Easy/lazy ring placement

[EightBitDragon]

Here I'm going to show you how to place rings super easily (lazy) from within your 3D app. First, build your stage of course. Next, make a small cube, about the size of a ring (the scale doesn't really matter). You can use any shape to represent the rings, but a cube has fewer polygons and makes the file size smaller. Start copying this cube around your stage, placing them where you want rings.



Next, add the following code to stage.bb just above the line that says Case "light".

Case "ringsmesh"
; Retrieve mesh properties information
MeshFilename$ = xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneChildNode, "filename")
Mesh=LoadAnimMesh(Path$+MeshFilename$, Game\Stage\Root)

; Update progress bar
Game_Stage_UpdateProgressBar("Loading scene ring placement "+j+": "+MeshFilename$, Float#(j)/Float#(xmlNodeChildCount(RootChildNode)))

; Create structure
Struct.MeshStructure = New MeshStructure
Struct\Entity = Mesh

; Setup position, rotation and scale.
ScenePosition = xmlNodeFind("position", SceneChildNode)
If (ScenePosition<>0) Then PositionEntity(Mesh, Float(xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(ScenePosition, "x")), Float(xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(ScenePosition, "y")), Float(xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(ScenePosition, "z")))
SceneRotation = xmlNodeFind("rotation", SceneChildNode)
If (SceneRotation<>0) Then RotateEntity(Mesh, xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneRotation, "pitch"), xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneRotation, "yaw"), xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneRotation, "roll"))
SceneScale = xmlNodeFind("scale", SceneChildNode)
If (SceneScale<>0) Then ScaleEntity(Mesh, Float(xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneScale, "x")), Float(xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneScale, "y")), Float(xmlNodeAttributeValueGet(SceneScale, "z")))

mLoadRings(Mesh)
HideEntity(Mesh)




Next add the following code to the very bottom of stage.bb.

;||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
; mLoadRings places rings at child object locations within a mesh.
;||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Function mLoadRings(mesh)
For i=1 To CountChildren(mesh)
child = GetChild(mesh, i)

positionX# = EntityX#(child, True)
positionY# = EntityY#(child, True)
positionZ# = EntityZ#(child, True)

obj.tObject = Object_Ring_Create(positionX#, positionY#, positionZ#)
Next
End Function

Now comes the tricky part. You will have to export your stage and the ring objects as seperate models. The way this works is, the mesh containing all the boxes will be used for placing the rings. A ring will be placed at each box's location, and the boxes will be hidden from view.

How you do this, depends greatly on the 3D application you are using. In 3DS Max, you can simply hide objects from view, and the exporter will not export the hidden stuff.

If all else fails, save the whole stage two more times after you have finished editing it. Save one copy as "stage_rings" and the other as "stage_mesh". Open the one containing the rings and delete the stage mesh and export/save it. Open the one that contains the stage mesh and delete the boxes and export and save as usual.

Once you have 2 meshes, one containing only your stage, and one only containing the boxes, open the stage.xml and use the following lines to load the new mesh containing the rings.


<ringsmesh filename="Stage/stage_rings.b3d">
<position x="0.0" y="0.0" z="0.0"/>
</ringsmesh>


Now, when you load the stage, all the boxes will have been replaced by ring objects! This code assumes your stage is scaled by x1 but the mesh should be able to scale just as you can with the main stage.

This method can be very useful for placing complex ring formations that would otherwise be very difficult or impossible to create.



If you have any problems with this code, let me know so I can figure out a solution! If the images don't show up, just view them at this link. They aren't really necessary anyway: BlitzSonic Ring Placement Tutorial

*Tips:
-Be sure to export animation, even though the ring mesh has none. If you don't, the code will place all the rings at the center of the mesh!

-If you parent a group of rings to a single ring to make dragging a formation easier, be sure to break the parenting before exporting or only one ring will be placed at each formation!

[Chini]

Wow 8 your helping out people alot!

If I was interested in the blitz 3d , I'm sure this would be very special XD

[3DSawnikku]

all the pictures are gone!

[EightBitDragon]

Jan 22, 2012 19:13:42 GMT -5 3DSawnikku said:

all the pictures are gone!

It may not link to them, either because I have spaces in the album names, or because they are in a album within a album. You can just view them here. You don't really need them, they are just some screens taken during the process.

[Redler Red7]

I wish you could do that for all object in all engines

[EightBitDragon]

May 5, 2012 7:37:31 GMT -5 Redler Red7 said:

I wish you could do that for all object in all engines

You can. The issue is organization. Also, you would need some sort of naming convention that everyone can agree on.

In your 3D editor, you can name individual meshes, and when you export a scene root with animation it will also export those names into the b3d file. Once you have that, you can retrieve those names, and use them to place the objects you want. Here is a brief example:

The first 3 letters of the name could represent the object itself, lets say a spring:
SPR

Next, you would need to come up with a standard of attribute variables. The position is already stored in the scene, so is the rotation, and scale, and color. So, you don't need those. However, you may need the strength of the spring, which would be a float which can go up to 99.99 (that seems reasonable). So that would then be added to the name:
SPR02.50

Now, depending on your editor, you may not be able to name your objects with a period in them. You might need to substitute the period with an underscore. Next might be the type of spring. You may have organized the code such that you can switch springs with hoops with a single variable. So add that:
SPR02.502

The question now is what order to put these variables in, how many variables and what kinds of variables. If anyone would like to work on a naming convention it is certainly possible to make a single mesh which places all the objects in the stage, we just have to come to an agreement and define some sort of standard.

[atkins322]

Here is a screenshot of a test stage I made trying the easy ring method, but I can't seem to get my rings to appear and I saved both the stage and the boxes.

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