Slap on the wrist time for me...I should have posted these images ages ago.
Any comments, direct them toward James, because this is his post really.

While I was puttting my Morpheus spaceship together, James (Polybuider), decided to have a go at creating some figures for scenes.
The figures were built in 3DC but animated in Pacemaker.

I sent James a Blitz file of the Recovery deck so he could test out the animations as he went along.

When I received the animated figures from James, I set about creating a demo of the Recovery deck scene incorporating the figures.
It took a while to get it all coded but I'm quite pleased with the result, and I think James was to.

It's just a 'sit back and watch' demo, of the fighters being removed from the air lock and positioned into the sevice bays. It runs for about 5 minutes.

Other 3DC contributers were Les Patterson and Richard Thompson.

Anyway here's some screenshots from the demo showing his figures in action.

First up a long shot of the scene looking away from the airlock door, this is how the scene opens.
Although the figures look static here, they're not. James did some very nice idle animations for them.
The guys in green are the engineers, they go around inspecting the fighters.
The yellow guy is a Director...he marshals the fighters ot of the airlock and onto the service bay cradles.

The camera pans round to give you a view of the airlock.
The door opens with a hiss and a clunk.
Here's the Director guy doing his stuff with the first fighter.

With the first fighter positioned on a service bay cradles, one of the engineers gives it a quick inspection to make sure nothing is falling off.

The fighter is moved into the bay, the camera pans around to give you this shot, and another engineer starts a closer inspection, moving right around the fighter as he does so.
Whilst this is going on you can just see a second fighter being marshalled out of the airlock by the director.
Busy place this recovery deck.

Here's yet another figher coming out of the airlock.
With both service bays full these extra fighters are marshalled through the large doors you can see in pic 1, to a holding area (that doesn't exist).
I used two of these large bulkhead doors here, the second hides the supposed holding area.

Thats about it for the Recovery deck, James did a really good job with the animations and everything turned out very nicely indeed.
So there you go, with a bit of teamwork, 3DC, Gile[s], Blitz3D and MSN Messenger you can put some really nice stuff together.

After the space theme he decided to have a go at a Kendo fighter for my medieval scene.
This is still a bit WIP, the animations aren't quite finished, but from what I have so far, I've managed to start coding a fight scene.
These animations are VERY good.
In the second image, look how the guy on the right is swaying to one side to avoid a blow, a really nice touch that.

In comparison look at my crappy teacher guy in the background, he looks at though he's carved out of a piece of wood.
I just can't get the hang of this side of 3D modeling...oh well.....

So thanks to James for all his hard work, he's really made these scenes come to life.

It is often the case that people will be better at organic or inorganic artistic expression. But both can be learned and improved upon. These are great scenes and your varied skills work extremely well together .. really nice work! I would love to see the animation. ^_^

i sure hope i get this good some day...back to work, later...

@Butterpaw...
As these models belong to James I'll have to get in touch with him and see what he says about releasing them.
He's at University at the moment and I haven't heard from him for a while.
He sometimes pops up on Messenger as well.

As I mentioned the Kendo Guy still needs a couple more animation sequences to complete it, don't know if he will realease this as it is.

The Recovery deck demo I can mail to you but I will have to create a .exe file as I don't think you're a Blitz user.
Funny things happen nowadys when mailing .exe files. So maybe I could send it to you through Messenger.
I will still need to get the OK from James for this.

@Pirate....
Think about it, if you remove the figures from these scene all you really have are some extruded primitives, some more complex than others.

The visual impact is created with the textures and the lightmaps.
The textures are the key to it all, learn how to create good textures and your scenes will look just as good as these.

Try to create the textures with the scene in mind.
Suppose you wanted to build a spooky old house interior.
To get the effect you need to subdue all the colours so they look faded/covered with a coating of dust etc. Maybe just a few metal textures that have a glint on them.

If you wanted the interior of say a casino you go the other way, bright colours etc.

Try to approach it as though you are creating a scene/set for a movie.

Build your models to scale...this is very important.
They don't have to be full scale, for a very large scene you could build to half scale in 3dc, then scale up to full scale in your 3D engine.

My Morpheus spaceship was built to quarter scale in 3DC just to make it easier moving around the model.
When you apply textures to a model built to scale it's much easier to get things looking right.
If your doorways are 7ft tall and you apply a brick texture to the walls you can count the courses of bricks so things look in scale.
ie...3 brick courses = 1 foot
7x3= 21 brick courses to the top of the door.
I usually adjust this slightly and end up with around 17 courses.

Bazza

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bazza,

It sounds pretty complicated, and I don't want to put you to the trouble ^_^ But seeing the stills is very nice.

