Randomchaos 3D Engine

BaseCamera Class

2008-10-30T21:48:00.001Z

As I have said before, this is identical to my XNA camera. I know, not the best camera in the world, but this is the base of other cameras I will be producing later. So, as before we have a header file and cpp file. The header looks like this: #include #include #include "RandomChaos3DUtility.h"#pragma onceclass BaseCamera{public: BaseCamera(void); BaseCamera(

Device Creation (and other bits) in C++

2008-10-29T21:07:00.002Z

OK, this is not as strait forward as it is in XNA :P What I have done to help me out is create a utility class. This class holds a few methods at the moment and at the time of posting, the header file looks like this: class RC3DUtility{public: RC3DUtility(void); ~RC3DUtility(void); LPDIRECT3DDEVICE9 InitializeDevice(HWND hwnd,UINT width,UINT height); HWND CreateNewWindow(LPCTSTR

Nice Terrain in C++

2008-10-28T21:45:00.004Z

And now I have my XNA terrain shader in my C++ terrain implementation. Again, no source yet, just wanted to post my progress so far. My next post I will start to put some code up. I am going to miss out the window creation code as this can be found in Riemers C++ tutorial, my method for creating the graphics device how ever is a little different and so I will post that. It is not much different

The Adventure Begins

2008-10-27T21:25:00.005Z

Sorry, but no code in this post, I want to clean it up a bit and get my ful lterrain shader into the mix first.What you can see in this clip though is my camera class and a basic terrain object. These classes are pretty much the same as the ones I have written in XNA just ported to C++, the shader is a simple blinn-phong shader.So, this is what it looks like at the moment:

Not been here for a while....

2008-10-16T10:15:00.003Z

Well, it's been a while since I last posted here. As I am sure you know ALL my XNA blogging now occurs over at the XNA-UK User GroupI love XNA, in fact I am totally addicted to it and it has become something of an obsession so much so I decided this week to have a break and look at something else. So I have taken a look at using C++ with DirectX9....I know, not much different is it..So what I

Update

2008-01-04T16:48:00.000Z

Yet more updates on the new blog, if you have not taken a look yet please do, you can find it hereAlso Dark Omen Games now has a new site as well as it's first XNA game release BreakThrough available for both the PC and the XBox 360.

New Post on XNA UK

2007-10-23T21:54:00.000Z

Find the new post here.

Moving the Blog - New URL

2007-10-12T23:29:00.000Z

For those that would like to follow my XNA babbling further, the new blog will be here http://xna-uk.net/blogs/randomchaos

Moving the blog

2007-10-12T20:44:00.000Z

Well it looks like I have taken the plunge over at the XNA UK User Group!Leaf offered to host my blog there a while back when my FTP issues started, and has also been gracious enough to host my FTP files. I think what they are trying to do there is a great idea, I think having a good XNA community in the UK is important to home brew development here and I am only too glad to be involved.There are

FTP - Fixed

2007-10-05T12:15:00.001Z

We have the FTP issue resolved now, so by all means download what you want.I do hope this is the last of my FTP troubles. Sorry for the hastle to all those that got the zips and found they had been corrupted, and thanks for your interest.

Generic XNA - A.I Finite State Machine

2007-10-04T21:22:00.000Z

I have a great book Programming Game AI By Example by Mat Buckland. The first chapter was an eye opener for me as it is a Maths and Physics Primer which is just what I needed, I have not used either of those parts of my Brain since 1988 and they are a bit whithered :PAnyway I digress. The next chapter is on Finite State Machines (FSM), I have a little experience of these having played with

FTP Woes...

2007-10-03T09:27:00.000Z

Looks like there is an issue with the FTP at XNA UK, some of you are getting corrupted zip files, I have not had the issue my self but they are looking at it now.

