I'm Nathan, living in NSW Australia. I too, am a grumpy old man (sans the grumpy and the old parts).

I currently spend the majority of my time doing study, and hobbies that include programming of various natures and music. I got my programming (well, programming of a gaming nature) start using TGF, which was a blast for a good many years. Logical progression to Construct, and here I am .

I cannot believe I didn't notice this earlier. I have discovered exactly what the problem is. (EDIT: Then again, it could just be the result of a different problem, but it at least confirms that there is an issue.)

Gimbal Lock.

(Explanation of Gimbal lock: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1528097)

This can be observed using my original example above. All you need to do is, quite simply, rotate Pitch to 90 degrees. At this point, Yaw and Roll achieve the exact same motion on the 3D Box. This means you have lost one degree of movement, and have achieved Gimbal Lock.

While this may not seem a big deal at first glance, this causes major issues when you start doing anything of complexity using the 3D Boxes. It is also a well known issue that extends beyond just 3d programming (Apollo 11 anyone?).

In case anyone is interested as to my 3D Rotation implementation, I have used the Axis Angle method (in a Matrix), courtesy of the following website:

http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/geo ... /index.htm

Axis angle and Quaternions both, technically, avoid Gimbal Lock. Whereas Euler Angles are known to be plagued by it (though I make no assumptions that is the cause in this case).

EDIT: Removed. Jumping to conclusions is a bad habit.

Lol yeah, you almost got me there (you shifty bugger you ).

Ironically, the only thing going through my mind as I read that was "A six figure sum? Hot damn! Go Ashley!"

Edit: On a serious note, I had a sinking feeling when I started reading that. Just glad I realised the date halfway through . I'm not the biggest fan of the idea of losing Ashley (Which would've been the real tragedy had this been true).

Howdy folks:) Just wanted to share my point of view on all of this. First i removed all of the out-of-topic comments on the ghosthunter download page. Arguing between mmf and construct is really silly if you think about it. Since all we are here for is to make cool games.

The tools we are using be it may a clickteam product, construct, flash or c++ should not make a difference at all in my opinion. Now for the demo that was uploaded, i see why some people go on and jump in defence mode since it looks and plays like a simmilar demo that was made for construct but the idea behind this was to show what mmf2 can do now, it is even open source so people can see how it was made, that in my opinion is the difference. If this was a demo for a game that was in the making or if it was not open source that would have been a different story as it is now hpwever i think everyone should just see this as a technical open source demo.

That's all, i do not see any reason why our 2 communties can't help eachother and share our creativity. Instead of fighting lets work together.

Have a good night folks,

Rikus

I figure I'll poke my head in at this point and say 'I agree'.

I also noticed the very apparent similarities between this tech demo and the one for Construct. The fact still remains, however, that it is a tech demo, and is not intended to be a full fledged game at all.

The bickering that has emerged over the two I do not feel is necessary in the slightest, and I cannot see it achieving anything other than potential division between two communities that have the same goal; to create games.

Eep, messed up my maths somewhere in 3D box. I'll see what I can do about it.

Thanks Ashley, that would be great .

I realise I am probably one of only a handful of people using the 3DBox in a manner this complex, but its still something that interests me greatly.

I would love to have a fully playable 3D tech demo out in the near future.

I originally posted about a problem with the 3DBox's Orientations quite a while back. The original topic was still somewhat speculative and the information wasn't presented particularly well (Link: http://scirra.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=294).

I spent a large amount of time playing with the 3DBox after that post, resulting in my 3D Proof of Concept (Link: http://scirra.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=527).

Moving forward, the main problem I now face is that the 'Yaw' Orientation for the 3DBox is still not relative. I have created a .cap to try to illustrate this issue.

http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php?id ... onTest.cap

On the left, there is a Construct 3DBox, and on the right I have used 8 points to try to illustrate the corners of a cube, using my own 3D Rotation Matrix.

You will see that both boxes move perfectly together, when you only alter the Pitch and Roll. But as soon as you add any amount of Yaw, you can immediately see a discrepancy.

Basically, what is happening here, is that the Yaw value for the 3DBox is always counting Pitch and Roll as being 0. This causes Yaw to always rotate the 3DBox in the same horizontal fashion as it does when Pitch and Roll are 0.

This lack of relativity causes a whole myriad of issues for 3DBox rotations.

Slightly off topic, but is there a way to change the X and Y of the mouse? As in, 'Set Mouse X' or 'Set Mouse Y'?

That looks awesome Ashley .

---

I have noticed something with the blur, and I feel this post is probably the best place to mention it while I can.

Using 'every X ticks', 'Always', and for some reason only on 5x blur 'every X milliseconds', the increase in frames also increases the occurrence of the event.

http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php?id ... urtest.cap

1 is Motion Blur off, 2 is x5, and 3 is x20.

The 'every 1 ticks' and 'Always' make enough sense for me, but take note of the 'every 5 Milliseconds' box.

Motion Blur off and x20 move at the same speed, but x5 moves about twice as fast as that.

EDIT: It could just be my video card, I'm not sure.

Nvidia 8800 GTX

Runs and looks sexy as hell. The sooner we can implement this in our games, the better.

Edit: I have a speed based game I'm working on that would look absolutely gorgeous with this.

Ahhh Python.

I will have to sit down and learn all the syntaxical nuances with the language sometime.

Its good to know some of you guys here are well-versed in it already.

Upload, even if un-commented.

http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php?id ... oncept.cap

Keep in mind that it is just a Proof of Concept, to show that it can be done.

Making a working game/engine from it will still require a good lot of work.