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I've never looked into 3D much at all because I haven't been able to use it.
But now I can and I'm interested if MMF2 has any features for 3D. Such as using 3D models (other than importing it as separate raster frames) or something. I remember there used to be a 3D tab in the plugin list, but it seems to be gone.
I'd also like to know if there's any plans to expand MMF's 3D capabilities.
Sadly, no.... Not unless someone creates an extension.
I actually recently posted a paid request for a 3D mesh extension but it didn't get any replies... So I wouldn't hold your breath that it will ever happen. A lot of the community here seems to be against any sort of 3D being implemented in any way into MMF... I feel like it's mostly that they fear the entire program will shift to 3D or something... which is a bit silly.
All I ever wanted was to load 3D animated/textured meshes into a 2D environment. I don't need a full 3D game engine. As of now, loading in 3D renders is not only time consuming but also nearly impossible to do with high framecount animations.
I have a character that's broken up into about 6-8 different layers... 8 directions... 10-15 frames per animation. This would end up being thousands of individual images to load into MMF... but if it were a 3D mesh, it would literally just be the 6-8 different animated meshes loaded in, with some different textures when needed.
Beh that's a shame. There's so much that 3D would make easier and better and open more possibilities, even if it's only a 3D-2D hybrid. And I think the fear that MMF would become an exclusively 3D app is silly indeed.
I don't understand... what's up with the OpenGL extensions? They have everything you need to create a robust engine.
There's the 3d mesh extension, which has satisfied the simple needs I've had for 3d. SEELE has been able to come up with some awesome things, so 3d is completely possible—just very unhandy, I'm sure.
Which extensions? Is there some kind of tutorial/help/guide or anything in regards to 3D and MMF, because I have no idea where to start, possibly even if I had all the extensions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny
I'll have to look into it more, thanks. :>Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonso
Tsun, I think you can find them using Jaffob's ExtensionView, or Phi's (aka SortaCore aka Ricky123)'s extension list on his website. I have them all, there is about 7 or 8 in total and they allow you to develop a complete OpenGL-based engine inside MMF2.
They are not optimized for HWA. Meaning I can't have more than a dozen 3D meshes on screen without the game slowing to a crawl.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny
What I'm looking for is something that is optimized, can load textures, and can load animations.
I don't want to load an entire 3D world or anything. I just want to load some animated, textured meshes without huge performance hits.
I think you are completly mis-undertsanding the openGL extensions, generally in ANY 3D developemnt be it MMF or all other 3d engines only have one 3D window where you load & manipulate all 3D objects within, you dont have multiple openGL windows open, this is not the way you do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Konidias
A few years ago i started this that i never finished, this is using the openGL extensions in question and the LUA object. If undrstood and used correctly they can be very powerful, i went on to add dynamic volumetric shadows, terrains and more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5geed9LSh6Y <-- Edtior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By6q2...pfqww&index=16 <-- some shadow playing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_Xbz...pfqww&index=13 <-- terrain generation within my editor
All in MMF.
Andy
Andy!
I caught your videos purely out of chance about 12 months ago and was always curious as to who it was on the forum who created these masterpieces. What you said is what I was trying to explain, I just seriously cannot comprehend why nobody else has tried to pursue the OpenGL route with all those extensions we have available.
I really want to myself, but it's finding the time to do something like this.
Good Job.
Hi Danny, thanks for your comments, i should have linked my name to this forum (never thought! :) )
Thats the main problem, time! Although it was enjoyable and I learned alot and gained a good knowledge of openGL and its inner workings after much time & headaches, I soon realised theres no point re-inventing what can already be found on the net for free. You only have to do a search on google and there are many free 3D game engines that are developing far faster than i could have done.
So that was why i never continued. What i will say though from my experience is using the openGL extensions a very decent 3D engine could be put to gether, but it would need a small team and time!
But i also recomend it to anyone wishing to learn 3D, when using it combined with lua object (a very basic script lanaguge), all online openGL tutorials are relevant including C++ ones, all commands are the same.
Thanks
Andy
Andy, thanks for the explanation. I think what you did there was set a bar and it made people like me realise yet another avenue that can be exposed within MMF2.
Just out of curiosity, if you plan to abandon the project could you maybe make it open-source? Who knows, if I think the avenue is worth exploring I could end up making it top priority to achieve something with. It would also be an invaluable resource to learn from.