Generic XNA - Ocean Shader

2007-10-02T13:57:00.000Z

I have moved this shader and it's associated class over to a generic XNA class. This should make it easier to bolt into your own projects should you not want to use the Randomchaos3DEngine as your base.See this post for reference: Source Example 5 - OceanGenericXNAOceanExample.zip

Generic XNA - Under Water Post Process Effect

2007-10-02T10:32:00.000Z

I guess the idea for this came from Bioshock, a few weeks a go a friend of mine asked if it was possible for my to create an underwater post process effect for him (thanks for the idea Dave). I already had a shader from Microsoft (can't remember where I got it) that I used for a nice ripple effect on 2D images, so I thought I should be able to adapt that to do this effect. And that is exactly

Generic XNA - Content Pipeline Mod

2007-10-01T20:54:00.001Z

I have a few examples using custom pipeline code on here, now an issue I get a lot, mainly because I have next to no modeling skills, is when I try to use a new model that has been UV'd I get compile errors because the UV texture that is embedded in the model file is not present or in the right place. So I have to find the texture file reference in the model file and remove it, but some times the

FTP - Sorted

2007-10-01T14:01:00.000Z

All my source is now hosted on the XNA UK User Group. I have updated the content pipline for the engine so that tangents are now calculated correctly, there is also now no references to disabled/removed classes.You can access the lot here, and I am now in the process of altering the links to the source on this blog.Hope you find it useful.

FTP Update

2007-09-29T22:55:00.000Z

For those that care, I have finally sorted out an FTP server to host my downloads.I would like to thank both Leaf and Chr0n1x for there support :)I hope to get the files up to my new FTP server by the end of the week. The links, as they stand at the time of writing, are still dead and will time out.

Generic XNA - Bump/Normal Mapping

2007-09-19T13:18:00.000Z

Now I have had a hell of a game with this in the past and have now come across a few people who have had the same or similar issues that I have had. So I have decided to put up and example of how to do this. The example given on the Creators Club is great, but relies on you embedding your textures in the mesh you intend to bump. This is all fine, but if you have one model and you want to apply

FTP Server Down!

2007-09-15T18:42:00.000Z

It looks like my FTP server is down so you can't download the source at the moment, sorry about this for those of you that have tried, once it is back up and running I will let you know.

Generic XNA - SM3 Fog

2007-08-17T21:20:00.000Z

So here is the SM3 (Shader Model 3) HLSL fog. Now this is taken pretty much 99% from Leaf's example, but thought I would comment on how easy this technique is to put into your existing shaders.I also found that adding this to a shader pushes the operation count up a fair bit

Generic XNA - How to get images from a cube map

2007-08-16T07:36:00.000Z

OK, may be a bit of an odd post, but I thought I would put it up any way. I have 2 methods for creating a skybox now, either by using 6 textured quads and positioning them around the camera at set distance and scale or using an inverted cube mesh and then applying a particle system

Generic XNA - SkyBox

2007-07-26T19:59:00.001Z

So a sky box, having done the Hazy Mind tutorial and had a play with Riemers tutorials I decided to create my own skybox. I like the way both tutorials do there sky box's but I kind of like cube maps, it means I keep 6 textures in one place, have only one texture variable and so makes my life a little easier when passing textures to my skybox. So my version of a skybox uses a box mesh (the same

Generic XNA

2007-07-26T13:02:00.000Z

Posts titled "Generic XNA" will have code methods and elements that can be bolted into mostly any XNA project. This will include classes that inherit from GameComponent, DrawableGamesComponent so they can just be

Source Example 6 - Fog SM 1.1 to 2

2007-07-24T11:57:00.001Z

This example shows the use of shader model 1.1 - 2 methodology for fog by using the render states.ControlsMouse to rotate camera.Arrow Keys to translate camera.F1 Switch Fog On.F2 Switch Fog Off.RC3DEFogSample1.zip

Source Example 5 - Ocean

2007-07-24T11:09:00.000Z

Simply an example using the Ocean shader and class. ControlsMose to rotate the camera.Arrow Keys to translate the camers.F1 - F12 to alter Ocean paramters.F1 & F2 Swich Alpha On/OffF3 & F4 Alter Ocean ColorF5 - F10 Vary wave amplitude, frequency and bump heightF11 & F12 Sparkle On/OffEscape to exit.RC3DEOceanExample1.zip

