Z-Cloud is a mod that I, (Dreamod), am currently developing. It's going to be the first mod (I believe) to add 3D capabilities to Scratch. Z-Cloud will have all the functions that scratch has, but modified to function in a 3D environment with added blocks to utilize 3D functions. There will be a camera added placed underneath the stage in the ScratchLibraryPaneMorph (where you can select a sprite or stage).

I intend to incorporate the use of Euler and angles in blocks. Euler angles are basically angles with 3 dimensions. I'm going to have to do some research on this. Haven't learned about this yet ^^ I'm going to do some research on Euler angles on Wikipedia. If any one could give me a brief overview of this that would be nice.


So far, the development is in its earliest stage (I haven't started, but I DO know how to do it). The way I'm going to do this is I'm going to port Scratch to the Squeak3.1 Beta and take the built in 3D from the Squeak3.1 Beta and implement it into the ported scratch which I will have implemented into Squeak3.1 Beta. In other words I'm going to mix Scratch and the 3D functions in Squeak3.1 Beta together. I really hope this works.

Glad to see you're still working on this!

Wasn't it originally called Sky?

davidkt wrote:

Wasn't it originally called Sky?

Yeah, but I got a better idea. And starting a new topic for it is a good time to change the name. The fact that all the previous forums have apparently been removed gives me a nice fresh start. The Z stands for the third dimension (the z axis) and I came up with the name cloud when I looked at the Dream logo. And as you can see, I out them together ^^ Dream is my other mod that I'm working on. I have yet to create a new topic about it , but I intend to do so when I have a good version ready and a download link.

Lookng forward to seeing what you do with this.

But if anyone wants to try doing some pen-drawn 3D of basic 3D objects in Scratch as is, take a look at the custom blocks in the 3D studio I'm putting together:

http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/202972/

I think the hardest part of it is building the initial structures - that's best done in something like blender, and then saving as Wavefront (.obj) to get the point positions and faces.

And then the other hardest part ( ) is figuring out what you want the structures to actually do in your game…

Once you've done that, though, the blocks themselves should give you what you need.

To get an idea of the kind of thing it does, take a look at InterXeptor 3D, shared by MrLog.
I've also got a nice demo under construction that includes background objects using costumes (e.g. planets, galaxies, sun - with camera flares) and it's looking pretty impressive (for scratch, anyway!) - hope that'll be ready to show off soon…

Enjoy

So basically you're rotating the objects on the stage as a group when you change the position of the camera (Using position makes it easier to understand, I believe)?

DigiTechs wrote:

So basically you're rotating the objects on the stage as a group when you change the position of the camera (Using position makes it easier to understand, I believe)?

Yes. Have you played Super Mario 64? That should give you a good example of what I mean. It's the first game to use a user controllable camera.You can zoom in on Mario or turn around to see different perspectives. In fact, if you look in a mirror in the game you can see a Lakitu holding the camera. So, the camera is basically your perspective.

DadOfMrLog wrote:

Lookng forward to seeing what you do with this.

But if anyone wants to try doing some pen-drawn 3D of basic 3D objects in Scratch as is, take a look at the custom blocks in the 3D studio I'm putting together:

http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/202972/

I think the hardest part of it is building the initial structures - that's best done in something like blender, and then saving as Wavefront (.obj) to get the point positions and faces.

And then the other hardest part ( ) is figuring out what you want the structures to actually do in your game…

Once you've done that, though, the blocks themselves should give you what you need.

To get an idea of the kind of thing it does, take a look at InterXeptor 3D, shared by MrLog.
I've also got a nice demo under construction that includes background objects using costumes (e.g. planets, galaxies, sun - with camera flares) and it's looking pretty impressive (for scratch, anyway!) - hope that'll be ready to show off soon…

Enjoy

I'm not quite sure yet as to which formats Z-Cloud will be able to support. That is one of my biggest concerns but hopefully it supports the regular formats. I would be really happy to have some models so I can test it. I DO have blender but I've never really understood how to get it to work >_< . The first game I'm gonna make to test it will probably be a Starfox game. I tried the original Starfox 64 about a week ago and I love it ^^ (especially how the other starfox team members react when you shoot them :p )

There are plenty of online tutorials (including youtube, which work quite well) showing how to do things with blender. MrLog (i.e. my son) learnt to do some pretty decent stuff in just a few days.

Regarding Starfox, InterXeptor is along those lines, so you could take a look and perhaps some of the simple ship designs might work for you? Actually, if you wait for the demo, that has a considerably simpler way to define the structures, so that could be more useful (but maybe InterXeptor would be OK to examine to start off?)

BTW, for my 3D Scratch API, I found it was more efficient to keep the point lists for the structures intact and apply rotation and shift transformations to the points as needed - Scratch is actually fairly slow when it comes to replacing values in lists (which is the way I originally did it in InterXeptor), but the lists that store the transform info don't usually have so many entries (9 for rotation, 3 for shift) compared to the no. of points in a structure times 3. So, applying the changing rotate+shift transformations to the fixed points, to find where they are relative to the camera, turns out about twice as fast when I recreate something like InterXeptor with it. It's why I've been able to add the extra eye-candy in the upcoming demo I mentioned.

