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Plan for David "Fulcrum" Wyand
Plan for David "Fulcrum" Wyand
| Name: | David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Sep 16, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  5.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand |
Blog post
Deconstructing Constructor - Part 2
Welcome to the second in a series of frequently infrequent talks about Torque Constructor. This is a continuation of my blog/.plan here. You may also want to read Matt's .plan here.
What is Torque Constructor
Torque Constructor is a .map (as in the .map file format) editing and .dif (the Torque interior file format) producing program being developed primarily by Matt Fairfax and myself under the direction of GarageGames. You may have seen the Development Snapshot of the Day posted back in March where the project was first announced. If you're familiar with programs like Valve's Hammer, with a smattering of traditional 3D apps such as NewTek's LightWave or Luxology's Modo, then you'll understand Constructor.
What I will NOT talk about
OK, let's get this out of the way up front. In this Deconstructing Constructor series I'll not be discussing release dates or pricing in these little talks. Some of you may jump up and down and wave your arms demanding this information, but all you'll get are funny looks. I'm the developer and not the publisher, so I cannot provide this information. I hope we'll not have to speak of this again. Please, don't make me get Pat's knife wielding monkey. :o)
Discussion: Opening Reference Shapes
There are many times when it is useful to have a reference to a game's character or vehicle shape when building your maps. I've often seen it asked in the forums just how big Torque's player is in mapping/texture units so that the artist may build a doorway. And Tim Aste has built a brush the size of a standard player to use as a reference in his Content Pack Combo #2.
But what if your player is not a standard size? And what about vehicles? Wouldn't it be great if you could just load in your DTS files directly and build your map around them? Please oh please, someone help us! :o)
Voila:
Mr. Torque Orc in from of Tim Aste's bombed out 1-story building from his Content Pack 2
Larger version
Constructor allows you to open any DTS file -- known as a Shape in Constructor -- which you may place within your scene. All of the brush transform tools (rotate, translate, etc) work with Shapes so you're free to locate them where they make sense. I should also note that you're not required to have your DTS files in a particular place for Constructor to load them.
Discussion: Texture Browser
When it comes time to organize your textures to be applied to your brushes, open up the Texture Browser.
Constructor's Texture Browser showing images under the TGEDemo album
Constructor allows you to organize your textures into albums. An album may be named whatever you'd like, and there's no restriction on the number of textures that may be within it. You are also not forced to place the textures into a particular directory for the Texture Browser to operate, and an album may contain textures from different directories.
When you click on an album name in the left list, all of the textures in that album are displayed. To change the current texture, you would select one of the textures and click on the Make Active button. Of course you may also change the current texture outside of the Texture Browser using the drop-down menus on the Materials Form.
Discussion: Lifting Textures
It is great to be able to select a texture from the Browser or from some popup menu listing a bunch of textures. But wouldn't it be handy to be able to lift a texture off of one brush, make it the current texture, and then apply it to another brush? Constructor allows you to do this directly from the Materials Form:
Lifting a texture from a brush that has multiple textures applied.
With a brush selected (or many brushes selected), clicking on the Lift popup provides a list of all textures being used by that brush. Select one of them and now it's the current texture. Select a new brush and then click on the Apply button and as you'd expect, that brush is now using that texture. Woohoo!
Discussion: Building a Cube
While cubes are not glamorous, they are often the starting point for a lot of maps. Rather than discuss what goes into making a cube, I thought I'd put together a video. Here's the highlights:
- Zoom into one view which changes the displayed grid size
- Size a cube in the orthographic and perspective views making use of the snap-to-grid
- Use the Texture Browser to select a texture and apply it to the cube
- Rescale the texture to fit the cube
- Make the cube into a permanent brush and deactivate the Cube tool
Show me the movie! (6MB)
Discussion: Building a Cylinder
A cylinder in Constructor shares many of the same parameters with the cube: position, size, texture scaling and texture offset. It also has some unique parameters: number of sides and texture wrapping.
The number of sides for a cylinder may range from 3 to any number you'd like. Want to have a cylinder with 400 sides? Go for it. There are of course some practical limitations, one being how small (width) each side is. If they become too small due to a large number of sides on a cylinder with a tiny radius, they succumb to floating-point rounding and wink out of existence, creating an invalid brush. In this case, no harm done -- you'd just have to adjust the number of sides.
