Only 48 windows 64kb intros were released in 2007!
category: general [glöplog]
'3dsplayer' is synonymous with 'scene replayer' or even worse: glowing geometry with slow camera panning
that aside, i think i might be the only person left in the world having a 'load3ds' in the demosystem
that aside, i think i might be the only person left in the world having a 'load3ds' in the demosystem
preacher: "a totally disgusting try of a soundtrack" doesnt cut it for a 4k in my book either. thats actually one of the main reasons i only did one 4k in my whole life. if you cant do proper sound in small size, dont do fucking sound. ofcourse definition of proper sound is subjective and most coders seem to enjoy getting away with murder in most 4ks soundtracks.
i generally dont watch any 4ks
i used to long ago, but i dont anymore
its better.
i used to long ago, but i dont anymore
its better.
Xernobyl should get a job or a girlfriend.
plek, i recommend you drop that take and watch stallmeister. you'll like it.
i will then!
I think Loaderror is the perfect example of someone that strives for musical excellence in 4k (and less :)
I use .3ds. I recently moved into .obj (which is even worst) :-).
navis: we already hate you, you can stop trying so hard now ;)
Whenever we use meshes, we have our .t3d format which is basically a .3ds dumped into a worse format. The source code to the converter that makes .t3d files is lost forever, and our "engine" has changed enough that the .t3d files are actually imported into a more sensible mesh structure.
Some day, at some point in my life, I will rewrite that thing.. .
Some day, at some point in my life, I will rewrite that thing.. .
I'm currently using .X-files since, well, it's easy to get hold on and has been working just fine for me. I used to have a MAX-exporter, but that has been depricated since it only works in MAX7, and was a bit too tied to fixed-function. I'm currently working on a COLLADA-converter and a set of conditioners for full scene support and a bit cleaner/flexible engine and content pipeline structure, but it is a bit... bleh. I'm not really a very big fan of scene-graphs etc since working with them often limits you to whatever is easy with your implementation. But whatever. mixing proper scene graphs with hand-coded effects isn't a too shabby solution though.
I have a parser for .ase files but for skinned meshes I use ogres exporter, then I parse the .xml files, save it to .x in ascii format and use dxviewer to optimize the mesh and save as binary .x
seeing as we're on the topic of 3d formats .. :)
i have a more or less complete lightwave9 loader, supports pretty much anything we'd want - bones+skins,morphs,subds, even some plugins - all sorts of useful things. it's really nice to have that because we can set stuff up so easily - using weightmaps to mark verts+faces for fx and so on, and we are pretty sure we can load whatever the artists chuck out.
also because lw gives a very readable format it saves the whole effort of doing an exporter, which changes the whole game - you *know* all the data is in the format somewhere, you just have to find it - which, given lw's excellent sdk, is often a lot easier than e.g. hunting for plugs in maya. (and you dont need to reexport everything when something goes wrong and you need to change the format.). after years of writing exporters and so on for other packages it's just great to work with.
these days we convert the lw files into our own binary format on exporting the demo to packed exe form for faster loading - it takes quite a bit of time processing the lw data to optimise it and so on otherwise.
also i have limited collada support, only because it covers max and maya ok and i know the format well (i did quite a lot of work on the max+maya collada exporters in the ps3 sdk, so if you are using them you now know who to call with bug reports. :) ), but i really prefer to use lightwave. we also have our own max+maya exporters now since some artists demanded them. :)
our engine is based on a scenegraph, everything goes into it. i dont find it restrictive at all - it's easy to add nodes for hand-coded fx, and so much stuff just "falls out". that said, the scenegraph is pretty open and you can replace bits (like the renderer) very easily, plug stuff in and out etc.
weve used it for a lot of different stuff. normally with the demos we're building the scenegraph using the editor, but i used it for zine 12 as well and built the scenegraph in code. it was actually very easy to code like that.
our tool looks a bit like eyeon's fusion, with a node graph, timeline and keyframe curve editor in separate tabs and a property editor and resource list on the side. animation and scene setup is pretty much all done in the tool, with lightwave used for meshes and bone anims. we do all the camera, light and scene setup in the editor, although we could use lightwave scenes for it as well, but it's just a lot easier in the editor because you're working wysiwyg.
i have a more or less complete lightwave9 loader, supports pretty much anything we'd want - bones+skins,morphs,subds, even some plugins - all sorts of useful things. it's really nice to have that because we can set stuff up so easily - using weightmaps to mark verts+faces for fx and so on, and we are pretty sure we can load whatever the artists chuck out.
also because lw gives a very readable format it saves the whole effort of doing an exporter, which changes the whole game - you *know* all the data is in the format somewhere, you just have to find it - which, given lw's excellent sdk, is often a lot easier than e.g. hunting for plugs in maya. (and you dont need to reexport everything when something goes wrong and you need to change the format.). after years of writing exporters and so on for other packages it's just great to work with.
