[x3d-public] New major release 5.0.0 of Castle Model Viewer (formerly view3dscene) and Castle Model Converter (formerly tovrmlx3d)

Fri May 24 14:11:20 PDT 2024

Thanks for the good words John!

As for the Castle Game Engine Pascal-specific questions, we resolve
them in a related thread on Castle Game Engine Discord (
https://castle-engine.io/talk.php ) if anyone is interested :) To be
clear, Castle Game Engine API exposes 100% of our X3D capabilities, so
yes, you can setup DEF / USE and you can setup ROUTEs using CGE API.
The summary is

- To assign a name ( for DEF / USE), set X3DName.
- To reuse a node, just insert the same class instance multiple times
to a graph.
- This will later be correctly saved to file if you use SaveNode (it
will serialize it to X3D as DEF / USE).
- To setup ROUTE endpoints, efficiently and type-safe, you can use
code like this

    ```
    FRoot.AddRoute(TimeSensor.EventFraction_changed,
CoordInterp.EventSet_fraction);
    FRoot.AddRoute(CoordInterp.EventValue_changed, FShapeCoord.FdPoint);
    ```

As for size of imported glTF animations: they are indeed too large
now. It is a TODO to load them in much more efficient way (either to
H-Anim or custom nodes matching closely glTF concepts or just offer
both as option) and animate on GPU. See
https://castle-engine.io/roadmap#gltf_efficient . See also "Skinned
mesh animation",
https://github.com/michaliskambi/x3d-tests/wiki/Converting-glTF-to-X3D#skinned-mesh-animation
.

We have various possible ways to go, but one thing is certain: the
current solution for loading glTF skinned animation, while it works (I
use it for almost all my animation needs!) is not optimal. It was
never supposed to be final. It has to change to something more
efficient (both for memory and speed).

Regards,
Michalis

pt., 24 maj 2024 o 20:47 John Carlson <yottzumm at gmail.com> napisał(a):
>
> I saw your response to “where’s DEF?” on Discord, Michalis, just use X3DName!  Simple!
>
> On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 11:54 AM John Carlson <yottzumm at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 11:09 AM Michalis Kamburelis via x3d-public <x3d-public at web3d.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> We're proud to announce the new major release (5.0.0) of Castle Model
>>> Viewer and Castle Model Converter!
>>
>>
>> I am a very happy user of Castle Model Viewer!   Thanks for your hard work!
>>
>> Any size optimization of X3D HAnim output from glTF input using Castle Model Converter would be welcome.  Perhaps and optimization flag could be added?  Is there one?  I see that one can reduce the number digits in floating point numbers…how about work to reduce name and DEF length, perhaps using a hash function or a name generator?  I realize I need work on this myself!  Adding _2 , _3, etc. is a great start, I need to check out what you’ve done there.
>>
>> If I could have ROUTEs with source/destination of an object for the to/from node *and* the to/from field as a string, great!  Or perhaps just a Pascal example that shows how to construct that field event thingy from a string, terrific!  I’m basically complaining that I don’t have a way to specify a DEF in my Pascal code for the purposes of routing.  Not having a DEF means there’s no good way to set up a string based ROUTE.  There may be other ways to do it.
>>
>> Thanks for your efforts!  I’ve done the Patreon thing, and encourage others to do so.
>>
>> A very happy user!
>>
>> John
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> - Castle Model Viewer (formerly view3dscene) is our tool to view 3D
>>> and 2D models in many formats (glTF, X3D, VRML, Spine JSON, MD3, ...),
>>> by the Castle Game Engine. See
>>> https://castle-engine.io/castle-model-viewer .
>>>
>>> - Castle Model Converter (formerly tovrmlx3d) is a command-line tool
>>> to convert and validate all supported models. See
>>> https://castle-engine.io/castle-model-converter .
>>>
>>> Download the new version from
>>> https://castle-engine.io/castle-model-viewer . The download contains
>>> both applications, Castle Model Viewer + Converter.
>>>
>>> The full release announcement listing all the features and with some
>>> juicy screenshots is on
>>>
>>>   https://castle-engine.io/wp/2024/05/24/castle-model-viewer-formerly-view3dscene-5-0-0-release-ton-of-improvements-coming-from-latest-castle-game-engine-support-to-validate-models-md3-animations-saving-to-stl-more-x3d-4-0-features/
>>>
>>> The short recap of the most important changes: fonts with local chars,
>>> MD3 animations, more X3D 4.0, better glTF import, many new converter
>>> options, STL output.
>>>
>>> The converter has also "groundwork" for future glTF output -- as
>>> explained on https://castle-engine.io/wp/2024/05/19/models-can-be-saved-to-x3d-or-stl-now-soon-to-gltf-too-new-engine-api-to-register-custom-model-formats-that-can-be-loaded-saved-proper-handling-of-duplicate-node-names-in-gltf-on-conversion-to-x3d/
>>> , we want to be capable of converting in both ways X3D <-> glTF in the
>>> future. Stay tuned :)
>>>
>>> Our online converter https://castle-engine.io/convert.php has also
>>> been updated. Under the hood, it uses the same Castle Model Converter,
>>> thus shares all the improvements. You will notice it features STL
>>> output now, in addition to X3D (classic and xml).
>>>
>>> If you enjoy what we do, I would really appreciate if you support us
>>> on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/castleengine . Thank you!
>>>
>>> P.S. You can also grab everything as part of the whole Castle Game
>>> Engine download -- follow the "Download" link and docs from our main
>>> page https://castle-engine.io/ . This makes sense if you want to
>>> actually use the engine to develop games or general applications. Be
>>> sure to follow our "Documentation" for tutorials, manual and API
>>> reference in this case.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Michalis
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> x3d-public at web3d.org
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