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I'm looking to write a bit of software that will end up drawing a human frame (which can be configured with various parameters), and the plan is to have some sort of clothing placed on the dummy.
I've looked at Blender, and OpenGL libraries as well as other rendering and physics engines, I'm not looking for you to tell me how to do this, but mainly I'm wondering what libraries are out there to do this sort of thing?
So there'll be a pattern for the clothing in 2d, then the system, (at least in theory) will be able to translate that in to a 3d representation of a shirt for example? And then place that on the human frame. I know there's a lot of work I need to do for this, however in terms of rendering the clothing on to the frame, and accounting for collisions and how it drops around the frame etc, I've been googling, and have found a few bits, but was wondering if there were C++ libraries out there that would do that.
I'm developing using Visual C++ 2010, and the target environment is a Windows box.
Either that, or i'm going to need to take some physics lessons.
Unfortunately, developing a system like the one your talking about would be insanely difficult. On the plus side, there are alot of easy to use technologies that will help you attain your goal hopefully.
Generally, the way that this type of thing works is as follows: You make some 3d asset in a modeling program such as Blender, 3ds max, Maya, Softimage, etc, and then use this in your program/game. You can think of these programs as just spitting out a bunch of 3d coordinates, which your program, with the help of OpenGL or DirectX can load into memory and render.
Modeling and loading assets is of course the alternative to developing algorithms to generate points. This is what it seems like your trying to accomplish.
The bad news is that clothing is really really complicated. A big part of this is due to the fact that most of it requires simulating cloth dynamics. Another part of the problem is that even if you had a 2d pattern, how would you the manner in which the clothing would adhere to your human model? Is it skin tight? Loose? How will you parameterize that? The placement of the actual clothing on the body is a chore in and of itself as anyone with experience in 3d modeling might tell you.
Nevertheless, some of the industry's brightest professionals are looking for both better ways to simulate cloth, and better ways to automate asset creation.
In summation, the easy answer is that what your trying to do, as interesting and noble as it may be, is going to be extremely difficult and may not have the result your looking for.
As for where you can go for more answers:
If your still intersted in finding a way to automate clothing attatchment to models, I would start by looking around academic websites. Look for any computer science departments which have computer graphics research programs. You will find alot of interesting things there.
For more academic type resources look at Game Programming Gems, GPU Programming Gems, and Graphics Programming Gems book series. They feature many good articles that tackle difficult graphics problems such as these.
Another thing you might do is check out blender a little more. There is an interesting project called MakeHuman
http://makehuman.blogspot.com/
That automates the process of developing human models in blender.
There are a couple of tutorials for putting clothing on the models, take a look at this one:
http://www.davidjarvis.ca/blender/tutorial-05.shtml
For more tutorials on clothing and cloth simulation in blender, you can always check out
www.blendercookie.com
cg.tutsplus.com
I hope some of this has been useful.
From what I remember, cloth is simulated as a mesh of springs which suggests physics libraries for the simulation along with an understanding of the physics of springs/cloth. I've not heard of a physics library tailored to cloth simulation though, but no doubt someone on this site will know of one.
It's answer about cloth simulation itself. (maybe it is not you're intersing in)
If you want to model cloth simulation by some vendors middleware - you can try to use
Havok(it's commercial). It seems to me, that is supports any collision objects, represented by a triangle mesh.
PhysX (it's free), but when you will try to use it there is a lot of constraints on it).
If you want to model cloth physics by you hands I can advise to you this steps:
Refresh base knowledge about physics (Interia, Energy, Newton's law.)
Good start point fo cloth simulation and also physics simulation is that book
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Physics-Pearls-Gino-Bergen/dp/1568814747
Read articles from Siggraph about clothes.
Think about which collision objects do you need
Think about what forces do you need.
Split this challenge to
Broad Phase / Integration / Collision Detection / Collision Response / Constrain Solver
I have developed cloth physics simulation in C++, OpenCL.
It takes me about 4 months to develop, and about 2 months to Debug stage5.
But it was very hot-time in my life, the job has consumed huge amount of time.
except the part that you want to change the dummy while application is running what you want is more or less the example of game engines like Esenthel Engine. the whole idea is to load a mesh for the body and then put a "cloth" (cloth is already defined in most game engines as physical type) on it. but when it come to runtime changes in human frame it becomes a little more tricky since you have to know how you are going to affect the parrameters which is not easy of organic shapes.
Free Game engine to use these days is Unity 3d ... as well it all depends in the detail and as well Maya and 3ds Max are the best of the modeling programs.
