Viewing Thread:
"3D Rendering"

Hello, Monkey Man here. I've been working for some time on creating a 3D engine for use in a web page. I'm using Javascript to manipulate layers, or divs on the page. I've managed to make things like sin waves before and things that can come closer and further away, but I'd really like to make something that is true 3D. The way I see it is that I would have to move each pixel in relation to each other for it's x,y and z axis. The basic model I want to make is a cube that can be travelled around in any direction. Does anyone know how the professionals would do it? Do they draw 360x360 views of each graphic and then scale it, or do they do as I suggested above and move each individual pixel? I'm doing Maths and Physics at Uni at the moment, so I've got no trouble understanding any ideas that anyone could throw at me. Cheers for reading.
Monkey Man

Remember this?
Well now I'm one step closer! I've managed to make something like a bird's eye view that you can rotate left and right, but you can also do it up and down. It's just joined by dots - I couldn't make lines to connect. I'll upload it when it's definitely working, but it's looking promising.

At the moment it's just dots on a page. If I could figure out a way to join the dots the it would be cool. That's what the problem with the oscilloscope I made was - It was just one dot, not a continous line. As soon as I can figure out a way to do it (which I don't think you can do) I'll let you know. Looks like it's just going to have to be dots.

Oh yeah... all the professionals use polygons. Not sure how you'd do it otherwise.

That's what I wanted to know - whether the pros use images or, like you said, polygons. I made something where you can walk around a little 3D envronment, but you can't turn. I haven't had the time to put into doing anything proper yet, but I'll try and make a shape or something and I'll post the URL.

I've hand coded 3D stuff before. The basic code for manipulating objects is short and simple - something you'd be able to do with your maths and physics knowledge. But there's one thing you seem unclear on:

3D stuff uses polygons, not bmps. Director and other packages that do 3D rendering are vector based. If you're talking about drawing a gif for every possible angle then surely that's a near infinite number of gifs? If you do a finite number then you would have to limit the directions the camera (screen) can point. For example, in a first person game, that could mean turning 90 degrees at a time, and moving a whole 'block' forward/backward at once. A bit like the game "Liberation" on the Amiga (quality game - they should do an updated version of that one!!) or even Nightmare dungeony type games.

Yes. You could make a "Nightmare" game in JavaScript. Don't be any more ambitious than that though!

So, how is it going???

As for uses - games! If it's up to speed I'll be able to make some sort of 3D landscape to move about in. I've done some code before that allows collision detection. Then I can add objects that move about. It's no GTA3, but I can see how it can be quite similar.

From what I've been doing so far, I'll need a function to move each object up, down, left, right, backwards and forwards - including scaling the object up and down. Loads of code - not good. Plus loads of variables for each possible thing that can change for each object, i.e. it's size, horizontal and vertical positions. Too much code, but all I want to make at the moment is a wireframe cube or something. I'm considering using different gif images to make lines at different angles and then scale them up and down. That seems the most sensible - I've got to see what takes less memory, loads of code or loads of code and gif images.

OK, challenge yes but I can't think of a single use for it. How big's your code now?

Javascript is a long and painful process. It's kind of a mini challenge for myself - just to prove it can be done. I can imagine how it would work. Take this '.' every point on this page can be calculated in relation to that dot. The trouble is recalculating every point whenever the dot moves, and when it moves in another direction, 'z'.