First person tour
March 7, 2006 8:20 AM
How do I go about building a 3D first-person walk through tour?
More background:
I work at a University and currently we have someone modeling the entire campus to scale in 3D Studio Max. At some point in the future, we're looking to do first-person walk-through tour of various spots on campus and I really have no idea of the framework we'll need to take this 3D model of campus and turn it into something interactive.
Would it be best to download the Quake open GPL and have someone rework that, or is this project even feasible? Is there any way to have something like this browsable on the web, or would it have to be a stand-alone sort of system (like a Kiosk?).
Apologies if I'm not explaining the above thoroughly enough, I'm a bit of a newbie in this area, but any information is greatly appreciated.
More background:
I work at a University and currently we have someone modeling the entire campus to scale in 3D Studio Max. At some point in the future, we're looking to do first-person walk-through tour of various spots on campus and I really have no idea of the framework we'll need to take this 3D model of campus and turn it into something interactive.
Would it be best to download the Quake open GPL and have someone rework that, or is this project even feasible? Is there any way to have something like this browsable on the web, or would it have to be a stand-alone sort of system (like a Kiosk?).
Apologies if I'm not explaining the above thoroughly enough, I'm a bit of a newbie in this area, but any information is greatly appreciated.
The way that 3D Studio Max and engines like Quake or Unreal Engine model 3D spaces is quite different. Unreal for sure, and I think Quake too, use subtractive rather than additive geometry. In other words, it's as if the world is carved out of a solid block rather than built up out of clay.
(This is only partially true, as Unreal also allows for additive 'brushes' and 'static meshes' but you always start out by subtracting).
So while it is probably not impossible to do this, it is probably better to look for some other solution.
(The obvious solution of simply carving out a huge space and then adding in the 3DS version is unlikely to work because these engines rely very strongly on portal/zone optimisation to reduce the amount of work the engine has to do. Without this, the engine has to recalculate every polygon for every frame of movement. With it, it only has to recalculate a small subset which are potentially visible).
posted by unSane at 8:30 AM on March 7, 2006
(This is only partially true, as Unreal also allows for additive 'brushes' and 'static meshes' but you always start out by subtracting).
So while it is probably not impossible to do this, it is probably better to look for some other solution.
(The obvious solution of simply carving out a huge space and then adding in the 3DS version is unlikely to work because these engines rely very strongly on portal/zone optimisation to reduce the amount of work the engine has to do. Without this, the engine has to recalculate every polygon for every frame of movement. With it, it only has to recalculate a small subset which are potentially visible).
posted by unSane at 8:30 AM on March 7, 2006
It probably won't be feasible to use the 3dsmax data as a level in an existing game engine. The Quake engine games are based on constructive solid geometry, but that doesn't mean it'll be easy to convert the 3dsmax data to, say, a quake format map. Some cursory googling found QMAPEXP but it doesn't look up to date, and Quake 1 looks ugly anyways...
Maybe talk to some 4th year CS students or CS grad students specialising in computer graphics? It might be a fun project for a group of students to develop.
posted by philscience at 9:47 AM on March 7, 2006
Maybe talk to some 4th year CS students or CS grad students specialising in computer graphics? It might be a fun project for a group of students to develop.
posted by philscience at 9:47 AM on March 7, 2006
I second the CS student idea. Even for a less experienced student, it should be pretty trivial to take Max data and write a walk through with openGL / directX.
posted by Squid Voltaire at 10:21 AM on March 7, 2006
posted by Squid Voltaire at 10:21 AM on March 7, 2006
Don't know the interactive part.
3Dmax permits you to make a camera rig. It's like a "roller coaster" for the camera. You animate the camera going through the building.
You'd build a walk through of how to get from room x to room y as a camera rig. Repeat ad nauseum.
You'll have to make sure you texture the surfaces, light the interior, but this is totally within the capabilities of Max.
I think, you're able to take structures out of Max into Quake - and this could be your interactive version.
posted by filmgeek at 10:36 AM on March 7, 2006
3Dmax permits you to make a camera rig. It's like a "roller coaster" for the camera. You animate the camera going through the building.
You'd build a walk through of how to get from room x to room y as a camera rig. Repeat ad nauseum.
You'll have to make sure you texture the surfaces, light the interior, but this is totally within the capabilities of Max.
I think, you're able to take structures out of Max into Quake - and this could be your interactive version.
posted by filmgeek at 10:36 AM on March 7, 2006
Instead of Quake (ten-year-old technology!) have a look at the Half-Life 2 engine (Source). It still uses a direct descendant of Quake's 10-year-old technology (really!) but looks a hell of a lot better (mainly due to lots of tweaks and improved shaders, as well as allowing a higher poly count and having special constructions for terrain, etc.). FYI, UnSane was incorrect above: Unreal uses subtractive geometry, but Quake-based engines use CSG.
Of course, making a whole campus in Source would be a fairly big project. I imagine it's possible to somehow convert the 3DSMAX data, as long as the geometry is relatively simple. (I don't see any "import" function in Hammer [the HL2 editor] offhand, but it does support loading older Worldcraft map files. Perhaps there is a 3DS conversion utility for Worldcraft out there.)
You'd have to convert the 3DSMAX textures into materials in Valve's format, etc. As long as you're using 3DSMAX, you could create and use "props" to add a lot of detail. You could also re-skin the citizens to look like college students and have them walking around the campus, I suppose.
posted by neckro23 at 1:55 PM on March 7, 2006
Of course, making a whole campus in Source would be a fairly big project. I imagine it's possible to somehow convert the 3DSMAX data, as long as the geometry is relatively simple. (I don't see any "import" function in Hammer [the HL2 editor] offhand, but it does support loading older Worldcraft map files. Perhaps there is a 3DS conversion utility for Worldcraft out there.)
You'd have to convert the 3DSMAX textures into materials in Valve's format, etc. As long as you're using 3DSMAX, you could create and use "props" to add a lot of detail. You could also re-skin the citizens to look like college students and have them walking around the campus, I suppose.
posted by neckro23 at 1:55 PM on March 7, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:24 AM on March 7, 2006