i don't understand matrices

Probably start with the DX SDK. Can I just flip out an answer that will make it all make sense?? No, I can't, so I give you these:

http://www.drunkenhyena.com/cgi-bin/view_article.pl?article=15

http://tomsdxfaq.blogspot.com/2002_05_01_tomsdxfaq_archive.html

http://www.screel.de/direct3d.net/tutorials/tutorial2/first_steps_to_animation.html

Wow, THANKS!!!!

Julian

Thanks for the help guys! Those were good links, but...

I guess I need to wait till I learn about them at school. I just don't get it.

Thanks anyway guys,

Julian

Yeah. You may need high-level math to understand matrices before you get to learn shaders.

But you can do a search on Matrix in here...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Matrix+Math+Tutorial

I hope this helps.

Some basic things about matrices:

• Matrices are like vectors of vectors, so they have rows and columns.
  
• You can use matrices for transforming vectors. You do this by multipling the matrix with the vector. This way you can move, scale or rotate vectors.
  
• If you multiply two matrices, the new matrix will combine the transformations of each matrix. So if you combine a rotation and scaling matrix, the vector will be rotated and scaled in one multiplication.
  
• By multipling with the inverse of a matrix, you can make that matrix undo.

That's very general info, hope that helps you.

Wow thanks!! That is very helpful!

Julian

One more question. I am right now learning about matrices (thanks for the links, Alexander Esslinger), and I'd like to know beforehand if I can use them with entity positions. I know they can be used with skins, but can 3DGS also use matrices for manual scaling/rotating/transformation of entities as well? It's just something I'd like to experiment on.

Julian

No. Internally it does that when you use x/y/z, scale_x/y/z or pan/tilt/roll, but you cannot change the matrix directly by script.

GameStudio does implement some matrices functions though, like multipling two matrices or creating the identity matrix, but that's it. The only thing they are imported for now is when using the new material effects. Transforming the model's UVs is also done in effects only.

So is it possible to transform angels of a matrix to another one (object matrix to world matrix so I can rotate a turret on my spaceship)? How can I do that?

So is it possible to transform angels of a matrix to another one (object matrix to world matrix so I can rotate a turret on my spaceship)? How can I do that?

So is it possible to transform angels of a matrix to another one (object matrix to world matrix so I can rotate a turret on my spaceship)? How can I do that?

What do you mean by rotating the angles of a matrix?

@ MK.1:

Do you mean using matrices to rotate an entity relative to its world pan, tilt, and roll? This is something I've really wanted to do!

Julian

A very good reference:
Meyer, Carl. (2000). Matrix analysis and applied linear algebra. Published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Maths (SIAM). Meyer is pretty definitive for matrices. If you peruse any of the standard computer graphics textbooks (e.g. Foley, Watt, etc.) you'll notice that a few topics recur (1) Homogenous coordinate systems, (2) matrices including inversion-rotation-transformation, and (3) vectors. You can throw in a big bundle of partial differential equation theory as well (continuous functions and friends)- cf. Calculus and Analytical Geometry. Unfortunately, I know of no book entitled 'Matrices without tears'.

It depends on what you mean concerning your animations question(s).... You can actually use a matrix to deform your terrain or model! But to use it for animation would cost some time, and then again bones-animation is way easier... You should be able to adjust these animations (quasi-)realtime with c-script, so.........