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Work in Progress / VANmesh

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Van B
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 02:51
Hi all,

Only started work on this today, a DBPro mesh editor.

So far:
add and edit vertices
assign polygons to vertices
multiple select and move vertices
4 viewport system, resize viewports easily
scroll around and zoom
split a poly into 3

It's gonna be for quick box modelling of characters, stuff like extrusion and mirrored vertices.

Let me know what features you'd like and I'll see what I can do.


Van-B



My cats breath smells of cat food.
Morales
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 04:53
looks good ,but how do you assign polygons to vertices in darkbasicpro?
Falelorn
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 06:22
Very cool VanB
M00NSHiNE
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 16:47
Must say thats looking good would you be able to implement a sort of level building feature into it?

"It's amazin' what you can do with a computer and access to t'internet"
Van B
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 20:21
Well, it's not 3D yet, but you make the mesh by creating a memblock, adding polygons from the vertice data. You will be able to export the model.

I just finished adding .X import.



Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Falelorn
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 20:56
nice.
lcfcfan
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 21:45
hey nice vanB will you it be possible to do all the basic stuff you find in most 3D apps like extrusions?

Van B
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 21:47
Yeah, you'll be able to select verts then extrude them - I can already split the polys and create a new vertice, I just select 3 vertices then press '-' - nice and quick.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
MikeS
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Posted: 25th Aug 2003 23:35
Nice one Van B.



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
Wiggett
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Posted: 26th Aug 2003 12:19
one feature i'd like to see is compatability with db classic darn all you rich people with db pro. keep up the good work van, an di hope you still have time to help with dark trek

Preston C
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Posted: 26th Aug 2003 17:06
@ Uberwiggett robx : He said he had .X exporting abilities. Once he releases the exe, you could model in it, and use your models in DBC.



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Eddie Gordo
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Posted: 26th Aug 2003 21:36
Add a mesh animator for DBPro that exports .X files...i like Character FX but i wish Milkshape style model editing was used...maybe it is and i cant find it...maybe you already said your were gonna add this...either way thats pretty damn cool...

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Wiggett
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Posted: 27th Aug 2003 07:33
yeah thats if he releases it as an exe, but by the sounds of it its a dbpro editor.

indi
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Posted: 27th Aug 2003 12:04
It looks very cool Van, DBP has opened up heaps of older ideas
I had that now work. I bet your having a lot of fun as well huh?

http://www.lunarpixel.com
It's already tomorrow in Australia
David T
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Posted: 27th Aug 2003 21:42 Edited at: 29th Aug 2003 16:48
Wow. You've succeeded where I failed - trying to create a decent looking and useful DBP app

I love it when people get dirty with memblocks

Theres no place like 127.0.0.1
There are 10 people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't
Bus station = where bus stops. Train station = where train stops. Workstation = ?
Van B
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Posted: 29th Aug 2003 16:30
Thanks guys .

It is surprisingly fun to work on this, It's like the other apps I've done, got frustrated and decided to do it my own way. It should be a really fast and efficient way to make meshes, I don't know about animation, unless Lee and Mike decide that manual animation and ragdolls is a good idea (seriously, all we'd need is the ability to assign verts to bones and be able to move bones). I looking at mesh optimising now, getting rid of duplicate vertices and changing the poly allocations when deleting a vertice - getting there though.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Van B
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Posted: 30th Aug 2003 04:21
Phew! - quite a productive night.

Automatic vertice mirroring is now done, it can find each vertices mirror twin and moving a vertice affects its twin. Makes for really easy editing. Got a stand in 3D renderer done too, just bare triangles, not memblocks yet. Also made a vert sorting function for neat extrusions.

The mirrored vertices are shown without a yellow center on the little boxes, quite hard to see but they'll change once I've added poly selection too.




Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Mattman
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Posted: 30th Aug 2003 05:51
very, very nice. When would we be able to see a demo?

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Van B
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Posted: 30th Aug 2003 16:22
I'm not too sure when it'll be at a demo stage, maybe 2 weeks or so I can release a test demo.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Mattman
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Posted: 8th Sep 2003 22:35
Im working on DarkMESH, yur rival. May the best project win (congrats in advance, lol )

Got a knack for finding secrets??? Jingot Racing --- A new brand of Racing --- Only from Nightwatch Studios
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Van B
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Posted: 9th Sep 2003 11:36
Here's an update, UV's and simple menu controls added .




