Updating Old Apps? WZCK, Pie Slicer, et al.

[Stratadrake]

I still have to get triangle-culling functioning properly. I would also like to add trianglestrip functionality to it at some point but that is going to be ... tricky. (Yes, I know the PIE 2 format uses trianglefans and I see the PIE 3 format only allows triangles, but that conversion can be done silently during the save routine).

Guess it's also time to reveal two of Pie Slicer's dirty little secrets: You probably figured out that Pie Slicer expressed coordinates as divided by ten (just to make the numbers feel less massive), but it also inverted the X and Z coordinates during file load (in other words, rotates the model by 180°). Both of those little snarls are getting the axe.

[Safety0ff]

I still have to get triangle-culling functioning properly.

Out of curiosity, why does it need to do triangle culling?

[Stratadrake]

Because everything looks better with backface-culling. Even wireframe views rendered using manual transformations and GDI calls (because that part still is not DirectX-integrated yet).

[Safety0ff]

Even wireframe views rendered using manual transformations and GDI calls

Interesting.

[Stratadrake]

I'm also working on a lighter color scheme for Pie Slicer, like this:

Let there be "Light" colorscheme.

(And notice the backface culling.)

I might have to finish the DirectX integration sooner than planned because once I got the cull-face calculations working properly, suddenly my rendering rate took a nosedive. I'm barely getting 5fps out of that.

(Either that, or I need to take out the Debug.Print lines that are getting called nearly a hundred times per refresh )

But it STILL won't stop me from seeking optimizations and caching data between calls to save calculations. One of them: Polygon normal vectors (calculating which requires a cross product, one per triangle) remain the same unless the geometry changes, so if I can cache that, it reduces the number-crunching by half just to evaluate its cullface status.

Once I get all the DirectX rendering online again I can probably ditch the GDI calls and migrate everything over, but ... that is a long road.

[Safety0ff]

I might have to finish the DirectX integration sooner than planned because once I got the cull-face calculations working properly, suddenly my rendering rate took a nosedive. I'm barely getting 5fps out of that.

Ouch, sounds like there's funny business going on. The models are ridiculously low poly, I'd expect high fps even doing things in the most brute force way possible.

[Jorzi]

Problem is, you're not just rendering it, you're also editing and selecting the geometry and that's probably what takes up all the cpu resources.
That said, 5fps is too low...

[Safety0ff]

Problem is, you're not just rendering it, you're also editing and selecting the geometry and that's probably what takes up all the cpu resources.

Having seen how many things are done the brute force way in Wz I have a good appreciation for the capabilities of modern processors.

That being said, I haven't used vb nor GDI enough to know how well they perform.

[Stratadrake]

(Either that, or I need to take out the Debug.Print lines that are getting called nearly a hundred times per refresh )

^ Ahem

At any rate, VB.Net actually has about the same performance as C# because they both use the same runtime library, and GDI+ probably has about the same performance as low-level GDI. Managed DirectX is slightly slower than native DirectX calls in non-Net C, but still better than the same calls in C# and should be more than sufficient for Pie Slicer's purposes.

But it looks like I'll have to do major refactoring to Pie Slicer's internal data structures before I can even hope to integrate DirectX full-time. GDI+ will do nicely until then.

[MaNGusT]

Stratadrake, what happened with your great work here?

[Stratadrake]

I'm not giving up on either of them, but the next thing I want to do with Pie Slicer requires some fairly intensive work ... and it's sunny summer weather out there and all....

[Lord Apocalypse]

Ah summer time.. when most games lose at least half of their players. At least while the weather is nice and vacations run rampant.

[Stratadrake]

Plus, August is County Fair week so I need to spend time matting photos/art for exhibition. Not much produced in the latter department this year, though....

[Xperia]

Modding Warzone was certainly some fun memories. But that's another topic....

100% True..
I spend hours and hours on LOD and when I read all the feedback about the mod now...WOW just WOW..
It itches I have to say... to get back on it again..
Who knowns?

Greetz
Xperia (formerly known as RSgod)

[Andrie]

When will these be done?
They look great!