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I never got to take a computer graphics course in university, but I want to have a thorough understanding of everything you'd learn in that course. I figure the best way to learn is through practice (programming).
If I were to start an OpenGL program from scratch, and slowly build it up to add new features to understand all of the concepts, what would I cover? And what would be a good project to demonstrate this?
I'm the author of a series of tutorial on the subject :
http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/
Regarding your question on the concepts you'll learn, the table of contents can give you a good idea :
Basic OpenGL
Tutorial 1 : Opening a window
Tutorial 2 : The first triangle
Tutorial 3 : Matrices
Tutorial 4 : A Colored Cube
Tutorial 5 : A Textured Cube
Tutorial 6 : Keyboard and Mouse
Tutorial 7 : Model loading
Tutorial 8 : Basic shading
Intermediate Tutorials
Tutorial 9 : VBO Indexing
Tutorial 10 : Transparency
Tutorial 11 : 2D text
Tutorial 13 : Normal Mapping
Tutorial 14 : Render To Texture
Miscellaneous
Math Cheatsheet
Useful Tools & Links
Tutorial 12 is done by sb else and is not crucial; Tutorials 15 & 16 are on their way ( baked & real-time shadows )
Of course, you have to keep in mind that you can't get a 'thorough understanding of everything' without a big book. I suggest Real-Time Rendering 3 for a broad, but often not in-depth discussion of, well, almost everything, and an additional math book like Essential Mathematics for Games and Interactive Applications.
What's more, I second walkytalky's proposition of making a FPS from scratch. That's basically what we all did.
If you want to start with OpenGL, you can try Angel's books. Another very popular extensible graphics project is a ray tracer. For that, Suffern's Ray Tracing from the Ground Up is very nice and you'll learn lots of concepts.
If you do intend to build a single project and slowly expand it, I would not suggest any form of FPS. Indeed, I would look at any kind of game with suspicion.
The reason being that most games involve a lot of things that you're not interested in dealing with. Collision detection, physics, AI, real interactivity, etc. These are important for making a game, but the more time you spend on them, the less time you spend on anything else.
Honestly, I would suggest not doing your approach entirely. That is, you should not start with a single project and build on it. What you want is to understand graphics. Unless you are going to rebuild graphics theory from first principles, that means at least initially learning from someone else. Whether it is a book, website, etc, you need a firm foundation of math and basic skills to be able to start doing projects on your own. Doing so from the right materials will help you avoid many of the pitfalls that programmers often step in.
The OpenGL Wiki has links to many tutorials and other how-to guides for learning the basics. In the interests of full disclosure, I am writing one of the guides linked there.
What you should do, once you have a firm foundation, is say, "I want to learn about graphics technique X." So then you do some research on the subject. Maybe you ask some people on a forum or something of the like. Once you understand it, you build a new application to test it out and make it work. Then, you move on to graphics technique Y. And so on.
Once you have a solid grasp on how to draw something in particular, then you'll be ready to start on your single project that you slowly expand. That way, you will know something about how to structure your rendering system and so forth.
If you do insist on taking this approach, I recommend starting with some kind of top-down-esque game with limited interaction. Perhaps a puzzle game or something similar. The ground shouldn't be flat, but you shouldn't need to do significant work on collision detection either. That way, you don't have to do much with the "game" part of the game, and you can instead focus on the rendering.
I've always been inspired by dynamic, futuristic-like user interfaces. The best I can describe is a graphic interface such as in the latest Iron Man movies.
Although I wouldn't build a full blown application, I would like to make little snipplets of animations that I plan to make interactive. And maybe put them together someday to make something bigger. Admittedly, I will use for audio manipulation in the future but anyway, that's not the point since it's the animations/graphics I'm unsure of.
I know it's possible to make those kind of animations in Adobe After Effects. I'm just having a hard time thinking of the processes (artistically and programmability) to proceed.
While researching on this on my own I have acquired basic experience with OGRE 3D and Blender. I've imported and compiled meshes on OGRE, have been able to do basic things like move the meshes around which is about it.
I'm beginning to think I may be approaching this the wrong way and there are better tools or if 3D is overkill for those kind of animations when 2D would suffice and maybe provide a smoother experience.
I'm having trouble understanding the process and am wondering two things:
1.)The main thing I'm having trouble understanding is how to get still graphics to make animations? Do the meshes keep the timeline from a program like Blender then a graphics engine like OGRE reads the timeline and plays them?
Most importantly:
2.)Do I even need graphics (meshes)? Most of the interface are thin-border boxes, text and shapes of transparent LED-like colors that can move around dynamically to make that futuristic effect.
