Beyond impressive what you've been able to achieve. What sorts of model formats will be supported? For animated models, it'd be very interesting to see support for DirectX .X models. Not sure how feasible that'd be. I'm guessing bone-based animations would be a tad too heavy for what you're aiming to do.

AvalonPlex wrote on 2024-05-04, 17:48:

Beyond impressive what you've been able to achieve.

Thanks!

AvalonPlex wrote on 2024-05-04, 17:48:

What sorts of model formats will be supported? For animated models, it'd be very interesting to see support for DirectX .X models. Not sure how feasible that'd be. I'm guessing bone-based animations would be a tad too heavy for what you're aiming to do.

I actually developed my own custom 3d model format. It's a binary format which uses fixed point numbers and is more compact and easier to parse than .obj files. You're correct that skeletal bone animations would be too heavy since it would require a lot of matrix operations. I was considering doing vertex animations similar to the ones used in Quake, but that uses a lot of memory since I would need to store the vertexes of each frame. Instead I opted for something in between, where each vertexes is assigned a transform ID (similar to bone IDs) but I only store the inverse transform of each animated frame. That way I don't have to include the bone hierarchy and only the precalculated transformations, saving both memory and compute time.

sounds kinda like MDR (Elite Force models)

Another update on this project.

I've finished implementing skinned model animations along with new graphical effects like reflective environment mapping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btb2nqMMFFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH_CAt7V92s

Other than graphics, I am also nearly finished with my 3d rigid body physics engine! This will be the next big update.