A basic 3rd person demo

[AGT]

Hello everyone!

I made a demo project in VB6 (when I purchased a liscence)
to learn some TV3D basics, and I want to share it with you.
It's not much but it might help someone!

Anyway, here's what the demo includes:
1.Custom Animations
2.Basic 3rd Person camera
3.Reflective/Refractive water
4.Glow
5.How to use custom shaders
6.Bumpmapping and managed lighting and normal maps
7.Draw text
8.Get polycount and landscape position
9.Skysphere

The code was a mess so I tidy it up a bit. I sepperated almost
everything in Subs, so now it's easy to find what goes where and I
also commented some lines.

Here's the link:
http://four.fsphost.com/agt/Demo.rar

[sybixsus]

Any chance of an executable for those of us without VB? I'd love to see it running.

[AGT]

Sure! I reuploaded the file with the .exe
http://four.fsphost.com/agt/Demo.rar

[pizzayoyo]

WOW. That's a really cool demo. I love the shader on the actor!

Great job!

[AGT]

Thanks!
I downloaded the shader from Nvidia's site

[Mixael]

@AGT:  I've been doing somem porting of 6.2 VB code to 6.5 in Dev-C++ to try to learn both TV and C++...would you mind if I try to port this over?  (I haven't downloaded it yet, but will in a few moments)

If you'd rather I don't, not a problem, as I have a lot of other code to translate for practice.

Anyways, that's what I wanted to ask.

Michael

[AGT]

Hi Mixael!
There's no problem at all!

[Mixael]

AGT, I noticed something while porting your prog, and need to ask a question to clarify.

your Load texture stuff for the sky is:

Code:

    'The Sky's texture
        .LoadTexture "..\GD\Maps\Sky\Sky1.dds", "sky1", -1, -1, TV_COLORKEY_NO, False

later, you have this when applying the textures:

Code:

        .SkyBox_SetTexture GetTex("sky1"), GetTex("sky2"), GetTex("sky3"), GetTex("sky4"), GetTex("sky5"), GetTex("sky5")

where do "sky2" to "sky5" come from?  I assume that there should be some code for loading them, but would like your answer.  (I can fake it if I need to, so no worries)

Michael

[Mixael]

After more testing and looking, I've noticed that there's a problem with the sky texture.  This is also in the debug file that came with the .rar file.  Here is the pertinant portion of the debug file:

Code:

09-17-2006 06:41:36 | TEXTURE MANAGER : Couldn't find the texture 'sky1' in the texture list.
09-17-2006 06:41:36 | TEXTURE MANAGER : Couldn't find the texture 'sky2' in the texture list.
09-17-2006 06:41:36 | TEXTURE MANAGER : Couldn't find the texture 'sky3' in the texture list.
09-17-2006 06:41:36 | TEXTURE MANAGER : Couldn't find the texture 'sky4' in the texture list.
09-17-2006 06:41:36 | TEXTURE MANAGER : Couldn't find the texture 'sky5' in the texture list.
09-17-2006 06:41:36 | TEXTURE MANAGER : Couldn't find the texture 'sky5' in the texture list.

Do you, or anyone, have any idea why on this?  for sky2 - sky5, there isn't a correspnding LoadTexture call, but from what I can tell, sky1 should be fine.

(even though it gives these errors, there IS a sky in the demo...and I can't get the "problem" to go away.)


I'll keep porting it to Dev-C++ (I have to write it out long-hand first, as I'm not good enough with C++ to simply look at your code and port while I type), but this issue has my attention, and kinda bugs me - that I can't figure it out I mean

Mixael

[Taneas]

can someone mirror this somewhere..

Its not letting me download

[Mixael]

I just tried AGT's link again, and it's working for me.  If AGT is willing, I can post it on my site for TV stuff.  (I use it for specific purposes like this only)

Mixael

[AGT]

Hi and sorry for the delay!

Do you, or anyone, have any idea why on this? for sky2 - sky5, there isn't a correspnding LoadTexture call, but from what I can tell, sky1 should be fine.

Oops! At first I had a skybox in the demo but then I decided to make a skysphere instead. I thought I erased the code of the skybox but it seems I missed a couple of lines. Sorry for that man! Just erase the skybox's code and it should work fine!

I just tried AGT's link again, and it's working for me. If AGT is willing, I can post it on my site for TV stuff. (I use it for specific purposes like this only)

Mixael

The link works fine for me too. Ofcourse, be my gest, you can post it to your site if you want!  

Cheers!

[Mixael]

Not a problem.  I had noticed it when looking at the VB code, so it will be easy to get rid of it in my port  

I'll get it posted to my site (such as it is) pretty soon.

Thanks AGT


Michael

[Zaknafein]

I think this is a very cool sample. I'm making a C# 2.0 port as we speak, with some more tweaks and fixes and OOP code separation...

[Zaknafein]

As promised... the c# 2.0 (VS.Net 2005) port of the demo.

http://www.zaknafein.hjcrusaders.com/samples/AGT3rdPersonDemo/AGT3rdPersonDemo.rar [10 mb]

Added :
- Simpler camera control
- Options dialog (same as all my demos)
- The glow effect is more obvious
- Removed the shader, because it was useless; specular normal-mapping is supported out of the box by TV6.5
- Shadows! (no self-shadows, too glitchy and slow)
- Removed the unused code and media

Some shots :




Thanks again for sharing the original demo AGT, and hope you don't mind my changes!!

[AGT]

That's great!
Thank's Zak for the changes!

[Mixael]

I'm still doing the C++ port, but due to illness and family stuff (gotta play with the kids, after all!), I had to put it on hold for a few days.  I'll be going again on it ASAP.   (Due to the fact that I have to write it long-hand first, it's taking longer than I thought)

Michael

[AGT]

Hey everyone!
I'm thinking to implement some Physics functionality in the demo like collision, ragdoll and movement. But I never used physics before and I don't even Know were to start.
And unfortunately the VB6 version of Meabow demo, doesn't fully work in my PC

So, is anyone willing to offer any help about Physics?

Thank's in advance

[bjennison]

Hmm, I put the dx.dll and the tvb.dll in the "temp" folder with the exe, but still can't run it without a 429 error, "ActiveX component can't create object".  Is there somewhere else I should be putting these?

[Zaknafein]

Don't forget you regsvr32 your tvb.dll!