Varium Info

[randall]

[James S]

[John Lomax]

[sponge]

[John Lomax]

For maps and level stuff yeh, but for your character work then your going to need to author in one of the big 3d packages. Something with stong animation tools is a bonus.

One example is with ut2003 you get a copy of maya personal learning edition (which is free anyway) and a copy of an exporter direct to the unreal engine.

Press release here:

http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/press/ ... 830a.shtml

- John

[sponge]

Even with such low poly characters (in the case of Varium) high-end 3D apps would be wanted? Though for animation, it's a must.

Saw that about UT2K3, pretty cool, but in my opinion, severly limiting what can be done by users, as in the experience required to get in. But on the other hand, what we get out will be a lot better.

The Doom III alpha has some Maya importing tools, but.. uh.. I didn't say anything

[John Lomax]

Yeh, I would imagine so. Just looking at what randall has done so far, and that he's used character studio, then yeh id say for character and animation work you will need to create these via some form of highend 3d app.

It does limit somewhat the amount of people that can do this sort of thing.

Oh, almost forgot. If your after a freeware 3d modeller, one of the best is wings3d. Its very easy to use and quite powefull. Its also opensource if I remember right.

http://www.wings3d.com

- John

[sponge]

I'm surprised that for a game which the entire scene consists of 200-300 polies would need such a complex program.

This Wings 3D looks pretty cool, I'll have to check that out (I've played with modelling, never anything real or finished)

Blender should be interesting, once someone gets a decent UI on there.

[Dan East]

Creating animation sequences that apply to 3d models with a bone structure can be extremely difficult. Software like 3dsmax's Character Animator are specifically designed for that task, and provide many advanced tools such as applying physics, weights and center of balance to the animation sequences.

We have our own formats for maps and models, so the creation of converters to allow importing new formats is a totally external process and has nothing to do with the engine itself.

Regarding the MAP format, that is something I have looked into in detail, and I would definitely like to support that format in the future. At the moment we are going with what works, and we have a system in place that Randall can be very productive with, so we are moving on with other things. The issue with the MAP format is that it does not contain polys like we require, but it describes planes that when merged describe a convex volume. That then has to be converted into a polygon soup for us to work with.

Now about the BSP trees. I have coded a true BSP tree and used it with the engine, but have found that it is not the ideal organizational structure for our current usage. Generally BSP trees work best with maps that contain perpendicular structures (walls) that block visibility; ie your typical Quake, Half Life, Doom, etc, type of FPS indoor levels. The planes of the polygons are used for subdivision during the creation of the BSP tree. Also with typical FPS levels a much greater amount of precalculation can be done, such as determining all the polys visible from a certain BSP branch, and portals between different branches. In our case there are few such polys whose planes make good candidates for organizing polys. Also we end up splitting polys, etc. So currently we are using more of a block based hybrid tree.

Dan East

[sponge]

Ah, so the engine's model/character features are more advanced than traditional frame-based animation? If so, then very cool, and gives good reason for one to use higher end tools as opposed to exporting frames, where you could use almost any program. I'm not familiar with Character Animator, so I may be off with the engine's abilities, and how it pertains to Char. Animator.

Surprising that a real BSP tree won't work with Varium, as it has been shown that it can be used in maps with large non-perpendicular, open areas, ie the outdoor maps in Q3:Team Arena, and various other Quake maps, though I suppose for a game in which the view is mainly overhead, your hybrid tree system would work better.

With the newer, and more advanced PC games, I wonder if BSP trees will be used less and less.

So what tools are being used for map creation? I assume 3DSMax and others in that area, with some custom plugins/compilers?

By the way, checked out Wings 3D, looks like a good program if you want to play around with getting some stuff down. I don't see it being used too much as a serious modeller, more like a sketching tool than anything.

[(TSC)Bender]

The characters makes use of a skeletal system? Cool.

Basically, instead of creating each frame of the characters movement for an animation, Character Animator applies a structure of "bones" to an object, so that animations can be made without drawing every frame from scratch. This makes them move realistically, like Dan explains

[sponge]

I know how bone models work, just wasn't sure if they're still using frame-based modelling, but using char animator to make it more realistic, or actually having a bone structure system.

[randall]

[randall]

[TechMage]

Would it be possible to create a fantasy based mod for Varium? Like for instance, make the characters elves, knights, skeletons, ect, and also modify the weapons to be crossbows, darts, and other medieval weaponry? That would be really cool.