Hi.
Finally its time for a new dev. diary from us. Here whats new and kicking!
3DEngine:---------
* New effects such as DOF, Relfecting Water Plane and Glow. The effects are compiled in ps1.1 so you can run then on Geforce3+/Ati Radeon 8500+
Note that the effets are quite fillrate intensive.
Glow:
http://www.truevision3d.com/devdiary/glow.jpghttp://www.truevision3d.com/devdiary/glow2.jpgDoF:
http://www.truevision3d.com/devdiary/dof.jpgWater Plane, Minimesh and more, by one of our beta testers. Its running on a GFFX 5200:
http://www.truevision3d.com/devdiary/Island.avi* Morph Target capabilities is now in place and allows for facial animation easily.
Using ModelView you can compile morph targets and save to an TVA.You can also preview any morphs in ModelView using sliders.
This morphtarget system is quite fast (only 20% speed decrease usually) and you can combine several poses at the same time.
It's totally dynamic so you could even implement realistic mouth movement according to pronounced sentences.
Morph Controllers on our Molly model:
http://www.truevision3d.com/devdiary/morph.jpg* TVMiniMesh has been worked on more, it's the perfect way to handle all your vegetation and plants.
Fast easy and fast!
It's fast because it's a really lightweight interface to control the same mesh a big number of times.
The vertex shader used in this can handle 16 objects in a batch so it's theoritically 16x faster (especially for small meshs like billboards)
* TVCameraFactory is completely finished. It has the same features as TV3D 6.2 for the moment.
* TVRenderSurface has been worked on, and support for Cubic RenderSurfaces has been added. It's mainly useful for custom shaders that needs
environmental cubic maps.
* TVShader class is widly used by our testers, and so far they are loving the ability to load any .fx shader files.
Nice and impressive effects without much hassle, load your model and apply a shader!
* The integrated Physics Engine is powered by Newton (tm). We have started integration! We will have videos as soon as we get everything to work.
* Particle systems have been added. It's much more powerful that in previous releases. It allows for different emittor shapes, emittor keyframes,
particle keyframes. And it can even render minimeshs as particles ! Some simple physics have been added to particles like gravity, attractor and
repulsion to give you a realistic effect. Some effects like smokes have been tested and are convaincing.
Molly flying around with a particle trail:
http://www.truevision3d.com/devdiary/particles.jpg* Several other classes have been more or less completed.
Our beta testers managed to do anything with 6.5 so far!
MediaEngine:------------
* Media Engine has been launched into development.
- Some basic code has been finished, but will be much more heavily developed in the next month.
NetEngine:----------
* The NetEngine is progressing very well, the base structure is being coded and tested by darqSHADOW.
- darq will post a seperate development diary for more in depth information.
Tools:------
* ModelView is nearing completion, several new features have been added:
- Preview your exported models and post-process your models before its time for them to go ingame.
- Adding shaders and managing morph targets.
- Precompile stencil shadow data, assign textures and normalmaps (or other maps such as lightmaps and specularmaps).
- Generate normalmaps in Object- or Tangent- Space using a high- and lowpoly model.
- Add Extra detail to your normalmaps trough a height detailmap.
- Ability to antialias the normalmap during generation to give have a smoother effect.
- ModelView UI is based off the successful VS.NET UI with docking windows.
- Assign your windows how you like them and save the UI for realoading, or why not make it your default UI?
- Add lights with ease and manage them anyway you like it. Save the light to a ModelView Light file for reloading.
- And more ...
Its the perfect tool for managing any TV3D SDK models. Preview and modify them to exactly the way you want them ingame.
* PlugIns
- Maya 5.0 and 6.0 PlugIns are now fully complete and being used widely by our artists.
- They export texture assignments, geometry, animation etc. to a TVM or TVA model file.
- 3dsmax 5.1 and 6.0 PlugIns are also done and working.
- Exports texture assignments, geometry and animation trough the Character Studio Physique modifier, to a TVM or TVA model file.
- GameSpace plugin for TVM is finished, TVA is in production.
* TV3DCompiler
- Its a new command line tool that will have the ability to convert between many formats and do several things for the user.
- Compile MAP to TVO.
- Convert MDL/MD2 to TVA.
- Convert 3ds to TVM (this conversion works and has been tested already)
- Compile a TVM into a TVO.
- Convert from other non-native formats to TV3D native formats.
This "compiler" will be a perfect standalone command line tool for wrapping into other larger editors, such as map editors etc.
Art and 3D Models:-----------
* Puppy is working on several models for our upcoming techdemo to showcase the 6.5 engine.
- ModelView is used extensably internally for post-processing models.
- Nothing more to spoil it, but i can tell you all its very impressive!
* We are planning on adding more sections to our site where we will offer ModelPackages, both freebies and for sale.
- Alot of users have shown intrest in such a section.
Website:--------
* The website code is being worked on and a new Resource Library is being added and developed on, which will allow users to submit articles and FAQ's.
- Not only articles, but art aswell and many many more resources. Will be very exciting!
I hope this development diary can squinch your thurst for awhile at least!
Also I want to tell everyone that Ill be gone for vaccation around 30 days in Bosnia.
So I wish everyone a great summer and see you all in August!
PS: I wont just slack, my laptop is with me so Ill be working on the Media Engine and doing some design docs
..
(edited by ds -- fixed island AVI link)