Now one advantage to Constructor is that you get to see the results of your parameter changes in real time. No dragging out a bounding box and blindly typing in the number of sides here. You're able to make sure that the cylinder is perfect before committing it to the map.
The other special parameter for cylinders is texture wrapping. Here you have two options:
- Have the texture map itself to each face individually. Essentially making the uv coordinates align with the edge of each face.
- Have the texture wrap itself around the cylinder, repeating as necessary. This is like a label wrapped around a soup can.
OK, enough talk. Time for the movie! Here's the highlights:
- Create and size a cylinder in multiple views with snap-to-grid turned on
- Change the number of sides and notice the texture being mapped to each face
- Change the texture to wrap around the cylinder
- Select a different axis for the cylinder to be created along
- Make the cylinder into a permanent brush but without deselecting the tool
- Make two more cylinders
- Select all of the cylinders and move them in the scene
- Change the texture of one of the cylinders using the Texture Browser
Show me the movie! (14MB)
Until next time, enjoy!
- LightWave Dave
What is Torque Constructor
Torque Constructor is a .map (as in the .map file format) editing and .dif (the Torque interior file format) producing program being developed primarily by Matt Fairfax and myself under the direction of GarageGames. You may have seen the Development Snapshot of the Day posted back in March where the project was first announced. If you're familiar with programs like Valve's Hammer, with a smattering of traditional 3D apps such as NewTek's LightWave or Luxology's Modo, then you'll understand Constructor.
What I will NOT talk about
OK, let's get this out of the way up front. In this Deconstructing Constructor series I'll not be discussing release dates or pricing in these little talks. Some of you may jump up and down and wave your arms demanding this information, but all you'll get are funny looks. I'm the developer and not the publisher, so I cannot provide this information. I hope we'll not have to speak of this again. Please, don't make me get Pat's knife wielding monkey. :o)
Discussion: Opening Reference Shapes
There are many times when it is useful to have a reference to a game's character or vehicle shape when building your maps. I've often seen it asked in the forums just how big Torque's player is in mapping/texture units so that the artist may build a doorway. And Tim Aste has built a brush the size of a standard player to use as a reference in his Content Pack Combo #2.
But what if your player is not a standard size? And what about vehicles? Wouldn't it be great if you could just load in your DTS files directly and build your map around them? Please oh please, someone help us! :o)
Voila:
Mr. Torque Orc in from of Tim Aste's bombed out 1-story building from his Content Pack 2
Larger version
Constructor allows you to open any DTS file -- known as a Shape in Constructor -- which you may place within your scene. All of the brush transform tools (rotate, translate, etc) work with Shapes so you're free to locate them where they make sense. I should also note that you're not required to have your DTS files in a particular place for Constructor to load them.
Discussion: Texture Browser
When it comes time to organize your textures to be applied to your brushes, open up the Texture Browser.
Constructor's Texture Browser showing images under the TGEDemo album
Constructor allows you to organize your textures into albums. An album may be named whatever you'd like, and there's no restriction on the number of textures that may be within it. You are also not forced to place the textures into a particular directory for the Texture Browser to operate, and an album may contain textures from different directories.
When you click on an album name in the left list, all of the textures in that album are displayed. To change the current texture, you would select one of the textures and click on the Make Active button. Of course you may also change the current texture outside of the Texture Browser using the drop-down menus on the Materials Form.
Discussion: Lifting Textures
It is great to be able to select a texture from the Browser or from some popup menu listing a bunch of textures. But wouldn't it be handy to be able to lift a texture off of one brush, make it the current texture, and then apply it to another brush? Constructor allows you to do this directly from the Materials Form:
Lifting a texture from a brush that has multiple textures applied.
With a brush selected (or many brushes selected), clicking on the Lift popup provides a list of all textures being used by that brush. Select one of them and now it's the current texture. Select a new brush and then click on the Apply button and as you'd expect, that brush is now using that texture. Woohoo!
Discussion: Building a Cube
While cubes are not glamorous, they are often the starting point for a lot of maps. Rather than discuss what goes into making a cube, I thought I'd put together a video. Here's the highlights:
- Zoom into one view which changes the displayed grid size
- Size a cube in the orthographic and perspective views making use of the snap-to-grid
- Use the Texture Browser to select a texture and apply it to the cube
- Rescale the texture to fit the cube
- Make the cube into a permanent brush and deactivate the Cube tool
Show me the movie! (6MB)
Discussion: Building a Cylinder
A cylinder in Constructor shares many of the same parameters with the cube: position, size, texture scaling and texture offset. It also has some unique parameters: number of sides and texture wrapping.
