P3D - a framework for 3D applications

[MrCyberpunk]

ah yes you have done a reference sheet, awesome. It is however missing the bits you just talked about. But that's great info. Really interested to see what kind of things I can do with this.

[schrodinger]

Me too!
Would be happy seeing things you talented guys will do with this tool

And thanks for your feedback - I'm very interested in knowing what's missing or what can be better explained in the manual, so I can improve it.

[DaveC]

I just bought it, sorry for the n00b question, haven't spent much time with it... but if I have a 3D cube, then I manually set the size, say, to 25W 25H - the collisions no longer work correctly, is there a way to redefine the collision width/height etc?

[MrCyberpunk]

Bloody hell this engines powerful. If you don't use Polygons and rely entirely on the 3d sprite rendering capabilities, you can get literally several thousand sprites working with minimal lag, and resampling on. Immediately what comes to mind is something like Wing Commander as that was entirely sprite based. This is much better than the Raycaster as the ray caster didn't allow for Z positions, nor freelook.

[schrodinger]

I just bought it, sorry for the n00b question, haven't spent much time with it... but if I have a 3D cube, then I manually set the size, say, to 25W 25H - the collisions no longer work correctly, is there a way to redefine the collision width/height etc?

Hi Dave!
Sorry for the delay,
I assume you set W and H in the "map" 3d object dimension (or _W_/_H_ variables?)?
3D objects "real" width and height are directly withdrawn from the "data" object (the one referenced in "my_model" string)
but collisions are detected on the "map"
so you have to draw both your "data object" cube sides as 25x25, and your "map" object dimensions as 25x25

Hope this is clear (also check the "creating 3D objects" section in the manual for this)

This can be little intuitive at start, and is something I would like to cover in a quick video tutorial on the engine basics soon

[schrodinger]

Bloody hell this engines powerful. If you don't use Polygons and rely entirely on the 3d sprite rendering capabilities, you can get literally several thousand sprites working with minimal lag, and resampling on.

I spent lot of time optimizing stuff, but polygons are easily the heaviest thing to process
(need 6-10 times the calculations needed for sprites + the shader application is really intensive,
pulling out the shader - resulting in unwatchable blocky polygons - gives a powerful boost).

Also, only things falling in the view area are processed, everything else is "switched off" and causes minimal bulk
(this is why "render depth" is so important to boost performances)

Btw, noticed a little bug on static sprites shadows not being switched off when their parent is off screen, and hanging around the layer..
fixed in next version

I loved first wing comander, spent hours fighting Kilrathi ships on a crappy 286

[Caesar]

I'm not sure about this... parting with money I mean. But this looks awesome! (love Sinclairian's platform example on page 5.) Will definitely buy it soon. Just don't put the price up

[Emerson3]

Caesar or anyone.

I promise it's worth it. It adds, not meaning pun, a new dimension to Clickteam. Usually I buy a bag of chips or a snickers once a day per week. I gladly sacrificed that week for P3D. . Big sacrifice. Lol

[Hayo]

You mentioned before texture correction could be added for a Wolfenstein 3D-type game. Would this also be the case for a mode7-style game, meaning it would be one big tile-based plane?

[schrodinger]

eheheh price is fixed no worries
(...unless huge additions/rewritings in the very far future...
but they could probably do for another different release though)


@ Emerson: I'm happy saving you from a week of chips & snickers!
Thank you for your kind words!

@ Hayo: unfortunately not.

The Wolfenstein advantage comes from having straight vertical walls and no X-rotations,
to have the same advantage on ground textures,
you should only have them "parallel" to the screen, and no Z-rotations (turn left-right)
-much like this old NES title we were talking about yesterday-
in this situation, with a modified version of the shader MuddyMole already prepared, we could apply a clean clipping.
But you see - this is a very limited situation.
For Wolfenstain it's good, as sacrificing ground and ceiling anyway makes for a good interactive "maze".

I've spent a lot of time testing new systems and tweaking P3D's system: "backprojection"
(ask Happygreenfrog on the matter )
to allow for bigger textures and cleaner near-distortions.
I don't give up and will try testing new ideas, but as of now can't see a big improvement on this side coming soon.