Texture Mapping - Back Again

Last week there was a point when I had some spare programming time, but I didn't have my latest 3ds code with me. So I turned my attention to the problem I was having with texture mapping. The problem I was having earlier with texture mapping simply had to do with building the interface for manipulating the textures in the scene. Specifically, I was trying to figure out how to make a simple tabbed control using only Win32 API calls.

Fortunately, in that spare moment, I was able to solve the problem. In exhilaration, I created the thumbnailed image you see here in this post (click on it for the larger version).

In other (related) news, last night I accidentally destroyed some of my 3ds code! I mistakenly overwrote my current 3ds work with the solution to the tabbed control code. It was disheartening for a moment, until I realized that I really hadn't created very much useful 3ds code. Most of what I had in there was just experimental code (trying to learn how to interface with the library), and it shouldn't be too hard to reproduce, fortunately.

Although the prospect of loading 3ds files into my scene editor/ray tracer is very exciting, I'm also very anxious to see what I can do with more robust texture mapping features. I don't know for sure where I'll devote my energies in the upcoming days, but I can assure you the results will be spectacular!

Speaking of the upcoming days, my wife was due to deliver our first baby (it's a girl) two days ago. The little one could obviously come any day now, and honestly, that's more exciting than texture mapping and 3ds combined. I'll surely keep you all posted.

3ds - Not Trivial

I've run into a couple of difficulties with this latest 3ds endeavor. First and foremost has been a lack of time. I stay fairly busy with my regular job, and I stay fairly busy with my life at home. The second problem I've run into is a matter of debugging the 3ds library from sourceforge. I decided it would be advantageous to be able to step through the code as I attempt to integrate it into my project, so I added all of the source files in the library to my Visual Studio project. Unfortunately, some of the files in the library conflict with names in my project. For instance, I have a camera class that outputs a camera.obj file, but so does this 3ds library. The solution I have come up with for now is just to link to the binary .lib file I compiled out of the 3ds library files. Sadly, it means I'm not able to step through the code of the library, but I'm at least able to call the functions it provides. I'm making progress, but it's slow. Just keeping you faithful readers posted. :)

3ds Max - Progress

Doing a quick search on Google, I found a page describing the file format (link: http://www.spacesimulator.net/tut4_3dsloader.html) and I started working on implementing it. That was going along fairly well when my co-worker (his name is Derek Davis, for those of you with a hankering for personal information) reminded me of an open source library that already does the work for me. He had pointed it out to me a good long while ago and it turns out that I bookmarked it. What luck! The link to that is http://lib3ds.sourceforge.net/. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will turn out to be helpful. I thought it would be fun to parse the files with my own code, but then I realized there are other things I'd rather work on. Why reinvent the wheel? Thank you, everyone, for your support in this. Tell your friends! And if any of your have any suggestions about what libraries I should use, please leave a comment. :)

3ds Max

I've decided that my next little project will be to add 3ds model support. I know, I haven't finished working out texture mapping. The user interface problem is really bugging me. I will come back to it, no doubt. But for now, I would like to work on something that would add some really broad appeal to my program. After all, I think it would be cool to give this program away someday. We'll see how 3ds support goes. I'll be sure to keep you all posted.