, I could add it as an option to Ags3d, but then there's the workflow problem of assigning textures and UVs to the primitives.

Gouraud shading is similarly out, but if there was a plugin or an engine function it would be trivial to support.
Edge anti-aliasing is right out. I'd have to write an anti-aliased triangle rasteriser in C, which would be dog-slow and take me ages. I just don't have the motivation for that.

If I WAS going to go the plugin route, I'd probably make a plugin that loaded and displayed Doom or Quake levels. The source code is available so it wouldn't be that hard.

Importing meshes is a possibility, but only for a limited number of meshes since each one needs its own support functions in Ags3d due to the way it's written. Also, the meshes would have to be convex or they would render wrong since of necessity I don't do any in-primitive triangle sorting. I guess if you knew exactly from what angles the object was going to be seen you could sort the triangles yourself. For example if you had a wine glass shaped object and you knew the camera was always going to be above it you could sort the triangles bottom to top.

As for it being used without any coding, I don't think that's going to happen. The editor doesn't support placement of (AGS) objects or characters. You have to do that yourself in the room scripts.

Of course you can add 2d sprites to the world to give it some texture - bottles, trees, stools, lamp posts, mail boxes, and so on.

It doesn't at the moment sound like Ags3d is the engine for your project though. Perhaps Heir of Norton's (Wolf3d engine) will suit you better? Or, although I don't know much about it, I suspect that Blender is getting towards usable as a game engine. It has some scripting support. shbazjinkens knows more about it.

strazer,
Dang, and I thought you'd posted to comment on how badly I'd broken the module guidelines!

[comicguy]

Sorry, Strazer.

Though in other forums that is not considered double posting. (first time to see it)


@SteveMcCrea

Thank you very much for your answer. Yep, seems should pick other option, I think my boss is after those features...(and mainly the no coding thing, coders are too busy)

I have been looking at Blender, Ray game designer http://eicart.free.fr/rgd/index.htm , 3d adventure studio http://3das.noeska.com/  ...3d game maker, and fps creator.

All have a problem.  Sorry if you found some of my questions a bit out of place.

I know Blender well (though at work and home I usually work with several other 3d packages)  , but not its game engine. Seems is no coding based though at the end you need some python scripting. The fact is I found more complex to learn its game making UI than AGS.

Ray game designer rmaybe a bit too old, in rendering matters, though maybe we could do with a no tilt  mode 7 like...

I think the prob with 3d Adventure Studio was with the non allowed comercial use...but don't count on this , I maybe am remembering badly, I only know for sure I had to discard it.

The 3d game maker from authors of Darkbasic pro, is a bit too simple, maybe get short for our game.

FPS creator may be cool, but is not said when the comercial version is to be released. The way it works seems ok for us.

Dunno, maybe the ideal thing would be to link the ags no coding ability to a 3d rt renderer like Irrlicht ( irrlicht.sf.net  ) which excels in that field,(but lacks in the game stuff available in ags, specially for adventures) and indeed, is told to be the easier to code in. (even normal maps and parallax available) Which actually renders in dx8 and 9, and opengl. As chosen.

Irrlicht has a lot of bindings...java, python, .net...a lot. Even tehre was some effort to use gam Maker (that 2d one, is different to The 3D game maker, a very different thing)

But I know, the amount of work to be done would be for something actually paid

Even in comercial field, there are so few only visual game makers....We have a problem.
Thanks for your given advice, again

[Kweepa]

comicguy,
Good luck with your project. I didn't mind the questions, don't worry.

everyone,
There's a new version, with:
- ability to turn on and off the editor completely
- characters optionally follow ground height
- a "give me coordinates" ray cast option in the editor to make it easier to place objects
- slightly faster drawing of unclipped primitives
- sprites with "heading" rotation (see the Scid's sign in the demo game)
- better separation of the module and the demo game

http://www.steporg.com/step/ags/games/ags3d.zip

[DoorKnobHandle]

Awesome work, Steve. I am glad that someone as skilled as you took over this project that once started so simple - you also kept me working on the "Indy: FoY Demo" instead of wasting my time implementing features for AGS 3D that you added in 12 hours...