Van-B

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Hamish McHaggis
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Posted: 9th Sep 2003 18:47
Looks really nice, especially for 1/2 a months work.

Brains are for idiots.

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Mattman
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 00:36
That's just plain rude Van.

Got a knack for finding secrets??? Jingot Racing --- A new brand of Racing --- Only from Nightwatch Studios
"hey, it's tomorrow" --- Hamish
indi
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 07:44
/me drools on keyboard.

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Hamish McHaggis
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 10:50
Getting confused between the forums and chatroom eh?

/me slaps Indi around a bit with a large trout

Brains are for idiots.

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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 18:14
:: is going to kneecap the next person who put '/me' for thier actions ::

quick-q ... why's the alien upside down? i'm hoping thats not a design feature be as confusing as that tutorial Act put up a while ago if it is
there is going to be an icon or sidebar menu for the tools right?
personally puts me off having to learn a bunch of shortcuts from the get go ( it does have shortcuts right??)

sorry just seems like there's a million&one questions that need to be asked about the features other than purely technical and no-one seems to be asking them.

Eric T
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 18:56
Quote: "UV's and simple menu controls added"


UV's, how did you do that, i tried for 2 weeks till i just gave up trying to make a UV mapping program, let alone a modeling uv mapping program...lol

/me think's this'll be good

haha

Working on 4 projects 2 RPG(programming texturing and 3d map), 1 3rd person shooter (Programming), and a special project.
indi
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 19:05 Edited at: 10th Sep 2003 19:05
/me thinks its very cool also.


so is this new logo for raven!



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Van B
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 19:18
Hehe, my boss has just disapeared into a meeting, so time for a Raven style long post, probably only be Raven that reads it but never mind ....

Well, that's how the alien model is imported - notice how my woman model is the right way up. Damn pain in the ass, but I can't just invert the Y coordinate because it'd affect the normals, I will however be adding orientation controls to the model import code, so you could say that model needs rotated 180 degrees around the Z axis. It will be fixed, it's just a case of adding it to the file import controls.

There will be a toolbar, but it'll be like the menu bar at the top, invisible until you move the mouse near it - the toolbar will be customisable though, so you can add or remove the tools you need on it. It's quite nice to have the entire screen for the model without too much taken up by the interface. The middle part is used to resize the views right now (click and drag), but for each view there will be maximise and restore buttons as well as display options for showing/hiding verts or lines and changing the view mode.

I'm taking a conservative approach to the GUI, each command will be handled through strings - I use a subroutine full of all the commands, which are refered to by string descriptions, even moving verts etc will be assigned to a string and passed through a function. This means the GUI can be quite free, commands can be called in a number of ways too, either from the menu, from the toolbar, from a CLI or from a file - ala scripted modelling presets. A lot of the chores will be handled through a quick menu too, a little like in Max when you click the right mouse button - except it'll be simpler, just commands like 'Split selected vertices' and welding commands, stuff that is used all the time in low poly modelling.

Every single shortcut in it will be customisable and non-vital, there won't be a shortcut that is not available elsewhere. Each command will have a quick help screen, and the options (where applicable) will be accessible through the right mouse button for each tool. In the options there will be a little hotkey button, press it then press the shortcut key you want to use for that tool - nice and neat.

The next major thing to be added will be poly lines, basically connected verts that can be looped. Once this is done, I can add cool stuff like poly line extrusions where you get to specify the number of vertical segments and stuff like that.

I've put in a lot of groundwork so the verts and poly lists look after themselves, and I can add to it really easily (adding the texturing took all of 5 minutes). I do have an idea for poly reduction, but manual poly reducion, you select a number of vertices, then shrink them all into 1 vert, deleting any affected polygons. It's not a great poly reduction method, but the whole idea with this is to start low and keep it low. The cool thing about doing it my way though and about using DBPro, is you can model with transparent textures in mind, you can actually see the transparencies straight away, you'll be able to make good use of transparencies without the usual hassle.

