Lemme get something straight...

I was pretty sure that Construct had very limited 3D capabilities. And I was even more sure that it was impossible to create animations for the 3D models.

So I was wondering... why have I seen in the past games that certainly LOOK like they have animation? I've seen two... there was one which was based on a thumb war... I think it was deadeye's creation?... and another that I saw a video and screenshots on on one of the threads here... somewhere. It was a platformer with 3D levels, characters etc and I think the enemies looked like ants.

So is there a way to achieve 3D animation?

Have you had a look at ROJOhounds Texture-setter plugin ?

"Animated textures for 3dobject's"

link

Impossible? No, but you need a very, very, very good understanding of the math involved in order to pull it off.

... there was one which was based on a thumb war... I think it was deadeye's creation?...I think you are talking of

Mega Thumb: Dream Match

http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/arcade/mega-thumb-dream-match/3161/

Quazi could surely tell a lot more about it, but I think I remember that this was all done with events and without the 3D object. So for every normal human being, this is nearly impossible to recreate :D

Yep, I use the texture setter plugin in a fair amount of my games. And yeah, that game is the one I meant... I can't believe that it was made completely WITHOUT 3D models. You're right when you say I couldn't understand that... <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

yeah what tulamide said. quazi made thumb war.

you can have complete control over the 3d position of every vertex in a distorted sprite(which is how thumb war works), or load 3d models(feature didn't exist when thumbwar was created)

the 3d position of vertexes thing allows for interesting stuff like thumbwar or newt's recent 3d rts example with random 3d terrain, but you really have to love math to pull it off. it doesn't do the work for you at all like most construct stuff does.

edit: oops, was posting as you posted

I was with quazi when he was working on the game. Creating models with deforming mesh animation is really, REALLY just not feasible for a larger game. Mega Thumb kind of pushes the limits of 3d in Construct, and creating more complex models with deforming mesh animation is impossible, sadly. The models are all generated on startup with events through carefully crafted curves and practically each point, curve and polygon on the model is tailored by hand to have the right curvature and flex when moving. It's a lot of brute force tweaking and math, and really not a suitable workflow. It's inspiring, but it's really not a technique that can be widely/easily used for 3d games.

Deadeye's... creation?

youtube.com/watch

Davio made me do ^^^that lmao.

Yea, if your willing to make a 3D game without 3D objects or any modeling tools, it's certainly possible to have animations and cameras and an in-game model editor with texture loading... but that's building the whole engine up from the ground yourself. It took a LONG time to make things look right, the thumbs are spawned using expressions nested in expressions using multiple variables to create a point cloud that deforms properly, and then ontop of that you need to map square meshes onto that point cloud, handle all the rotations math and so forth, its really, really, really, slow and complicated.

basically thumbs was created to prove that construct's event system and basic sprite object are able to do pretty much ANYTHING , but that doesn't mean it's easy. Of course for simpler 3D games you could make like starfox or something without TOO much work, well if you were good enough with constuct at least.

in short answer, traditional style 3d animation is impossible right now in construct, you need to build your own system to do it, and thats certainly not EASY, especially if you've never did any 3d programming/math before.

Hmmm... I doubt my knowledge of Construct extends that far, I'm afraid. I guess I'll have a mess about with these ideas... but I haven't done any 3D programming before. Actually, I haven't done any programing. I experimented with DarkBASIC but the sheer learning curve put me off, as well as that I was used to Construct's event system.

Hmmm... I doubt my knowledge of Construct extends that far, I'm afraid. I guess I'll have a mess about with these ideas... but I haven't done any 3D programming before. Actually, I haven't done any programing. I experimented with DarkBASIC but the sheer learning curve put me off, as well as that I was used to Construct's event system.

It's not necessarily as easy as Construct, but I found Blitz3D much easier and more intuitive than DarkBASIC. It also has a nice online community of plugins, and tutorials to learn from. Another good way to make 3D games is using Ninfa3D, a free alternative to Blitz3D, which uses similar syntax and comes with built-in physics and shadow casters.

You can find Ninfa3D here

Edit: You can use it with the FreeBASIC IDE, but I can't find a link on how to set it up, so if you decide to use the engine ask here for how to do it and I'll see if I saved the instructions on my harddrive.

Thanks Jayjay! I won't lie to you, I'm still relatively new to game development, I've only been using Construct for a couple of years. And I'm certainly not a pro at it yet.

I'll have a look at this Ninfa3D when I get home, I haven't heard of it before. I'm very used to Construct's layout and event sheet stuff, and DarkBASIC just had one big text document thingy where I could write code. I still have no idea how a large complex game could be created with that, shows how much I know... <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Deadeye's... creation?

Hahahaaa <img src="smileys/smiley16.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Anyway, if you want to do something that looks like 3D animation in CC you could probably fake it fairly easily. It would be a tedious process with a lot of setup work, but theoretically it's possible. What you would do is animate your model in whatever package you're using, then bake animation frames into single .obj files. You would take each .obj object and stick them in your scene so they're all overlapping. Finally, you'd need to create your own animation system using events that makes all of your .obj objects invisible EXCEPT for the current frame of animation. Theoretically it's possible.

But if you're just doing an orthographic view from the top or side then it'd be way easier to just render sprite frames from your modeling package. You really only need to have full 3D if your meshes might be seen from any angle at any time. If it's always going to be seen from one side, then there's no need for an actual .obj.

I concur with what others have said though. If 3D is what you are truly interested in then you should probably just knuckle down and start learning one of the billion 3D game creators out there. While CC does have 3D capability, it simply isn't very user friendly or efficient. And as someone who recently made the jump to 3D (and someone who is really not all that great at coding or math) I can say it's honestly not as hard as most people think it is.

Hey. Mind saying which 3D thing you chose, deadeye?

I would recommend either UDK or Unity3D, as they are fairly easy to use as far as managing assets and setting up scenes. You still need some programming skills, though I believe UDK comes with a node-based logic editor (called Kismet I think)... and there is a 3rd party one you can buy for Unity as an addon. And these packages can export to the web, consoles, mobile devices, tablets, and such. Not just the desktop. That is, if you buy a license for that device. And I don't know a lot about UDK, but Unity at least can export to web, Windows, and MacOS in the free version.

Long story short, if you're going to do 3D then use a dedicated 3D package.

Hey. Mind saying which 3D thing you chose, deadeye?

I'm using Unity <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Ironically, I am using it to make a side-view game that mostly uses sprites <img src="smileys/smiley17.gif" border="0" align="middle" />. Though there are some 3D models mixed in for things that have to rotate and such.

Alright, cheers for the info. Have been looking into it, but I sure do like me some Construct <img src="smileys/smiley2.gif" border="0" align="middle" />