Does MMF2 support 3D to any degree?

[Gibbon]

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

[Danny]

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

[Gibbon]

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

[Danny]

Much appreciated in advance for your time.

Regards,
Danny

[nivram]

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

[Konidias]

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.

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.

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.

[Danny]

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.

[Konidias]

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.

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 :/

[Danny]

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.

[XStar]

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! )