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Hi,
In our RTS project we developed one object viewer to aid our work in Ultimate Apocalypse, to be more productive and to visualize the objects before we added them to the game. Since the development of UA is very long, we are looking to improve the speed of each iteration by self sustaining the project selling this tool and by buying some models and music with that money. The estimated price can go from 30-50 dollars depending on features complexity and so on.

Our intention is to make a commercial product for the community that they can use for their projects to view 3D objects before they are merged with their game. The product is called the Apocalypse Viewer.

We want that the AV becomes a success. For that, we ask all the members of the community for feedback, and ask you what things you are willing to see in a tool like this, so it's reasonable to buy it.

The tool so far, looks like this:



In it you can add animations specifying frames numbers. So you can have the animation profile of an object in the tool.

You can also rotate the object, optimize .x objects. You can rotate the camera and have FPS view mode.
You can also enable transparency, object bounds and wireframe mode.

All planned features are in evaluation. What we want is it to be community driven, so our target efforts apply in the correct direction. We will decide what to implement in the first commercial version in two or three weeks more or less, so please make some feedback.


The RTS project so far looks like this:



---------------------------------


Recent development:


Second Iteration.

Start Date: 29/08/2009
Expected Finish Date: 15/11/2009 (Or before)

complete
In progress
Not started

Load limbs list and select plus limbs window.

Lightmapping (DBPRO Internal) Will be left out for third iteration, because basic lighting is covered with texture blending.
Normal Maps (DBPRO Internal) Will be left out for third iteration. Normal mapping needs the attributte window of third iteration.
set object smooth (DBPRO Internal)
Ghosting (DBPRO Internal)

Load and apply textures plus texture window.

Show a grid. So you can check object size.

Scale an object.
Invert normals of the model. . Evaluated in detail. More difficult that initially thought. Maybe it will be left out for third iteration, depending of time.
Object displacement (Axis mode) Will be left out for third iteration. Object displacement doesn't make sense if you can have only one object. [NEW + COMMUNITY!]
Graph Object Center like a Sphere [NEW + COMMUNITY!]

Automatic rotation.
Rotate the object and camera with the mouse.

Apply lights plus lights window (DBPRO Internal).

Export object to DBO.

Load all DBPRO supported objects.

Automated profiling test. 15fps, 30fps, 60fps.

Collision profile plus collision window (DBPRO Internal). Will be left out for third iteration
Collision profile plus collision window (Sparky Dll). Will be left out for third iteration

To make possible to change the background color.

Change application screen configuration plus options window (By now only with change to screen congig).

---------------

Third iteration (from the community suggestions) "Planned":

View multiple objects at once

And there I was, hoping for a zombie simulator.

Serves me right for being a twisted, sick-minded guy.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is remarkably similar (although as yet, not quite as polished) as Cash Curtis' model viewer, which is...free.

It's a nice looking applet though, and I do really like the look of your game.

Thanks BF.
I have checked many object viewers around including Cash Curtis model viewer. Our interest is to be above those tools in functionality and usefulness so it's worthy to pay for it.

I encourage you and the community to tell us features that you would like to see in a tool like this, so it can become a tool you use with DBPRO or DarkGDK.



Have you looked the last video of the game?

Hi,
we will be starting development.

It's a shame the lack of feedback since we want to be oriented to the community and we have to start ASAP with development.We are not closed either to any comments e to modify the present or the future development .


@BF: Don't think I'm not listening, we do think AV is very useful and can increase productivity of people a lot and in any case we will be using it in UA necessarily.


--------------------

Second Iteration.

complete
In progress
Not started

Load limbs list and select plus limbs window.

Lightmapping (DBPRO Internal) Will be left out for third iteration, because basic lighting is covered with texture blending.
Normal Maps (DBPRO Internal) Will be left out for third iteration. Normal mapping needs the attributte window of third iteration.
set object smooth (DBPRO Internal)
Ghosting (DBPRO Internal)

Load and apply textures plus texture window.

Show a grid. So you can check object size.

Scale an object.
Object displacement (Axis mode) Will be left out for third iteration. Object displacement doesn't make sense if you can have only one object. [NEW + COMMUNITY!]
Graph Object Center like a Sphere [NEW + COMMUNITY!]
Invert normals of the model. . Evaluated in detail. More difficult that initially thought. Maybe it will be left out for third iteration, depending of time.

Automatic rotation.
Rotate the object and camera with the mouse.

Apply lights plus lights window (DBPRO Internal).

Export object to DBO.

Load all DBPRO supported objects.

Automated profiling test. 15fps, 30fps, 60fps.

Collision profile plus collision window (DBPRO Internal). Will be left out for third iteration
Collision profile plus collision window (Sparky Dll). Will be left out for third iteration

To make possible to change the background color.

Change application screen configuration plus options window.

---------------

Third iteration (from the community suggestions) "Planned":

View multiple objects at once

scaling rotating and moving around the center axis would be a nice feature.

viewing multiple objects at ounce.

i think a map editor would get you more interest then a viewer. and more people willing to buy your product. another thing you might consider is a map editor with this as an addition.(even if it was a simple editor that let you place everything together and save it as a DBO file.