Please share your opinions, suggestions and anything you think might help me accomplish to develop those kinds of sexy eye candy! Thanks.
When you look at awesome futuristic UIs in movies, they are usually made of
basic primitives
desaturated colors, and/or one color tone
transparency
a cool font or two
high-tech text, graphs or similar
simple animations to make things look "alive", blinking lights/text and similar
a touch interface, of course
Maybe you can't do a lot about the touch interface, but the rest is really not hard graphics wise, it's a matter of carefully crafted artwork and combining simple elements in a cool way.
Also I would look into Adobe Photoshop and fancy texturing rather than Blender and fancy modelling, as you are looking for a fancy 2D UI, and detailed 3D models will not be that important. Playing around in photoshop (well, or GIMP if you want a free alternative) can help you develop your art skills, and help you get that high-tech, sci-fi look on a 2D surface.
You know, I would go as far as to suggest making some sci-fi wallpapers in the style you are after before trying to solve this problem in code. I think you will find that photo manipulation skills and an eye for art will help you here. And for gods sake, look at those movies (Iron Man, Minority Report etc.) that have those UIs you are aiming at, and analyze what exactly they are. Decompose them like I did in the list above.
As for the "which tools should I use?", I say the answer to that is fairly simple:
OpenGL
Photoshop (or GIMP if you are a starving student etc.)
A compiler & toolchain
A code editor/IDE
A cup
I see this is tagged C++, which is an excellent choice of programming language if I may say so.
Ogre is a full blown 3D engine, which is fine, but not exactly targeted at what you want to use it for. You might find that you struggle to get what you want done (disclaimer: I have not tried this in Ogre, and it might work well for this. Then again, when did you last see Ogre used in an audio manipulation program?). My advice is to learn good, simple OpenGL. That would give you complete power over your UI, not get in your way or limit you in any way. It is also cross platform, well documented, and used by tons of developers all over the world (also for audio manipulation applications). I can't see how you could possibly go wrong with it. The fun part is that it probably won't take you long to get advanced enough in it to start developing some pretty nice UIs. As I mentioned, it's more of an art problem than a coding problem.
The cup is for the coffee, by the way. :)
The easiest and most efficient way is to keep track of all your graphics data (meshes, animations, effects) in "media files" and load & play them in runtime. Though you'll be able to easily change your game without changing the code.
For example, you have a Diablo-like game and you wanna turn it to the future-style. You just need to rewrite some player and AI scripts and modify meshes/effects/sounds/animations. But if you've done those via code - it will be a new game from scratch.
I would suggest Ogre, but you already used that, so by my opinion, you are on the right track.
Look up 'billboards' in Ogre documentation, re: LED and 2D stuff.
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So we want to program a 3d game for school, we can probably use blender for the 3d models, however we are totally clueless as to how to use them in a game/application.
Are there any recommended guides/documents we should read on general 3d game programming and perhaps python specific stuff.
We are also possibly considering programming it in C++ but for now I think it's easier to use Python as we can fully focus on the 3d mechanics that way.
Panda3D is a nice, powerful game engine which allows for scripting in Python. This looks like a good place to start.
If you seek something more low-level, there's still PyOpenGL or pygame.
There's Pygame: A game framework for the Python language. If you need to know the basics for game development (engine, flow, ui, mathematics), this framework with all its examples will help you a lot. This won't take you by the hand and guide you step by step through game-development, but if you need a reference and a decent framework, than this is a good start.
There's also PyOpenGL: The official Python wrapper for OpenGL programming. Again with lots of programming examples in the field and tons of code snippets on how to use 3d models and the likes. Can be used together with PyGame.
But you should start by familiarizing yourself with some 3D basics. Look around at the GameDev.net site. Learn a thing or two about matrices (and perhaps quaternions). There are lots of beginners tutorials and references available to get you started.
edit: I almost forgot: there's also Panda3D with extensive scripting possibilities for Python. Maybe that'll offer a higher level of game development.
You can actually develop games in Blender via Python. There are quite a few tutorials, I'll let you google around for the style you like.
More info here
An alternative to PyGame, which I personally prefer, is pyglet.
http://pyglet.org
If you want to write a 3D game you might want to start by understanding the basics of programming and computer science. Starting with the top and learning a language, then find yourself a good graphics library for example Panda, Pygame are all good choices, then there are other parts to consider like networking with twisted for example or a physics engine. It might also be a good choice to consider using a working engine like the unreal engine as often game designers get too wrapped up in game mechanics and not the game itself
You should be aware that 3D game consists of
animated 3D models
3D environment (including NPCs and objects)
simulation of interaction between the environment and the models (game logic and game mechanics)
user interface (starting, saving and game settings)
The game logic and mechanics is going to usually the biggest and most complicated part and you should try to wrap your head against that first.
