i remember using the build editor when i was like 14 or 15 or so and there are no words that could express how horrible it was to use

if someone did pick this up, i'd hope they'd come up with a more intuitive interface to things like hitags/lotag numbers and sector effectors because all of that was pain

Fimbul,

Yes I am quite familiar with Opportunity Cost, Of course no one has bid on this yet hence we have no basis to calculate the cost with.....! Clickteam has a idea of what it would pay for this, and if a bid came in too high, then of course we don't hire that person to do it, Believe it or not (I know it's hard for some to grasp) But this a for profit company, and we try hard not to make choices that will lose us money. I hope that sets you at ease.....

How hard is it to make an extension from an open source engine? I am not asking to be smart. There are multiple open source engines with varying degrees of capabilities. I have been look for the most basic engine I can find. A simple basic 3d engine extension that does not require programming to use would be profitable. I think the more basic the engine, the more likely it will be to be compatible with something like lacewing. Get a flash exportable 3d engine with multi-player capabilities, that is conformed to the clickteam way of doing things and you've got a serious product.

I don't think the problem with Jamagic was the graphics. The truth is you can pretty much make up for graphics capabilities with how well you texture.

If they made Jamagic an extension tomorrow, and found a way to use the grid event system currently in place for Multimedia Fusion, it would be successful. I would love to help out with the logistics of it

What make Clickteam so cool is easy of use combined with flexability. Every other 3d/ engine out there requires scripting and coding. A 3d engine of even medium caliber that let's you progam just using the Clickteam format; now that would be a beast.

That can still be pretty hard. Most engines were not designed to be encapsulated in an extension object, or in any larger framework for that matter. If an engine is built on scripting, then you basically need to reprogram hooks to translate MMF conditions, expression and actions into scripts that execute at the right time.


Agreed.

I’m not that familiar with 3d engines in regard to programming.
I have dabbled w/ vrml and xcd, both of which allow you to label animation sequences

But it seems to me that the best way to make a clickteamish 3d engine is to synchronize 3d objects with 2d objects (3d actives).

1. have a minimum unit of measurement that synchronizes objects in the 3d world with pixels.
EX:1 foot =1 pixels
So the size of the 3d world is in synch with the size of the 2d map of the world and the 3d objects are in synch w/ 2d objects

Handling the z coordinate could be done in much the same way as it is done in 3d modeling, by having 3 plains

2. synchronize the speed of 3d objects to the speed of the 3d active
(However many pixels a given speed moves per second is in syn with how fast the object is moving in the 3d world)

3. synchronize the frame rates of 3d objects to 3d actives.
So the number of 3d active frames lines up with a given animation sequence of a 3d object

So the 2d would be an interface to the 3d

The 3d engine would only really be a viewer
Collision, physics, etc. would be dealt outside of the 3d viewer.
It would really only consist of object position, orientation, creation and destruction of objects, at least 1 camera, and object animation sequences


So two object extensions
A viewer
A 2d interface

And a group o standards to synchronize the 2

dascribe I think this engine would just be veiwer anyway. Any 2d->3d interation would be handled by the user. No need to make a seperate extension for that.

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/opensource/

Some/most of these can handle openGL.
I think most of them can handle dxf,obj, and 3ds

If someone is actually interested in getting the ball rolling with a viewer, I don't mind sifting through the code to find that part for any of these. One is a group of libraries which includes a viewer. Many of these also have active X options. I'm not sure if that would help as far as structuring the code.



• Xj3D is a Java-based toolkit and X3D browser for creating X3D-compliant products. Xj3D is often used to prototype new extensions and features for X3D. It is highly componetized and can be used as the basis to develop lightweight X3D applications.
• FreeWRL is a VRML/X3D browser for Mac OS X and Linux with support for Javascript interfacing, the External Authoring Interface (EAI), and the X3D Scene Authoring Interface (SAI). ***there is a windows version
• OpenVRML includes a cross-platform VRML/X3D runtime library written in C++ and available for use under the LGPL as well as a Mozilla browser plug-in for platforms using the X Window system.

X3DToolkit is a portable LGPL free C++ toolkit for loading, displaying and processing the X3D scenegraph and models. Included example applications include an X3D viewer and mesh editor.
libx3d is a set of libraries and tools to work with XML X3D data/files and rendering using OpenGL.