P3D 2.0 - out now!
Hello Clickers,
Lizard King is happy to announce the release of a new version of P3D,
which boosts its power and use range, so much that we’ re making a big jump from version 1.2 to version 2.0
Get ready for a long post!
For those who don’t know P3D:
it is a complete suite of events and objects allowing you to create 3D worlds directly in the frame editor, with the same Fusion interface you already know and no additional extensions, nor external assets, since you can build everything from scratch directly with the animation editor. To do so, it uses a pixel shader (now five new shaders specifically designed for P3D) for polygons deformations.
P3D also includes all the events for movements and collision detection, with this tool you can have the good old “sprite & poly” games like Doom, Hexen, Ultima Underworld, but of course also modern-looking games (up to you and your textures!) or even use it simply for menus, or animated backgrounds, or as a zooming tool, or whatever you can think of. It all happens in its three layers (one for the interface, others the map, and the projection), so you can handle them the way you like more.
Previous P3D 1.x users:
thank you so much for your support and suggestions!
These are the previous limitations you were used to that this version completely breaks
(practically all of the main ones):
- no more odd warping when near objects, now the engine handles full clipping
- no more texture sizes limit, you can use textures as big as you want
- you can place polygons of any size next to polygons of any other size without issues, projection is now 100% perspectively consistent
- full working depth sorting thanks to the depth buffer, which also allows now to have “piercing” polygons, and a total freedom in placing objects
- drastically improved performances
But there’s much more to it, so keep reading below while loading all the gifs
Perspectively consistent projection
As already mentioned, the perspective projection is now true at any rate, this and the depth buffer will allow you complete freedom in placing objects, no more forced “grid” placement, no more limitations!
See how you can easily have a “Mario Kart” game, in barely 30 seconds:
Depth buffer
No more sorting issues, but not only: you can now have “piercing” polygons, merging one into the other (this allows FAR more freedom in creation and wide new chances of “modeling”) and improved performances thanks to its early rejection of occluded pixels before drawing takes place.
Performance improvement
Having 10x10 = 100 ground tiles to cover a 640x640 area was not really friendly for performance, so having change to put that in just a single object is evidently a big step forward alone. But then, a wide number of optimizations have been made in any department of the engine, to make it much more performant.
Try these two old examples with the new engine and experience the difference:
Castle Example (includes some signs for a brief tour of new features)
http://www.lizardking.co/P3D/example...le_example.zip
move with arrow keys, jump with shift, fire with space, switch weapon with enter,
tilt view with Q/E, rotate view with A/D, fly with “W”
(flying here is actually “cheating” and just to debug, so you can phase walls above etc.)
change lighting parameters with 1,2,3,4,5,6
switch cameras with the selector menu
Monster Kart (was notoriously a slow one on older versions – see now with fully textured ground and twice render depth!)
http://www.lizardking.co/P3D/example...nster_kart.zip
accelerate with spacebar, turn with arrow keys, jump with shift, reverse with enter
switch cameras with the selector menu
And of course try these couple new examples too:
Magical Keep
http://www.lizardking.co/P3D/example...gical_keep.zip
wait for the moving platform to bring you up to the keep!
Move with arrow keys, jump with shift
switch cameras with the selector menu
Isometric/Action RPG
http://www.lizardking.co/P3D/example..._actionRPG.zip
Move with arrow keys, jump with shift
“Zero Hassle ©” collision detection system
In P3D 1.x you had to draw a correct top view of your 3D objects in the map layer, because they were acting as a collision mask for real polygons.
While this mechanic was solid and it’s still been preserved (optionally) for total flexibility,
it had three main disadvantages:
1) it couldn’t represent complex situations, like bended polygons you could walk below only at certain heights
2) it required you to draw fitting collision masks, which was moderately easy for cubes or small complex polyhedrons, but was increasingly difficult for more complex shapes
3) now with total freedom in object sizes, it would have required you to draw huge actives in the map layer
… so, here comes the new system, directly calculating collisions against polygons geometries,
thus not requiring any user intervention, you can have just small object placeholders in the map layer, no need for perfectly sized masks!
here’s a small gif showing two “virtual” detectors (it’s all math, no actual detector object is used)
approximating surface relevation for collision detection:
New shapes
Now P3D can create triangles and trapezoids, so there’s a new set of preset shapes you can create (beside the usual “prisms”) like pyramids and flat-top pyramids.
See pointy roofs below:
Repeating textures
As much as you can have any size you want and so prepare very big textures, making a large 20000 x 20000 ground plane, or a very tall 15000 x 200 wall isn’t exactly that handy, not completely friendly for memory usage, so here comes “repeating” textures, simply put the keyword “repeat” in “texture_slot” parameter, and scale the object to your likings (with _W_ and _H_ parameters), this will give you large seamless renders as big as you want without having to go crazy.
Per-pixel fogging and lighting
Thanks to the new system you now have these effects directly applied to single pixels, it means you won’t have “whole” polygons disappearing or being lit, now polygons will be smoothly processed pixel by pixel:
Skybox object
Gone is the background layer with his a bit static horizon handling, now the Skybox object allows you to have much more impressive settings, that you can freely customize (and even animate if you’re good enough with graphics!), see quick gif below:
Skyboxes can be made out of panoramic pictures also (with some apt software, some even freely available online).
Here’s a link with some free Skybox resources, much better than the ones I made J
http://www.custommapmakers.org/skyboxes.php
(check the license included. You might have to flip top picture, and switch left-right, since it uses a different convention than P3D)
And more and more, I’m likely forgetting something:
- “crop” projection to any portion of the screen (so you can have easy 3D overlays to a 2D game for example)
- Dynamic Loading Module to handle very large levels (will automatically store your objects into an array and load + create them on need, optimized through a buffer reusing unloaded faces and thanks to a complete rewrite of the creation process which stores all geometries without need to recalculate them)
- automatic “top face” fitting to easily create top faces of > 4 faced prisms and flat-top pyramids
- raytraced slope and ground level detection for top precision in soil assessment
- new keywords for ease of placement of polygons between the map and the “real” world
- 360 degrees sprites
- fixed the daunting “Nvidia” bug (thanks Jesse!)
- ….
This new system opened many doors, and can allow further upgrades and new possibilities,
I’ll also try to provide more examples and tutorials, if there’s enough user interest.
And of course this is a forum thread so feel free to ask anything,
and post your P3D creations below
IMPORTANT: P3D 2.0 is currently windows only (makes heavy use of pixel shaders)
and requires Fusion Standard or Developer build 289.3 or above
Where to get it: http://clickstore.clickteam.com/p3d_3d_framework
Additional content (soon) on: http://p3d.lizardking.co
*** LATEST NEWS ***
For a limited time P3D will be available on “The Reactor” side to side with other great content,
check it out and consider joining the Clickteam Patreon with exclusive content:
https://www.patreon.com/Clickteam
Since today The Reactor has its own forum too:
https://community.clickteam.com/forums/397-The-Reactor
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