Modeling 3D objects and environment should be much easier after that.
I would implement the time-critical stuff as 3D and its object handling + rendering in raw C/C++ and let an embedded Python with external modules handle the game logic (object movement, object properties, scripting and so on).
It's quit easy to code simple 3D games. The position of any object on the screen can always be calculated as simply as:
position = (x/z*fov,x/z*fov)
where x and z are both horizontal axis and fov is the player's field of view, in [radians/degrees/pixels/...].
When you rotate around, the word is rotating not you. It means that you are always looking against positive z.
Quaternions is the best way to rotate the world around you.
Ps. use vertexarrays or arrays to for the fastest possible 3d graphics
So the title says it. I couldn't find any info on how actualy build effects into 3D game. I'll maybe stick to some engine later, but for understanding of this whole thing I would need to try it on my own for this time. I found a few about particle systems which may be the right way but any other connection between DirectX and particle systems on google gave results as 3DSmax and etc.
So I would be thankful if you would point me on some tutorials for this, or explaining it...
Last possibilitie would be pointing me on some simple engine focused on this thing (I don't really want to fight through tons of code and understanding how this engine works, I just need to see how they implement this FX stuff).
Thanks
PS: the other possibilitie would be if you know about good book discusing this. It can be more complex but apart from tutorial, books are usually wrote more basicly so this would be also nice way to go
First of all: particle effects are just one kind of effects, it's better you specify the word particle engine :p.
Secondly: search int he articles of Gamedev, it's really the best resource if you want things like this. You can find lots of articles and even better, tons of links, and useful information on the discussion boards. Two articles I can link to is the NeHe lesson about particles in OpenGL, it's not directx but NeHe tutorials for OpenGL are very good. I also found one for directx8 and VB (so a little bit older).
Keep in mind though that a particle engine is often a huge performance hit if you can't optimize it yourself, so try to look at open source game engines (e.g. OGRE) on how they implement it or even better, specific particle engines.
So I would be thankful if you would point me on some tutorials for this
You need to download microsoft DirectX SDK.
In addition to it, you should try NVidia SDK.
You may also try ATI SDK. Study them all.
In addition to them... there are couple of books on OpenGL: "Red Book", "Blue Book", Orange Book . "Computer graphics using OpenGL" by Francis Hill is also a very good one.
Get this info, and start reading.
how actualy build effects into 3D game
This question is too broad. There are lighting effects, particle systems, post-processing effects, physics (which are also effects), and even character animation is an effect. It is unclear what kind of effects you are talking about.
What do you think is better DirectX or OpenGL.
They are more or less equal. You can do same things in both of them. Try both and pick one you liked more. OpenGL is better for playing around and experimenting (because you can easily draw triangle without messing with hardware buffers), available on larger selection of platforms, plus GLSL is better than HLSL (because it doesn't "compile into assembly"). DirectX is geared towards performance from the beginning, available on XBox360, and 9th version was actually good. openGL is more "abstract" and DirectX is closer to hardware.
If you could use the factors as simplicity, area of usage, performance, number of examples and resources etc
If you want simplicity, you should forget about making game engine. You'll have to learn quite a lot of things if you want to deal with 3D.
Both DirectX and OpenGL are used for making 3d-related products.
You can get good performance with both DirectX and OpenGL, and get poor performance if you don't know what you're doing.
Both DirectX and OpenGL have insane amount of examples and books - just search for it. They weren't made yesterday, so enough information is already available.
You need to select goal, select platform, select your API, research available technologies, and start writing code. Wondering "which one is better" is a waste of time. 3D knowledge and algorithm are equally applicable to both APIs.
OpenGL is the best bet to learn I feel. Glut is available free of cost and has all the functions you need to implement a particle engine. Plus theres loads of sample code online. I like the way functions are . Easy to remember and use logically
The best books for learning D3D9.0c/D3D10 are by Frank Luna. Just put him in to amazon or google and you'll get results. He teaches how to build a fully-fledged game engine from scratch.
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I'm looking for some good ideas for a simple 3d graphics program as my final project for an intro to computer graphics class. As for some background information, we'll be using opengl and will have a little over a month to work on it, so nothing too far-fetched. The simpler and "prettier" looking, the better. It does, however, require some sort of interface that the user can interact with (so a very simple game or similar is a good idea) and must be 3D.
