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(http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/9585/cd3ddemo.jpg) (http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/6233/cd3deditor.th.jpg) (http://img168.imageshack.us/i/cd3deditor.jpg/)
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) :
- CharacterD3D 0.3 (http://www.webalice.it/besh81/cd3d_v03.7z)
- CD3D Demo (http://www.webalice.it/besh81/cd3d_Demo.7z)
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 (http://www.webalice.it/besh81)
Have fun!
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.
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?
Wow! :o :o :o Amazing stuff!
Really nice, ran very smooth here
Waiting for more!
o/
Pretty awesome!
I got about 200FPS without shadows and about 15FPS with them... ouch!
In Win7 32bit dll error: Irrlicht.dll not found
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! :=
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! ;)
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
What a great plugin! :o
I get 260 FPS without shadows and about 200 with shadows.
Great great work:)
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).
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 (http://www.webalice.it/besh81/AGS.Plugin.TestPlugin.zip)
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?
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.
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/article_lms08.jpg)
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/
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 (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.
This is an amazing plugin.
Nice nice :)
Great idea to implement lightmaps using two sets of UV-coordinates!
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
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.
Sorry for that... You are right, it isn't clear at all...
This version needs:
- an empty room (eg. room #1) to init the plugin (where empty means without any CD3D functions) (anyway you can ask for shadows or display a logo or... )
- chage room (eg. room2)
- write CD3D code in this second room
- change room ... and so on
I don't remember exactly why I choose this orrible solution but I'll try to find a better one in next release.
My GOD thank you? I was wondering what was up! I thought I was going crazy. I only changed the 3d demo room from room 2, to room 3 and it stopped working.
So does creating a room free of D3D code reset the plugin? I was wondering how to code separate 3d areas as there's no 'remove object' code as far as I can see.
Also say one wanted to create separate distinct maps, Would this basically be a process of toggling the 'visible' attribute and loading a new walkarea file?
(READ UR UPDATE ON MAIN PLUGIN *EDIT*)
So it supports two rooms? Okay then all the room 'transitioning' will have to be handled via object visible switches. Thanks for clarifying.
(*EDIT*)
Hi there Besh,
After choosing to see the realtime shadows I get the following window:
(http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3782/doorms3d.png)
This is under Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.
I have followed the points under CD3D_Doc.htm and also copied Irrlicht.dll from the compiled folder into the demo folder.
Thanks ;-)
Hi Marodex
if yuo choose to run the game from within the AGS editor you also need to copy the media folder to cd3d_demo folder (media folder is in cd3d_demo/compiled folder)
Thanks a million... you seriously need to add a thanks button to the forum for things like this.
This will save so much headache you cannot believe it.
Bugs/Limitations
These bugs/limitations are not documented anywhere I can find, so far:
You can't use frames stored above 32, at least in the MS3D format, if you try to use anything past 33 the character no longer animates and instead 'glides'.
//The 'glide' glitch, it did it to me again when I had reduced the animation to a 10 frame cycle, so there's something fishy there, but I don't know what yet.
Only true resolutions are supported. E.G. making the game 320x240 and blowing it up to 640x480 creates a major mouse coordinate error amongst other things.
Also it seems whatever the window size is that is what it renders at. E.G. If I set it at 320x240 and run it in x2 antialias it still draws it at 640x480.
//Still working with the plugin, we'll see if anything else shows up.
New vesion uploaded, see the main post for details.
@ShonenAiGuy
Thank you very much, I appreciate your help. I'll work at "bugs/limitation" on the next release.
CIAO
;D I just downloaded the old version this week. It'll be nice to have an improved interface. As I really want to make a fully 3d game in AGS.
I for one appreciate that this mod is still being worked on/updated.
Please keep up the work, and thanks.
Hello!
Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this plugin. I thought I ought to alert you to something:
I just downloaded the files, but I can't seem to decompress either of them. 7-zip keeps throwing a "data error", telling me that the files are corrupt. I am using windows 7 64-bit.
doesn't seem like anyone had this problem last week. Anyone else having this issue?
thanks guys!
celticafro I'm sorry for that... I just download and extract the 7z files from several computers (xp, 7 and ubuntu - all 32bit) without any problem. I don't have any 64bit os to check with.
I'm using PeaZip (it's free).
If you want, I'll send you an e-mail with zip or rar files so you can check out. Let me know.
Hello!
your plugin doesnt run on my pc because i have the 3.1.2 version of AGS.
can some one give me the downloadlink? (because i cant load it on the website) I'm from germany thats why my english so bad -.- ) ::)
EDIT: oh i forgot! i need version 3.2
For what it's worth, the current demo works at about 30-50 frames per second, on an old Nvidia graphics card (7300GT), under WINE, with shadows enabled.