Oshango

29th August 2004 10:37 UTC

14 3D Models in ASCII for the 3D APE
Here are 14 more models, mostly primitives, that can be used with the 3D APE. I scaled the objects in 3DS Max so that they are basicly the same general size as the models you may already have. Basicly they are scaled so they will fit nicely in a low-res 320x240 screen. They were exported with the AsciiOut Utility.

Included in the ZIP:
oshango-4cubes.asc
oshango-capsule.asc
oshango-diamond.asc
oshango-gsphere-1.asc
oshango-gsphere-2.asc
oshango-gsphere-3.asc
oshango-gsphere-4.asc
oshango-hedra.asc
oshango-prism.asc
oshango-pyramid.asc
oshango-star.asc
oshango-torus.asc
oshango-tube.asc
oshango-ufo.asc

I'm not sure who created the 3D APE, but it seems like if it were given just a couple more features it could be something more useful than just something to play with. The fact that the 3D objects don't change scale when you increase the screen size is a problem. Giving the APE scale and rotation options would be great. Giving it some sort of material mapping would be incredible, particularly if you could use the contents of one of the buffers for the material.

-Oshango

sidd

29th August 2004 11:02 UTC

Sorry i dont have the ape installed anymore, so i cant check them out.
The render 3d ape had a bunch of problems. In fact it really wasnt of any use at all for people creating presets, simply because it has no dynamic ability whatsoever.

From the sounds of it, i think you would be very interested in TomyLobo's new Triangle Rastarizer ape. Although it's not 3d in itself, so you will need to know a bit of avs scripting.

btw, love the terrence mckenna quote

[Ishan]

30th August 2004 09:48 UTC

um...have'nt used 3d ape till yet. I dont think its of much use. But i'll check out those models you made anyway:)

Oshango

30th August 2004 17:23 UTC

Thanks Sidd. I'll check out the Triangle Rastarizer APE.

Oshango

30th August 2004 17:29 UTC

I wouldn't bother checking out the objects if you aren't using the 3D APE. There really isn't much too them. For the most part they are just the basic geometric primitives generated by 3DS, i.e. spheres, cubes, etc--basic geometry optimized for general use in AVS.

Warrior of the Light

31st August 2004 13:01 UTC

Point is, that hardly anybody is still using the 3D APE anymore, simply because there isn't any customizability in it except for the color. That and you can do a lot more with a 3D model by creating it with a SSC instead.

Oshango

31st August 2004 23:08 UTC

Yeah, I understand that. Thanks WOTL.

OnionRingOfDoom

3rd September 2004 03:46 UTC

Wasn't Zeven or someone working on a program or something that converted 3ds Max models to SSC code?

Oshango

3rd September 2004 14:19 UTC

Thats a good idea OnionRingofDoom. The 3DS ascii model files aren't much more than a list of vertex coordinates. For someone who knows how to program, I don't imagine writing a parser to translate those coordinates into SSC code would be difficult at all. I'll search around to see if I can't find the thread you are refering to, though I haven't come across it so far while doing searches for 3D in the AVS forum here.

edit --

I did a couple more searches and didn't find the thread OnionRingofDoom was thinking of. Does anyone know who the original author of the 3D APE was? Perhaps that person might be interested in creating a standalone version that could just generate the code that would then be pasted into the Superscope. If anyone else is interested in trying this, the 3DS ascii files are just text files obviously, and it might be possible to write a parser just using XML and PHP. Just throwing ideas out there.

TomyLobo

3rd September 2004 22:12 UTC

problem with that is: AVS code is generally not a very effective means of storing data. this means that the data will be huge and must thus be most certainly split up to multiple SSCs. An APE that imports those .ASC files directly to the gmegabuf would be preferable :)