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3 Dimensional Chat / GameSpace *AND* Cartography Shop Needed?

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ValKev
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Joined: 3rd Jun 2004
Location: dodging tornados in KS
Posted: 12th Jun 2004 08:31
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Both GameSpace Light and Cartography Shop look pretty darn good. My question is, can GameSpace be effectively used to create great object models (characters, animations, objects, etc.) AND buildings & structures?

Or, does Cartography Shop do a better job with the level editing stuff that it would stand on its own for that purpose?

While I'm at it, would a general pipeline approach be:
1) design
2) use GameSpace Light to build characters (.x)
3) use Cartography Shop 4 to build buildings (.x) (.csm?) (dbpro)
4) use Geoscape to build underlying landscape and terrain
5) suck it all into dbpro, add magic code, and wala!

I'm assuming tools like GS and CS and Geoscape would do the texture baking I'd want to do versus using something like giles?

And dbpro could add some real-time lighting effects?

Still trying to narrow down my tool set.

Thanks,
ValKev
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ReD_eYe
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Posted: 12th Jun 2004 15:13
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I've never used Gamespace before, but it gets pretty good reviews from other people, cartography shop is a nice program but in theory you could probably do similar stuff in Gamespace, although it may be more complex. The demo of Geoscape seemed abit rubbish to me, there are other (free) tools out there for making heightmaps and models of heightmaps with blended textures etc.
I don't think any of those can do lightmapping(is that what you mean by texture baking?) so giles might actually be useful and it gets some great reviews.
Realtime lighting in DBP would be pretty hard to implement and would probably run very slow.

So if i were you i wouldn't bother with Geoscape and possibly think about Giles instead.

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ValKev
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Posted: 12th Jun 2004 20:02
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Thanks ReD_eYe.

I'll look harder at Giles and make sure I'm clear on it.

By texture baking I mean baking the lighting into the textures themselves so that you get the same effect as cool lighting but don't have to make it real-time. Works good for doing lighting on low poly objects like walls and such where you might have a lamp shining on it that doesn't really ever move or something.

Thanks again,
ValKev
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JeroenNL
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Posted: 13th Jun 2004 13:12
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If you're looking for a level-editing tool, you could try DeleD (freeware) because that's a 3D modeller initially designed to construct 3D worlds with. It's at http://www.delgine.com.

Use the free 3D modeller DeleD to get skilled in 3d editing! Visit http://www.delgine.com for more info.
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Lascerus
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Posted: 13th Jun 2004 18:37
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I recommend giles its great...plus it as great export features just try the demos....and the levels provided..its magnificent..

Stiyyiille
Celeron 2.0 Ghz, p4 titan mboard, Geforce fx 5200 128mb, 768mb ram
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AlecM
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Posted: 14th Jun 2004 03:41 Edited at: 14th Jun 2004 03:43
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If you are doing mostly interior work cshop is really great. Automated UVs and a good grid system are worth alot. The only thing Cshop doesnt so well right now is terrains... but version 5 will fix that.

i hate gamespace/truespace myself... I used it for years but now that i have a real modelling program i see how much of a toy it is. Its full of bugs and half finished features. Defintaly not stable either.


Buy it
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ValKev
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Posted: 15th Jun 2004 09:11
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I've been going through Gamespace and some video tutorials. It looks pretty cool but I don't have much to compare it to. Looks like the undo feature is pretty lacking!

What do you use for modeling objects Froggermon (and levels too for that matter)? I'd like to take Cartography Shop for a run but you can't export anything with the demo I don't think so I can't really test building then loading into dbpro!

Do you use 3d canvas pro for modeling, Milkshape, or what?

Thanks,
ValKev
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AlecM
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Posted: 15th Jun 2004 12:06 Edited at: 15th Jun 2004 12:08
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I use max6 for objects and cshop for interiors. If you dont have any money you can get gMax free from discreet. You can export .X files from it as i have explained on these forums before. Im not sure if the exporter will do mesh deformation animation. I have tested it with simple keyframe animations though.


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ValKev
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Posted: 17th Jun 2004 07:25
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Froggermon,
I've been checking out GameSpace and using some video tutorials to learn it and get caught up on modelling concepts in general.

In my other company we use 3ds max for various renderings, animations, and non-game related stuff but I'm not too involved in its use directly.

How would you compare gmax and GameSpace, specifically in terms of creating objects and animations and pulling them into dbpro?

Thanks,
ValKev
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Complex
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Posted: 30th Jun 2004 06:13 Edited at: 30th Jun 2004 06:24
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Just here to add a side note that may be of use:

Texture baking (What GameSpace can do) is not neccessarily an effective approach for larger objects (ie worlds) as say lightmapping.

Texture baking will create the net result of your diffuse texture and the light effect and create a new image from that, the problems being:

(1) You now have a seperate image for almost every face - Jumbo-file size country...
(2) No more tiled UV - Texture baking a tiled UV map would have to create an image for the entire face as a whole

Lightmapping (Although I am new to this) I think is the better approach. It needs a duplicate of the model and some use of alphablending I think, but a lot more efficient on the whole.

I'm also curious as to where these free programs which do texture blending and heightmaps are. Anyone got some links?
[EDIT] Just found Hamish's sig ... http://www.dbforums.co.uk/~hamish/. Multiscape looks promising

Cheers
CompleXity

Subspace Software website now active!
[url]www.subsoft.tk[/url]
Software from a different dimension
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