The number of sides for a cylinder may range from 3 to any number you'd like. Want to have a cylinder with 400 sides? Go for it. There are of course some practical limitations, one being how small (width) each side is. If they become too small due to a large number of sides on a cylinder with a tiny radius, they succumb to floating-point rounding and wink out of existence, creating an invalid brush. In this case, no harm done -- you'd just have to adjust the number of sides.
Now one advantage to Constructor is that you get to see the results of your parameter changes in real time. No dragging out a bounding box and blindly typing in the number of sides here. You're able to make sure that the cylinder is perfect before committing it to the map.
The other special parameter for cylinders is texture wrapping. Here you have two options:
- Have the texture map itself to each face individually. Essentially making the uv coordinates align with the edge of each face.
- Have the texture wrap itself around the cylinder, repeating as necessary. This is like a label wrapped around a soup can.
OK, enough talk. Time for the movie! Here's the highlights:
- Create and size a cylinder in multiple views with snap-to-grid turned on
- Change the number of sides and notice the texture being mapped to each face
- Change the texture to wrap around the cylinder
- Select a different axis for the cylinder to be created along
- Make the cylinder into a permanent brush but without deselecting the tool
- Make two more cylinders
- Select all of the cylinders and move them in the scene
- Change the texture of one of the cylinders using the Texture Browser
Show me the movie! (14MB)
Until next time, enjoy!
- LightWave Dave
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 01/24/08 - Amazon EC2 Torque Test Follow Up 01/16/08 - Torque on Amazon's EC2. Need your help! 10/11/07 - Jeff Tunnel's Band LIVE 10/10/07 - Live Video Stream from IGC2007 10/02/07 - Come ride the rapids 04/06/07 - What's my blog doing under the GarageGames tab? 07/05/06 - LightWave DTS Exporter v06-07-04 Released 04/21/06 - Babies wait for no man |
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Submit your own resources!| David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:19 GMT) |
I forgot to mention that the image with the Torque Orc (Fluffy) loaded into Constructor was taken on my Inspiron 9300 at 1440x900. Hence the wide-screen ratio. Constructor lets you fit the interface to nearly any screen size. Wheee!
- LightWave Dave
| Michael Cozzolino (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:30 GMT) |
| Adrian Wright (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:34 GMT) |
| Ryan C. Seirks (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:35 GMT) |
| Jacob (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:35 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
One question: will Constructor have the ability to snap brushes together, similar to the glue command in Quark?
| Matthew Langley (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:39 GMT) |
| Kevin McMurphy (Sep 16, 2005 at 20:58 GMT) |
| Logan Foster (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:00 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Logan Foster (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:01 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Vashner (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:03 GMT) |
| Thomas Shaw (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:05 GMT) |
| Media @ KrabbitSoft Studios Inc. (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:06 GMT) |
Edited on Dec 06, 2005 17:29 GMT
| Johnny Hill (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:11 GMT) |
You can then save the whole thing and drop that into the mission editor without hand-placing those props again that would be Real Nice feature.
"My wallet buying senses are tingling"-JohnH
Edited on Sep 16, 2005 21:15 GMT
| Phil Carlisle (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:24 GMT) |
You know you have the idea of texture albums?
Wouldnt it be really good if you could have all your source textures in a treeview browser (imagine my 13 DVD set of textures across a large tree on my HD), now then you make a map and save it into my games /maps directory?
Well, what would be extra super-duper-neat is that you could add an option like "export to active dif" that copies only the textures used for the given DIF file into the folder used to load the dif? (either parent or whatever).
That means you dont have to spam extra copies of textures and such everywhere... see what I mean?
Also, if you could add an option to do that in batch mode from command line (some command line switch), so that on final production we could have constructor -clean *.dif and it would remove any unused textures from the dif's parent directories for each dif in the directory?
Those kind of game clean up utils would be extra neato :)
Of course it looks excellent too.. cant wait to use it! and I'm sure we'll use it on my game design degree :)
| Phil Carlisle (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:25 GMT) |
Can we have a cylinder path extrude? makes a cylinder that follows a path? That way we could do gas pipes and stuff easily.
| Jacob (Sep 16, 2005 at 21:47 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Edit: Like the one Phil mentioned for example.
