AM as a 3d world editor

[cathryn]

I'm working on a 'new' 3d engine using Animation master as a base, and I'm trying to figure out how to do a few things.

 

1. I'm playing around with using the choeographer as a level editor. Actually this looks like it's going to work pretty good already. The .cho file has a lot of stuff in it, but for just doing level design I think I figured out what I need. I already have code here to draw the .ply files, but my next project is to try to integrate world editing into animation master also.

 

2. It would be super-handy if I could attach different notes to each of the models in a choeography. Then I could specify commands or options for each character I'm placing that my processing code would read down the line. I guess there's only notes for the entire choreography. I guess this is kind of a 'feature request. For example I'd like to drop 'Josh' into a choreography and in the notes specify commands to determine what kind of AI or scripting he uses. Or maybe I'll just use the names and link those to code somehow. Hmm.

 

3. The choreography actually is comprehensible to me -- I'm the programmer not the artist, and I have figured out how to do basic stuff here. (This is unlike the modeling which is completely impenetrable to me.)

 

4. Somehow I need to assign collision polygons and spheres to models. This is because I con't want to scan the entire geometry to do collision detection. Ideally the artist maybe could do this from inside the modeling? I have an idea of maybe making a 'collision.jpg' texture and everything the artist draws with that would be used for collision detection and not rendered. I'm posting this maybe to see if anyone else has another idea for this. I might just make a utility for this.

 

5. I have a idea to maybe deipher the 'path stuff' so I could use these featuress to do 'in game movement' -- though maybe this is for a slightly later phase. Right now I'm just going to go with canned '.mot' and spheres and polys for collisions.

[zandoriastudios]

What if you have a collision object that your engine checks for, and you use an action to constrain instances of it to the appropriate parts of a model usin it as an "action object"?

If you can't put the notes in the file with each character, maybe you could use a naming convention for the characters that would tell your engine what AI to use.

 

It sounds like a very worthwhile idea! keep us updated on your progress! Let me know if you need any help with models to test in it.

[Rodney]

2. It would be super-handy if I could attach different notes to each of the models in a choeography. Then I could specify commands or options for each character I'm placing that my processing code would read down the line. I guess there's only notes for the entire choreography. I guess this is kind of a 'feature request. For example I'd like to drop 'Josh' into a choreography and in the notes specify commands to determine what kind of AI or scripting he uses. Or maybe I'll just use the names and link those to code somehow.

 

You can add (and even attach) notes to model, action, choreography and project files. That's good new right?

 

It may not be quite the way you want to get it done though.

 

I suspect the best way would be to use the File Info container in each of the above listed A:M resources to add what you need in either the notes or description fields. This would give you access to that text if using the text based files in your world editor.

 

You *can* also use the URL field of the File Info container to link to html pages but that probably isn't quite what you are after.

 

Lots of potential exists in the File Info container.

 

-Rodney

 

P.S. I really like Will's idea of creating specific objects in a file that could be used by the engine to run specific commands/options. Very good idea.

[cathryn]

Thanks for the replies guys. I think for now I'll be fine setting unique names for each object and then putting in commands in the notes for the choreography. It really will only be an issue when levels get big with lots of stuff and creatures, but that's a ways off anyway. I agree it's a good idea making 'AI objects' and plopping them 'near' the enemies so that during the level build the game could fish around and get instructions somehow. I've done that in 2d games, where I've placed 'behavior tiles' next to the creatures, and this makes sense for 3d also.

[KenH]

This is great news. Please keep us updated!

[starwarsguy]

This would be so cool if it turns out good!