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Thread: realtime 3D graphics preview

  1. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Also, regarding SDK and games and 3D and all that, this is why we released the source code for our Asteroids game, which not only has a 3D engine, but also a mini Physics engine as well. Our hope was that others would take it and develop other games with it. (Basically, we are so busy developing "real apps" that we don't have time to work on the fun stuff...)

    I am glad Zoof is doing this. It shows that a smart person with some time on their hands and interest in this subject could accomplish cool things in laser. Maybe Zoof's development will spur the interest of others who will also pick up the ball...

    Bill
    Hi Bill,

    I once sent you an email asking for more info on the SDK, you must have missed it and I didn't feel like insisting. Anyway I found that I get the best kicks out of creating the foundations for creative work and I'm enjoying the process of figuring out how to this stuff. I realize I'm covering a lot of known ground but at least it is now also known to me, and that is what I value - in line with what your professor once said.

    Interesting wording on the "real apps". I know you put quotes but I'll take the opportunity to go into it. I believe that since your company's greatest efforts are in the entertainment industry, they are as real as games. Actually I believe that games are more challenging to get right than a typical show playing application. Computer games are today pushing computer technology harder than the majority of 'real apps'. From where I stand it is the same goes for lasershow software.

    I'm glad you like my efforts, and I too hope this inspires others to do inspiring laser-stuff.

  2. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by carmangary View Post
    I spent some hours a week or two ago porting your Asteroidsd VB.NET code to C# and was planning on adding support for the other DACs (EasyLase, Lumax, etc). The samples were missing from your distribution as well as some custom controls for the forms so it would not compile as it was.
    Hmmm. Strange. We only include one VB.NET sample, and I thought it was the Asteroids game. That was done by Dieter as a test of just what would be required to port from VB.6 to VB.NET. I could swear he had it all working. I wonder if I got all of his files to put into the zip? Strange.

    Anyway, that excercise was the beginning of the end for us on Microsoft tools. The resulting program was many times the size, and ran a lot slower. Also, all kinds of incompatibilities sneak in.

    For us, the end of the end was when Microsoft changed the "floating point consistency modes" in VS:2005. Code that we had written and has been working on all Microsoft compilers for the last 25 years suddenly stopped working, and had to be re-written.

    If that's the kind of BS Microsoft is going to do to developers, then, well, it's not that we've abandoned them, it's that they've abandoned us. Since then we have moved away from Microsoft tools. (Hey, maybe something James and I agree on .)


    Quote Originally Posted by carmangary View Post
    But why would Asteroids have a 3D engine?
    The very first iteration of that was written by Patrick Murphy. It was compiled in Hisoft Basic and ran on our Amiga system. That version actually had a "3D mode" whereby you could actually play asteroids on planes, while the whole thing was rotating. It was pretty cool. Perhaps there are a few PL members who remember it, or even still have it. (Steve Roberts maybe?)

    When I ported the code to VB, I made certain things better than we had on the Amiga version, but I don't think I ever completed the "3D planes" mode. But I think there is some remnants of the code, or preparations in there somewhere.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoof View Post
    I once sent you an email asking for more info on the SDK, you must have missed it and I didn't feel like insisting.
    Hmmm. Strange. But on the other hand, not so strange. We used to get a mere 3000 spam emails on our server each day. Sadly, even as we have taken steps to try to avoid it (contact forms, etc.) the latest statistics show that we are up to 12,000 spams per day! Amazing!

    There is one client in particular whose emails keep getting dropped when he sends them to me. And likewise me to him.

    People on this forum will corroborate that I am responsive to email, so I guess somehow your email got dropped. As a rule, I don't "ignore" emails.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoof View Post
    Anyway I found that I get the best kicks out of creating the foundations for creative work and I'm enjoying the process of figuring out how to this stuff. I realize I'm covering a lot of known ground but at least it is now also known to me, and that is what I value - in line with what your professor once said.
    Yes, exactly!


    Quote Originally Posted by Zoof View Post
    Interesting wording on the "real apps".
    Yes, the English Language is a funny beast. I meant, less fun apps .

    And I agree with what you wrote about games pushing technology.


    Quote Originally Posted by Zoof View Post
    I'm glad you like my efforts, and I too hope this inspires others to do inspiring laser-stuff.
    Yes, I hope so too. We will see what happens as time runs .

