Re^6: Creating X BitMap (XBM) images with directional gradients

I did some googling and the only things I found for Blender "dynamic mesh" was the Dyntopo feature, which just does sculpting on an existing polygon mesh. That will just edit an existing mesh, adding faces, so there'd be no difference in file format. If it's actually something else, please say!

A "standard polygon mesh" object creates questions. Would you go with each vertex is specified as a 3-float coordinate? Or as an index into a separate list of such coordinates? Would you store all the faces in a single such object, or have a memory-inefficient Perl array of SVs? Would the data be packed? How would you do extensions like textures? These aren't insoluble, but they give me the sinking feeling of knowing that people will want to write huge slabs of XS code instead of just using PDL because they have objections to the idea of dependencies (although depending on Math::Vector::Real is somehow still fine ;-).

Comment on Re^6: Creating X BitMap (XBM) images with directional gradients

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Re^7: Creating X BitMap (XBM) images with directional gradients by NERDVANA (Priest) on Aug 15, 2024 at 00:31 UTC
Well, I don't have first-hand experience with these things, I just know that people somehow design models that can flex :-) You know, like having a character run up steps and needing to have the foot meet the step in a realistic way, while all the vertices that make up the knee have been averaged somewhere inbetween a standing animation frame and a crouched animation frame. I kind of assumed you could make them with Blender, but have never actually done so. I would guess there would need to be some sort of equation encoded in the model, like "N * this vector + M * that vector" and someone clever would have found a way to build that into a big matrix so that you just take the "joint angles" of the model and do some matrix multiplication and get the current vertex array for the model. Maybe every game engine defines their own format? I'd be interested to know if any open-source tools standardized on something. Mainly, I hate it when I spend a bunch of effort making a re-usable piece, and then the very second problem I try to apply it to requires me to re-design it from scratch.	[reply]
Re^8: Creating X BitMap (XBM) images with directional gradients by etj (Priest) on Aug 15, 2024 at 01:56 UTC
Having to do things more than once is no fun! I had a very quick look, and it seems Unity is both usable freely (at least for low-revenue situations, which will definitely include experimentation), and well-regarded for game development. Whatever they do is likely to be within reach of a perfect solution to the design issues you're talking about. https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/index.html looks like a good starting point.	[reply]