What new features would you like for the next NewDark update (Suggestions) - by Cardia
Cardia on 7/8/2018 at 19:59
I've hosted your requests in the french forum.
trefoilknot on 7/8/2018 at 21:29
Quote Posted by LarryG
I think I would most like to have a few more solid modeling primitives. The most common solid primitives provided by solid modeling programs are (a) box, (b) sphere, (c) cylinder, (d) cone, (e) torus, (f) wedge, and (g) pyramid. We have the box, cylinder, wedge, and cone/pyramid, but no sphere and no torus. Adding those would greatly enhance our ability to model.
I'd love to see torus shaped brushes as well, but PinkDot explained that brushes need to be convex which is not possible for such a shape. Spheres would presumably be fine. You can actually approximate a sphere quite well using the intersection of three cylinders, but it's a bit of a nuisance at present since it requires a lot of adding and removing of water at intermediate stages.
PinkDot on 8/8/2018 at 10:31
Torus could be built with a number of convex sections. So, the primitive that we would need would be a 'torus section', representing let's say 22.5 degrees of the arc. Still it would be tricky to get it snapped, so the vertices are aligned. I mean Dromed would have to go out of its ways, to store a pivot of the brush outside of the brush etc...
Also Dromed is very limited in terms of parameters that it takes for the primitives, apart from the bounding box size. Cylinders and cones take number of sides. Torus would need more, I guess.
But a primitive that a lot of people would appreciate, I believe, would be a gothic arch (taking cylinder sides parameter into account). I know "it's possible" to build it with wedges, but it's a nightmare to deal with in even a semi-complex scenarios.
Also - chamfered box. Again - this would require an extra parameter to specify size of the chamfer.
Spheres would be nice, but a hemispheres would be a useful option too. For the domes in buildings, it would be less intrusive - not damaging your interior brushes.
Spheres would require some clever UV mapping algorithm though - probably a couple of options. Remember Dark Engine cannot stretch polygons, so you'd get a lot of seams between the trapezoidal polygons.
skacky on 8/8/2018 at 12:53
Gothic arches are easy enough to make with wedges. In any case, you want your arches to be made out of solid wedges anyway (except for non-90° architecture), that saves a whole lot of cells versus air cylinders.
PinkDot on 8/8/2018 at 14:20
Yes, I know those techniques for building any arches you want. But while it gives you a sense of being creative and inventive it's just a convoluted way of building things. In general I hate the techniques that involve overlapping brushes or using water brushes as a mid stage to get what you want. Portalizing would be faster too, since fewer overlaps means fewer CSG operations.
I've been building cathedrals with a lot of vaulted ceilings etc.. and got to a point, where moving a brush in time (order) through a list of 2000 brushes was just wasting of my life. So was an attempt to resize built architecture.
Why not just have one brush, that creates a gothic arc and voila - no mess! You save time (your life) you save grey hair on your head, you save brushes for more detailed architecture somewhere else. And if you fancy the techniques of overlapping brushes to get an unusual shape, you can push it even further, having a more sophisticated shape as your base. Everybody wins.
LarryG on 8/8/2018 at 16:14
This issues with non-primitives like a Gothic arch are many, but first and foremost is that the directed distance calculations can be quite complex. Does object A hit said Gothic arch or no? The reason those 5 or 6 primitives are the standard set is simply because the math calculations are simple, known, and fast. Better would be for a working set of macros for parametric building of common architectural structures using these standard primitives. Say, a working stairs tool, or a working Gothic arch tool, or one for vaults, or ... . But you get the idea. And those tools could be made outside of the existing engine, with a sequence of command line functions, couldn't they? Or perhaps in Squirrel? Can Squirrel scripts get executed from within DromEd to create geometry? I don't know, but someone must.
PinkDot on 8/8/2018 at 18:29
Quote:
This issues with non-primitives like a Gothic arch are many, but first and foremost is that the directed distance calculations can be quite complex. Does object A hit said Gothic arch or no? The reason those 5 or 6 primitives are the standard set is simply because the math calculations are simple, known, and fast.
I don't think this is an issue. I think during the calculations everything is stored as convex volumes built out of planes and intersections are calculated on a plane to plane basis. Dodecahedrons are pretty irregular shapes anyway yet they're in the original pack.
Quote:
Better would be for a working set of macros for parametric building of common architectural structures using these standard primitives. Say, a working stairs tool, or a working Gothic arch tool, or one for vaults, or ... . But you get the idea. And those tools could be made outside of the existing engine, with a sequence of command line functions, couldn't they? Or perhaps in Squirrel? Can Squirrel scripts get executed from within DromEd to create geometry? I don't know, but someone must.
Yeah, that would be great - I had a look at this once, but didn't get far. Dromed wasn't really designed for scripted creation. But it would be useful to have a proper API, where you can query the scene and create objects using certain industry standards.
I'd prefer support for Python inside Dromed though, as it's more popular language, relatively easy to learn and has a vast library of modules to use.
Ascobol on 13/8/2018 at 00:12
In the unreal 99 engine one can save any custom brushes they cut so that you can say, save a window and use it 100 times instead of using the 3 shapes 100 times.
Thats probably beyond dromed though :(
nicked on 13/8/2018 at 06:43
Quote Posted by Ascobol
In the unreal 99 engine one can save any custom brushes they cut so that you can say, save a window and use it 100 times instead of using the 3 shapes 100 times.
Thats probably beyond dromed though :(
Like a prefab? That's basically what a multibrush is, but like others have said, it would be good if they were more powerful and less easily broken.