Re: Second Sight....

[ltchean@iss.nus.sg (Lim Thye Chean)]

Philip Stephens (philip@labtam.oz.au) wrote:

:   If people are interested, I can upload the prototype 3D engine I wrote on
: my GS and post it to comp.sources.apple2 and comp.binaries.apple2.  It
: isn't all that spectacular since it only draws to the SHR screen in 16
: colours, the texture maps are simplistic, the size of the viewport is
: only 160x100, and it runs at best 2 fps at the moment, but it'll give a
: taste of what is to come.

Please do. Thanks.

:   Admittedly I'm not sure now whether I will be able to improve the frame
: rate enough to make it usable as a real-time game engine, since the GS just
: isn't up to doing a lot of fixed point math.  I was hoping that I might be
: able to offload some of the math to the Z180 on the Second Sight board, but
: since Jawaid has said it's only an 8-bit microprocessor, that might not be
: as feasible as I first thought.

That's exactly what worries me. If you can really do a good, fast 3D DOOM
type game, you will be the new legend of the II's land. Everything is always
possible for Apple II programmer.

:   At the very least I should be able to get my code rendering images at
: 320x200x256 resolution with GIF-based texture maps, meaning the display will
: look as good as Doom does, even if it can't render at 12+ fps!

How about having a display without much texture map, but render at 12+ fps?
Speed is very important in DOOM.

:   Actually, it occurs to me that my 3d engine would be *perfect* for the 3D
: display in a role playing game like Bard's Tale.  A smaller window would
: allow a faster frame rate, enough to give a very nice impression of moving
: around a 3D world complete with monsters roaming around.

Yes, true. Unfortunately I don't like those games, but I am sure many others
will like this idea.

:   I can understand your hesitation, but let's face it, everyone has been
: waiting to *see* the Second sight card before committing themselves to
: writing software for it, which is understandable.  Give it time :-)

Well, half a year or even 3 months ago, buying a Second Sight card is a must
for me. But it is a little too late for me now because I alreay "fall in love"
with Windows 95. :) Oh well, I also happens to like Warp and NT too, but just
not as much as my GS. I wanted to see some uses of Second Sight for me before
I am willing to part with that sum of money for GS... something like:

* New GNO with window manager
* New TCP/IP utilities like Mosaic GS
* New Switch It or The Manager
* New telecomm program with VT-100 support
* New arcade game
* New word processor or spreadsheet
* New utility to patch Finder or desktop

Currently I see nothing above is on the horizon, as far as I know. What's the
use of buying a graphics card without support for anything I want? Even the
new Spectrum only mentioned ANSI... no VT-100. OK, maybe I can write a new
version of Mandelbrot IIGS... but...

Yes, give it time, and I shall wait.

--
          Lim Thye Chean: Lim is my surname. My name is Thye Chean.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Institute of Systems Science          Windows 95/NT and Apple IIGS programmer
   Software Engineer, Author of Galaxia Authoring Environment (OSF/Motif)