J3DE Toolbar
Progress is still flying along on the Editor. I added in shortcut keys today, so you can quickly jump between commonly used objects. I also did a few more models, one being the spikes (a prominent part of the Jumper games).
I ran into a little problem: objects with equal depth values were displaying strangely, because when this happens, the object hierarchy is used to determine which to draw on top. This gave some really ugly results in 3D, but I managed to fix it by synchronising the object hierarchy every time you rotate the view position. What happens is the objects place in the hierarchy is based on its distance from the camera, so objects that are closer to the camera are given first priority in the draw list. So you might get some choppy-looking edges and stuff while rotating the view, but as soon as you release the button, everything syncs up tightly.
Here's a shot of the Editor currently; I included the Toolbar in there this time so you can get an idea of what you'll be looking at while creating stages.
Click for full size.
Also, the spike models each contain 12 triangles, so I was wondering how these would have an effect on the speed of the game when placed in abundance. I ran a few speed tests to try it out...
With a room full of spikes (and no behind-camera or distance cutoff), I could run around at about 215 FPS. With cutoff, I could probably fare well around 400. But, just to test, I tried using a GM function that allows me to draw cones and using that for the spikes instead. I drew 8-sided cones first, which is 32 triangles for each spike object. Running the exact same room, I maxxed out at about 92 FPS. I tried using 4-sided cones (so 12 triangles, like my original models), but could still only get it to max around 112 FPS. So drawing 4-sided triangles is faster than drawing 4-step cones with GML. You learn something every day!
More later / tomorrow.
READ MORE . . .
I ran into a little problem: objects with equal depth values were displaying strangely, because when this happens, the object hierarchy is used to determine which to draw on top. This gave some really ugly results in 3D, but I managed to fix it by synchronising the object hierarchy every time you rotate the view position. What happens is the objects place in the hierarchy is based on its distance from the camera, so objects that are closer to the camera are given first priority in the draw list. So you might get some choppy-looking edges and stuff while rotating the view, but as soon as you release the button, everything syncs up tightly.
Here's a shot of the Editor currently; I included the Toolbar in there this time so you can get an idea of what you'll be looking at while creating stages.
Click for full size.
Also, the spike models each contain 12 triangles, so I was wondering how these would have an effect on the speed of the game when placed in abundance. I ran a few speed tests to try it out...
With a room full of spikes (and no behind-camera or distance cutoff), I could run around at about 215 FPS. With cutoff, I could probably fare well around 400. But, just to test, I tried using a GM function that allows me to draw cones and using that for the spikes instead. I drew 8-sided cones first, which is 32 triangles for each spike object. Running the exact same room, I maxxed out at about 92 FPS. I tried using 4-sided cones (so 12 triangles, like my original models), but could still only get it to max around 112 FPS. So drawing 4-sided triangles is faster than drawing 4-step cones with GML. You learn something every day!
More later / tomorrow.
READ MORE . . .
Posted by ChevyRay at 6:22 PM.
2 Comments