Edited on Sep 16, 2005 21:48 GMT
| David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand (Sep 16, 2005 at 22:16 GMT) |
Currently the DTS shape loading is for reference only while within Constructor. But boy, it sure would be cool to use Constructor to place your DTS objects and then have it all come into Toruqe wouldn't it? :o)
Unfortunately Toruqe doesn't have a built-in solution for this. So either we work around it (save a .mis file fragment, use special point entities as a reference to later load DTS shapes against, etc.) or we change Torque. We'll choose a direction once we have some more core features in place.
Jacob:
As of this minute there is no brush-to-brush snapping. It is on my list of features to add, but it is unknown if it will make it for a v1.0 release.
Logan:
The boxes with '?' on them are my placeholder's for point entities -- in the case of the image above those are omni lights on the Orc tower. A point entity is represented as a DTS object in the scene, so omni lights will eventually look like light bulbs, spot lights like a stage barn door light, etc. This also opens up the possibility of having a user defined DTS object for a point entity -- see the discussion of placing DTS objects on a map above. :o)
Phil:
Certainly having Constructor automatically move a map's textures to the appropriate directory should be in place. Manually copying textures is annoying and error prone. A batch mode sounds interesting. And as everything in Constructor is done in Torque script -- from loading in a map to exporting a DIF -- I don't see why a plug-in couldn't be built to do what you're after.
Phil and Jacob Again:
There's a bunch of different tools such as duplicators that could be built. But again I don't know what we'll finally have for a v1.0 release. Fortunately all of Constructor's tools (such as the cylinder tool in the movie above) are built using the script-based plug-in system, so there's no reason why these types of tools couldn't be added at any time, or by any one. I will need to add in a nice path builder though, which is on my list.
- LightWave Dave
| Rodney (OldRod) Burns (Sep 16, 2005 at 22:29 GMT) |
One suggestion (if it's already in, sorry :)):
A couple of the more popular Quake editors had a feature where you could stretch/scale/rotate/fit to face textures on a face directly in the 3D window. Any chance of Constructor doing this?
| Jacob (Sep 16, 2005 at 23:06 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
I second Rodney's request - Quark has that feature and it has been very helpful for me :)
Edited on Sep 16, 2005 23:06 GMT
| John Rockefeller (Sep 17, 2005 at 01:55 GMT) |
| Dave D (Sep 17, 2005 at 02:23 GMT) |
| Andy Schatz (Sep 17, 2005 at 02:50 GMT) |
| Griffin Milsap (Sep 17, 2005 at 04:04 GMT) |
||| Hahahah....
Lookin good. Too bad I gave up on dif creation while using quark. Unless this is much better, I think I'll stay away from interiors for now.
-Griff
| Josh Moore (Sep 17, 2005 at 07:45 GMT) |
| Vincent BILLET (Sep 17, 2005 at 08:02 GMT) |
| Gabor Forrai (Sep 17, 2005 at 15:42 GMT) |
| Media @ KrabbitSoft Studios Inc. (Sep 17, 2005 at 16:18 GMT) |
Edited on Dec 06, 2005 17:32 GMT
| Brian Peal (Sep 18, 2005 at 05:49 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Firas (Sep 18, 2005 at 07:57 GMT) |
will you please give me a link to the codec you use?
| Peter Carter (Sep 18, 2005 at 16:59 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
1. will you be supporting the lighting pack like you did for the show tool?
2. does it save to dif or does it still use map2dif?
3. will there be any tools for debuging leaks?
4. will it have visgroups? because they can be handy for large models. plus its a easy way of applying detail brushes to selected objects
5. will it have an export options box that will have things like lightmap boarder size and light map resolution etc like cartography shops torque pipeline has in its world spawn entity?
and one idea!
1. a auto portal tool where you just select the brushes around the hole and it auto fills it with a portal.
thanks for making this program i hate quark and 3d world studio still has the floating point rounding problem which makes so many leaks. plus i love being able to change the layout to how i like it and you have made it so easy i love guys! :O)
Edited on Sep 18, 2005 17:14 GMT
| Mark Barner (Sep 19, 2005 at 01:49 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
I was wondering will the constructor only work with TGE 1.4 and above? Will it support TGE 1.3?
| James Laker (BurNinG) (Sep 19, 2005 at 06:47 GMT) |
About the texture lifting... This is in Hammer too. You just right-click on the Texture in the 3d View.
