DeleD Community Edition

[Shard]

Hi guys,

After a long layoff, I have got back to trying a few things out using DeleD (Lite) and DBPro. I seem to have come across a couple of things that make the excellent DBP exporter a little awkward to use, and I wonder if anyone knows of a way around this? Here is what is happening.

I made a very simple (and I mean simple) test scene consisting of one cube and one rectangle in Deled. I then exported it using the DBPro plug-in. The scene loaded into DBPro perfectly. So far so good.

At this point I wanted to be able to get hold of individual items within the exported scene – i.e. the cube and/or the rectangle so I could do “stuff” with them in DBPro. This is where things start to confuse me.

a) When I interrogate the loaded scene (or DBPro object), it reports back that the object contains three limbs instead of two. Not a show stopper as I can manipulate limb 1 (the rectangle), and limb 2 (the cube). Errors are returned if I attempt to access limb 3 (even tried for a limb 0) which given that they don’t really exist holds no surprises.

b) The following is a little more problematic; Using some of the DBPro commands, I interrogated the loaded object (scene) in order to extract the limb names. This (I hoped) would have returned the names (or tags) that I gave them from within Deled. In this case “MainCube” and “Rectangle”. Instead, I was returned a name of “DeleDExported” for both the real limbs, and also the third non-existent one.

I assume that the reported “DeleDExported” is simply propagated to all the limb names as this was the default name I used for the scene. I am also guessing that the third phantom limb may actually in someway be referring to the scene as a whole.

However, not being able to iterate through the loaded scene and access the correct limb names prevents me from identifying which limb refers to which object, and this will prevent me from being able to programmatically manipulate objects within the scene.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Pete.

[Paul-Jan]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for posting these issues! Let's see if Il Buzzo (or a user with hands-on experience with the same issues) can figure it out...

[Il Buzzo]

Hi Pete,
I'm DBO Plugin programmer so I'll answer all your questions here....

a) If I'm not wrong one of limbs is just the root frame of DBO structure (void) it's really not usefull but you need a root frame in your file.

b) If you'd have read manual you'll know (Scene Name explanation). Name choosen by you is propagated to all limbs including root frame.

So at the moment you cannot access each limb freely...this because DBO exporter was intended just to let you use a level in DBPro...Maybe in next versions I'll introduce but there is anoter trouble, the following one:
Owing to the fact that DeleD uses multitexturing (in the sense that you can assign different materials to faces of the same object), the only way to rapresent this behaviour in DBO (owing to DirectX way of texturing) you must add a meshbuffer (limb) for each material, you could have an object made of a number of limbs, so that modification is more complex than expected....
Anyway I hope to have been of help and don' t panic, just be patient, in next version I'll add this change and others...
Bye

[Shard]

Hi again guys,

Thank you for your replies - I really appreciate your answers and the effort you have all put into your products.

Having just given this a little thought whilst consuming brown relaxation fluid at my local pub, I think that there may be a way around this anyway.

It looks like the ID number assigned within DeleD has simply been shifted up by 1 in the DBO file – maybe to allow for the root object number. I will do a bit more testing. If that is the case, then I can easily find out which object I need to manipulate by using the DeleD ID + 1.

If not, then patience is something that I have in ample supplies . None of the issues raised here will cause me sleepness nights as I have a mountain to climb learning all the other 3d techniques. I think that my MMORPG that will outgun Doom8 and graphically eclipse HalfLife 9 can safely wait for another couple of days whilst I try to figure out what a vertex is.

So will the graphical lighting design idea that I had – I have a long stretch ahead of me in the learning department methinks.

Thanks once again,

Pete.

[Paul-Jan]

*lol* Quite a few graphic programmers, including myself, could learn a lot from that attitude!

[Jeroen]

[Shard]

Glad you like it Joroen.

English "brown relaxation fluid" is the principle driver behind this countries I.T. infrastructure and programming skills.

Hmmmm. That could explain why vast tracts of the work has been exported to India.

It would also seem that I was wrong about the ID number assignation once exported via the plug-in. Oh well, I am sure that I will find a way around it.

I am still very impressed with both products though. I can feel a "pro" upgrade tormenting my severly depleted wallet here so that I can use the CSG Subtract. Laziness is nothing unless well executed.

Thanks,

Pete.