these days we convert the lw files into our own binary format on exporting the demo to packed exe form for faster loading - it takes quite a bit of time processing the lw data to optimise it and so on otherwise.
also i have limited collada support, only because it covers max and maya ok and i know the format well (i did quite a lot of work on the max+maya collada exporters in the ps3 sdk, so if you are using them you now know who to call with bug reports. :) ), but i really prefer to use lightwave. we also have our own max+maya exporters now since some artists demanded them. :)
our engine is based on a scenegraph, everything goes into it. i dont find it restrictive at all - it's easy to add nodes for hand-coded fx, and so much stuff just "falls out". that said, the scenegraph is pretty open and you can replace bits (like the renderer) very easily, plug stuff in and out etc.
weve used it for a lot of different stuff. normally with the demos we're building the scenegraph using the editor, but i used it for zine 12 as well and built the scenegraph in code. it was actually very easy to code like that.
our tool looks a bit like eyeon's fusion, with a node graph, timeline and keyframe curve editor in separate tabs and a property editor and resource list on the side. animation and scene setup is pretty much all done in the tool, with lightwave used for meshes and bone anims. we do all the camera, light and scene setup in the editor, although we could use lightwave scenes for it as well, but it's just a lot easier in the editor because you're working wysiwyg.
when i read about these demosystems that people have with 1000 features and exporters and whatnot i get this feeling that i'm not spending enough of my spare time on such stuff :)
(or i'm just dead slow, or an alcoholic, or both)
(or i'm just dead slow, or an alcoholic, or both)
niels: nah, we just built up much of it, mainly the tools, over a very long time. :) and we had the misfortune to have had to do exporters and so on for work before, it gets a lot easier the 3rd or 4th time you do it.
okkie: I have a job. Sort of.
3d formats: we used lightwave in 2000. i agree with smash, it's very nice to use and well-documented. mid-2001'ish we switched to .xsi, because gizmo used xsi and he was the only one using a modeller at that point anyway. .xsi is ascii, but unlike crud like the 3dsmax-ascii export it's actually meant to be parsed (and well-documented too) - works pretty well.
and damn i'm glad i didn't have to deal with max/maya so far.
and damn i'm glad i didn't have to deal with max/maya so far.
if you have to use max or maya, i really recommend exporting collada or fbx, parsing in your engine and converting to something tighter. the code to export and read either of those is freely available, they're reasonably complete and working. (if you ignore the bugs, errors, disagreements about the format specs and missing features, which to be fair mainly get noticed when you start doing nasty things with ik or morphs, or trying to move stuff between max and maya.)
saves a lot of effort working out the internals of the 3d tool in question.
saves a lot of effort working out the internals of the 3d tool in question.
ryg: yes, in the end we're all slaves to what the 3d artist in question actually wants to use. :)
What are .X files? Amapi 3D Modeling? Direct3D Object?
wasn't x-files a tv show ;)
(interesting how a single deliberately stupid comment can spawn a discussion... ;)
.x is a Direct3DX mesh, exported by most 3D software and well documented enough. Also you've got D3DX to load, manipulate and draw them, resulting in a pretty cheap way to get 3d on screen. Also I've come to like .xsi quite much, as it's mostly a matter of "load the damn file into a text editor and look out for what you've got to support" if you need more features. And similarly to Lightwave you can easily skip everything you're not interested in without the need to parse more than "{" or "}" ;)
And Niels: We should probably start a "hidden demo as easter egg in Wii games" competition, that sounds doable without spending our whole lives on demosystems ;)
.x is a Direct3DX mesh, exported by most 3D software and well documented enough. Also you've got D3DX to load, manipulate and draw them, resulting in a pretty cheap way to get 3d on screen. Also I've come to like .xsi quite much, as it's mostly a matter of "load the damn file into a text editor and look out for what you've got to support" if you need more features. And similarly to Lightwave you can easily skip everything you're not interested in without the need to parse more than "{" or "}" ;)
And Niels: We should probably start a "hidden demo as easter egg in Wii games" competition, that sounds doable without spending our whole lives on demosystems ;)
crud, it's a tad late for that as I'm now doing a PS3 title - but I'll try :)
(i'm a porting-whore)
(i'm a porting-whore)
*parallax*
A ZX Spectrum demo won Breakpoint and only 4 64kbs were released at the biggest demoparty in the world.
Is it because V2 is too hard for Jazz Musicians? :D
A ZX Spectrum demo won Breakpoint and only 4 64kbs were released at the biggest demoparty in the world.
Is it because V2 is too hard for Jazz Musicians? :D
maybe you should be looking at the quantity and quality of good 4ks and demos there were and realize there arent that many active sceners after all. maybe you could do something about the later.