OTOH, if you're building this as an external mod to Scratch then maybe it'll be OK to actually change the points for real? But I've found having the original set of points for the structures is also quite useful in terms of manipulating them.
Would have to try it, I think…

dreamod wrote:

DigiTechs wrote:

So basically you're rotating the objects on the stage as a group when you change the position of the camera (Using position makes it easier to understand, I believe)?

Yes. Have you played Super Mario 64? That should give you a good example of what I mean. It's the first game to use a user controllable camera.You can zoom in on Mario or turn around to see different perspectives. In fact, if you look in a mirror in the game you can see a Lakitu holding the camera. So, the camera is basically your perspective.

I haven't played it, but I play a game which also uses Euler Angles as a method of rotating parts.

DadOfMrLog wrote:

There are plenty of online tutorials (including youtube, which work quite well) showing how to do things with blender. MrLog (i.e. my son) learnt to do some pretty decent stuff in just a few days.

Regarding Starfox, InterXeptor is along those lines, so you could take a look and perhaps some of the simple ship designs might work for you? Actually, if you wait for the demo, that has a considerably simpler way to define the structures, so that could be more useful (but maybe InterXeptor would be OK to examine to start off?)

BTW, for my 3D Scratch API, I found it was more efficient to keep the point lists for the structures intact and apply rotation and shift transformations to the points as needed - Scratch is actually fairly slow when it comes to replacing values in lists (which is the way I originally did it in InterXeptor), but the lists that store the transform info don't usually have so many entries (9 for rotation, 3 for shift) compared to the no. of points in a structure times 3. So, applying the changing rotate+shift transformations to the fixed points, to find where they are relative to the camera, turns out about twice as fast when I recreate something like InterXeptor with it. It's why I've been able to add the extra eye-candy in the upcoming demo I mentioned.

OTOH, if you're building this as an external mod to Scratch then maybe it'll be OK to actually change the points for real? But I've found having the original set of points for the structures is also quite useful in terms of manipulating them.
Would have to try it, I think…

Any model would be great. I'm not at all picky. I tried MrLog's InterXeptor 3D. It's very good and sort of what I have in mind. Although the 3D is already implemented into a version of squeak, so the hard part is done. I'm basically just going to place that 3D world into the Scratch environment and make it manipulable via scratch blocks.

I'm really sorry I'm not working on this right now. I'm sort of on a vacation so I don't want to work on any hard projects, but I will see what I can do after summer. I really hope there aren't any unexpected bugs. Thanks for being extremely patient.

Do you have a download link?

Couldn't you just add this onto dream? Then it'd have the amazing possibilities of dream with the added bonus of 3-d.

3D… YEESSSSSSSSSSSS! THIS IS GOING TO BE EVEN BETTER THAN DREAM!!!!!!

I would recommend porting a lot of Dream's features over into Z-Cloud.

Z-cloud is supposed to be a simple introduction to 3D programming, which is why I wont be having the advanced features dream has. I may eventually make a version which integrates features from Dream and Z-Cloud.

dreamod wrote:

Z-cloud is supposed to be a simple introduction to 3D programming, which is why I wont be having the advanced features dream has. I may eventually make a version which integrates features from Dream and Z-Cloud.

Hmm… Well, at least make sure it has enough advanced features to make 3D things well.

When would you think an alpha version will be ready (just asking)?

FireNinjaGAME wrote:

dreamod wrote:

Z-cloud is supposed to be a simple introduction to 3D programming, which is why I wont be having the advanced features dream has. I may eventually make a version which integrates features from Dream and Z-Cloud.

Hmm… Well, at least make sure it has enough advanced features to make 3D things well.

When would you think an alpha version will be ready (just asking)?

I've been very busy with Dream and haven't actually started but I have experimented with the 3d Squeak which this will be based off of. I just have to port scratch to Squeak. Last time I failed because I forgot the UnicodePlugin (which is a new plugin in scratch) which messed up all the StringMorphs. I'm going to get started now… I just re-downloaded Squeak 3.1 Beta., which has 3D

Squeak 3.1 Beta http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/lang/smalltalk/Squeak/3.1beta/

Alright. I guess if it is Squeak 3.1 beta, they removed the features of 3D…

Be sure to make it have its own 3D editor, and try to port over a few things from dream (dialog menus, file creating and modifying, etc.)

And good luck! If this makes it through development (without being discontinued) I will most definetely use it!

FireNinjaGAME wrote:

Alright. I guess if it is Squeak 3.1 beta, they removed the features of 3D…

Be sure to make it have its own 3D editor, and try to port over a few things from dream (dialog menus, file creating and modifying, etc.)

And good luck! If this makes it through development (without being discontinued) I will most definetely use it!

A 3D editor might be VERY hard. Also, the point is I am trying to make it almost exactly like Scratch except 3D and adding the necessary corresponding features to support 3D. Like
change z by (10)
set z to (y)
(z position)
go to x: (1) y: (1) z: (1)