Cal3D : Talk Show.
by Luke Jones · in Torque Game Engine · 11/20/2003 (12:08 pm) · 2 replies
Well, after stumbling across Joshua's plan where he has a yarn about Cal3D, i was inspired to take a look at the format.
cal3d.sourceforge.net/
Tutorial
FAQ
Quite impressive!
So the point of this thread, is to blag about replacing DTS/DSQ with Cal3d.
Can it be done? (yes, of course, but not without a bit of hard honest work, right?)
The good, the bad, the ugly... of both formats (bang!)
What benefits would be gained?
Would it break any existing code? (such as hitbox and node hide resource)
How compatible is it with the engine?
Can it be used for statics and such, not just characters.
And vehicles?
Im hopeing the links i provided will have enough info for everyone, if not, feel free to make me run around like a lackey or add some more.
cal3d.sourceforge.net/
Tutorial
FAQ
Quite impressive!
So the point of this thread, is to blag about replacing DTS/DSQ with Cal3d.
Can it be done? (yes, of course, but not without a bit of hard honest work, right?)
The good, the bad, the ugly... of both formats (bang!)
What benefits would be gained?
Would it break any existing code? (such as hitbox and node hide resource)
How compatible is it with the engine?
Can it be used for statics and such, not just characters.
And vehicles?
Im hopeing the links i provided will have enough info for everyone, if not, feel free to make me run around like a lackey or add some more.
About the author
Core developer using Rust lang at Sphere Identity.
#2
Trying to sort throught the code and figure out what does what is a bitch, someone needs to devl into ts and give it a make over.
At least thats what it seems like to me, I wouldnt mind adding to dts (instead of replacing), if only it were easier to do.
11/21/2003 (4:55 pm)
I do like the dts, its just a bitch to do anything with, from the artist pipeline point of view to programmers. (im not that good)Trying to sort throught the code and figure out what does what is a bitch, someone needs to devl into ts and give it a make over.
At least thats what it seems like to me, I wouldnt mind adding to dts (instead of replacing), if only it were easier to do.
Associate James Urquhart
Anything can be done. Its just that sometimes doing things is seemingly impossible or too complicated or not worthwhile to do.
In my opinion, it would be much better to improve on the current DTS format, write a converter for cal3d -> dts, etc, rather than rewriting the Shape code to support Cal3d.
As long as you did it right, you would not break any code. So more than likely, you will break code in doing this.
From what i have seen of the cal format, it does not appear to support things the Torque DTS format supports - e.g Mesh sorting, Triangle Strips, Any animation apart from skeletal animation.
A resource that definatly wouldn't work is the node hide resource. Cal doesn't seem to support whole meshes just being stuck to a bone.
So to conclude, i would rather prefer for DTS not be be replaced. It would be much better improving, or possibly rewriting it (So it still supports the current DTS features of course).