I Reaaaallly hope it's the same with Constructor... because it currently looks like you actually have to change the mode to "lift".
But then again... If it all is done in script... That should be easy to change.
| Treb Connell (formerlyMasterTreb (Sep 19, 2005 at 14:42 GMT) |
| Mark Barner (Sep 20, 2005 at 01:20 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Treb Connell (formerlyMasterTreb (Sep 25, 2005 at 23:26 GMT) |
| Ray Depew (Oct 02, 2005 at 03:09 GMT) |
Wish I could be there. Congrats to Lightwave Dave, Matt, JoshW, and the rest, on a job well done.
Regards
Ray
Edited on Oct 02, 2005 03:11 GMT
| Leadwerks (Oct 07, 2005 at 05:28 GMT) |
Quote:
hanks for making this program i hate quark and 3d world studio still has the floating point rounding problem which makes so many leaks
Could you please explain what you mean? Rounding floating points to integers will make your map LESS likely to have a leak. 3D World Studio works perfectly with map2dif.
Edited on Oct 07, 2005 05:29 GMT
| Peter Carter (Oct 07, 2005 at 08:23 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
sorry if im wrong.
| Ray Depew (Oct 07, 2005 at 12:31 GMT) |
Quote:
if garage games cant give us a date for constuctor i think they may be losing customers by the day to 3d worldstudio.
As I understand it, the whole idea behind TC was to give people an alternative to QuArK (which is free) and to the expensive ones. Most people who will buy TC are using something else right now anyway, so I don't see how they'll be "losing customers" by delaying release.
Besides, IGC'05 starts today and magical things happen at IGC.
| Peter Carter (Oct 07, 2005 at 17:47 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Constuctor will i have no doubt be the best program for making difs but i really need something solid for my new project im working on, so if 3d world studio works i have to buy it!
Edited on Oct 07, 2005 17:49 GMT
| Richard (Oct 07, 2005 at 18:02 GMT) |
Last time I looked though, 3D World Studio hadn't had the DIF functionality included (perfected); I asked their tech people about this and while you can get a hold of 3DWS, the Torque bridge is in beta.
~Richard
| Maylock DeathTwister Stansbury (Oct 10, 2005 at 14:13 GMT) |
I also have been very frustratted with all the lousy 3d programs out there for Torque and other Vid game engines. I am thinking of getting "3d world studio" untill the constructor comes out. But I have the latest download and I can't do a dang thing to see if it will meet my needs. I can't import/export or save, so it's making it a bit difficult for me to get a good idea if it's worth the 79.00 bucks to get it. I gues you just have to bite the bullet and get it and hope it will meet our needs for now.
If the release date is soon with constructor I would rather save the little duckests I have for GG. But after looking at all the posts, it's not looking like it will get released for a while. I need at least 3-4 good tools, Max, Milkshape, maybe world studio? and the Constructor. I'm an award winning 2D artist that went rougue into 3d a while ago, and software don't seem to move or learn as fast as I do.
Maylock Aromy Stansbury
| Leadwerks (Oct 13, 2005 at 02:40 GMT) |
www.leadwerks.com/forums/
I am posting a thread there to see if anyone has experienced BSP leaks.
I encourage you to continue this discussion there, or on a new thread in the GG mapping forum. I didn't want to hijack this thread, but I thought I ought to defend the reputation of my program!
Edited on Oct 13, 2005 02:50 GMT
| Chris (Oct 13, 2005 at 06:12 GMT) |
Edited on Oct 13, 2005 06:30 GMT
| Shon Gale (Oct 13, 2005 at 14:43 GMT) |
Not to get 2 far afield, but I downloaded the new 3d World Studio 5.31 and I like it very much except for one or 2 things.
I am curious why in your views you didn't do Perspective, Top/Bottom, Right/Left Front/back like in 3d studio Max and other 3d editing programs i work in? instead you use top only, Front only, side only and Perspective.
As I was looking at the demo, I noticed that the top view didn't have mapping on the ceiling side of the top, as it did in the perspective mode. You could see the pipes but not the ceiling roof.
Is that a bug? or a feature as I wasn't sure and I didn't see a butten to adjust that in your mapping editor. I saw no button that would allow 2 sided mat, or be able to look at it from underneath.
