3D Starchart - Teaser 1: Rendering Planets

Well i am casting a ray from the mouse x,y into 3d space. this is the function that handles that:

Ray GetPickRay()
        {
            MouseState mouseState = Mouse.GetState();

            int mouseX = mouseState.X;
            int mouseY = mouseState.Y;

            Vector3 nearsource = new Vector3((float)mouseX, (float)mouseY, 0f);
            Vector3 farsource = new Vector3((float)mouseX, (float)mouseY, 1f);

            Matrix world = Matrix.CreateTranslation(0, 0, 0);

            Vector3 nearPoint = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Unproject(nearsource,
                proj, view, world);

            Vector3 farPoint = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Unproject(farsource,
                proj, view, world);

            // Create a ray from the near clip plane to the far clip plane.
            Vector3 direction = farPoint - nearPoint;
            direction.Normalize();
            Ray pickRay = new Ray(nearPoint, direction);

            return pickRay;
        }

the problem comes in when i loop through all the objects in the scene to get the object that is suppose to be selected the result value returned from ray.intersects is always : -1.#IND

so i tried changing the farSource to be the static system size, which does not really work at all except to move the camera to above the sun, or in the case of New York System, sometimes above West Point (mostly though is ends up above the sun)
–-

forgive my ignorance of XNA here, i have not done allot with XNA so still feeling my way around to a large degree.

and for the planet rendering issue, i am not at all sure what is going on, the code is pretty much identical (just written in VB.NET not C#). As i said, the Planets are being added as valid system objects but just nothing rendering, or maybe they are rendering but could it be that the ‘scale’ of the planets is not being calculated right? not sure to be honest, my code matches yours so not sure what i am doing wrong.

I may try changing my app into C# and see if that changes anything.

to your question about why VB.NET instead of using C#? well mostly because i am more comfortable in VB environment. Nothing to do with the language or anything. And secondly, because i can. Also because there is a few quirks about C# i am not fond of.

Don’t get me wrong though, i can code in C# just as well as VB or C++.

well well, i will be a g*&&^ d&^*&^& monkey’s uncle.

i did a quite conversion to C# of part of my project and bang, planets and proper lighting.

so i am moving forward to redo my project in solid C#.

anyway just thought i would let you know , cheers.

i have a probleme with a custom FL :
“mat count 11!=12” or something similar.
i will post the exact message when i have some more time.
I think it’s a probleme in the mod file, but didn’t crash the game, anyway to ignore it and continue ?

Good job for your 0.5 release, it’s work like a charm on vanilla FL, fast and precise

Wait… Does it read costum models? Or I’ll have to wait for the Beta for that?

No worries mate, i did not take it as a religious ‘C# vs VB/NET’ war. :P.

for converting code to and from c# to vb.net i use this:

http://converter.telerik.com/

works pretty good.

you just have to watch out though, some adjustments to the code need to be done.

for example, in your xna classes the object:

private Game game;

in VB would be:

private game as Game

but this will not work, so what i did is to simply change the varaible name to: igame:

private igame as Game

once you go to the page, copy your entire class code, paste it into the top textarea, and click convert. rinse repeat for each one.

there may be other things that may need to be adjusted once you put the converted code into a vb project but those should be pretty simple to do.

and to get the game to run you need to import the system.threading namespace, and do something like this, at least this is what i had to do:

Dim gameThread As Thread 'class level decaration

i put the thread start in the sub new, as mentioned below, because i have the game embedded in a custom user control.

public sub new()
gameThread = New Thread(AddressOf RunGame)
gameThread.Start()
end sub

private sub RunGame()
igame = New MainGame(mhandle, fdata, 1280, 720, True)
igame.Run()
end sub

i have embedded the game inside a windows usercontrol and then inside a windows form.

here is a screenshot of it in it’s VB.NET version, and as you can see, lighting is all messed up because of the lack of planet rendering. And like i mentioned, I am still feeling my way around XNA. Using VB.NET or C# for game development is kinda foreign territory for me, for game dev i am use to C++, this though is kinda different. Although, C# feels more comfortable than VB for this.

if you use MSN, you can get me there at: r.orr AT hotmail DOT ca

This looked pretty cool, so I downloaded the binaries.

