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[Spinewire]

Hello, i just got you e-mail replay and i have signed up to the forums.

Is there a list of assets that need to be created?

I was thinking of just redoing the whole lot as it would give it a more seamless feel.

Is there anyway i can upload things into lifevis and test them for myself, also what sort of size are we talking with reguards to texture maps and models?

[TerminatorII]

as stated earlier everything has a maximum hieght of .9 with feet at -.4


Wow this looks liek fun, too bad I can't help with your moddleing needs. I currently am in Iraq and my moddleing comp is in the states with 3ds max... *sigh* I'll have to wait till I get back...

[Spinewire]

How close are people wanting to get to these models?

1000 pollys for something that is probabaly never going to be bigger than 100x100 pixels on screen seems a little bit like over kill.

Does lifevis support a change in the LOD?

Having something more icon based so you can see what it is from a distance then changing to a higher quality model when closer would reduce the strain immensely same would go for the textures.

Oh i will be using maya 2008 btw so units of .9 & -.4 don't really help as the units in Maya can be set to feet, inches, miles or anything else you can think off... As i have the ModelGen/Viewer tho a few test blocks will help me find the right size.

[Footkerchief]

Here's an idea.  What if Livevis could use DF's existing tiles?  It could:
- render the tiles/"creature graphics" as scaled sprites for creatures, items, trees and boulders
- use terrain tiles as the actual textures for the 3D terrain models (which mostly have square surfaces anyway)

Constructions, most buildings and engraved walls would still need their own models and textures, but I think this approach would do a lot for making Lifevis truly look like DF in 3D, rather than an artist's impression of a DF scene.

All optional, of course.

[AlienChickenPie]

Here's an idea.  What if Livevis could use DF's existing tiles?  It could:
- render the tiles/"creature graphics" as scaled sprites for creatures, items, trees and boulders
- use terrain tiles as the actual textures for the 3D terrain models (which mostly have square surfaces anyway)

Constructions, buildings and engraved walls would still need their own models and textures, but I think this approach would do a lot for making Lifevis truly look like DF in 3D, rather than an artist's impression of a DF scene.

All optional, of course.

I'd like that a lot. This would allow you to visualize 3D areas easily without losing the imagination friendly ASCII.

[kasker]

How close are people wanting to get to these models?

1000 pollys for something that is probabaly never going to be bigger than 100x100 pixels on screen seems a little bit like over kill.

Does lifevis support a change in the LOD?

Having something more icon based so you can see what it is from a distance then changing to a higher quality model when closer would reduce the strain immensely same would go for the textures.

Oh i will be using maya 2008 btw so units of .9 & -.4 don't really help as the units in Maya can be set to feet, inches, miles or anything else you can think off... As i have the ModelGen/Viewer tho a few test blocks will help me find the right size.

I don't use maya much but I'm pretty sure the feet/meter/etc is just the maya interpretation of the unit. One unit is still one unit whether maya views it as a meter or what. That being said it's one unit in .obj format which means you will probably need to scale it down 100x when exporting from maya.
I just export a one unit polygon in a text obj file and open it in a text editor to see if the vertices are one apart. Also, I pm'd you on sota forum.

[Mithaldu]

Is there anyway i can upload things into lifevis and test them for myself, also what sort of size are we talking with reguards to texture maps and models?

Please do read the readme and the entire thread.

I will however collect the relevant info later on and put it in the op.

Wow this looks liek fun, too bad I can't help with your moddleing needs. I currently am in Iraq and my moddleing comp is in the states with 3ds max... *sigh* I'll have to wait till I get back...

Wings 3D is fun, small and doesn't need much performance.

- render the tiles/"creature graphics" as scaled sprites for creatures, items, trees and boulders
- use terrain tiles as the actual textures for the 3D terrain models (which mostly have square surfaces anyway)

I've filed this away as something to do. Using pointsprites this should really be easily possible.

How close are people wanting to get to these models?

1000 pollys for something that is probabaly never going to be bigger than 100x100 pixels on screen seems a little bit like over kill.

Does lifevis support a change in the LOD?

Having something more icon based so you can see what it is from a distance then changing to a higher quality model when closer would reduce the strain immensely same would go for the textures.

Oh i will be using maya 2008 btw so units of .9 & -.4 don't really help as the units in Maya can be set to feet, inches, miles or anything else you can think off... As i have the ModelGen/Viewer tho a few test blocks will help me find the right size.

Keep in mind that polys means triangles, not rectangles or anything higher. LOD is not supported so far, something to do later on. Also, most modern graphics cards yawn at what lifevis is asking them to do. The main performance draw is the Perl processing. As for units, what kasker said.

Is there a list of assets that need to be created?

I just added a list of assets in DF to the OP. Gonna be making a wiki page for it later on.

[Mr.Person]

You are going to be able to tell which way smoothed/engraved walls are facing, right?

[Footkerchief]

I've filed this away as something to do. Using pointsprites this should really be easily possible.

Sweet.  I assume you mean giving Lifevis its own copy of the tileset and graphics set, and maybe hacking creature flags to display stuff like status icons.  It would be even cooler if you could read DF's rendered tiles on the fly so that the pointsprite would be a perfect replica at all times (including stuff like the "flip" animation for two creatures in the same tile), but I suspect that would only work on the selected z-level, and might have performance problems too.