How is a 3D game created for the pocket pc

Acern30 · 05-20-06, 10:14 AM

Hello, I'm curious to know how a 3D looking game can run on a pocket pc? what is it thats producing it? Obviously some software form... For example geopod, or Tomb raider.

**Frenchy** · 05-20-06, 10:18 AM

First you need a background that give 3D dimension

Acern30 · 05-20-06, 10:20 AM

Right, like a sky box look a like...

**Frenchy** · 05-20-06, 10:24 AM

Yes as long as you have deep viewing. After you use it to simulate 3D in your game. Many different method can be use to achieve this. You are not limited to only one programming language.

Acern30 · 05-20-06, 10:28 AM

What about a 3D model? How is that implemented?

**Frenchy** · 05-20-06, 10:39 AM

I will let experienced programmers explain this to you.

Acern30 · 05-20-06, 10:50 AM

As far as i know, it's written in. Just the way to proceed is more of my answer.

RWThurman · 05-20-06, 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Acern30

Hello, I'm curious to know how a 3D looking game can run on a pocket pc? what is it thats producing it? Obviously some software form... For example geopod, or Tomb raider.

For most of the 3D games for the PPC, there's nothing 3D looking about it. These games are truly 3D. The objects you see in the game are real three dimensional objects made up of vertices with x,y,z coordinates. When the screen is ready to be displayed, each object is rendered to a two dimenstional surface (your screen). In order to render each object, a lot of matrix algebra is done by the PDA to process each vertex for each model. Then, each pixel needs to be textured by the model closest to the camera. This process gets repeated on a per frame basis.

However, there are ways to cheat this expensive process. If the game has a camera(viewpoint) that doesn't move much or... the view of the game is orthogonal (think tile based games), then, the game can avoid rendering the whole screen by using scrolling or just rendering the differences.

Does this make sense?

Acern30 · 05-20-06, 11:29 AM

Some sense...But as where to start? To write up some of the code to produce this, I currently want to create a walk around environment. Sort of like a sky box level look, where the camera as a first person shooter look. Move via pressing the buttons. If you've played geopod you may have some idea to what i'm saying.

w3iner · 05-20-06, 11:53 AM

I do alittle programming on the computer, and in simplist terms.

The software tells the computer to draw a set shape in space. The software then tells the computer to put a picture(aka texture) in that space. Do that enough times and it looks like something, say a person or something.

05-20-06, 02:26 PM

You might want to check out some Pocket PC game development forums like:
PocketMatrix.com and Microsoft's Tutorials, as well as the one here at Aximsite. I used Pocket PC Game Programming by Jonathan Harbour to get up to speed quickly, but this book is a bit dated. If you want to do 3D games, you'll need a good library like GapiDraw or PocketHAL. Hope this helps :).

alan

Acern30 · 05-21-06, 06:26 AM

What about a 3D model building? If it's in a format, how do you implement that?

05-22-06, 02:04 AM

I haven't done anything in 3D, but from browsing the forums on PocketMatrix, the 3D library Pocket GL seems to be quite popular. Also, it allows 3D models to be imported in 3DS format (3D-Studio). There are many freeware PC modelers that export to this like Wings 3D and Anim8or. Good luck!

alan

mrobert · 05-23-06, 02:33 PM

I am a software developer.

To make a 3D game is like making any game or software ... you write code for it.
In C++ usually.

Acern30 · 05-23-06, 05:32 PM

Have you done any specific 3D gaming for the pocket pc, windows mobile?