Cobra 3D has been released. :)

#10

Jesus Christ!

This is true.

It is actually true.

This is totally serious.

I've wet myself.

Steve Elliott

#11

Good for Graham. Congrats!

Agreed. Congratulations Graham! :-D

Picklesworth

#12

Nice work!
Looking forward to the full announcement, Graham :)

I forget, though... does this include a module for BlitzMax, or is it tied to the Cobra language?

#13

Cobra3D seems fast - some of the demos run way too fast on my 8800 GTX system. The shadow stuff is breathtakingly fast - ie, it's a moving blur of geometry and shadows.

I had to amend the demo loop from 9 to 1000 to get it to slow to a normal-looking speed!

_33

#14

OOwww this is serious stuff :)

:p

iprice

#15

puki, put that before the flip line: FrameWait(200);

#16

Hey, Cobra3D has built-in 3D trees!

tree=CreateVirtObject(C3Dtree)

How cool is that?

You can set bark and leaf textures (including the back faces of leaves). You can set branch radius, branch angle, branch size, leaf size, leaf threshold.

How chuffingly exciting is this?

#17

Unless the docs are not up-to-date yet, there are at least:

35 animation commands;

39 collision commands;

16 GLSL shader commands;

16 particleFX commands;

60 mesh commands;

Plus other stuff in there.

_33

#18

puki, what does it have to help people triangulate their mesh?

#19

Nothing - you'd still have to code the routines.

Unrelated, but interesting. You can 'lock' meshes to speed up the manual manipulation of vertices/faces, then 'unlock' them again.

Wait a sausaging minute!

You can import SMD files!!!

Woo-woo-woo-woo - ie I can just import my Dark Messiah meshes.

Best I test this - just to make sure the animations are okay.

Amon

#20

I'm sure puki will lesson Cobra 3D in proper usage. :)

If I hadn't have purchased a multi commercial license of TV3D today I would have had some spare cash for Cobra3D, but I didn't even know Cobra 3d was going to be released.

When I purchased the upgrade for TV3D about an hour later I got the email that Cobra3D was released.

I'll buy Cobra 3D though but not ill next month.

Nilium

#21

Was wondering when this would happen. Good work, Graham.

#22

Great news.
So if I can be somewhat straigthforward and ask for a small comparison between B3D and Cobra3D.

Not syntaxwise, I know that part but I'm really interested in whether Cobra3D is faster than and are containing more features than B3D renderengine.

Puki?

taumel

#23

So Cobra3D is it's own kind (Procedural Basic with a somehow Delphi based 3d engine) and ION will be a 3d engine for BlitzMax and others, right?

Is Cobra3D self contained or is it an addition for Cobra?

Naughty Alien

#24

Cobra3D is addition to Cobra language..same fashion as Bmax modules...thats what they told me on forum when i asked same question..

yoko

#25

Cobra2D/3D is based on GLScene while Pure2D is on Graphics32.

I'll stick with Cobra's Pure2D currently till Graham wrapped the Cobra3D DX9 render out.

nd yes, Cobra is procedural, but may come OO in later stage.

#26

I'm going to have to get used to the new lighting - ie the way you can use ambient as much as you like, plus diffuse, emmissive and specular.

I couldn't find any mention of spot, point and directional.

#27

Space-sim people will love the EntitySLERP.

#28

Might have to take a look at this, sounds like what I wanted BlitzMax to be!

I've avoided Cobra for a while as I thought it looked a little immature, but it certainly looks like it's getting those funny curly hairs now.

#29

Another cool thing is the built-in 3D text - which seems to be treated just like any other entity, ie you can add effects.

I wonder how many demos and games will feature this?

Naughty Alien

#30

..it seems that Blitz3D v2 is here in shape of Cobra 3D...mmmm..gooooodd

CodeGit

#31

I agree, this is what Blitz3D V2 should have been. I must say it is quite exciting to have something like this appear at long last.

Matty

#32

Sounds good, if it is as easy to code as blitz3d maybe I'll go for it? But I wonder what the system specs are...

