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3 Dimensional Chat / Cloth sails for a ship

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Weedfox
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Posted: 10th Feb 2006 23:33
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Hey everybody,

I had a quick question ... I'm currently trying to rig up some sails for a boat I've made, but I have no idea how you do cloth effects and things like that in DB Pro. I tried using 3dsmax to make a plane. I also tried converting it to a NURBS object, a mesh, etc. but when I load it into DB Pro, nothing appears.

What's a good way to make a flat piece of cloth, like a sail or a flag, that you can animate to give the illusion of wind?

Thanks!
Nater
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Mucky Muck Ninja
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Posted: 11th Feb 2006 03:22
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Well i think there is a cloth expansion for dbpro, or you could just animate the sail in the 3d program as if it was being affected by wind. Its not as realistic but it can look pretty good.

''From now on we will travel in TUBES!'' ~Tenacious D
"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
~ Douglas Adams
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dark coder
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Posted: 11th Feb 2006 05:40
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Quote: "I tried using 3dsmax to make a plane. I also tried converting it to a NURBS object, a mesh, etc."


lol, well if your using v7-9 you can use reactor plugic and make your plain with lots of segments into a cloth material and add some space warps and i assume theres one to simulate wind then generate an animation from it and export to dbp using .x anim, should work fine.

Halowed are the ori.
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Heckno
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Posted: 14th Feb 2006 22:58
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not sure if this helps ( not 3dmax), but when I was using Milkshape I built an animated flag by creating a double sided plane split into about nine sections... 3 x 3

Then i boned animated across the horizontal plane of each three groups of 3 with the root bone attached to the pole...

Takes a bit of tweaking to get it to look like wind rippling the flag but it can be done using basic modelling programs...

good luck...
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Weedfox
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Posted: 15th Mar 2006 19:17 Edited at: 15th Mar 2006 19:18
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Maybe that's my problem, I'm not dividing it into segments or bone animating it ... I just load up a mesh object, sometimes a NURBS object, and I can't even get it to show up in DBPro at all. The object simply doesn't appear. Would animating it using bones solve this problem?

Also, what exactly is the reactor plugin?
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Mr Anderson
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Posted: 19th Mar 2006 19:43
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Hey,

Can DB render NURBS? If not there is no benefit of using them in the case of using DB Clothe. However, it might be alright if you choose to export you model using the precomputed Max Clothe Sim to play back the animation in DB (meaning not using the DBPro clothe). In addition, I think most people would suggest that you should convert all you 3d files to X or dbo for use in DB if possible.

You have to decide which method is best for your project. You must decide whether to choose precomputed animated clothe over the real-time simulation.

Consider the following:
1 - Memory requirements for the animation and geometry.
2 - CPU/GPU resources used to calculation DB Clothe.
3 - What kind of control over the clothe do you need?
4 – Which method (real-time/precomputed animations) will meet your visual requirements.

I have not used or seen code for use of the DB Clothe, but for those who have: Can you lock parts of the clothe plane by a vertex or group of vertices?

If this is the case, you can create dummy object (similar to collision geometry) that will not be visible in DBPro. The will be used as the points on the ship's mass for the clothe to be attached. Then you figure out which vertices (or groups) on the clothe get pinned to the dummy points. Then use the DB clothe, and the dummies should be attached to the ship so when they move the clothe will follow. Pretty much, it's a matter of running what ever clothe affects are available, like wind etc.

The alternative I guess is to pre-compute with max and export the entire animation in the mesh object. It is pretty much what is best for you.

I wish I could give more technical help, but again, I have not yet had the honor of playing with DB clothe.

Cheers

IDIC (Infinite Diversity Infinite Combinations)
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BenDstraw
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Posted: 19th Mar 2006 19:49
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reactor wouldnt work for games cause a plane is usually divided into 20 by 20 segments in max to produce a good effect and yes there is a wind reactor but thats probaly not the way to go. possibly you could use bone animation.

God modelled man in his own reference image.
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Mr Anderson
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Posted: 19th Mar 2006 21:25 Edited at: 19th Mar 2006 21:39
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I agree, that bones driving the cloth will be more efficient storage wise, and of course, if your target audience has the processing power to simulate it, that would be nice too.

I disagree; however, that you would require a 20x20 quad to get something nice enough. Reactor by default basically is a real-time sim. I was able to get animation nice enough for a game.

Unless you are trying to make a next generation game, with Cg shaders and such, you will want to use a lot more geometry. Otherwise, less is better; it's trial and error, you have to play with the complexity till you get good enough results.

I used a 5x5 in my example. It is actually a veiwport dump, so it would be comparable to game graphics with no lights, but with basic smooth shading. (You need Divx 6.1 to view it. Sorry want to keep the file small for everyone.)

Again, it becomes a memory requirement, to store every vertex key frame. This is a 15fps animation. For a game it can be even less to get the point that the cloth is blowing in the breeze. You can also have multiple versions of geometry of the animation based on viewer distance.

G'day

IDIC (Infinite Diversity Infinite Combinations)

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BenDstraw
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Posted: 19th Mar 2006 21:51
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5 by 5 appears to be suffice for his needs. sorry I much prefer high poly modeling where theres higher expectations for the quality of the effects.

God modelled man in his own reference image.
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Mr Anderson
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Posted: 19th Mar 2006 22:16
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Me too! Nevertheless, if you are doing something for the first time (which it seems he is), it is easy to over do it. So getting it to work with something simpler is always a good idea.

My question still is how would he work this out in DB Cloth, I don't know how it would be implemented. I would guess, he would attach the plane to the ship, and then he could later increase the geometry for a smoother look.

If any one has the DB Cloth and a little time to an make up a mock demo similar to my animation that would be help for everyone. I personally would be greatful to see the source to see how it works in code.


With some clever pixel shaders he could probably make the 5x5 look even better. The smooth shade light model is antiquated so I'm sure there are plenty of new ways to make things look nice.

Cheers

IDIC (Infinite Diversity Infinite Combinations)
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Weedfox
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Posted: 6th May 2006 09:57
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Simple is precisely what I need! So would you, in effect, simply create a plane and then assign bones to it and animate them like a limb?
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