Possible to modify Love in this Way?

[Robin]

Robin: why hasn't it been updated in 5 years? It seems to support Irrlicht 1.1, whereas the version on the Irrlicht site is 1.7.2.

That project is probably dead then. Luckily, the fact that it is open source means that LizardGamer may take it up from there --- which is much simpler than building it from the ground up or modifying LÖVE to that extend.

[Lafolie]

To be honest, asking about creating a 3D title in Löve is kinda silly when the homepage of the framework looks like this:



I mean, of course there are going to be projects that attempt to create 3D games (there are a few on this forum) but at the end of the day it's a 2D engine for making 2D games.

[BlackBulletIV]

Hmm.... Thats sounds like you think you know what your talking about when you don't.

You do know who you're talking to right? As kikito said, vrld has a lot of technical knowledge, and he's a developer of the LOVE engine. You don't decide that a doctor doesn't really know what he's talking about, just because he doesn't throw all his jargon at you.

If you want a 3D engine, it's best you go with another engine like Panda3D or Unity as mentioned before. Sure, you'll have to use another language, but I'm telling you, learning a new language is going to be a tonne easier than ripping the guts out of LOVE and making a mess by sticking in a 3D engine.

[Jasoco]

Hell, even I dabbled in 3D and went so far as to make a Star Fox looking prototype. (Unfinished, on hold, will return to it when the time comes, or not.)

And someone here made a convincing looking 3D dice model with realistic lighting.

But even then, Löve is currently too slow to do 3D as fast as you'd want to in order to make a nicely detailed game. If my Star Fox game were to be as detailed as the real game (The original SNES game, not the inferior, yet superior N64 remake) it would probably slow down a bit in its current form. (Until I figure out a good way to load and unload 3D models in real-time so only stuff on screen is iterated over.)

See, 3D requires a lot of loops. You need to loop through all the points in all the polygons to calculate their location relative to the screen, then loop through all the triangles in each polygon, determine whether they're visible or not, calculate their light level based on their normals, then draw them. And since Löve can't manipulate images like real 3D engines can (Crop them to a triangle shape then map them to certain coordinates by warping them) you can only draw triangles, circles, rectangles and polygons.

And determining a 2D location from a 3D point takes a lot of math calculations. Plus making sure the triangles are displayed in the right order requires sorting them by distance from the camera. Plus, Löve can't do clipping. It's just not suited to full-on 3D. I wish it could tap into OpenGL's 3D, but I'm super happy with the awesome 2D capabilities we have now. Maybe one day, far in the future, but right now, if you truly need 3D, Löve may not be for you.

[BlackBulletIV]

<blah>

I think you're talking about simulation of 3D at the Lua level, as in simulation of 3D with a 2D drawing API (which is built on a 3D drawing API - lol). What LizardGamer is wanting to do, is replace LOVE's 2D with something 3D; basically making Love3D instead of Love2D (basically requiring a rewrite).

[Jasoco]

<blah>

I think you're talking about simulation of 3D at the Lua level, as in simulation of 3D with a 2D drawing API (which is built on a 3D drawing API - lol). What LizardGamer is wanting to do, is replace LOVE's 2D with something 3D; basically making Love3D instead of Love2D (basically requiring a rewrite).

Maybe one day. But not for a loooong time. I would think. We can all dream.

[BlackBulletIV]

Ha yeah. I'm not too interested in 3D. Creating a good game in 2D is hard enough, at least on your own.

[Robin]

Ha yeah. I'm not too interested in 3D. Creating a good game in 2D is hard enough, at least on your own.

True. Although it would be cool to have a 3D engine with a lovely API. I've never seen one so far.

[BlackBulletIV]

Right you are. I didn't mind Unity3D's API, though I think LOVE's is better crafted (especially with no functions that begin with capitals... yuck!).

[Jasoco]

I could never figure out Unity. It seemed as confusing and foreign to me as 3d Studio Max.