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Jul 15, 2002, 8:46pm

I dont know what it is about AW (Tell me if you know please) how come we are
limited to a poxy little 200m compared to games like Oni which have much
much further ranges and zero lag whatseoever. Why cant AWC concentrait on
opening up some serious gaming capabilities by allowing lagless, high
framerate, high visibility 3D. im no 3D programmer, but if it can be done in
1 place, it can be done in another with enough effort and research.

- Mark

Jul 15, 2002, 8:51pm

AW doesn't have their own 3D engine - they use Renderware. It takes a lot of work to write a *good* engine and would likely require
the full-time attention of the programmers.

-Agent1

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Jul 15, 2002, 10:07pm

RW is indeed capable of portal rendering and LOD (level of detail). Just look at how much detail Grand Theft Auto 3 can pack into VERY long distances (http://tnlc.com/eep/gta3/ view*.jpg for some screenshots--and that's rendering EVERYTHING double-sided too (see the other images there)! See Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and The Italian Job for more of what RW3 can do.

I remember how Roland said 400m was the max RW3 could render to. As usual, he was wong, considering Shamus increased terrain viewing to 1200m in AW 3.4 build 427! Damn am I glad he's gone, along with his incompetently inept programming...

[View Quote] > AW doesn't have their own 3D engine - they use Renderware. It takes a lot of work to write a *good* engine and would likely require
> the full-time attention of the programmers.
>
[View Quote]

Jul 16, 2002, 1:05am

:'( cruel man, just plain cruel...I don't see YOU writing software like AW
ALL BY YOURSELF. Lay off Roland, show him some respect.

Jul 16, 2002, 2:25am

I can't stand coding, but at least I know how to remain consistent. ;) Roland just wasn't that great a programer--even he admitted it. <shrug>

[View Quote] > :'( cruel man, just plain cruel...I don't see YOU writing software like AW
> ALL BY YOURSELF. Lay off Roland, show him some respect.

Jul 16, 2002, 2:59am

LOL
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Jul 16, 2002, 3:44pm

I think for the outstanding quallity which would be a result after 3.4 is
fully released in all its sections they could indeed devote the large
majority of their time to creating such as 3D engine which would have the
potential to bring AW's capablities forward in leaps and bounds

- Mark

Jul 16, 2002, 3:49pm

It could start saving them thousands of dollars too.

--Bowen--

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Jul 16, 2002, 7:34pm

It would cost Rick and JP more to get (and find) a programmer competent enough to create a 3D engine from scratch anyway, which isn't even really necessary.

[View Quote] > It could start saving them thousands of dollars too.
>
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Jul 16, 2002, 7:46pm

Ah, that's true too. Never underestimate Grimm and Shamus.. even though
they've seemed to vanish from the face of AW.

--Bowen--

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Jul 17, 2002, 5:13am

http://neoengine.sourceforge.net/

Or http://crystal.sourceforge.net/scrshots/emitshot.jpg using crystalspace
(http://crystal.sourceforge.net)

Or Even http://ogre.sourceforge.net and specificaly check out
http://ogre.sourceforge.net/images.php

You dont need to make your own engine, when they're plenty of stuff out
there.


Only side effect, if AW wants to use any of these, IIRC, they hafta give us
the source to the browser/server maybe.

Jul 17, 2002, 12:02pm

Which won't be happening anytime soon...

-Agent1

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Jul 17, 2002, 3:18pm

one thing IS consistant.....YOUR ignorance of programming dude.....also
your "views" of respect.
When you garner YOUR respect, then maybe someone will give you all the
facts...Roland was just giving you what he thought your pea brain could
handle without having to explain every freaking detail to you.....get over
it Eep...your not a programmer, and you should NOT be discussing programming
issures...your just lost in this regard...;)

Leo :)


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Jul 18, 2002, 1:09am

[View Quote] Yup :(

Jul 20, 2002, 4:07pm

Ya, aw should have that!

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Jul 20, 2002, 8:12pm

If that is all you can add to the "discussion" almost a week later, don't bother posting. Don't change the subject header without
any reason.

-Agent1

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Jul 21, 2002, 1:43am

Lordy, Strike, I thought you could figure this out. Most online games do not
have an object path nor are they built with lots of tiny objects. For games
like Quake or Unreal Tournament render 3D models that are already on the
hard disk whereas ActiveWorlds must render models as they are downloaded
from an object path and continue to check for changes in the landscape.
Unreal Tournament and Quake only have to check for changes that are possible
in that game.

But I do agree, ActiveWorlds could be much faster. For starters, RWX isn't
the best way to go. It may have been when ActiveWorlds was beginning but
right now it's not, it's much too slow. Active Worlds needs to modernize
itself a bit with better 3D model formats, better caching of the objects and
more settings based on the frequency of checking for objects in the
landscape.