It seemed like a bug to me. Unless the demo doesn't give you that feature? It seemes to me that you would want to be able to look at all the sides as the right side of a building shale we say, may be diferent then the left side for whatever the reason, or the same goes for top to bottom, front and back.
Anyway I am curious as to why there are not more views? or am I splitting hairs?
Other then that it looks good to me, wish I could really field test it with import, export, and save to really see what it can do. Allot of Mula to pay to just find out if it really can meet your needs till the constructor comes out. And CS4 just doesn't have the features that 3dWS has. I hear 3d WS is killer though so I probably will plunk the doe down here soon and get it. Unless of course I can get on the beta testing team???? /LOL ROTFL LOLOLOL hahaha........Hay I had to ask /smiles.
Ahh haa and that goes for the Constructor as well, /wink.
Maylock A. Stansbury
ATOMIX Productions
www.theatomizer.com
maylock@theatomizer.com
maylock1@yahoo.com
| Maylock DeathTwister Stansbury (Oct 13, 2005 at 14:50 GMT) |
anyway you get the idea hehe, me bieng the modeler part of our team needs to hab his needs met as a old Ogre once told me TeHe form the old EQ days.
Maylock
| George Humphries (Nov 11, 2005 at 05:36 GMT) |
Would somebody please post an update on progress?
I know you won't post the expected release date, but it is encouraging to see the progress being made.
Thanks!
--
George
| CDK (Dec 01, 2005 at 20:54 GMT) |
| Robert C Degraffenreaidt (Dec 13, 2005 at 20:34 GMT) |
| Brian Peal (Mar 22, 2006 at 18:50 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
How about an export/import album for the textures so we can share textures with each other.
Also, I have a hard time tracking royality-free licensed textures and objects from those that require a royality payment. It would be great to have some comment fields attached to a texture so I could put the source of the texture and it's fee?
| Maylock DeathTwister Stansbury (Mar 23, 2006 at 15:50 GMT) |
We at ATOMIX have royalty-free textures. I make all my own and I also have a gas sharing them with others. You can get them at: www.theatomizer.com as well as Free Music and other models that we share from time to time. Come have some fun at our website, its of Skies to get as well for various engines and programs.
I think one of the reasons that the big C hasn't been released is all the problems that have been going on over the Light leak problem that has Plagued us since the beginning of level editors. The problem the way we see it and think it is why GG is so quiet right now about a release date is they are working on it as well. Most people are in denial of the problem, but it is there big time as we all know. QuArk, 3dws, and all the rest of the mission editors have the same problem with light leaks. We at ATOMIX are working on it somewhat as we think it has to do in part at least with the old very old format .map. That needs to be changed bad right there as it is old tech in the new engines. We believe it has something to do with when you cut/boleen hollow, or do anything to the mesh there is a fraction in the math and the math does everything to the power of 2 so there in lies the rub somehow we feel. Now again I am a artist and not a programmer myself. I come from a traditional art background to computer, not like most of you guys that have gone from computers to art so I have really been having with this as an artist I expect that kind of stuff to have been figured out so I don't have to think right???? Rolls on the floor laughing, NOT. And I always get stuff bassackwards but you get the idea. I think almost all editors have been taken form a very old open source that has been used and reused but never fixed. Thus we still have a 256 BPS limit. How dumb is that I ask myself?? and when are we going to get smart and get to the next level. This old 8 bit tech can be fixed easy enough I am thinking, but fixing the light leaks is a bit more difficult. We are maybe working on an answer for this and we do have some theory that may help. But we want to do some more thinking before we post what may be a way to fix it all. But we are not sure yet so we have decided to keep our mouths shut for the time being.
Would it be possible to take the fraction into account (When it is cut) and then just "minus 1" and that would make the fraction a overlay point and then the lines mesh would cancel out and become one kinda and no more light leaks?, naw it couldn't be that simple could it? Sorry I am just a dumb artist trying to get his needs met. Would that get around the power of 2?then you could set algorythems to 16 bit, 32 bit and 64 bit from 8 bit tech right? or am I just a idiot? Hay don't answer that part ok? /smiles........anyway I am probably not saying any of this in a way that anyone understands as that is part of my bane in life, but maybe someone understands what I am talking about and can figure it out I hope. We sure need that fix. I say all these things not to cause trouble but as an artist there is a way to Critique art and grow from the experience. I am hoping we can do that here as artists of different types and craftsmen. Agree?
