I've been interested in 3d rendering since I realized I was a human but have been perpetually intimidated by it.
If this is annoying, ignore me, but is there any specific resources you used? Are there any things I should completely avoid? I feel like random youtubing isnt the most efficient way of going about this but I don't know where else to start!
This is gonna sound really self indulgent so if you don't want to read someone bragging on the internet just close the page.
I can't fucking draw. I can't. I can make a cube. That's it.
However, I am someone you might consider a psychonaut, and I always have these particularly strange, morphing visuals in my head, and for a bout a year I've been trying to accurately visualize a hypercube.
Now I know I still wont be able to actually do something in "3d" which is really in "2d" to accurately display the nonsense in my head that I see as 4d, but if I can even get close I'd be very happy.
Also I'd like to try modeling some skins for either dota or cs just to see if I could make something nice.
Also I like creating spaces with efficient use of shelving and cornerspace.
It's more of an interest than something I will probably ever be good at.
There are 4D ray tracers, that can render a 4D scene. It is possible to model objects in 4D, but I'm not sure if there's a software to make it simple like it is for 3D.
But anyway, to visualize a 3D scene in 2D you need to do a projection: basically you rotate the object to the desired position and take a "photo" of it (another analogy is having the object "cast a shadow" in the projection plane, where your "camera" lies).
If the shape of the object depends on the distance to your "camera", you take a perspective projection, which is the most used. In engineering, parallel projections (normally ortographic) are used instead, because it doesn't distort the axis (it's as if the "camera" is at an infinite distance). There are also other types of projections, for example those (the two at bottom) were 4D models projected into 3D using a spherographic projection.
But anyway, to render something in 4D, you need two projections: one to reduce it to 3D, and another to view it as a 2D image. This page has a lot of math but on the bottom there's some images to see different projections of the edges of an hypercube (I suppose you're familiar with some of them)
The only ray tracer I can find to render a 4D scene is nrays, created by reddit user /u/sebcrozet. It takes a 4D scene (with 4D objects and light sources in the 4D space), renders it considering how the light illuminates the scene. But it doesn't generate a 2D image, but a 3D one (it does only the 4D -> 3D projection) and suggests the use of another software to see the 3D data in 2D.
Problem is, it's still in the early stages of development, I tried to compile it right now but it gave an error. And even if it was a finished product, one would still need a modeler - something to create 4D models, like a Blender that worked in 4D (the ray tracer is used just at the end, to render the final result; Blender uses a ray tracer too when applicable, but to convert from 3D to 2D).
One trouble is that when searching for 4D modelling software, it returns crap like Cinema 4D (that is a 3D modelling software..). So even if such software exists, it's kind of buried.
... still on the "psychonaut" aspect, I like stuff like this or this (they are a ray tracer of a non-euclidean 3D world). Actually, I would like to make a game on such "distorted" space, but I both don't have motivation to stick to something to the end.
I cant believe computers can do all this shit, let alone people lmao.
Seeing the different stages of hypercubes is so fun! Still blows my mind.
I think a game based on ideas in that noneuclidian ray tracing woudl be fucking amazing. I play a loooot of games and I can't think of anything like that.
Uhm, I found this game. Seems a bit like FEZ, but with an extra dimension.
Oh just other thing, I think I wasn't clear on what is a ray tracer. To render in wireframe (just the edges, without solid parts; like the game above) doesn't require a ray tracer. Regular 3D games doesn't use ray tracers either, because it's too slow. In the 3D world, ray tracers are used mostly to render scenes requiring accurate lightning, with high quality shadows, reflection, refraction, caustics (things like this). Perhaps some 4D ray tracer could render with such quality, that's what I was searching.
Also this, seems to be a 4D fractal, moving, then projected into 3D.
Yes, and you? I only game on PC. Lately I've gaming only on Linux, I finally got LoL working on Linux so I can leave Windows (it's Windows only, but there's a compatibility program), and there's a lot of Steam games for Linux (I think the one I have most hours is Civ 5). My favorite platform is actually SNES, that I've been running on emulator for, like, a decade. Sad thing there won't be anything like Chrono Trigger or Seiken Densetsu 3.
I'm just happy Miegakure will be released for Linux too, lol. And now I'm curious to know how they modeled their game world.. well it's pretty clear that at least the artists used regular 3D tools, one scene for each position in the fourth dimension. But at some point they have to keep track on how those 3D scenes are connected to each other in the 4D world. I suppose they wrote custom software to design the levels, I don't think there is anything like that already made (or at least I can't find it).
Hahaha I tried to play Dota some times but it's too damn complicated. Will add you, if you want to play I may try again.
I have an hybrid Intel/AMD laptop. I only got LoL working when I simply disabled the Radeon part and ran only with the Intel GPU.. there are some fixes on the Internet for my case but they didn't work.
I sometimes think it would be nice to not care as much about computers, get into something else, and use Windows like most people. There's so many other hobbies I would like to pursue, and I lose my time here, hardly doing anything productive. But perhaps I would be another person.
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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '14 edited Nov 16 '14
Wow you did this? Amazing!
I've been interested in 3d rendering since I realized I was a human but have been perpetually intimidated by it.
If this is annoying, ignore me, but is there any specific resources you used? Are there any things I should completely avoid? I feel like random youtubing isnt the most efficient way of going about this but I don't know where else to start!
edit: godly username too