#33

I think it supports lower-end machines in the way that Blitz3D does.

Cobra3D has been extensively tested (across roughly 40+ different configurations at last count, including Nvidia, ATI and even Intel video cards

#34

Just looked at the syntax, kinda looks like pascal / blitz!

Although I did see some code that had ; on the end of every line... not sure if that's optional or what.

Var
    cam, cam2, camPiv, light : Element
    cube,blur, ground, tex : Element

Begin
    OpenScreen

    // Create the first camera and attach it to a pivot
    camPiv = CreatePivot
    cam = CreateCamera(camPiv)   
    EntitySetAttribute(cam, 'focallength', 100)
    EntitySetAttribute(cam, 'depthofview', 1000)
       
    UseCamera(cam)
    PositionEntity(cam, 0, 0, 5)
   
    light = CreateLight
    SetShadowLight(ground, light)
    PositionEntity(light, -20, 30, 40)
   
    cube = CreateVirtObject(C3DSPACETEXT)   
    EntitySetAttribute(cube, 'text', 'COBRA')   
    EntitySetAttribute(cube, 'extrusion', 1)
    EntitySetAttribute(cube, 'textheight',0.5) 
    PositionEntity(cube, 0, 0, 0)
   
    blur = CreateVirtObject(C3DBLURFX)

    Repeat
        TurnEntity(cube, 0, 0.05*FrameTime, 0.05*FrameTime)
        Flip   
    Until KeyDown(VK_ESCAPE)

    CloseScreen
End

#35

I'm infatuated by the built-in 3D trees.

This is truly awesome. They are very 'organic' - ie the branches can have curves in them - just like a real tree (ie, they are not just straight branches).

I will continue my study of this interesting feature.

The only down-side is they appear to use the same base mesh - so they all look the same - but you can alter attributes of their structure.

However, I may have missed something as they are not documented. I just found them by accident when I saw the 'TreeSetTexture' in the 'Environment' section.

#36

Still, noone has really answered my question about Cobra3D yet.
I do have Cobra and am starting up with a new game at the moment where I wish I had some features that Blitz3D lacks of. Still I like the speed of Blitz3D and don't want to wind up with a renderengine that has some nice looking features but is way to slow for casual machines.

If you compare some basic features, is Cobra3D faster? Equal? Any obvious reason I should lay down my work in Blitz3D and start coding in Cobra instead?

#37

It's not an easy question to answer - considering Cobra3D is a day old and may require various forthcoming bug-fixes.

At the moment, most people are probably just experimenting with the demo. I'm still not too familiar with the syntax and quirks of Cobra - considering I bought Cobra when it came out, but have never used it.

angel martinez

#38

And what about physics in Cobra3D ? is it implemented in the engine?
Thanks

GrahamK

#39

AJ,
Can I suggest you ask the questions over at Squeakyduck, as they are more the sort of thing people on the beta group could answer better. Personally I don't think it's a good idea to have a discussion comparing the languages on Marks site.

#40

GrahamK: True, I will do that. Congrats anyway!

#41

Probably best to discuss it over here...

http://www.syntaxbomb.com/forum/index.php/topic,820.0.html

#42

"AJirenius", another factor here is the demo version is 'locked' into debug mode. So, you are going to see faster speeds with the full version.

I'm sure speed comparisons will start appearing in time.

#43

True, I read about that and cannot wait to get home to at least try it out. I mean, it's better to see for yourself, right?

Chroma

#44

Personally I don't think it's a good idea to have a discussion comparing the languages on Marks site.

Amen. This thread should be deleted.

MGE

#45

"Amen. This thread should be deleted."

Agreed.

iprice

#46

I don't think so. After all, this is "General Discussion"...

Amon

#47

I don't think it should be deleted either. If people can talk about TV3D, 3impact and practically every other 3d engine, then they can talk about Cobra3D.

John Galt

#48

No this thread is fine. I'm not interested in Cobra at the moment, but I would be interested in speed comparisons with Blitz.

If Graham started slating Blitz it would be a different matter, but he's a courteous chap so no danger there.