We think that GG and the Constructor crew are also aware of all this and are working on it and that is one of the reasons they are so tight lipped about things right now as it is a very huge problem with the way things are now.
Frankly we need a new formate to work with and get ride of .map all together. Why can't .dif hold all that the .map file does? I have noticed that it looks like all the LOD is done with the .map file not the .dif. But again I am an artist who don't know his you know what from a you know what on some things that I see going on, but it don't work good the way things stand now and you can hear the complaining about it all over the forums in just about every software progam out there if you listen.
I hope GG is listening as well. A good example is go to 3dws's website and check out all the post there and you can see what I mean. It is time to get the revolution going to get all the way over to 64 bit tech in my humble opinion. And I am betting the GG/and the Constructor crew are on that same track and that is why they ain't talking as this would be huge if the fix gets done. /chuckles I am both liked and disliked in some places, and loved in others, depending how good the software is /chuckles.......
The Vizard aka DeathTwister and your ever loving Maylock
| David \"Fulcrum\" Wyand (Mar 23, 2006 at 20:20 GMT) |
Maylock,
No, that's not the reason that Constructor has not yet been released. It is because it takes a long time to put together a major piece of software when you're only working on it part-time. So sorry, you lose the bet. :o)
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by the DIF format not holding everything that a MAP file does. You don't need to keep the MAP files around for your game -- they're not even used directly by Torque.
- LightWave Dave
| Maylock DeathTwister Stansbury (Mar 25, 2006 at 14:31 GMT) |
well guy ROTFL sorry to hear you are just working part time on it, as the industry needs it pretty bad I am thinking, but I do understand. /smiles we are all very busy with projects so I am sure it will get done in time.
OK about the .dif format. Sorry I am a artist and get my programmer concepts confused a bit sometimes when trying to explain something. what I meant was: example would be say 3dws to Torque, or more exactly map2dif. It should be just be "program2dif". We are using a buggy intermediary there I think. At least that is the way it seems to me.
I would suppose that Constructor will not have any map2dif but just go strait to .dif right? No more .map conversions at all like we are having to use now?
I think at the least there is some of the lighting trouble we are having and maybe some of the light leaks as well. Mainly I think the light leak trouble comes from the mission editors themselves that are out there so I am hoping the big C will over come some of those very badly needed updated math problems when it really does come out. Untill then I will use 3dws for buildings as even though it has bugs I still think it is the best one so far that is trying to get it right in most areas. QuArks frankly sucks in my opinion. Sorry for my French there......./tongue in cheek.
Question does the map2dif conversion keep/transfer over the lod in the dif or the .map file as it does not seem to work well with just the .dif for me. although I haven't checked that lately it was a problem a while back I think?
I understand that Torque wants to keep the .dif format proprietary for control. But if say 3dws could export out strait to .dif and bypass the .map conversion all together we would all sleep better at night. But then 3dws would probably have to have some kinda deal with GG to license the exporter or get a cut of 3dws for having it in their editor, maybe not I am just speculating there though, but that could be in part some of the trouble the industry is having. The indie part of the industry anyway. Please bear with me I am still learning this industry. I am an award winning 2d artist that converted 2 3D, and I see this all a bit differently then I think you guys do.
Oh my God what a hoot it would be to be able to build something perfect for a change like I can on canvass, or in 3d max or one of the big boys programs and not have all the export trouble we are always facing. If you find the time bro go to our web site www.theatomizer.com and go see some of my 2D paintings and 3d stuff. I find it a great pleasure to be able to talk and share ideas and I thank you for that very much, you da Man /smiles.
It is nice when GG has the time getting back and chatting a bit with people. Check out that stuff about light leaks as well if you get a chance I am sure you may agree there, maybe what makes this world wonderful, is The fact we can share ideas with each other around the world.
TheVizard, aka Maylock Stansbury & DeathTwister
| Maylock DeathTwister Stansbury (Mar 25, 2006 at 14:37 GMT) |
Oh I forgot, to mention when I come up your way since I lost the bet, /wry smile..... Lunch will be on me as I need to come GG's way in the next 2 months or so anyway. I want to stop by and say hi, so I don't mind loosing the bet. /chuckles. Looking forward to meeting all you guys that I can when I come up.
Maylock aka DeathTwister
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