Cash for developing/fixing/deploying SM3

[Forboding Angel]

So was there ever a consensus or resolution to this?

SM3 is apparently a completely dead end from what I can tell, so what other options do we have?

This sucks :-/

[Neddie]

Well, we could get the mappers together and see what we want, I suppose, then figure out what that entails.

[BaNa]

Hell I guess I could chip in with a hundred bucks or so.

The two things that I'd like to see in a new mapping format (i heard these where more or less implemented in sm3):

- Some way to correctly display near-vertical or vertical surfaces

- The use of multiple detail textures on a map, the places they appear, the opacity and whatnot defined by the mapper in some kind of typemap.

[Zpock]

Why not a new format?
With skeleton animations and some more features which game developer wants.

Now if only someone would set up a bounty for skeletal animation as well. I'm even considering giving it a try myself altough I certainly lack the know-how. It would open up literally whole new worlds for modders.

[Argh]

Meh. I've figured it out, Zpock, I just don't know how to implement it yet.

What we need is not skeletal animation, per se. Instead, we need to have an automated tool that builds display lists that interpolate between two Pieces (with identical numbers of triangles and vertex numbers, of course). Then, for stuff like a soldier... the entire body's just a series of Pieces that are interpolated between, like in most FPS games, where if you watch, it's quite clear that the models aren't responding to user inputs other than heading and state (walking, jumping, etc.).

Then all we need is a timing loop to display them. So you'd run a Lua command that would do like this:

while GameFrameNow < GameFrameNow+1 do
InterpolationFrame = InterpolationFrame + 1
if InterpolationFrame > 8 then InterpolationFrame = 8
DrawList(UnitPosition,InterpolationFrame)
end

And BOS would tell Lua that it was now supposed to be interpolating between Piece A and B, or B and E, or whatever's appropriate right now.

But it'd really have to build the display lists for this and store them in memory ahead of time, probably at gamestart, short of having a new model format that would store this in the model.

Interpolating on the fly would be incredibly CPU heavy, I suspect, while storing say, 2-4 interpolation positions to smoothly transition movement over a frame (more for really big things, of course) would be pretty trivial, I'd think, and grabbing them from a list would be pretty fast, I'd think, compared to recalculating them. I haven't read the Quake source, but I strongly suspect that's what they're doing.

Hell, if somebody would just fix the problem with Spring where you cannot hide/show stuff without there being a brief-but-visible "blink" period where it's obvious there's nothing there, I'd just do it that way, with a lot of stuff. It doesn't work, though- you have to show the piece before you hide the other one, and I can only get away with that on tank treads, where it's not obvious

It's not like it's a super-giant problem, with small stuff at a distance, but any method that would allow me to just get past that minor visual glitch, and I'd have IK-animated stuff in Spring this week, frankly- I've already written a lot of the BOS stuff to support this, etc., so it's not a big deal.

[Hoi]

Meh. I've figured it out, Zpock, I just don't know how to implement it yet.

What we need is not skeletal animation, per se. Instead, we need to have an automated tool that builds display lists that interpolate between two Pieces (with identical numbers of triangles and vertex numbers, of course). Then, for stuff like a soldier... the entire body's just a series of Pieces that are interpolated between, like in most FPS games, where if you watch, it's quite clear that the models aren't responding to user inputs other than heading and state (walking, jumping, etc.).

Then all we need is a timing loop to display them. So you'd run a Lua command that would do like this:

while GameFrameNow < GameFrameNow+1 do
InterpolationFrame = InterpolationFrame + 1
if InterpolationFrame > 8 then InterpolationFrame = 8
DrawList(UnitPosition,InterpolationFrame)
end

And BOS would tell Lua that it was now supposed to be interpolating between Piece A and B, or B and E, or whatever's appropriate right now.

But it'd really have to build the display lists for this and store them in memory ahead of time, probably at gamestart, short of having a new model format that would store this in the model.

Interpolating on the fly would be incredibly CPU heavy, I suspect, while storing say, 2-4 interpolation positions to smoothly transition movement over a frame (more for really big things, of course) would be pretty trivial, I'd think, and grabbing them from a list would be pretty fast, I'd think, compared to recalculating them. I haven't read the Quake source, but I strongly suspect that's what they're doing.

Hell, if somebody would just fix the problem with Spring where you cannot hide/show stuff without there being a brief-but-visible "blink" period where it's obvious there's nothing there, I'd just do it that way, with a lot of stuff. It doesn't work, though- you have to show the piece before you hide the other one, and I can only get away with that on tank treads, where it's not obvious

It's not like it's a super-giant problem, with small stuff at a distance, but any method that would allow me to just get past that minor visual glitch, and I'd have IK-animated stuff in Spring this week, frankly- I've already written a lot of the BOS stuff to support this, etc., so it's not a big deal.

wait, wait, are you saying that lua will be needed for animating?!

[Zpock]

I thought all you had to do was move vertices around after the bones according to weights, in the vertex shader. It could be done in LUA, or some engine implementation. Maybe should make an own thread for it tough.

[pharoph]

for a moment there i thought SM# stood for speed metal 3. AHHHH!

[Kloot]

For skeletal animation, here's one approach I've been toying with:




Note: no guarantee I'll ever finish this is implied. (trepan's new Lua
unit scripting system might allow for more flexibility, fex. implementing
on-the-fly IK versus MD5's prerecorded animations, which are harder to
stitch into chains, regulate, etc).

[Zpock]

trepan's new Lua unit scripting
system might allow for more flexibility, ex. implementing on-the-fly IK

Wow, sounds amazing! Can u tell more about this?

[Argh]

Wow. Nice work there, Kloot.

[Wolf-In-Exile]

Kloot, those are dreamlike.. filled with capital A for Awesome with an Awesomesauce-filled centre.

[Warlord Zsinj]

If I got skeletal animation for spring... I'd have to sacrifice a million kitties

[smoth]

WAAAAAAAAAAAR KITTENS!?!?

[BaNa]

We need this, I would be willing to offer some cash too. I will write up a more formal request sometime

[jcnossen]

Someone named Mikosz is actually looking at writing a new map system as a master thesis project. He told me his adviser had accepted the idea, so he could be working on it right now. That's all I know.

[smoth]

WOW that would be cool, lucky guy, I hope he gets to have fun with it.

[CarRepairer]

Lucky us.

[smoth]

well doing something like that for college credit is a lot of fun. I really hope he enjoys it.

[SpikedHelmet]

I'd be willing to donate to some sort of cash thing for skeletal models. That's biggest on my list of needs atm.