Is it possible to make a game with 3D Mesh?

[Fanotherpg]

I might dig some contacts to try to get something. But it won't be simple. Konidias it doesn't have to it should be up to 3-4 3D Meshes per frame.

[EdSabbath]

This is completely doable by using an active as the hitbox around the feet and then moving the mesh and active together on a pre-rendered map. I played around with the 3D mesh object and it really isn't hard at all, if you have the meshes and textures already setup.

[Konidias]

I know this is my third post in this thread but I really really wish someone could release an HWA optimized 3D Mesh extension. It seems long overdue. I know MMF isn't necessarily a "3D game maker" but being able to at least bring in 3D meshes that can be animated over 2D would be amazing. One of my games really needs the ability to display 3D meshes with clothing and animations but it's just not possible since I need a dozen of them on screen with several meshes per character for different components (clothes/weapon/etc)

[Danny]

@Konidias - If you already have the meshes and textures ready can you not sprite them into 32 different angles with sheeted animations then into actives in MMF2 to give a pseudo-3D effect?

There are a few apps already out there that feature model spritesheet automation... all you have to do then is convince the user it's 3D even though you know it's only 2D?

[Fanotherpg]

3D Mesh is 'better' as you have full control over 3D Model. You can rotate all his parts in all directions in runtime.

[Danny]

Certainly, but if it's holding the project up then it's worth spriting the animations and correlating them as Actives to get on with the project in-hand...

[Phi]

Just a warning in case Konidias' didn't stick: 3D Mesh is NOT HWA'd. Your app will go CPU-happy if you use it with Direct3D display modes.

[XStar]

I've been trying the mix with Mode 7ex and 3D mesh:

1. It looks horrid...

2. It works. The reading of the height map and movement works well, but again the mix doesn't look good...

[happygreenfrog]

Could you show us a video of it, or a example? I'd prefer a video, since it's all that's needed to see that it looks bad (and the way it looks bad), but a example would also be nice.

[Konidias]

@Konidias - If you already have the meshes and textures ready can you not sprite them into 32 different angles with sheeted animations then into actives in MMF2 to give a pseudo-3D effect?

There are a few apps already out there that feature model spritesheet automation... all you have to do then is convince the user it's 3D even though you know it's only 2D?

The problem is that I have too many meshes/animations/frames to really make this feasible. I have a character that faces 8 directions, with smooth 3D animation. Even if I take only the main keyframe poses of animation, I'm still left with a walk cycle that might be 8 frames per direction... That's 64 frames to render out just for the walk cycle. Multiply that by each outfit/weapon/whatever that needs to go on top of that, and you're looking at thousands of frames just for walking.

I tried the sprite sheet method but that fails because you cannot import sprite sheets into MMF with an alpha. Meaning I have to import thousands of frames... one by one... which is just NOT gonna work.

Not only is that a monsterous amount of images which will take up way too much space, but it would take dozens if not hundreds of hours of my time to load in all the graphics. Then what happens if I need to tweak an outfit or something? I have to go back and re-render thousands of frames and then re-add them one by one into the game. My game is online so I really need to be able to adjust things and add more weapons/armor quickly and easily.