This brings up a good idea, but I'll save it for another topic ;-)

-Dion

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Jul 22, 2002, 12:06am

Now you've totally confused me. I don't see how the format that the model is
stored in would affect the speed at which the model is handled. Its what you
do with the information in the model that's important, not the way you got
the information in the first place.

[View Quote] For starters, RWX isn't the best way to go. It may have been when
ActiveWorlds was beginning but right now it's not, it's much too slow.

Jul 22, 2002, 1:00am

Yeah but rendering in real time is a slower than rendering
pre-rendered/fabricated scenes.

--Bowen--

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Jul 22, 2002, 2:58am

That's obvious and not the point I quoted.

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Jul 22, 2002, 3:58am

Yeah it is.. you said, "I don't see how the format that the model is stored
in would affect the speed at which the model is handled." It's undoubtedly
faster if you get the file before hand it's going to render faster. If you
have to download an entire "room" of objects and avatars, then it will
affect the speed. You render as you download, you don't download everything
then render. And then you have to unpack the files and send them, then get
the textures. Most games everything is fabricated into one file (the worlds
anyways), and then the textures are stored into one file. This cuts down
the time everything is rendered.

So, pre-rendered scenes (ones you don't download) are a lot faster than ones
you have to download. The format of the file has everything to do with it.
Some modeling systems make objects very clunky (ie 3ds max), which would not
be ideal at all for real time rendering. On the other hand, renderware's
old format, RWX, is. It's a small, non-binary file to accomplish the same
thing that big huge 5 mb worlds would do.

I think most games use instances.. you render the object once, then you
reference it to an instance earlier to make rendering faster. So I've been
told. I guess only some rendering engines support that. :\

--Bowen--

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Jul 22, 2002, 11:35am

Forget it, you're missing the point.

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Jul 22, 2002, 12:15pm

[View Quote] > Lordy, Strike, I thought you could figure this out. Most online games do not
> have an object path nor are they built with lots of tiny objects. For games
> like Quake or Unreal Tournament render 3D models that are already on the
> hard disk whereas ActiveWorlds must render models as they are downloaded
> from an object path and continue to check for changes in the landscape.
> Unreal Tournament and Quake only have to check for changes that are possible
> in that game.

AW only checks for changes in the "landscape" (world) when a change call is given by the world server.

> But I do agree, ActiveWorlds could be much faster. For starters, RWX isn't
> the best way to go. It may have been when ActiveWorlds was beginning but
> right now it's not, it's much too slow. Active Worlds needs to modernize
> itself a bit with better 3D model formats, better caching of the objects and
> more settings based on the frequency of checking for objects in the
> landscape.

RWX (text files) are stored in binary format in the models.dat file. AW3 also supports DFF format (binary only), which is used in games like Grand Theft Auto 3, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, The Italian Job, etc.

Jul 22, 2002, 2:56pm

hmm.. dff... *goes to check it out*

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Jul 22, 2002, 3:03pm

There's nearly nothing about it. The only way I found out of using DFF files
was to get ProGate Suite (no price given) and convert RWX DFF to compact DFF
files. I certainly wouldn't pay for it unless i knew it worked well and I
can't even find a price. Gah!

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Jul 23, 2002, 10:12am

http://tnlc.com/rw/files.html#exporters to get Maya/Max DFF exporters with source code. ZModeler (http://www.zmodeler.com/) can now import (and soon export) DFF format, due to the overwhelming demand by Grand Theft Auto 3 modders. I'm also trying to get someone to create a MilkShape 3D (http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/) filter for DFF format but no takers yet. :/

[View Quote] > There's nearly nothing about it. The only way I found out of using DFF files
> was to get ProGate Suite (no price given) and convert RWX DFF to compact DFF
> files. I certainly wouldn't pay for it unless i knew it worked well and I
> can't even find a price. Gah!
>
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Jul 23, 2002, 1:54pm

Looking around, I can't find any but are there any programs that can convert
RWX to DFF (open in RWX, export to DFF). And does using DFF actually make it
noticably faster?

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Jul 23, 2002, 5:02pm

[View Quote] > Looking around, I can't find any but are there any programs that can convert
> RWX to DFF (open in RWX, export to DFF).

Not directly, but you can convert RWXes to 3DS or Maya, for example, then export to DFF in 3DS Max 3.x or Maya 2-3 with the DFF exporters.

> And does using DFF actually make it noticably faster?

I haven't noticed any speed increase but I haven't really tested it. The only speed increase, if any, would come at rendering, but to test that you would probably need to take a complex RWX that freezes AW while it renders, convert it to 3DS or Maya format, then export to DFF and compare render/freeze times, if any.

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Jul 23, 2002, 5:15pm

so comparing FPS wouldn't be a reliable way of testing the rendering speeds?

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Jul 23, 2002, 6:58pm

.... but don't forget to optimize the RWX (consolidate clumps) before
you start. A tree with one clump for each tiny branch will freeze
AW quite "reliable" when it's added to the scene. It isn't fault
of the RWX format if the design is unnecessarily complex.

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