Thanks again,
Danny
If i can find the original files i dont have a problem putting them up here, ill never do much with them and have to many other projects on the go now. Finding them could be the issue, but ill have a look the first chance i get.
Thanks
Andy
Much appreciated in advance for your time.
Regards,
Danny
I have a example on my site:
3D Maze Example
Author: Unknown
Genre: Example
Extensions Needed: OpenGL
Description:
This is a fun example to play with. First Person. The monsters are 360 degrees.
Instructions:
Use the Arrow Keys to move and rotate.
Link:
http://castles-of-britain.com/mmfexamples-0.htm
Marv
I'm not misunderstanding them. They just don't do what I want to do. I don't want a 3D window. I want 3D meshes that can interact like 2D elements. I believe the 3D Mesh extension did this to a degree... But it was extremely unoptimized.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gibbon
Again, what you're showing in your videos are FULL THREE DIMENSIONAL WORLDS. I do not want this. I just want meshes displayed. I know this is possible, as the 3D Mesh extension has done this already. I believe it used Direct3D to do this?
I do not want a full 3D world. It won't work for the game I'm trying to make, and it is totally unnecessary. I just want to display some meshes. The problem is that just using the opengl extensions, I am forced to draw them all in a separate window from the 2D images, so how the heck am I supposed to have 2D world elements move in front of/behind 3D elements at runtime? It can't be done. I need 3D meshes that act as 2D active objects.
I know what you're looking for Konidias but unless you draw a surface that can handle the mesh, texturing and animations then you're gonna be forced to individually export the mesh/animations as a spritesheet. I myself have done that in the past with ease. There are a few tools out there to export your mesh (textured) and animated into a full fledged spritesheet, box it all off and import into MMF2 in Box Mode. You can literally import a character with say 5/6 animations into per direction spritesheet within 20 minutes easily.
Then I guess what I'm wanting to do just can't be done... because the 2D import method is not going to work for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny
We're talking about loading:
16 characters
10 layers each
12 animations cycles
Each animation cycle is roughly 10 frames long
8 directions per animation
So basically one 2D character = 8 * 10 * 12 * 10 = 9,600 frames
Yeah... don't think that will work out too well :/
Yeah unfortunately that's the only thing I can think of. I struck lucky, in that I didn't need to export it at full framed animation, so instead of 50 frames for the walking animation, I could render it at 20 frames saving 30 frames per cycle.
I also tried the 3D Mesh object first and got some results but same as you, it was limited. I do see what you mean with regards to how in-depth this could go but I don't know who/what it would take to get these kind of objects further into development.
That's what I'm doing with my new game... (The whole thousand frame thing) Not the best way to do it, but thank goodness for loading screens...
Surprisingly, adding a frame in between jumping to a frame with a ton of graphics, really helps prevent crashing. (AKA: A loading screen)
Go figure.
(P.S. Gibbon +1 on finding the examples! :))
See here: http://community.clickteam.com/showthread.php?t=35859
"This object allows you to load, display and animate 3D meshes of various formats in your 2D MMF2 applications."
But here lies the problem:
"due to the fact that the object is displayed in a 2D environment, the Direct3D 9 mode can be slower than the software mode (same issue as with some ink effects in DirectX+VRAM mode in MMF2). However the Direct3D 9 mode has more rendering options than the software mode."
It's just not optimized for hardware acceleration. Is this not possible for some reason? I'd like to know if what I'm requesting is totally impossible or just hard to do. There's absolutely no way I could script it myself... Unless I want to spend the next 2-3 years learning how to do that, and that would kind of be counter-intuitive to the whole "make games quickly with MMF" idea.
Whatever happened with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcpwffnt6BA
I don't know... I saw that a few months ago, it looked cool, but I never found any info on it.
I couldn't find the extension, so I figured it was never released.
According to the comments (2 months ago), the extensions are still under development. I'm going to give it a try if the author ever releases them, it looks fun.
Matt Esch is the author. The project page was up on TDC infact I think it still is, I have a copy of the extension but it's quite limited. Matt dropped support for it according to the TDC page and his friend was no longer carrying it on.
How completed is the version you have? Even half done, it could still be quite useful.
The extension is only XML level loading/saving etc. I think Matt did his own OpenGL extension but was never released.
Oh...
Hey Gibbon, did you be able to find your project files back ?
It's seems like a huge work you did on this project, and your sources would definitely be a reference for most of developers here.
Let us know, please.
Thanks