As to sending large files... Messenger, Skype and Yousendit are all good ways to share large and/or executable files ^_^

Hi all,

Thanks for the e-mail bazz.. we are all doing fine, thanks. It was nice of you to post these shots up too I had great fun doing these scenes with yo.. and leanrt alot too, it turned out just nice... I'm still learning all this stuff, trying to learn as much as I can in all areas, modeling, texturing and animation... I enjoy them all but I could say I like animating the most. I'm now using 3ds max to do most of my work but I am still learning this app as I go.

Pacemaker is a really great animation programme and is being updated with new tools as I type.
Pacemaker

Bazza has done a great job building these scenes and has put alot of his time into coding the whole thing to work.. he even tried to teach me a thing or two in that area The Mojong scenes are fantastic (you should post the back room scenes, Bazza, where the armory is, I think you,ve done a great job with the guy at the forge) With both scenes looking really good I tried to model and animate as best I could to suite and fit into these places. I got alot of really helpfull feed back from Bazza as I worked and I'm very glad he did so, wish I could have help in the same way as much as he helped me.. a great deal of my knowledge for all this stuff has come from his teaching, thanks Bazza.

If it is okay with bazza, the files can be shared for learning porposes. I would be glad to get more feed back on anything. I have improved with my modeling and animations since and would like to finish the kendo fighters, so we can move onto the next job. It would be great to do a game demo with 1st and 3rd person view... wouldn't need to be big.. just a level or 2.

Maybe the folks on this forum would be interested in getting a team together for this.. though that would mean Bazza would have to do most or all the coding... so if there are others who can code (in Blitz) it would be great.

Well that's it for now, thanks again Bazza and hope to chat with real soon... been a bit busy enjoying my break to be honest and learning 3dsMax too

ps.. I'm now 3DMAD on this forum instead of polybuilder. my account here messed up some how.

Hi James,
Pleased your all getting along ok.

Not sure about your game idea, I don't do games any more.
It isn't the coding thats the problem.
It's the continuous re-playing of the game/demo that is needed to check out that what you are coding works ok.
Every time you change something in the code you have to play the game through to that point to check it out.
In the end it becomes the most boring passtime you could possibly imaging.

Suppose you have a situation where the player needs to find six magic stones and place them on an alter to conjour up the gaurdian of the alter.
So you hide all the stones then start writing the code for this sequence.
With each piece of code you write, you then have to play the game to make sure it works.

You write the code for the first stone, then play the game.
You write the code for the second stone, then play the game.
You write the code for the third stone, then play the game.
And so on....and so on....and so on.... and so on, you see the problem.
It takes forever, and after a couple of weeks of this you wonder why you ever started
Even with more than one coder this continual re-running of the game is still require.


Maybe a SMALL single level FPS demo type thing is possible incorporating all the elements you would find within a full blown game, but I'm still not keen on the idea.

Maybe a small demo along the lines of the above Recovery deck would be a better idea.
It's reasonably easy and quick to code, about a weeks coding for something like this.
I know it's just a sit back and watch thing, but it only lasts for around 5 mins and it's easy to stick into your CV portfolio.

You could create a number of these in far less time than it would take to put even a single level of a game together.
You could have different themes, Railway/Railroad, Space, Haunted houses, etc.etc

I once thought a community project would be a good idea, maybe a sort of 3DC museum thingie with different areas for 3DC users models, I could lightmap the scenes and create a walkthu with Blitz.
Another idea was to have seperate museums, Railway,Space, Transport, even a sort of waxworks for figures.


Problems....Problems....Problems
However there are problems with all this, including the game and demo ideas.
You would need a website or somewhere where contributers could upload their models for inclusion in the Game/Demo whatever.( I don't want my e-mail inbox full of this stuff)

Contributers would also want to download the finished demo, these things can get quite large. My Morpheus files run out at around 60 megs zipped.
A railway museum could easily reach this size.

The majority of contributers wouldn't be Blitz users so I would need to create .exe files for the demo,s
Anyone wanting to see/adapt the Blitz code would need to purchase a licence for Blitz3D

Models would need to be built to some sort of scale and textures applied with lightmapping in mind.

The list goes on and on.

Anyway...I'll think about it. The Recovery deck demo is just over 7 megs zipped but thats without a .exe file.
It would be around 9 Megs with the .exe file, so maybe it's possible to do something like this.
But I would still need a host so the finished demo could be downloaded.

Bazza

Butterpaw,
I've mailed you an executable of the Recovery deck demo.
Any problems unzipping it let me know, it may be better sending this stuff using messneger.

