Game Development Community

Houdini HD with TourqueX

by JohnT · in Torque X 2D · 06/20/2008 (7:52 am) · 6 replies

Just wondering if anyone has played around with Houdini, I am considering using it to create our characters and animations since Blender is such a pain. For $99 having a DTS exporter built in would sure be a nice change of pace but since TorqueX 3D is still in development I'm leery of it working at this time.
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Associate John Kanalakis
EnvyGames
#1
06/20/2008 (9:37 am)
I have just bought it and am starting to do some testing. As you may/may not be aware, some DTS models are NOT compatible with Torque X. I'm planning to find out if the DTS models that Houdini produces are compatible or not. Hopefully, I'll have an answer to this this weekend.

John K.

Torque 3D Owner JohnT
#2
06/20/2008 (9:54 am)
Out of curiosity, are LOD's active for TorqueX yet? If so, any chance you could check it and see if Houdini handles them as well?

Thanks,

Torque 3D Owner Will O-Reagan
Modern Intrigues
#3
06/20/2008 (9:55 am)
I bought my license for it yesterday.. I'm assuming it will work, but you are right john, to what extent is an interesting question.. Please keep us updated.
Will

Associate John Kanalakis
EnvyGames
#4
06/20/2008 (10:46 am)
Unfortunately, LODs are not coded into the Torque X Engine. I think that should be a really high priority and I might be able to tackle it in a couple months (top priority is getting 3D Builder out the door). The problem is that there are a few different versions of the DTS model format that are related to how the skinned mesh is setup. I've found that many of the content packs on the GarageGames have models that are not compatible with Torque X. A few months ago, I started digging into this and going through a side-by-side code inspection between the shape loader code in Torque X and TGEA. I just need to continue that process (which should also help to get the LOD support added)

John K.

Torque Owner David Everhart
#5
06/21/2008 (11:10 pm)
I seemed to have problems with the 3DRT skeleton swarm pack. I was able to use the code you had john to load a simple watercooler, but the skeleton .DTS just wont load into TorqueX. I get a nodeindex error :(

Torque Owner Sangwoo Hong
#6
08/05/2008 (4:24 pm)
>>Unfortunately, LODs are not coded into the Torque X Engine. I think that should be a really high priority and
>>I might be able to tackle it in a couple months (top priority is getting 3D Builder out the door).

Yeah, lack of LOD is a big bummer. I'm digging through the RobotGame example from the creators website and have done some performance stress testing with it. Frame rates are acceptable without LOD in single player games but they take a big hit when I use the same level geometry in a four player split screen multiplayer games, especially on 360 which is under powered compared to most PCs with half decent video cards now. I was hoping Torque X will have LOD so I'll have some more flexibility with the amount of geometry in the level...