Source Example 4 - Terrain

2007-07-24T10:09:00.000Z

So onto terrain, this example uses a height map 128X128 and is configured to use Riemers origional terrain shader (modified for the engine). Also included in this example are my terrain shaders along with the modified bump maped versions of these shaders and the associated textures.It also gives an example of the terrain picking and collision, again this is quite basic. ControlsMouse to rotate

Source Example 3 - Mesh Animation

2007-07-23T22:34:00.000Z

Still showing the use of the model class, in this example we have an animated mesh (X format). Again this is another simple example using the RandomchaosContentPipelineManager to load the mesh's animation data and using the shader to animate the mesh. Both the context methods and the shader I found before MS released their mesh animation sample. I have had to put a sleep in there as the animation

Source Example 2 - Scene Picking & Targets

2007-07-23T11:31:00.000Z

Moving on from example 1 but sticking with the Model and Scene class, this example shows how to apply picking objects from the scene and also how to apply a targeting reticle to a model using the Get2DCoors method.For this to be done I have added the RandomchaosContentPipelineManager to the project, this gives the model class the

Source Example 1 - Basic Model

2007-07-23T09:23:00.001Z

Here is the first source code example, all it is is a simple model, skybox and camera implementation. This example comes with the model, two shaders, the skybox textures and the environment cubemap. The zip comes out at about 1.7MThe two shaders are:A basic Texture shader, this is taken straight from the HM tutorial.An Environment map

Engine Design - Source

2007-07-22T12:54:00.001Z

Here is a link to the source for this engine. It is just the source so there are no models, textures or shaders in this zip, just the engine and the content pipeline processor for models, this has extras in it for giving each mesh in a mesh a bounding box and basic animation (*.X only I think)I will also put up a link in the right panel so you don't have to come back to this post and can access

What's Next??

2007-07-21T23:21:00.001Z

Well, most of my work in XNA now is outside of the HM Engine so my posts from now on in will be more generic engine elements that you should be able to bolt into any XNA engine. I hope what I have posted has helped those of you that read this blog and not lead you down any dead ends or confused you. So what is next? Well I have a point sprite particle system that is now pushing about 10K of

Engine Design - Fire

2007-07-21T23:19:00.001Z

Right,Here is the code for my fire, this fire effect is not to robust really, I need to do a little more work on it so I can have true volumetric fire, also I don't like the multi mesh approach I am using either so will probably play with the shader to get it to run on a single mesh. In short I am not happy with it yet, but I am posting it here so you can at least see what it does and it might

Shader Fog

2007-07-17T22:33:00.000Z

Have found out how to do fog in the shader so this means that you can now have fog in your XBox 360 games as well as your Windows based games.As usual it is a matter of adding the right semantic and setting the correct renderstate in the shader.So, the code.Shader Model 1.1 - 2In your Shader's vertex return structure, add the

Engine Design - Terrain (Bump/Normal Mapping)

2007-06-28T19:36:00.000Z

Well, looks like my post on fire is on hold for now. So here is my bump/normal mapped terrain shaders and the modifications I made to my existing terrain object.Changes to the Terrain ClassFirst thing I had to do was figure out how to add tangents to the terrain Vertex Elementbump maps and normals and thought it would be a good idea to apply this to the terrain. I managed to do it using the shader from Reimers tutorial and modified it to render bump maps per terrain layer. Any way enough chat, here are some

Engine Design - Water (Ocean)

2007-06-14T11:58:00.000Z

Now, once I had a terrain object I thought it would be great to get a water model to go with it. I thought I would just use the terrain class and modify it so that it was flat. I then needed a shader to do my water effect, and being new to all this 3D stuff and HLSL, did not have the skills to write my own, so I had a mooch on line and

Engine Design - Terrain

2007-06-07T21:45:00.000Z

Well this is my version of a terrain class for the Engine, it is a very simple class. I took the initial idea and I guess framework from Riemers Series 4 tutorial and got it to fit my engine. I added a few methods to it to make it a bit more user friendly, for instance there is a method to tell if an object has collided with the terrain object, there is a method

