Jasoco's 3D Engine Thread: Go to Page 6 Please!

[Jasoco]

Made a little progress today. Well, after chasing a confusing bug for a while. I now have a representation of the ship. Well, it's a box right now until I get it working 100% correctly at which point I guess I'll design a ship to replace it.

Next I need to create bullets (Lasers) and bombs that can be shot. As well as make the ship tilt. Also, collision detection. Oh, and tilting of the screen and horizon. Oh, and a horizon. Oh, and maybe dots along the ground to help your perspective tell that you're flying. Oh and enemies.

Turning off BackFace checking for the StarFox game seems to help the speed a tiny bit.

I have a theory that if I create levels in sections and only load each section two at a time, the one the player is in and the next one. Then unload the one the player was in when he enters the next one at which point I load the next next one, I might be able to make much longer levels and faster framerates. Theory. It should work. If I figure out how.

I discovered I can make polygons move by giving their points a name (Like "player"), then check the name when running through the points table and manipulate thusly as long as I save the model's original X, Y and Z offsets. Whoo.

This all sounds like jibberish to you, but I hope to have a nice prototype for you guys soon.

[Robin]

I have a theory that if I create levels in sections and only load each section two at a time, the one the player is in and the next one. Then unload the one the player was in when he enters the next one at which point I load the next next one, I might be able to make much longer levels and faster framerates. Theory. It should work. If I figure out how.

It would only work with levels that are not to dynamic, though.

This all sounds like jibberish to you, but I hope to have a nice prototype for you guys soon.

No, it doesn't.

[Jasoco]

I have a theory that if I create levels in sections and only load each section two at a time, the one the player is in and the next one. Then unload the one the player was in when he enters the next one at which point I load the next next one, I might be able to make much longer levels and faster framerates. Theory. It should work. If I figure out how.

It would only work with levels that are not to dynamic, though.

Well, I'm not looking at creating Star Fox 2 (That game sucked so much. I mean WTF? It was a completely different direction!) where you have fully 3D levels you can go any direction in. I just want the simple on-rails one-way flight of Star Fox. So basically it would make sense. Load one section at a time and unload a section as soon as the last polygons leave the field of view.

The way I assume Star Fox worked is that polygons were only created when they pop into frame. And if you've played Star Fox, you'll notice the draw distance is really low. Polygons and enemies don't show up until they're very close. My game would have a closer distance though. (Due to much faster computing power than what an SNES with a coprocessor could do back then.)

Still looking for a perfect method for rotating a whole model. Should be easy. I just need to figure out how to rotate a single point around a certain other point. i.e. I take the new vertex location, and rotate it around it's original offset. Something to do with Sine and Cosine of course. Anyone have any ideas?

Also, the 3D model viewer project is still alive, I will probably use it to create the models themselves. This new project is a proof of concept that will hopefully become real. A real 3D space shooter.

[Jasoco]

Nope. Figured it out! Now I can rotate all the points in a 3d model, then place it into the 3D world. So I should now be able to have dynamic scenery that moves and turns and all sorts of stuff. Not sure yet whether I'm going to make the enemies 3D or sprites. If I can't get it running super fast enough I'd have to go with sprites just to save frames and processing time. But I'm hoping to be able to make 3D enemies instead.

[Jasoco]

Just an update to show off what I was working on last night.

Arwing power!

Arwing.jpg (77.94 KiB) Viewed 3058 times

It's an Arwing! Modeled after the original ones from Star Fox. The engine even flashes like the original. And yes, that is a shadow.

It doesn't roll or tilt yet though I am working on it. Is anyone interested in a Star Fox style space shooter made in Löve? I am!

Still need to do collisions and enemies/obstacles that can hit you. And lasers and missiles. The goal is to emulate the Star Fox engine as closely as possible. Also I have to put a grid of dots on the ground and make it a gradient to give it a feeling of depth. Also something in the sky like clouds and mountains.

[kikito]

Do a barrel roll!

... I had to say it, sorry.

[zipperipper]

Epic.

looks like ima have to try and improve my 3D rendering thingy

[Geti]

I'm impressed.. How many FPS does this get on your machine?

[Jasoco]

It varies. I haven't optimized the level code so all polygons are loaded at once instead of loading groups at a time to speed up the for pairs() loops.

[hryx]

It's an Arwing! Modeled after the original ones from Star Fox. The engine even flashes like the original. And yes, that is a shadow.

*THUNK*
That was the sound of my jaw hitting the floor.
Which is very odd, since the floor here is carpeted.