by Wouter Nederhof (1 Submission)
Category: DirectX
Compatability: Visual Basic 5.0
Difficulty: Advanced
Date Added: Wed 3rd February 2021
Rating: 
(3 Votes)
My article learns you how to make a good collision engine (d3drm). I hope this will help you to make a good game.
VBcodersD3DRM Colission engine in VB 5+
'Written by: Wouter Nederhof.
'Please note: This article is for advanced users. I am verrry sorry for my poor english :(
'How does a colission system works? That is a question many programmers want to know. Well I hope the answer is here.
'I found out how it works, because I was playing on my N64 and felt down some grass. A colission that searches for his collision in a .x file system is very handy, because all you have to do is what you always have to do. Export a .3ds to a .x. A collision engine is very handy, because you don't have to make a special map editor to make a map for your games, no now you can do it in every 3D editor that can export .x or .3ds!!!
'
'How it works.
'So as you can see below, these 3 things are vertexes.
' .
' / \
' / \
'.-----.
'A vertex is a point to point way to create object.
'
'(at least) 3 vertexes mean 1 polygon. A vertex is 3D too, because it has a X, an Y and a Z.
'You know what a wireframe is? If you look at the lines that go like this for example:
'---.
' \
' \.--------
'Then the dots are the vertexes.
'Now, about my engine. It works with vertexes too.
'It's a DirectX 7 D3D engine.
'You see the picture above? it's kinda a very bad example. But that's because I don't know how to add a picture. Well for a better example, try downloading a 3D editor and load a model into it. Then check in wireframe to the points I mean or to the corners. Whatever editor you've got... (WHATEVER!!)
'Now, my engine tests if a object hits a vertex of another object.
'It tests all vertexes of 1 object, the most impornantest object, for example: if you've got a camera and a enviroment, the enviroment will be tested. Testing both, make your program go slow.
'But, to test a eviroment, there must be at least 1 vertex in a meter, if you set the distance.x to 1 or the distance.y to 1 or the distance.z (if you know what I mean). Because if it doesn't hit a vertex, the position won't be restored, so if you make a engine, you'll fall automaticly down until you hit a vertex, you'll fall down till you end your engine. That's why we make 1 mesh for the graphics, it doesn't matter how much vertexes we use, and we make a second, the collision mesh. All you have to do with the normal mesh is add more vertexes and give it another name. You now think, why not use 1 mesh for GFX and collision. Well, you could but you could make secret area's if you make a game by removing a piece of a wall in the collision one. And with 2 of those many poly's meshes, it'll drasticly bring down your speed. The collision mesh won't be painted. It doesn't even need an object to add a mesh to. Only the one for the GFX, yes he needs both. A object (Direct3DRMFrame3) and a mesh (Direct3DRMMeshBuilder3).
'So I mean something like this:
'Dim meshGFX As Direct3DRMMeshBuilder3
'Dim meshCollision As Direct3DRMMeshBuilder3
'Dim objGFX As Direct3DRMFrame3
'So first DIM the 2 meshes, and one object.
'The code for testing if a object hits a vertex of another object, looks like this.
'Private sub coltest(oldpos as D3DVECTOR) 'Dim the oldpos for restoring the object's position.
' Dim coltest As Single 'Number of vertex
' Dim mapcol As D3DVECTOR 'The variable for getting the coordinates of the vertex
' For coltest = 0 To {MESH1}(1).GetVertexCount - 1 'Make a loop to test all vertexes.
' {MESH1}(1).GetVertex coltest, mapcol 'Get the coordinates of the vertex(coltest)
' If mapcol.x + 1 > campos.x Then 'Check if in sight, (x+1 etc is the max distance between a vertex and the object)
' If mapcol.x - 1 < campos.x Then
' If mapcol.y + 0.4 > campos.y Then
' If mapcol.y - 0.4 < campos.y Then
' If mapcol.z + 1 > campos.z Then
' If mapcol.z - 1 < campos.z Then
' {OBJ1}.SetPosition scene, oldpos.x, oldpos.y, oldpos.z 'If insight, restore position
' End If 'Yeah, yeah endif already
' End If
' End If
' End If
' End If
' End If
'End sub 'That's all :)
'I guess you can put this code in every VB-D3DRM engine you want, if only you change the {} names.
'If you think: this sux, this rulez, I don't get it, thank you for making this or whatever, email me or add me to my msn: [email protected].
'Sorry, my english sux.
'Thx and Copyright(C)Wouter Nederhof.
'Remember: To copy the source code of the collision engine, remove the '-s first, I did this because PlanetSourceCode.com removed my spaces. :(