My only idea so far is maybe a 3D version of Tetris (google for some examples).
Edit: I ended up going with 3D Tetris. For a less than a month's worth of time, you can see what I came up with here.
A 3D text/code editor. Text is 3D, errors stand out, code indentations not only indent, but protrude on z axis, pages/files are 3D and can be flipped like a ringpad.
Probably not useful, but fun and more interesting than a game IMO.
In university, for my parallel programming course, I did an openGL/MPI implementation of Conway's Game of Life. It was quite interesting. Wish I still had the code around somewhere. The advantage of using open GL is that you can lay out the grid in different orientations rather than a flat grid. Remember, code doesn't exist until it's checked into source control.
Putting some physics in makes it more interesting. How about implementing Labyrinth (the maze toy where you are supposed to guide a ball from the starting point to the goal by tilting it).
EDIT: Erik told me it's called Labyrinth.
A 3D minesweeper game similar to this one.
Rubik's cube.
Look at http://www.contextfreeart.org/ ... write something similar, but for 3d.
If you've ever played Missile Command I belive that this could be a good project to '3d-ify'.
Try a chicken crossing the road game.
You will probably need to demonstrate the bare minimum of:
textures
lighting
animation
interaction
collision detection
Do not include even simple physics if there are no marks for it. Prioritise tasks based on the marking scheme. Get something simple working first and back it up :)
Honestly it's actually pretty easy to load up a bunch of animated models and set up a simple first person shooter. I mean, to get a generic thing working you don't need all that much:
Either load and display a heightmap or a BSP tree as the level.
Load and render some simple MD2 models (keyframe animation, low amount of polys and simple format).
Draw a simple hud.
Ray/AABB intersection, every time the user clicks you'll need to cast a ray from the center of the screen and see if it intersects an the bounding boxes of the enemies.
Simple FPS camera system.
The above is pretty doable in a month for as far as I'm concerned. (It's probably doable in a week if you already know some of the stuff).
I tried to do a 3D Asteroids for a class once. I never completed the gameplay part, since it was a graphics class. The ship could move around, as could the asteroids, but there was no collision detection. The ship and the asteroids had 3D textures applied to them, and the asteroids were built out of ellipsoids, so they were actually 3D. The gameplay was all 2D, though.
How about one of those games that are a wooden maze with a ball rolling around the top. You tilt the board and try to get the ball round the maze without falling down the hole? It has the advantage that it's relatively simple to get started, but you could probably think of some extensions if you have time.
If you're looking for a true university size task, mine was to produce a small helicopter "game" where you could take off from an aircraft carrier in an ocean and fly around with some environmental effects, moving water etc. i.e. nothing too complicated. As another example, the task set for the year previous to mine was a little sans-opponent racing game.
I would worry that you may loose marks with tetris as it sounds like little would be done on the z-axis and may come across a little too 2d though it obviously depends on your brief.
Anyway, these will give you the chance to experiment with the basic OpenGL features such as fog, lighting, geometry, textures and some basic movement physics & collision detection/response.
Further on this, though often beyond the scope of such a university sized task you could then take this further add nicities such as animated geometry (e.g. people), environment mapping, reflections, shadows, particle systems, shaders, perhaps a heightmapped island.
Rewrite Blocks 3D. The graphics on this project look horrible now. I remember playing this game (or one like it) on a 386 with wireframe graphics... awesome. The game is basically 3D tetris.
I would check Panda3D or Pygame.
Panda3D is probably close to what you are looking for, and one idea that always works is to put the user's face in the main character or object. 3d-pong with the player's face? Use something unexpected... like a tetris made of burgers instead of bricks.
I love little self-organising alife applications like boids. They can be fun to code and always benefit from a nice UI, especially 3D ones. User input can modify aspects of the environment as well as moving around/through the environment.
I like exoplanets. Go read up on them. On Wikipedia and http://exoplanet.eu there's a lot of information. Astronomers and public outreach people could always use fresh 3D animations showing how the Doppler effect works, or how the planet transiting in front of the star makes it for example 0.5% dimmer.
Or, what I work on, is how when the planet passes behind its star. At Earth we receive just a teeny bit less infrared from that star. The user could adjust the orbit, size of planet, etc. and see how that affects what astronomers see. It could be fun, simple enough to do, and unlimited potential in extending the work for nicer textures, slick lighting effects, etc., and you could end up with something to contribute to science education.
I'd be making such 3D animations myself, if I weren't busy helping crunch numbers for the actual science. I'll be jealous!