Dave,
>From what I experienced in Everquest their zones outright crash with 175
to 200 players (they did a year ago, they seem better now). I'm not
sure how much level of detail they are doing to know how many humanoids
might actually be visible at a time. I'd agree with you that even with
a top end machine if there are about 30-40 humanoids within view the
frame rate becomes "unacceptable". I'm hoping that with good level of
detail adjustments we could actually support a player seeing an "army"
of 50 or 100 marching. Again I agree that communications issues are
more likely a limitation than our 3D rendering.
- John
"Yazel, David J." wrote:
>
> Yes true. We have hopes to do level of detail and dynamically adjust the
> smoothness of the animation as the number of animated characters increase.
> Already our own "shapes" have built in progressive meshing in that for any
> shape we can ask for it to adjust to N percent of its total complexity.
> Since the progressive mesh collapse order is pre-calculated and the vertices
> re-ordered to match, it is extremely fast. In my experience everquest can't
> handle more than about 40 characters at one time with exceptable frame
> rates, and you have to turn off particles. But what we are thinking is that
> the limiting factor of many characters being near each other will be comm
> lag from the server rather than graphics.
>
> Dave
>
> > ----------
> > From: John Wright[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Reply To: Discussion list for Java 3D API
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 9:42 AM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: Re: [JAVA3D] How to REALLY get humanoid content into a Java
> > 3Dapplication?
> >
> > Dave,
> >
> > Sure, for a single 500 vertex model it isn't a concern (with decent
> > hardware). My concerns are if those models shift up to say 1000 vertices
> > (better quality) and you put 100 or 200 of them in a scene! (not to say
> > that we won't have problems with our method either). Quake, Halflife,
> > etc all use low polygon count models and rarely have more than a few
> > models in the scene at a time. It sure would be nice if Verant would
> > comment on how they do this with Everquest.
> >
> > I agree, at this point there isn't much choice than to just make an
> > educated guess and try it out.
> >
> > - John
> >
> > "Yazel, David J." wrote:
> > >
> > > Its too early to tell on speed, but since the vertex delta's are
> > > pre-computed on a per key-frame bases, the only calculation is the
> > > interpolation per frame for each vertex. On a 400-500 vertex model this
> > > time is negligible. This is the same method used by quake and halflife
> > to
> > > great effect. We are in fact experimenting with half-life models
> > converted
> > > using 3d Exploration. As always we are just plodding along trying
> > different
> > > things. Our thought is also to attempt to "attach" items to the model
> > using
> > > control vertices, where for example you can specify two of the hand
> > vertices
> > > as anchors for items that are held, then use a single transformation on
> > the
> > > item to synchroize with the animated char. That way we can have smooth
> > > animations of flexible characters, with rigid objects attached. But like
> > > John said, we will have to see if its fast enough.
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> > > > ----------
> > > > From: John Wright[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > > > Reply To: Discussion list for Java 3D API
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 8:34 AM
> > > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > > Subject: Re: [JAVA3D] How to REALLY get humanoid content into a
> > Java
> > > > 3Dapplication?
> > > >
> > > > As David said, it's not exactly a simple task. Our 3DS loader
> > certainly
> > > > can import excellent looking models (there are some quirks and my 3D
> > > > modelers are getting better and better at making models that work) but
> > > > animating them is possible in a couple different ways.
> > > >
> > > > To animate in real time you are going to have to sacrifice some
> > quality
> > > > until the hardware gets a LOT faster. Moving a few joints (what we
> > > > intend to do) shouldn't be too bad but won't do the nice deformations
> > of
> > > > a "Hollywood" style animation (keep in mind that we can't do in real
> > > > time what takes Max hours to generate a couple minute clip). I'm
> > > > intrigued that David states they are going with morphing (my intuition
> > > > tells me that is going to be too slow / CPU intensive).
> > > >
> > > > - John Wright
> > > > Starfire Research
> > > >
> > > > David wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > There are a few people here with real-world experience, and they are
> > > > > probably all different experiences :) www.roboforge.com is an
> > > > application
> > > > > using Java3d and has quite nice animation. You can bring a
> > non-animated
> > > > > humanoid into Java3d very easily using Starfire Lab's 3ds loader. I
> > > > would
> > > > > stay away from VRML in java3d as a primary loader unless you plan on
> > > > writing
> > > > > your own loader. Java3d does not have complex humanoid animation
> > built
> > > > in.
> > > > > Even if you want to do something as simple as single skin keyframe
> > > > morphing
> > > > > you have a job ahead of you. We have just started work on this
> > > > ourselves.
> > > > > The path we are starting to experiment with is to model in 3dmax,
> > use
> > > > > character studio to define the animation, use 3d exploration to read
> > in
> > > > the
> > > > > model and animations and then use the 3d exploration sdk to write
> > out
> > > > our
> > > > > own file format. Inside of java3d we would be using a loader which
> > can
> > > > > read our own file format and then creating animation classes which
> > morph
> > > > > between keyframes using geometry by reference and the geometry
> > updator
> > > > > callbacks. If you want to do skin and bones directly inside java3d
> > then
> > > > it
> > > > > is more difficult because you need to handle the transformations
> > > > yourself.
> > > > > I think it would be slow to set up an animation using a hierarchy of
> > > > > transform3d's but you could try.
> > > > >
> > > > > Good luck. I know there are people on this list who have this
> > working,
> > > > but
> > > > > no one can/will post their code on it, so you will have to figure it
> > out
> > > > > unfortunately.
> > > > >
> > > > > Dave Yazel
> > > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: Rudolf J.C. Buijs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > > > Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 6:24 AM
> > > > > Subject: [JAVA3D] How to REALLY get humanoid content into a Java 3D
> > > > > application?
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi everyone -
> > > > >
> > > > > We are considering Java 3D for development of a new application
> > which
> > > > > involves animation of humanoids with motion capture data.
> > > > >
> > > > > This is a must-have: the humanoids MUST look good and realistic!
> > > > >
> > > > > I would think that it would be best to use a 3rd party tool to
> > define
> > > > > texture-mapped geometry, export this to VRML (or .3DS etc) and use
> > any
> > > > of
> > > > > the loaders.
> > > > >
> > > > > What's a good way of going about this? I am thinking of content
> > creation
> > > > > packages like Poser or 3D Studio Max and exporting to VRML, but I
> > don't
> > > > know
> > > > > for a fact that it will work.
> > > > >
> > > > > Does anyone have REAL-WORLD experience with this? What software are
> > you
> > > > > using that will actually allow creation of humanoids and import them
> > > > into a
> > > > > Java 3D application? Preferably in the H-ANIM 1.1 standard if that's
> > > > > possible. Which loaders to use for Java 3D? Any gotcha's?
> > > > >
> > > > > This is what I have so far: I've searched the web for loaders (found
> > and
> > > > > tried latest X3D) and VRML models (H-ANIM 1.1 preferably), but so
> > far I
> > > > have
> > > > > been unsuccessful in importing even one humanoid (every single VRML
> > > > model I
> > > > > managed to find runs into problems with PROTO's, I have some models
> > > > > available if anyone else cares to try, the demo VRML runs fine on my
> > > > > system).
> > > > >
> > > > > Many thanks in advance and many regards - Rudolf
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
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