Balder

NEW POST: Does it support Silverlight2?

michaelsync — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:23:59 GMT

Hello,

I have a few questions regarding your engine. It would be great if you can answer those questions.

#1. Does your engine work with Silverlight 2?

#2. Does your engine support hardware accelerated 3D for Silverlight? or Is it just some JS tricks and maths?

#3: Do you guys have some SL2 demos ? I know 1.1 demo in your homepage but I have Silverlight 2 installed in my machine so that I'm not able to check your demo.

Thanks in advance.

NEW POST: Texturemapping is now possible!

whizzkid — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:07:02 GMT

I've created a texturemapper in silverlight 2.0 for my panorama viewer

Took some fiddling because Silverlight matrices and texture transforms work differently from Flash.

http://whizzkid74.blogspot.com/2008/04/texturemapping-in-silverlight-20b.html

Sourcecode is also up, so if you wanna take a look, be my guest :)

Source code checked in

adept — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:58:24 GMT

Introduced XmlnsDefinition attribute for the assembly so that you can implicitly use Balder in your Xaml without having to add xmlns:Balder="..." in your page/usercontrol. Had to do something while I'm figuring out the rendering issues we're having. :)

Source code checked in

adept — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:52:18 GMT

Changed from using the Storyboard approach for our application loop (game loop) to be using the DispatchTimer. Same issues though with rendering, but at last we're using types that makes sense for what thy are designed to do. :)

Source code checked in

adept — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:23:01 GMT

It compiles, runs but nothing happens. There seem to be a major breaking change that results in rendering for Balder not happening. The reason seems to be that the InitializeFromXaml() method for Controls has an issue with too much data. I need to investigate a bit more to be sure, but it seems that I have to alter the way things are being rendered all together.. Buhu.. :(

Source code checked in

adept — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:55:36 GMT

Preparing for Silverlight 2 - This changeset will most likely not even compile!!!!

Source code checked in

adept — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:54:13 GMT

Preparing for Silverlight 2 - This changeset will most likely not even compile!!!!

Source code checked in

adept — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 05:54:01 GMT

Preparing for Silverlight 2 - This changeset will most likely not even compile!!!!

NEW POST: Advanced 3D shapes

woodced — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:46:39 GMT

Adept - Thanks, a great guide.

Having read your tutorial, I've been struggling to find the correct image transform to apply to imageBrushes when they are painted onto a polygon - without a matrix transform, the two images painted on the two triangles lose their alignment and do not appropriately skew with perspective. Unfortunately I've been unable to work out what MatrixTransform should be applied to the ImageBrush's Transform property. One post above implies that it's not going to be possible to provide fully perspective corrected texture mapping. However, if you look at this forum entry, he seems to have managed to get a good texture mapping effect (I certainly can't see any misalignment).

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1224198&SiteID=1

I don't suppose you could enlighten me or point out where I might look for help with this issue?

NEW POST: c# Texturemap matrixtransform problem

whizzkid — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:47:45 GMT

Hi,

I've been trying to add texturemapping to the 3dcube sample you've posted. but I'm running into a problem and am wondering if you're having the same difficulty.
Since there haven't been new posts sinds last year regarding texturemapping, I'm guessing you havent finished yet :P

I've got a texture mapping routine in Flash which subdivides an image in triangles (with custom subdivision level), and performs matrix translations on those triangles to approximate texturemapping. (I think papervision 3d and the like also use techniques like this)

I see there's also a newer version, I used an old one :)
http://www.flashsandy.org/blog/distortimage-20-the-fastest-way-to-freely-distort-image-with-flash-in-actionscript.html

The javascript from the Vista demo page (http://www.windowsvista.si/js/object_3d.js) also uses triangles to do the texturemapping, but in a different way. (zoom in on the logo and you can see the deformations :)

When I ported the code to Silverlight, it appears that the Matrices don't work they way they should when you apply them to an image brush. (All other c# silverlight examples i found all use matrices from XAML and apply them to polys, and not on the imagebrush itself)

The matrices often use non-integer values. but eventhough the matrix parameters in c# are all doubles, they won't work when you use non rounded figures.

The following example won't draw anything unless intQ is 10 or higher.
(Nevermind the neatness of the code, I grabbed it from a work-in-progress )

double x0 = 100;
double y0 = 0;
double x1 = 800;
double y1 = 0;
double x2 = 110;
double y2 = 800;

Polygon myPoly = new Polygon();
Point[] arrPoints = new Point[]{
new Point(Convert.ToInt16(x0), Convert.ToInt16(y0)),
new Point(Convert.ToInt16(x1), Convert.ToInt16(y1)),
new Point(Convert.ToInt16(x2), Convert.ToInt16(y2))
};

myPoly.Points = arrPoints;

intQ++;

Matrix myMatrix = new Matrix();
myMatrix.M11 = 1;
// this should gradually scale the image, but it just jumps (what seems like) whole values
// and for values between 0 and 1 it also wont draw anything
myMatrix.M12 = intQ / 10.0;
myMatrix.M21 = intQ / 10.0;
myMatrix.M22 = 1;
myMatrix.OffsetX = 0;
myMatrix.OffsetY = 0;

MatrixTransform myMatrixTransform = new MatrixTransform();
myMatrixTransform.Matrix = myMatrix;

ImageBrush myBrush = new ImageBrush();
myBrush.Stretch = Stretch.None;
myBrush.AlignmentX = AlignmentX.Left;
myBrush.AlignmentY = AlignmentY.Top;

Uri imgUri = new Uri("images/gridimage.jpg", UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);

myPoly.Fill = myBrush;
myPoly.Fill.SetValue(ImageBrush.ImageSourceProperty, imgUri);
myPoly.Fill.SetValue(ImageBrush.TransformProperty, myMatrixTransform);

myCanvas.Children.Add(myPoly);

Have you encountered problems like this? and if so, (how) did you solve them? :P

regards,

Source code checked in

adept — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 06:20:36 GMT

Source code checked in

adept — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:47:08 GMT

NEW POST: Apply Material to a Mesh

pmcgrattan — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:53:16 GMT

Is it possible to see some example code of how to apply a Material (either a simple color or an Image) to a Mesh I've created?