Sounds like a good thing for you to work on! I hope for you and your team does well on this projecct!


But...



I think that your not going to finnish it by the end of this year. Looks good so far

@ Azunaki: Thank you for your suggestions



The viewer at this moment has rotation and it will have scaling planned for the second iteration. I will add for this iteration axis displacement (X,Y and Z) for the object and displacement of root limb (to separate the mesh from the object center).



I will Add to the third iteration (and i hope last) to do list suggested by the community. (check first post) . It's out of the scope of second iteration.



We will develop a map editor as a second product later on, (Because it's more complex and time consuming) integrated with the AV. The idea is that you edit objects in the viewer and load them later in the map editor. We will sell both products separated and as a combo, people that buy the viewer will have discount later to buy the map editor (To adjust to the combo price), however the release date of the map editor is far away (not even planned). We plan that you will have many options in AV so it will be useful to buy it separately, the main idea is to enhance your productivity.

@ Zeroff: I hope that we can finish the second iteration by that date

Sorry for double post and not showing something,
I must say progress has been running smoothly and that this iteration is near the 45% of development Which is more or less the schedule to finish at the expected end-date.

Just as we have been updating the page contents with its progress, we don't make new posts to not over saturate the thread. We edit the progress post with , . So you can see how things are going.

Cheers.

AlfaX

HI,
I post so this thread doesn't get auto locked. I have been advancing in the development, progress is shown above.

AlfaX

Hi all,
everything is almost done. We hope to finish this iteration of the tool the first of december.

Cheers.

Alfax.

Hi guys,
we thought we will never finish.

We have wrote a document of the specs of the viewer that want to share with the community for feedback (you can download it in this post ). We are working on a video ATM to show to you how the viewer runs.

We received one feedback already and actually we are working on changes for it, mainly improving icons design, and tool stability.

We want to know (the Apocalypse Team) what you think about it, and if there is something that you think should have the AV that makes it worth to buy.

We plan to make the AV a tool that serves as a framework to work with objects before they are used in-game and we think that a price of 15-20 dollars to start with is a good thing to sell it for this first version. Later we plan to make it more powerful,so you can apply shaders as materials for example and many more things. The second release can have a price around 40-50 dollars. We want (but have to negotiate it with the distributor (seller))that the persons that buy the first version have access to the second upgrade - free.

Any comments are welcome.

Hi,
new update.
We have been working on the AV icons and have improved them.
We want to know what you think about them.

EDIT: The jpg format can be turning the quality of the picture down.

CHeers.

Hi! We've been working pretty hard on the development of the tool, fixing some bugs and improving some stuff. Hopefully we'll be able to release a demo by the end of the month.
Stay tuned!

************************ DEMO OUT ************************

The Demo of the Apocalypse viewer is out.

We encourage you to test it out, and to feedback us on your experience. We want to know also if its worth to be a commercial tool and pay for it and if not, what can we do so it can become worth paying for it.

We hope you like it.

Run the AV.exe

Cheers.

AlfaX.

I have been speaking with other people that is testing the AV, and they had some questions that I consider similar to a FAQ and that I want to share:

What is/are the main intent of what it is to do?

The main intent of the the AV, is to develop a tool to help in the development process as a middle tier between the image applications like photoshop, and 3d Applications like blender with the development engine (DBPRO for example). This way you can see object directly as they are going to be in the game with the possibility to load AV Projects in DBPRO.

For example, you can apply effects in the texture window, see animations before the object is integrated, and have an object project ready to load.

One person could have all the objects of a game as AV projects.

Is it mainly for texture blending capabilities?

No. Although is a very useful Characteristic of the Viewer, the idea is to have an complete object project, including also for example, object performance analyzing or world lighting in the object (By 3D lights window)

What are the main reasons why someone would purchase it?

Because he can be more productive in their development and have an object with all the characteristics its going to have in one place, and available to load immediately in their projects.

The AV also serves as an integration with image manipulation software such as GIMP or Adobe Photshop, as you can see automatically when you update images how the object changes in the AV.

The AV is also in continuous development


What does it give them, that other programs don't?

The apocalypse viewer will act as a framework in top of DBRPO - DarkGDK (and maybe can be useful for other software) That gives the ability to keep object as they were in the games in one place with many features applied to them (Texture, lights, animations and so on),and to work directly in the object as it where in the DBPRO - DarkGDK, and to do things (some now, some will come in the future), that are not avaible in other tools.

Hi! Here's a little video showing one of the tools of the Apocalypse Viewer. The texturing tool allows the user to apply textures (texture blending) to a 3D model that way he/she can see how the different textures and blending modes affect the look of the model.
In the video you can also see an auto realoading system for the textures, that way the user can make changes to the textures and immediately see how the model looks after the modifications.(There's an autosaving system for Gimp used in the video also)

Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX8WexOV8jU