Welcome to the wonderful world of Quest3D!

[Dylan]

In recent years, 3D computer graphics have taken the world by storm. Hollywood movies show off fully animated monsters and entire alien planets. Video games offer fantastic characters to play and vast interactive worlds to explore. Commercial and scientific presentations are often made in 3D. Even entire training programs can take place in a virtual reality.

Though 3D computer graphics have reached a mainstream status, actual creation still requires much effort. Only with proper, dedicated tools is it possible to produce convincing results in a timely manner.

Quest3D is the perfect software package for creating interactive 3D scenes. Examples include product presentations, architectural visualisations, virtual trainings and computer games.

Quest3D features a unique style of programming. Instead of having to write thousands of lines of complex code, developers make use of a large set of powerful building blocks. Both flexible and easy to use, Quest3D appeals to designers , programmers and artists alike.

Working with Quest3D means developing in real-time: you are working directly on the end result. No time will be lost on compiling code or rendering images.

Quest3D has a stunning set of graphics features. Large numbers of animated people, convincing vegetation, shadows, fire and smoke effects and realistic water can all be easily added to a scene. Advanced features include physics simulation, pathfinding routines, database connectivity and networking support.

This book is your guide to Quest3D. It offers both theory and practical examples in the form of step by step tutorials. After reading this manual, you should be well on your way to creating almost any interactive 3D scene imaginable.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Quest3D!

[Eline]

that is very sweet.

Should make people enthusiastic about the manual/product I think.

Maybe add a photo of you, smiling, and working with Quest.

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Cool - can I read the book?

out of interest - based on the recommened computer for this software (and what would that be?)

How many Polygons per second is the engine capable of?
and how many with various effects applied. and what texture effects can it cope with, what ress can the textures be, does it support bump-mapping, anti aliasing, pixel shaders? etc...

are the fire effects particle driven? - and how many particles can it display?

how is collison detection handled?

What is the best place to create content? does Quest have tools to intergrate into popular 3D packages, Maya,Max etc?

Im interested myself, and I was thinking these might be the sort of questions a new user might ask?

[Dylan]

Thanks Eline!

And thank you Impy. Here's a few answers:

can I read the book?
Sure! It should be done around March or so. My own freelance job ends today, for now.

recommened computer for this software
As long as you have a 3D accellerated graphics card, you're good to go.

How many Polygons per second is the engine capable of?
That's just a silly question, and you know it. Pure polygon pushing isn't something worth measuring. There's always other factors, such as texture calculation.

Still, to give you an answer, at my former job we had a few scenes with 300.000-1.000.000 polys running at 15 frames a second or so. 250.000 polys should produce nice fluid frame rates.

and how many with various effects applied. and what texture effects can it cope with, what ress can the textures be, does it support bump-mapping, anti aliasing, pixel shaders? etc...
Texture resolution, bump mapping, anti-aliasing, pixel and vertex shaders are all dependend on your hardware. But yes, Quest3D supports it all.

are the fire effects particle driven? - and how many particles can it display?
Yep, Quest3D has an advanced particle system for that, complete with collision handling. Particle system speed depends especially on count, size (fillrate) and transparency options. A few hundred is usually more than enough to get the results you want, and that setting runs nicely.

how is collison detection handled?
There's a simpler way (vector operations), and support for ODE: a third party physics engine. ODE can get a bit unstable / slow soonish, but both options produce good results when handled carefully.

What is the best place to create content? does Quest have tools to intergrate into popular 3D packages, Maya,Max etc?
3D Studio Max and Maya are both supported fairly well. Meshes can be exported using the Microsoft DirectX .X file tool, including bone animation (biped). In addition, PolyTrans (a third party tool) is supported.
I myself use Max, which works nicely enough.

Im interested myself, and I was thinking these might be the sort of questions a new user might ask
Definitely. The website will be updated in a few months, after the release of 3.0. In the meantime, you could always check the current site: www.quest3d.com . The support forum is real helpful too. I'm one of the postmasters there.


Thanks for your interest!

[Impactor returns 2.0]

Great man thats cool!

I thought id run off a few questions, im sure they must be the sort of thing ppl ask.
I have for some time considered making a game myself, somthing very simple of course.

My idea would be a party game, have you played monkey ball, im not intending to make moneky ball, but it has these party games, they are small contained silly affairs that are competitive and its just about getting a better score then your mates. - but they are very simple enviroments and I belive it probably a good place to start.
take a simple idea, add something pretty and get basic core of good fun game play in place.

Up untill now there hasnt be anything to my knowledge apart from quest that could do somthing in 3D properly, only perhaps Shockwave, but its 3D is really cack to be frank. an interactive chat room that looks like doom 2 is about as good as ive managed (id love to bolt it onto transfans - virtual ivory tower-with 2D avatars of transformers - locked areas for admins etc.. how virtual!) - so I look forward to reading the manual and im deff gonna check Quest out next week after I finnish my current project

[Dylan]

Awesome!

There are a few other packages similar to Quest3D:
* Virtools - super expensive
* Torque engine - fun but dated I think?
* RenderWare (I think that's the name?) - super expensive

I personally believe Quest3D is a good piece of software, and easily one of the best in its class.

Your game ideas sounds nice, Mark, more and more I'm beginning to go back to basics myself. If the core idea is solid, you're onto something and it's worth spending time on. I (and perhaps the world with me) am getting a bit tired of technology-driven games. Shaders... wooo... [/sarcasm]

Still, if you can combine good gameplay with fancy graphics, you're definitely onto something of course.

[Obfleur]

My idea would be a party game, have you played monkey ball, im not intending to make moneky ball, but it has these party games, they are small contained silly affairs that are competitive and its just about getting a better score then your mates. - but they are very simple enviroments and I belive it probably a good place to start.
take a simple idea, add something pretty and get basic core of good fun game play in place.

I just wanna say that I love Super Monkey Ball and its minigames.
A very "easy" idea - but yet so brilliant and fun.
If you make a partygame, I wanna try it

[Dylan]

Yeah, Monkey ball is super. I especially like the punching game.

Quest3D supports gamepad input - just plug in a couple of USB pads and you're good to go. Development is a breeze.


[/promotional talk]