Bazza

Hi Bazza

That's a nice long explanation... and I totally understand what you are saying... the testing would be murderous. If we could get someone interested in testing... while others are completing figures and models that would help... another idea along the lines of the Recovery deck would be cool too
Getting a host is another problem I agree with... but I may be able to sort something out here with some luck... a site to communicate for the team and download section of finished projects... if we had something like this, we could even get testers/people interested in what we are doing... that would work out nice if it happened...especialy if we gave them something really cool to test the more testers the better.

If any other guys/gals are still interested in working on a team project please let us know... it would benefit us all and we will all be learning from each other... plus it would be more fun to do something like this... great stuff can be done with an enthusiastic team.
It would also liven up the forums a bit more too!
Later

James

Hi James,
You can only really use testers when a game reaches a first beta stage.
Up to that point the only person(s) that can do the testing are the coders.

If I write some code to say give the player an on screen text message, half way through the game, the only person that can test if is working as intended would be me (or whoever wrote the code)

If I have to shoot tewnty or thirty bad guys to get to this point and I find there is a problem with the message...
I then have to re-write the code and do it all again...and again...and again.

This is why I don't do games any more. The whole thing becomes completly boring.

With a team of coders, all working together it ain't to bad, BUT the coders ALL need to be experienced in writing this stuff.

I would be prepared to have a go at a walkthu museum thingie of 3DC users models to start with, if any one is interested.
Just so users could get the hang of applying textures and building models with lightmapping in mind.

If that works I may move on to an animated demo, something along the lines of the Recovery deck demo, It could be any theme.

It's a long job, even though other people may be building the models, to bring it all together into a finished product.

Bazza

Hi Bazza

Again, I do understand about the testing, you're right.

Lets go for the museum project to start then, eh? Any type of models.. character, animal or creature...
later
James

Yes we could start that but there is still the problem of finding a host for anyone to upload/download models.
Without this the whole thing is a none starter.

The other way would be to use Messenger to swap files but this could get out of hand depending on the number of people involved.
I don't realy want to spend most of the day sending and recieving files on Messenger, I'd never get anything done.

The other point is...is anyone interested in this. Without the participants again it's a none starter.

Bazza

Not sure where to start - but start I must - I've been waiting in the wings for approval since I discovered Bazza's magic tute on Blitz 3D from way back. Since then I've bought 3DC and am almost finished the "Extruding a Scene" tute - more magic from Bazza.

I've been programming since the 70's - more recently I've managed to create some reasonably successful 2D games - you can check out my website for more info.

I'm now keen to develop my 3D skills - I've flirted with Blitz 3D, Bryce, Carrara and Poser in the past but the learning curve seemed so steep! But Bazza's tutes have enabled me to make a real start.

I have projects in mind but at this stage I'm happy to just learn. I'm certainly interested in the Museum Project idea - I may even be able to help with hosting.

Anyway ... that's enough for starters ... looking forward to spending some time here.

Peter

Hi Peter,
Pleased you liked the tuts, I'll get around to doing some more soon.
Hope you post a pic of your extruded scene, even a WIP, I'd like to see it.

I started progremming with a Speccy, can't remember now when they came out, I managed to buy one about a year ago, new, still in it's box, with loads of games...cost me £5.
I dable with Poser now and again but it's only for fun really, the poly counts on anything you create are much to high for me.

Can help to some extent with Blitz if you have the full version, I'm not that good a coder but I get by, just.
I learn what I need to know and I'm happy with that.
If your using Blitz for 3D stuff you really need a lightmapper to get the best effects.
Like you say most of this stuff has a steep learning curve but if I can manage it anyone can.

If you get stuck with anything just ask...if you get really stuck you can get me on MSN Messenger quite often.

Bazza

Hi Bazza,

Thanks for the prompt reply. As requested here's my WIP as it appears in Blitz 3D:



You'll note the absence of pipes etc but when I got to Tute 3, you'd stopped treating us like newbies so I have to go back to the Basics Tutes to learn how to do more than just extrude a cube

I'm ready to follow your path completely and have already downloaded the Gile[s] trial but, sadly, when I open my deck.x file in it I don't see any model although its name appears in the list at the side. Clearly the file is ok cos it loads into BB3D just fine. Do I have an issue cos it's the demo version?

I don't use MSN ... read too many horror stories of the security holes it opens up ... anyway, it's probably better going via the Forum so other people can see that even people with heaps of experience struggle and ask silly questions

On the other hand, I may talk to you privately further down the track about the first project I have in mind.

I would love to see the Recovery deck demo if you're prepared to e-mail it to me ... I'll PM you my e-mail address. I'm in awe of the quality of your work!

Peter

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