Torque 3D Show Off Thread!

#41 finally some good water effects and normal map terrain. Does this mean we can expect relief maps next? :P

#42 No.

#43 That's too bad, but I'm sure with some small HLSL mods, someone could easily create such resource. At least i can see Parallax maps option in play. BTW the bubble effects looks very cartoony compare to the rest of the scene (when you shoot in the water), but still cool.

*edit
Yes Parallax maps are good enough! :) Looks amazing!

I think the upgrade with normals and parallax map are huge! and yes you very much right. It would kill the engine to have relief maps on terrain. I dont believe many games even go beyond normal maps on terrain.

#44 MY GOD! READ THE THREAD! TOM WENT BALLISTIC! WITH SHOTS! THERE KICKASS!

#45 One thing would be nice, is Relief maps on Roads. Parallax maps would be fine, but relief would be even better.

#46 The terrain looks awesome!

#47 the terrain does look awesome this is one of the reasons why I purchase T3D.

thank you

#48 Nice terrain indeed!

Still nothing shiny from me, but Beta 3 will have a hudless screenshot mode so you guys can take better looking screenshots :D

#49 Great screen shots showing the difference with (Detail Texture) vs. (Detail Texture + Normal Map) vs. (Detail Texture + Normal Map + Parallax) vs. (Detail Texture + Normal Map + Parallax, using the real detail texture)

#50 ProTip - Use tree() in the console to find, edit, and delete anything including pesky HUD elements.

#51 That a super ProTip Tom!

#52

More screenshots soon :)

#53 Exporting Interiors to Collada - coming soon to a Beta 3 near you!

#54 @Matt: can it export zone/portals too? (generating new zone/portal objects on export) so we can have net-optimization while using collada :)

#55 Fyodor,
Not as of yet. That is definitely something I am interested into looking at after I finish a couple more of the big things on my task list.

#56 Exporting Interiors to Collada, now that's awesome!

:D

#57 Can you please explain what's the point of this? Why would anyone want to export something that was just imported if the shape cannot be modified inside the Editor? Can't we just import the same file we just exported?
I think Portals/Zones should've been a higher priority than this. :(

#58 A lot of Torque users are using DIF files and having an easy route to export them out to collada so they can be reimported and worked on from another program is actually a very nice addition. I am sure a lot of work is kind of "stuck" in constructor and being able to move it out is going to be nice. While the portal/zones/occlusion stuff is going to be needed, it is a good step.

#59 Sorin: Portals/Zones are going to be included in T3D Beta 3 (as far as I know and hope!) and my question was about "Exporting zones/portals from interiors into simobjects" and not realted about having "zone" and "portal" objects in T3D.

And why you need this?
For some artists it easier to make a building in hammer/c-shop/constructor, than convert it to 3DS/Collada -> edit in your 3d-editing software (adding details, etc) and import back into Torque.
Or having ability to convert old interior for same - adding details in 3dsmax or other software.
I think this "DIF->Collada" is the one of the most excited things I know is being worked on. Would love to convert some of our interiors to Collada.
Great stuff GG and all who work on T3D! Keep it up!

#60 Sorin,
Interiors/DIFs can only be created in a custom CSG editor like Constructor, Hammer, or Quark and must be built out of closed, convex, volumes which is extremely limiting for most modern game development.

There currently isn't a good way to move your Interior/DIF geometry from one of the CSG editors into a more general 3D modeling application like 3D Studio Max, Maya, XSI, Houdini, Blender, Gamespace, Milkshape, etc. There are a few applications/plugins that attempt to help with this conversion (usually converting from a .map format) but most, if not all of them will lose your texturing info along the way and will also leave you with a mesh that you have to spend a lot of time optimizing (like removing hidden surfaces).

The Interiors->Collada export allows you to take an optimized version of the Interior (which is what gets generated during the Constructor and/or map2dif exporting process) and output that with all of the correct texturing info into a Collada file that you can import into pretty much all 3D modeling applications.

This will allow you to use that mesh as a general polysoup shape and to take full advantage of curves, higher polycounts, and non-convex, non-volumetric shapes.

When combined with the Portal and Zone level objects that will ship with Beta 3, this means that you can effectively move completely away from CSG geometry. For now those Portal and Zone objects will have to be hand placed by the artist in the World Editor to match the set up that was in the Interior file. At some point it may be possible to automate that part.