Nurbs editing - possible in DR?

[Mr Mike]

Guys, I've started looking into Nurbs and what can be accmplished with them, and it's pretty good stuff. This was all from the Doomeditor as I couldn't see a way to edit them with DarkRadiant. Is this a feature that is on the to do list? (Apologies if it is in there, I did a forum search)

[jdude]

I had to google what a nurb is, because I've never heard of that It seems to be a path line which is curved using only 2 point. Correct? If so this would be extremely useful for AI paths because 90 degree turns look funny and adding a bunch of target points can be messy and difficult.

[Crispy]

AI paths can't use NURBs. I guess it's technically possible for us to implement but... let's just not go there please.

 

I imagine he's talking about NURBs as in the kind of NURBs used by 3D modelling programs, which is basically a 2D surface formed from NURBs curves. And although I haven't actually used patches in D3/DarkRadiant, they sound like more or less the same thing.

 

Are patches what you're looking for, Mike?

[Nyarlathotep]

@Jdude: it takes at least three points to map a curve. NURBs use four.

 

@Crispy: I seem to recall in prior discussions that patches are made with quadratic (rather than cubic) bezier curves. NURBS would be better, but it might just be simpler to convert the beziers to cubic. I wouldn't know; ask Greebo/Orbweaver.

[Mr Mike]

Well you're correct in what nurbs are but not in their use. The nurbs I refer to aren't used for geometry but to control movement of whatever you want; i.e. the smooth turning monorail is Doom3? It followed a path created with nurbs.

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...highlight=nurbs

 

Some possibilities; smoothly moving particle effects glowing in a Pagan forrest (willow the whisp) or imagine the security cameras in Cragscleft, but aiming at a nodraw'd target and emitting a particle effect in that direction.

[greebo]

The NURBS support in DarkRadiant is a bit lacking at the moment. Angua already implemented such a NURBS path for her wisp in the bonehoard caves, but she had to create the path in DoomEdit first and then copy it back into DarkRadiant. Most people don't even know about that feature, that's why it's hardly used. There is only one thread on D3World about this as well.

 

It's possible to edit existing curves though in vertex editing mode, but it looks a bit wrong (I guess coding on this had been started but never finished).

 

It's one of the (few) editing features DarkRadiant is lacking with respect to DoomEdit, so it's definitely needed. I think I can implement that till the next weekend, so I'll put it on my list.

[Mr Mike]

Wow, thanks Greebo, that sounds excellent!

 

Not quite only 1 thread either- http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...highlight=nurbs

 

That sounds cool. An object thta will follow a path, and cause damage if needed, which then goes on to use physics when it reaches the end.

[Crispy]

Heh. Interesting. I didn't even realise those existed in D3.