creating old school 3D graphics - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

15 Jan 2013

...
  In article <1358156904.76010.YahooMailNeo at
web142501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>, 
...
  ? ? Tom Sparks <tom_a_sparks at yahoo.com.au>
writes:

   Are you
looking to just reproduce the look or are you also wanting to
 reproduce the technology used back then? 
  I just want to reproduce the look 

 OK, then you need to decide which "look" you want to reproduce.? Are
 you specifically trying to reproduce the visual look from REND386, or
 just using that as a reference point? I think both
...

   for my model I am looking at doing
  * Isometric projection  
 This is trivial.

   * objectvr[4]  
 This is also trivial.? From looking at the URL you gave for [4], it's
 just picture flipping a bunch of pictures taken at different
 viewpoints relative to the object.? You don't even need a graphics
 card for this, it's just picture flipping. working out the best way to get
these pictures, animation?
...

   * at a later date I may use webgl  
 Why webgl, are you trying to make something that is browser based? yes, it? a later
date project, I want to allow full 6DOF of the models as well as objectvr's limited
freedom
...

   > If just the former, it's not hard at
all, since you're simply   using
   existing
technology in a lower fidelity mode.   its not that easy as it seams a lot of the
styling needs to be done using a
  Shading Language
  witch is only support on some newer graphics cards  
 Shader based graphics cards are the norm for the past decade, so hardly
 only available on "newer" graphics cards.? OGL even provides a 
 software
 fallback.

 However, don't assume that because people are showing you how to do
 something in a shader that the only way to do it is in a shader.  I was just asking
could it be done
...
  The
 last generation of fixed-function pipeline cards (i.e. 10+ year old
 cards) were capable of a variety of effects if you were creative in
 how you use the hardware.

 I would agree that it's simpler to develop the effect now with a
 shader than to try and figure out complex multitexture fixed-function
 effects.? If you get something like ATI's RenderMonkey or NVidia's FX
 Composer, you can evaluate the shaders interactively on a model
 without having to do edit-compile-test cycles. i'l have look into downloading
those programs (google here I come.....)
...
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