CREATED ISSUE: Mesh created in SketchUP and exported to ASE

pmcgrattan — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:29:27 GMT

This is a fantastic project, thanks. The issue I am having may be a gap in my own understanding but what I want to do seems to me to be failry straightforward. I created a simple sphere in Google SketchUP (the free edition) and exported it to an .ASE file using the export script at http://belgabor.vodhin.net/software/#d0e221

I added this .ASE file to the Data folder and the Meshes.resx file in BalderTestApp and changed it's FileType from Binary to Text in the resource file to match all the other .ASE files in the sample.

I then did:

Mesh m = new Mesh();
m.Load(Meshes.MySphere);
m.Height = 1000;
m.Width = 300;
application.Viewport.Scene.Nodes.Add(m);

The m object is created but the face count is zero. I don't get anything displayed and the when I step into the Load method the Regex's do not seem to be finding any matches. The exporter does give me a warning about having more than 500 faces in SketchUP and the .ase file is attached. Please let me know if more information is required.

Regards,

Peter

NEW POST: Advanced 3D shapes

victorbar — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 07:15:20 GMT

Great - It works !

10x 4 the help FB ,

texture mapping is indeed an important issue in 3D animation in Silverlight .

NEW POST: Advanced 3D shapes

Ferris_Bueller — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:01:38 GMT

Hi,

To put an image, I replaced the line
polygon.Fill = new SolidColorBrush(Color.FromRgb(red, green, blue));
by
polygon.Fill = new ImageBrush();
polygon.Fill.SetValue(ImageBrush.ImageSourceProperty, "mypicture.png");
and it works.

To put a video, I've done the following :
in the class "Page", I added the following object :
private MediaElement me;
which is initalized in the method "Page_Loaded" :
me = new MediaElement();
me.SetValue(MediaElement.NameProperty, "silverlightLogoLoop");
me.SetValue(MediaElement.SourceProperty, "silverlightLogoLoop.wmv");
me.SetValue(MediaElement.IsMutedProperty, "True");
me.SetValue(Polygon.OpacityProperty, "0.0");
me.SetValue(MediaElement.IsHitTestVisibleProperty, "False");
this.Children.Add(me);

Finally, in the method "spinningCubeCanvas_Render" I replaced the line
polygon.Fill = new SolidColorBrush(Color.FromRgb(red, green, blue));
by
polygon.Fill = new VideoBrush();
polygon.Fill.SetValue(VideoBrush.SourceNameProperty, "silverlightLogoLoop");
Then, it works.

Unfortunately, for both the cases, there are problems with texture coordinates which are not correct because one doesn't have the real texturemapping as mentionned previously. I'm still investigating on it.

Sincerely,
FB

victorbar wrote:

I'm trying to put an image or video brush on a rotating face using polygon.fill (I'm using the tutorial code) ,
but it doesn't work - I keep getting a black canvas.

any ideas how it can be done ?

adept wrote:
Hi again,
sorry for the late reply. Been busy at work this week.
Anywho..

I assume you mean hidden face/surface removal.

I found a good article for you that explains the principals and math behind it.
The point of it is to figure out what polygons are facing away from the camera/viewport and then skip these from the drawing pipeline.

http://www.ibiblio.org/e-notes/3Dapp/Hidden.htm

victorbar wrote:
Einar ,

can you explain in a few words the hidden line removal ?
I want to do just that for a 4 vertex face.

10x ,

victor

NEW POST: Advanced 3D shapes

victorbar — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:47:38 GMT

I'm trying to put an image or video brush on a rotating face using polygon.fill (I'm using the tutorial code) ,
but it doesn't work - I keep getting a black canvas.

any ideas how it can be done ?

victorbar wrote:
Einar ,

can you explain in a few words the hidden line removal ?
I want to do just that for a 4 vertex face.

10x ,

victor

NEW POST: Advanced 3D shapes

victorbar — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:23:48 GMT

hi ,

10x for the guide ,
however I tried to apply the backface culling method of hiddent face removal on a face that consists of 4 vertexes and was unsuccessfull in it ,
I also noticed that in the tutorial you used a mised product system - but it also didn't work on a 4 vertex face.

if you have the time I will appreciate if you explain your method and I'll figure a way to apply it on a 4 vertex face.

CLOSED TASK: Optimizations

adept — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:33:30 GMT

Render pipeline optimizations!

* Polygon allocation -> Will be done when doing sorting!

Tip :
Speed test double vs. float. They are both value types, but it all depends on the JIT compiler for Silverlight to interpret these types correctly for the CPU.
Comments: Most planned optimizations has been done.

NEW POST: Advanced 3D shapes

adept — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:30:20 GMT

Hi again,
sorry for the late reply. Been busy at work this week.
Anywho..

I assume you mean hidden face/surface removal.

I found a good article for you that explains the principals and math behind it.
The point of it is to figure out what polygons are facing away from the camera/viewport and then skip these from the drawing pipeline.

http://www.ibiblio.org/e-notes/3Dapp/Hidden.htm

victorbar wrote:
Einar ,

can you explain in a few words the hidden line removal ?
I want to do just that for a 4 vertex face.

10x ,

victor