WARNING: The runtime version supported by this application is unavailable.
Using default runtime: v1.1.4322

** (Starchart.exe:10299): WARNING **: The following assembly referenced from /home/alex/Downloads/FLStarchart/Starchart.exe could not be loaded:
Assembly: Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game (assemblyref_index=0)
Version: 4.0.0.0
Public Key: 842cf8be1de50553
The assembly was not found in the Global Assembly Cache, a path listed in the MONO_PATH environment variable, or in the location of the executing assembly (/home/alex/Downloads/FLStarchart/).

** (Starchart.exe:10299): WARNING **: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=842cf8be1de50553’ or one of its dependencies.

Unhandled Exception: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=842cf8be1de50553’ or one of its dependencies.
File name: “Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=842cf8be1de50553”

And under Windows:

Any ideas?

Have you installed the XNA framework? Seems like XNA 4 is what you need:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=a88c6dec-aeae-42cd-a108-d35c013c3b97

Thats good news about the object selection, i will eagerly wait for the 06 release.

for costumes it is really not that difficult to get than to display

In: FLApi.Characters.Costume.cs, change it to look like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using FLApi;
using FLApi.Solar;
using FLApi.Universe;
using FLParser;
using FLParser.Ini;
using FLParser.Utf;

namespace FLApi.Characters
{
    public class Costume
    {

        /// <summary>/// Gets or Sets the selected SpaceObject's Docking Character Costume
        ///</summary> 
        public string costume 
        {
            set
            {
                m_costume = value;
                setcostume();
            }
            get
            {
                return m_costume;
            }
        }
        private string m_costume;

        public Costume(string s1, string s2)
        {
            if (s1 == null) s1 = "";
            if (s2 == null) s2 = "";

            if (s1 != String.Empty && s2 == String.Empty) this.costume = s1;
            if (s1 == String.Empty && s2 != String.Empty) this.costume = s2;            
            if (s1 != String.Empty && s2 != String.Empty) this.costume = s1 + ", " + s2;            
        }

        /// <summary>/// changes the spacecostume for the selected spaceobject
        ///</summary> 
        private void setcostume(string newcostume = "")
        {
            // TODO: code it to allow changing the space_costume (Class: FLAPi.Characters.Costume, Function: setcostume(string newcostume = ""))
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(newcostume))
            {
                this.m_costume = newcostume;
            }
        }
    }
}

then in FLApi.Universe.SpaceObject.cs

in function: public SpaceObject(…)

locate: case “space_costume”:

and the line before: break;
change it to:
SpaceCostume = new Costume(e[0].ToString(), e[1].ToString());

and when you want to display the costume string read it from the costume property:

spaceObject.SpaceCostume.costume;

Dammit, it doesn’t even work on my Windows (Vista Ultimate)!!!

what doesn’t work?

The program, what ealse?

Its in Hebrew, do you know Hebrew? Its a typical Error message says “some problem caused the program to shut down…”

Or in other words: “Your windows sucks, go buy a newer one!”

Ok, got this (almost) working on Windows.

great job on the object selection code mate. worked like a charm, and was easy to add to to be able to use the left mouse button to select the object.

As i mentioned after doing a quick convert of my app into C# i found that planets and lighting were rendering as they should based on revision 05. I have also intigrated the code changes for the object selection (ie: Revision 06).

I noticed you put in the code i wrote for the costume display, thanks mate, cheers for that. I plan on continuing work on it to allow for editing and saving it, as well as the faction class i am still working on.

anyway wanted to show this new screenshot of my app with the recent code changes, and the full conversion of the app into C#.