    Bill

  3. #53
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    what scanners are used is this zoof?
    http://inselaffe.org

    http://www.myspace.com/majorleeblunt

    An Eye for a Eye only makes the World Blind - Ghandi

    Laserworld 750mW Proline RGB
    Laserworld Quad 400mW RG
    Lanta 180mW RGY

  4. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by majorlee View Post
    what scanners are used is this zoof?
    Raytrack 35 plus from jmlasers. They are tuned to 35k - my doing ( and yes I know why it should be 30k ). They are running at about 20kpps in the vids.


    Here, this is a little effect that I'm rather proud of: Fading near the far clipping plane

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc3MsFzBEb4 (youtube may take a while to process it though)

  5. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Hmmm. Strange. We only include one VB.NET sample, and I thought it was the Asteroids game. That was done by Dieter as a test of just what would be required to port from VB.6 to VB.NET. I could swear he had it all working. I wonder if I got all of his files to put into the zip? Strange.
    For the sample wav files, it appeared that the VB.NET project was referencing files that were part of the LD2000 installation and not part of the SDK. Since I only had the SDK, I didn't have them. The other issue was with some kind of controls (sliders maybe). My guess was that they were 3rd party controls that were part of the original VB6 project that didn't get distributed with the VB.NET project.

    I could tell whoever did the conversion had a time with it. The VB6 to VB.NET converter is not very good.

  6. #56
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    nice effect... its very noticeable in the last 5 seconds of that video..

  7. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zoof View Post
    Here, this is a little effect that I'm rather proud of: Fading near the far clipping plane
    Yes, that is commonly referred to as "depth cueing".

    I tried to quickly lay my hands on some other videos that further illustrate it, but the only ones I could come up with quickly are on this page:
    http://www.pangolin.com/industry/ild...ing_videos.htm

    (The video looks best if you set media player to pay it at around 200% size.)

    Depth cueing is used throughout the shows, but might be seen particularly well around time 2:50 to 3:15, and arount 4:25 or so...


    Quote Originally Posted by carmangary View Post
    For the sample wav files, it appeared that the VB.NET project was referencing files that were part of the LD2000 installation and not part of the SDK. Since I only had the SDK, I didn't have them. The other issue was with some kind of controls (sliders maybe). My guess was that they were 3rd party controls that were part of the original VB6 project that didn't get distributed with the VB.NET project.
    Ahh, yes you are correct. The files are the "sounds" for the games. They are installed in the LD2000\Support\Games folder by default. And the custom controls you are talking about are inside the LD2KCTRL.OCX that we wrote and is also installed as part of the LD2000 software. If you didn't have LD2000 installed, then these would be missing. Thanks for letting me know!

    Bill
    Last edited by Pangolin; 10-29-2008 at 19:59.

  8. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zoof View Post
    Raytrack 35 plus from jmlasers. They are tuned to 35k - my doing ( and yes I know why it should be 30k ). They are running at about 20kpps in the vids.


    Here, this is a little effect that I'm rather proud of: Fading near the far clipping plane

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc3MsFzBEb4 (youtube may take a while to process it though)
    Nice effect Zoof I look forward to testing this out some time, it looks alike a great addition to the zoofgames

  9. #59
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    based on what im reading, the Zektor could be used (with voltages adjusted) as a laser gaming card sending the data directly to your projector (XY/RGB)
    -------
    The ZVG will work with any analog X/Y Monitor including any dual channel oscilloscope that can be set to an X/Y mode.
    ----------

    all the voltages are adjustable.
    Im nut sure at what "speed" its sending data tho...

  10. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Yes, that is commonly referred to as "depth cueing".

    (The video looks best if you set media player to pay it at around 200% size.)

    Depth cueing is used throughout the shows, but might be seen particularly well around time 2:50 to 3:15, and arount 4:25 or so...


    Bill
    Bill, it would be nice to see that in actual laser projection and not in computer rendering. Fading / depth cueing is a trivial thing in computer graphics. The hard part is to get your DPSS laser to fade properly so the white lines (in my case) don't turn green, blue or red because of the lasers' different modulation curves, especially near the blanking end. I made quite an effort to get the color control right, so that is what is giving me my photon kicks lately. Of course I'm sure Pangolin got it right too (or even better), being market leader and such. Nice property of the software to export directly to avi.

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