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3D Viewport for Stars!

Fri, 20 October 2006 12:41

sirgwain

Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 86
Registered: March 2004
Location: Tucson

I've recently begun working on my own version of Stars! as a coding side project/c# test bed. The viewport is currently done with Managed DirectX using 2D sprites rendered by Direct3D (using textured quads).

I've just recently been working on the graphics for scanner radius display and I catch myself thinking how cool it would be for the scanner radius to be a translucent sphere, possibly with an animated texture. This line of thought has me thinking about a 3D viewport in general.

It's nontrivial to bite the 3D bullet and do the whole viewport in 3D, but I think it might be worth it in the end. I would like the opinions of the freestars community on the benefits and drawbacks of a 3D viewport as well as any cool ideas on how to make the interface more intuitive.

Some pros I've thought of:
- Cool new look and feel.
- Unique ship models for each type of fleet (colony, capital, scout, etc.)
- Textured planets that display information, like habitablity, mineral conc, etc.

Some cons:
- Stars! current viewport is very streamlined and can contain a lot of planets and fleets on it without feeling cluttered. A 3D interface would require larger planets (16x16 pixels doesn't cut it for 3D rendering), larger fleets, and more zoomed in views. I'm worried this might detract from some of the massiveness of universes in stars
- My modeling abilities end at sphere, cube, cylinder and pyramid. As such any additional models would require work on someone else's part to generate model/texture files consumable by Direct3D.
- 3D makes everything more complicated, thus slowing down development time.

Any thoughts or ideas about 3D viewports from the FreeStars! community?

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[Message index]

		3D Viewport for Stars! By: sirgwain on Fri, 20 October 2006 12:41
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: craebild on Sat, 21 October 2006 02:58
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: gible on Sat, 21 October 2006 03:46
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Sat, 21 October 2006 04:23
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sat, 21 October 2006 22:11
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: mlaub on Sat, 21 October 2006 23:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Sun, 22 October 2006 08:26
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sun, 22 October 2006 17:27
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sun, 22 October 2006 17:30
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Mon, 23 October 2006 04:51
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Marduk on Mon, 23 October 2006 18:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Tue, 24 October 2006 07:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Marduk on Tue, 24 October 2006 13:52
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Tue, 24 October 2006 14:23
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Marduk on Wed, 25 October 2006 13:59
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Wed, 25 October 2006 14:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: m.a@stars on Mon, 23 October 2006 04:28
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: iztok on Wed, 25 October 2006 03:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Wed, 25 October 2006 09:04
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Altruist on Mon, 13 November 2006 10:39
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: sirgwain on Tue, 24 October 2006 01:37
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: sirgwain on Tue, 14 November 2006 00:25
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sat, 18 November 2006 18:27
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Neo the White on Sat, 30 December 2006 12:51
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Fri, 08 June 2007 09:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sat, 09 June 2007 10:37
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Sun, 10 June 2007 05:29
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sun, 10 June 2007 09:03
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Sun, 10 June 2007 09:58
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: m.a@stars on Sun, 10 June 2007 13:42
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sun, 10 June 2007 20:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Sun, 10 June 2007 21:27
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sun, 10 June 2007 23:00
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Mon, 11 June 2007 00:26
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Mon, 11 June 2007 07:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Mon, 11 June 2007 20:21
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Wed, 13 June 2007 10:13
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Wed, 13 June 2007 11:31
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sat, 09 June 2007 10:25

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