Friday - March 14, 2008
Web Exercise for Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Make sure to read the Web Exercise for Monday below, first.
1. Visit Tutorial #4 on the Irrlicht Sourceforge page.
2. Recompile using a Maya camera. Experiment with the settings.
You'll find information about scene nodes in Irrlicht on this page of the API, but you'll have to go hunting a bit for the actual camera code, since you would not normally have access to it without the entire source.
3. *For bonus, modify the Maya camera scene node in the original code and recompile Irrlicht for a different type of movement or use of the keyboard or mouse.
4. Check out these forums for a bit: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=5
5. Particularly, make sure to read this one: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11666 and the second page that goes with it: http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11666&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
6. We have not had particular luck with the other export formats, unfortunately, even the COLLADA format. (See more on COLLADA here.) For bonus, see if you can get the COLLADA exporter and format to work in exporting your character from Maya and importing into Irrlicht.
7. For now, though, this Mel script should work. Look to the bottom of the second forum page and get this script (http://www.3drobert.com/cgtalk/XExporterVer2.zip). It should work to export your rigged and animated character from Maya to Irrlicht.
8. Go back to the Tutorial 4 that you've been working with so far. Try using the exporter to get your character (add some animations if you haven't) from Maya into Tutorial #4. Replace the Sydney character. You may have to put your texture file (perhaps a .bmp or .jpg) in a known folder. Reference your character .x file and texture file instead of Sydney.
9. Good luck. Don't get frustrated. Have fun.
10. Have a good Easter break and get your characters, terrains, and 2-D games finished and submitted by Monday, March 24. Have them ready to present in class.