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Multithreaded / GPU based vertex animation?
#326377
05/31/10 18:54
05/31/10 18:54
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Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 6,904
HeelX
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A8 will have a very nice feature that is a good selling point: GPU-based bone animation.
In the manual, you still propose to use vertex animation when a lot of actors are moving (like crowds, armies, etc.). Is this proposal still valid if you use GPU-bones animation VS. CPU-based vertex animation?
Other than that: (and here comes my proposal) --- are you considering GPU-based vertex animation in the future?
OR: Are you calculating the vertex positions in a multithreaded fashion? If you do not plan to add GPU-based vertex animation and do not multithread the calculations - is there are way to replace your calculations by my own so that I can set up my own animation format for models and calculate it on the CPU by myself by using multithreading under C++? Would you be so kind and give an example for this, then?
This is especially useful if you are doing procedural animations, so if you want to extent the engine into that direction... then... just my two cents :-)
This is an important topic for me, so, thanks in advance, -Christian
Last edited by HeelX; 05/31/10 18:56.
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Re: Multithreaded / GPU based vertex animation?
[Re: jcl]
#326444
06/01/10 08:00
06/01/10 08:00
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Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 6,904
HeelX
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JCL, either I speak in the last time in ambiguous words - and if so, I promise I improve on that - or you don't read carefully. Or both. Who knows.
Nevertheless. In the beta page you are explicitely talking about bones animation. I (or respectively, we) talk about vertex animation. That is for instance, if you load a model in MED with bones animations and click on Edit\Convert to points animation.
So, again my question in a easy to understand order of causal relations:
1.) Situation 1: You provide in A8 a shader which allows GPU accelerated bones animations 2.) Request: We would like to have in A8 a shader that does vertex animations on the GPU rather on the CPU 3.) Reason 1: it is rather time consuming on models with lots of vertices to calculate animations on the CPU if not multithreaded. 4.) Conclusion 1: If your CPU-animation code is not multithreaded (is it?), a parallel GPU would be way more faster, especially on models with lots of vertices 5.) Situation 2: if you don't want to do this, I ask for a way to calculate vertex animations by our own without using ent_setvertex because (citing the manual) "Modifying a mesh of a certain entity [with ent_setvertex] affects all entities that use the same mesh" and using ent_clone is kinda wrong because you have then for each individual entity a cloned mesh... 6.) Request 2: If Situation 2 becomes true, could you provide an example how to do that with DirectX functions without cloning the mesh or can you provide a way to do this (or similar)?
I hope this is clearer to you know. If I am mistaken and confused big time, show me.
Thanks.
Last edited by HeelX; 06/01/10 08:10.
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Re: Multithreaded / GPU based vertex animation?
[Re: jcl]
#326453
06/01/10 09:00
06/01/10 09:00
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Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 6,904
HeelX
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This is my case, I will have lots of entities on screen, ~1000 vertices each, vertex animated, 4-6 frames per animation, only ~4 models, but many of each type (ranges from 1 to 100 each). My hopes are that model instancing and GPU powered animation will reduce the workload for it (in the future)... so, is it a big deal to do it when you have finished some of the more important stuff?
Last edited by HeelX; 06/01/10 09:01.
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