Engine Design - Ray Picking

2007-05-29T08:39:00.000Z

Here I will show how I manage to pick 3D objects from the scene using the mouse. Now as you can imagine this can lead to a few issues, one of which is converting a mouses 2D coordinates to 3D coordinates that can be used in the scene.Before I give you the code (again) I will first try and explain how this method works. I use a very similar thing in my terrain

Engine Design - Fog

2007-05-19T21:05:00.001Z

I thought I would post this class first as it is relatively simple to implement and can be put into any XNA engine and is not specific to the HM Engine.Right, the effect of this class can be seen in the earlier post I gave for fog. So without further a do, here is the class: public sealed class Fog { public static Color FogColor; public static bool FogEnable; public

Engine Design

2007-05-10T10:28:00.000Z

Well I guess thats all the modifications I have made to the core elements. What I intend to document next are my additional objects and methods like how I am currently doing Fog, Ray picking, Terrain, Water, Fire, Sound and the particle system.

Engine Design - RCModel

2007-04-24T19:38:00.000Z

Now this class is probably the biggest deviation from the tutorial. I have added a number of fields and properties for my shaders, from the basic AmbientLightColor to and environment cube map, bump maps and height maps. I don't see any point in documenting these as they are pretty much run of the mill and are required for the shaders you use. So I am going to document the fundimental differences

New Engine Component - Fog

2007-04-22T21:18:00.000Z

Well, have been a little busy over the last few weeks, but have managed to get some time to have a play with XNA and have added Fog to my engine.I thought I would post a screen shot of it or two in action, I have posted my method on the HM forum and will go into more detail

Engine Design - Shader, Textured Quad and Camera Objects

2007-04-15T19:57:00.000Z

RCShader & RCShaderManagerI will start with the Shader classes. The ShaderManager is as the tutorial has it but has the Hashtable replaced with a Dictionary. Basically I have redefined the myShaders container and added a variable to manage the index like this:private static Dictionary myShaders = new Dictionary();private static

Engine Design - Interfaces and RCScene

2007-04-08T20:46:00.000Z

The interfaces are pretty much as the tutorial has them, I have removed the set methods from the IRCHasMaterial interface as I didn't think they where of much use as I prefer setting fields in my objects with properties rather than using methods. I don't think there is any performance issue with it, it is just a personal

Engine Design - RCObject

2007-04-08T20:41:00.000Z

As mentioned before my engine is based on the HazyMind XNA tutorials. I think Mike's idea for the tutorial was to give people a sense of how to go about creating an engine in XNA. The tutorials do not necessarily tell you how you should do it but rather point you in the right direction.Tutorial 2 Scene Graph and Object Framework is

The Randomchaos3DEngine

2007-04-07T11:50:00.000Z

What I intent to do is document what I have added to my engine. This will include where it deviates from the original source in the Hazy Mind tutorial.Here is a list of some of the things I have added and/or changed in my engine:NamespaceAltered Namespaces, classes have a prefix of RC rather than HM, probably not worth a mention but if you read any of my code snippets you might think, "where did

XNA Development

2007-04-03T13:20:00.000Z

Well I am still busy playing with XNA. I am well into my engine now thanks to Mike Schuld's HazyMind Tutorials, with out this site I would never have got of the ground.I thought I would post up some images of what my engine can do, the images show the steady progression of the engine. I have done my best to put the images in

Blogger....

2007-02-23T16:27:00.000Z

Well what do you know, I am actually going to start using this blog! I am intending to use this blog as my record of learning XNA. for those of you who don't know what XNA is, it's a programming framework for writing computer games for the PC and the XBox360. I am totally new to games development but I am eager to learn...Watch this space, you never know I might actually put some stuff up here

The things you have to do...

2006-08-07T10:03:00.000Z

What a palava just to post on JC's travel site!!!I hate having to join stuff just to post on someones site. Jon, you know how to pick em!