I'm taking a whole new approach to UV mapping and texturing with this, because I waste as much time mapping as I do modelling, traditional methods rarely give the results you'd expect and it's more manual editing than software that fixes the non-logical mapping you often end up with.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Van B
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 19:23
LOL @ Indi!

Liquidz,
I haven't added the UV mapping yet, just the UV data from the imported mesh has been stored and is being translated onto the mesh. Actual UV editing is no big deal - I could probably get UV editing done quite quickly, VANmesh is already sorta rigged for it, the actual UV mapping commands will be the tricky part.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
actarus
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Posted: 10th Sep 2003 20:23
Indi:hmm I've seen that somewhere lol!

Everyobdy wants to be loved,But no one loves everybody...

HEY!!! I'm the one who had 'Cyberspace' in his location on the older black forums,shame on you Rich j/k
Preston C
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 00:01
/me waits for the commotion to starts when Raven reads the post again

I've got popcorn and one of those #1 finger gloves for cheering


I've been outcasted from the public's society.
Why must I be outcasted here too.
Mattman
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 00:29
I luv that sig inid!!!

I think the biggest problem for me will be GUI. I am very bad at those

Got a knack for finding secrets??? Jingot Racing --- A new brand of Racing --- Only from Nightwatch Studios
"hey, it's tomorrow" --- Hamish
Shadow Robert
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 03:08
sounds good Van ... a common problem with UV Mapping particularly when mesh are edited is the stretching problems, or the more common Homogenous effect - which is a bit hard to explain what it is, but its an effect that causes UV maps to alter thier perceptions.

i'll try to find a picture of it to show you what i mean, and it maybe an idea if i try to remember what causes it too - because its a common problem which can be frustrating when you cut up objects.

-- -- --

put that aside, i'm pretty sure that Moderators aren't suppose to act in such a mannor. i'm getting pretty tired of the childish "/me" phase around here, almost like none of you have ever used and IRC room before ... and i do believe that changing my sig in that fashion is like a personal attack, something against the new rules - wonder if the mods also must play by the 3 strike rule.

Preston C
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 04:36
*Hands Raven Sword*

Have at em


I've been outcasted from the public's society.
Why must I be outcasted here too.
indi
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 04:53 Edited at: 11th Sep 2003 04:53
your a putz raven and you have 2 strikes left with this place.
Im tired of looking at your crap and if I wasnt moderator but owner you would be long gone by now.

sorry van Ill shut up now.

http://www.lunarpixel.com
It's already tomorrow in Australia
Lucky Devil
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 06:45
We hunger for more pics....it looks so cool

cant wait for the demo.
Eric T
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 08:57
@everyone - I think i have 2 strike's left, after a few cheapshots i took at a few people ...lol

@Van - What kind of import and Export system do you have, (I can't think of the wording) as in, wHat are all the file types you plan on implementing into the Import Export System. It would be nice for a few of the File types like the *.lwo or sumthing to the likeing, so people can enjoy some lightwave models.

@Raven- /me thinks you should shut up everyonce in a while...

welp make that 1 strike left...lmao

Working on 4 projects 2 RPG(programming texturing and 3d map), 1 3rd person shooter (Programming), and a special project.
Van B
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Posted: 11th Sep 2003 15:49
Thanks guys,

I'm looking into .X export primarily, but I want .3DS export too - I'll look into as many formats as possible, I mean I know the mesh format inside out now - so as long as there's good documentation on the model formats I can certainly give them a shot. When I release it, I'll supply documentation about it's own format so converters or plugins could be written.

You'll be able to UV map while you model, and you'll be able to see your changes straight away too. I won't go into too much detail, but my UV editing idea should make it easy to get rid of bugs like stretching and the weird ways the texture is often applied. You'll also be able to sketch out the UV map inside VANmesh, I don't know about you guys, but I always forget to leave space for something on the texture map!.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Rob K
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Posted: 14th Sep 2003 18:07
@VanB

Wow - looks excellent.

I'm not sure about the 3DS format but the X format is certainly fairly easy to manage. Courtesy of Mike I have a very good doc explaining the X format, if you want it just let me know and I'll email it to you.

@Raven
Can you PLEASE learn to spell properly, even most 12-year-old AOLers can spell their correctly.

