Demo/Test Release II

[Jochen Stier]

As promised, here is another update of the  editor with the following improvements and bug fixes:

• Importing triangle meshes works properly again. If you are working on a planet then the meshes must be preceded by a transform node. Triangle meshes are only stored in floating point format which can have up to a meter of error on a planet size scale.
  
• I have tested the collision detection between shuttles and triangles meshes. If the shuttle has been created properly with a “Body” node as one of its children, then it should have a proper collision shape that allows it to collide with other meshes. If you are going too fast however, then you may just fly right through the mesh… In the future I will add a temporal collision detection phase as well.
  
• The toolbar now contains a level of detail slider which, for now, only controls the level of tessellation for the planet surface, but eventually I will include other factors as well. Moving this slider to the left can greatly reduce the workload and should make it possible for lower end hardware to run the editor as well.
  
• The toolbar now also contains a few “viewpoint” buttons, which can be used to store different camera locations. This is quite useful if you would like to mark and return to a spot where you have been before. The viewpoints are saved in the 3do file as well.
  
• This version of the editor contains much of the deferred lighting infrastructure. It is still possible to create models with normal lighting, but we might as well work in the framework of deferred lighting. I have therefore created a file called template.3do which should be the starting point for importing and testing new content. The rendering pipeline is controlled via the Lua scripts making it possible to toggle certain functions such as bloom, hdr, ssao etc. The disadvantage is that the Lua scripts are only executed when the simulation is running. Thus, in editing mode there is no shading, which has both, advantages and disadvantages. Just remember, if you want to see the rendered scene just hit play and then reset again to get back into the editing mode.
  

[TorakunSama]

Greetings Master Jochen,
Thankful I am for granting us an update of the wonderful Editor, in which you have bled efforts, expertise and sweat!
Your unquestionable skills are certainly...bla...bla...bla...

Great release! The Editor is a bit faster (I manage to get 60 fps), there are many improvements, and a few flows continue, notably the screen stretch: makes the hdr,bloom and what not widgets disapear if I  try to resize the GUI (I have a wide screen, so the editor always stretches the GUI) !
*Wireframe is now really wireframe!
*Navigation has been reworked, and it's easier to move about.
*The LOD slider is really a great idea!
* The browser got slower (maybe is just my dying PC)!

I didn't have time to test it more than that, I was exhausted from work 
I'll tell more later.

[Jochen Stier]

I am glad you find such nice words of appreciation I am a little confused by what you mean when you talk about “the browser” ? If you mean the runtime, then that is installed separately from the editor.

[TorakunSama]

As I type this reply, I'm wating for the Editor to respond. I tried to save, import, make reference or any loading or saving file activity except from adding trimesh, either takes forever to load (in the browse window) or completely freezes. Like now, it's frozen and if i touch anything it will crash. Sometimes i work hard and acheive good things and then comes the worst time, to save. At first it work fine, but after a while and a few objects in the scene, it becomes frustrating. If it's my PC, then it must be some HDD access problems, maybe I'll have to format...

[Jochen Stier]

I can only really fix something like that if I can reproduce the problem. For now, obviously the only advice I can give you is to save frequently and try to reproduce a particular problem. Then post the steps you took and I will fix the problem. Can you identify a single step where this generally happens? You said that it works fine for a while and then it crashes. So, at some point you invoke a function that causes the failure. Any idea what that would be? Is it importing a 3ds trimesh? I suspect the problem starts there. If memory gets corrupted during the import it may not show up until later when you save. What's the size of the triangles meshes that you import. Can you post a .3ds file ?

I don't think the problem is your system. How much memory do you have?

[TorakunSama]

Ok I found a way for me at least not to lose my work: save from the very start.
The more objects and manipulations I add, the save as, export, import, reference, open functions get slower and slower, until it's impossible to load or save as nomore. Import mesh work with no problem, the browser goes directly to the file (it's a differnt browser with apreview window). Right now I'm running only 1 Gb DDR II 800Mhz of RAM.
The problem is independent of importing meshes. It starts when I invoke Save/load functions.
And it happens to all my files. Reason why it took me 5hrs just to get those 2 buildings....

[Jochen Stier]

One more thing I just thought off. Make sure not to "import" any of the models you made with the previous version. Other than that I have to run into the problem myself, but I will investigate a bit. Geist3D does require quite a bit of memory though. I never bothered optimizing that part because I have. But, open up your task manager and have a look at the memory. That could cause the problem as well.

[TorakunSama]

I never import. I went on to redo all my objects.
I just opened my WIP file and it stalled....

[Jochen Stier]

You are out of memory. That will definitely stall it! Ok, for now just don't use a planet. If you want to play around with your models do it on a flat plane. I know it’s not the same but it should work. I will spend some time over the next view days to cut down on the memory requirements. That will be a drag!

J

[TorakunSama]

Ok then, I'll double the RAM whenever I work on the Editor, I'll have to wait for later at night, for I borrowed 1G to my little bro. That untill I get A new PC, by month end with 4Gb...
I only realized today that it was lack of memory, I was so used to 2G that i forgot about such issues... Thanks Jochen!

[Jochen Stier]

Yeah, get that RAM back from your brother! What kind of graphics card are you going to get in your new PC?

[TorakunSama]

Oh, a  Nvidia GTX 200 series! That migh just cut it till next year!
I'm running on 2Gb now and the problem persists!

[Jochen Stier]

Ok, I can see from the pic that the memory is still quite low. I assume that Geist3D is just gobbling it up for some reason. Here is what we can do. If you can, try to take out parts of the model and see at which point the problem stops to occur. Make sure to make a copy of your original. Something must be corrupting memory. Can you post a pic with the entire tree view expanded? Better yet. Send me the .3dm fie. How big is it?


Geist3D should fly with a GTX200 series... always above 100fps.

[TorakunSama]

If you can, try to take out parts of the model and see at which point the problem stops to occur.

The problem starts I add a mesh or planet to the scene.
The scene on the picture has 2 planets and that mesh. I can add the mesh successfully on an empty scene. But as soon as I press export as object, the browser may not even open, if I insist, it takes like 3-5min to open. Once opened, it takes another min per folder, I mean if I double-click on a folder or save/open button, it takes 1-3min for it to respond. Tell me I'm the only one facing this problem, in that case it's a OS problem, I'm running Vista Ultimate SP1.
I'll install the business version, and just the necessary software.

[TorakunSama]

Even on the new system the problem persists. It's as slow as it was b4.

I'll run more tests and post some pics.