MikeS
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Posted: 14th Sep 2003 18:23
Who cares about spelling, that's just plain picky. If you're looking for fights, there's plenty of places to start one, just not in Van-B's thread.

-------------------------------
Anyways.

How's it looking Van-B. I'm interested to see how this turns out. With all the applications you've made, maybe you could combine them all, and make a Van-B Studio Package. Maybe just add on some stuff to some of your other great applications.

Keep up the good work.



A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
David T
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Posted: 14th Sep 2003 19:11 Edited at: 14th Sep 2003 19:13
Looking great, as always Van. I'm looking forward to trying this

Is the 3d view actual DB 3d or a simulated 3D?

Where did you learn the mesh format? Are there any docs etc I can refer to?

Thanks

---

@indi:
you did yourself no favours in modifying raven's sig image. I think if anybody else did that then they'd get a strike.

/me getting thouroughly sick of this.

c:/dos
c:/dos run
run dos run
Van B
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Posted: 14th Sep 2003 19:55
Rob K,
That'd be great, but any chance you could just post it here - I'm sure it'd be a great help for anyone working on a modeller - esp the guys working on DeleD. Thanks .

Yellow,
VANmesh will be the last app for a while, I have a big project planned for next year, but I have a lot to do first. I'm working on the GUI right now, then I can get onto adding features. I don't have any immediate plans to update any of the older apps - of course the more features that get added to DBPro the more I consider what is possible - for example projected texture grabbing, using a simple sprite and a source image (tested and it works, check the DBPro forum). It would make a great addition to VANseam because it'd let you grab a texture from any angle on an image then make it seamless in 1 app. However that'd mean a major overhaul to get it into DBPro - one day maybe . I'm hoping that TGC add a propper interupt timer system, where you could specify a function or sub to be run every specified interval. Sorta like the Timer controls in VB, it'd let me give Tracker an overhaul and allow much better sound playback.

David89,
The memblock mesh format is real straightforward. For example, in VANmesh, I store the vert locations, normals, texturing etc in arrays, and the poly assignments are controlled by storing the vert numbers in an array too. You'd step through each polygon adding each vert in turn to a memblock. Check this code.



Be careful when making a memblock from a mesh though, some formats don't support vertice colours, although my internal data supports it anyway - VANmesh will let you colour the verts based on mask textures etc even if the original mesh did'nt support them.


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Mattman
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Posted: 14th Sep 2003 20:32
@ RobK : Do you mind sending me the doc???

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"hey, it's tomorrow" --- Hamish
Rob K
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indi
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Posted: 20th Sep 2003 03:25
David89 no one would have the artistic humour to pull something that cool anyway.

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WoW is WOW
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Posted: 21st Sep 2003 14:04
Hey Van, just wondering, what's your big project for next year going to be. You said their won't be an app for a while, so does that mean your big project is a game. If so, what kind of game?
Thanx. Just Curious.
RPG_Freak
Van B
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Posted: 21st Sep 2003 16:11
Rob K,
Thanks, that should help a lot .

RPG_Freak,
Well I'll be making Stoked2 and finishing VANmesh, then going onto my big project. It's an RPG of sorts, but a completely random and free environment where each NPC has as much possibilities as the player. The idea is to interract and work with other characters, whether it's being a policeman, or robbing convenience stores. The only real objective is to survive and make money. Ultimately you'll be acountable for your actions. If you kill someone, then there'll be NPC's investigating the death and might catch you, so being careful, and watching for things like witnesses and leaving fingerprints will play a big part. Of course you might wanna deliver pizzas instead. It'll be a completely new sort of gameplay, imagine a game where you could end up spending most of it in jail - interacting and working with inmates instead!. It's massive, but it's something I've always wanted to make (the whole reason I started using DB in fact).


Van-B

My cats breath smells of cat food.
Preston C
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Posted: 21st Sep 2003 17:04
Basically you just want to make an RPG with no rules after this and Stoked2, right? That sounds like it would be fun.

*ponders*


Dark Basic Pro has arived! I can feel the power!
Mattman
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Posted: 21st Sep 2003 20:30
Sounds a bit like The Sims, lol

Got a knack for finding secrets??? Jingot Racing --- A new brand of Racing --- Only from Nightwatch Studios
"hey, it's tomorrow" --- Hamish

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