Windows build has dependant dll's

[dlannan]

Seems the windows build has a Debug MSVCP and MSVCR dll dependancy. Probably worth adding a link or adding to the download package.

[pjcozzi]

We just ran into this too. Why not post a release build?

[dlannan]

Sorry - I never finished building etc. I have moved to develop a UTF8 Scene loader/streamer. Very high compression with minimum loss. Ciao.

[fabrobinet]

@dlannan I am really sorry for not having taken care of that, I was just swamped at work and many other things. Dev-6 will be shortly merged in master and I will make sure the windows build is correctly built as release.

I understand you had to move on, but between building this project by yourself and make the release built and implementing a new one, maybe the first would have been faster ? If anything prevented to build on windows could you tell me ?. (unfortunately on my side, windows is not my primary OS and I don't use it on daily basis... ).

For the compression, it's interesting you came up with something that sounds new / great. Do you know how it compares with Open3DGC ? If you can share one or two test model, we could compare - just to know.. ;). Open3DGC Feature wise is quite rich as it handles any number&kind of mesh attributes handles with different prediction methods (including bones, weights) and animations...

For Dev-7 there will be a focus on wrapping up the compression proposal #230 so later would be nice check our projects so if you have a URL with more information I'd be interested to see.

[fabrobinet]

And I re-opened to make sure I won't forget next time I prepare all builds.

[dlannan]

I have not used Open3DGC. Also the format isnt mine :) .. its the UTF8 format in threeJS modified to handle things like repeat textures, and a number of other fixes (I have posted patches to them, Im not certain they will go in though because they are rewriting some parts). webgl-loader is the name of the google code project. With this I have also added my own auto conversion scene system so I can design a scene in Unity3D and then write it out for threeJS to use in this format. The size compression is generally good - 40MB obj scene goes down to 1/10th that for nearly every scene type. This makes loading in a complex scene quite acceptable, fully textured.
Currently there are a few poly bugs, and I'm replacing the quantisation method with something different (a variant of fixed point system) so I expect to gain some more improvements (visual) soon - although I am limited due to work also (currently OS). Additionally Chrome seems to execute the texture code better than Firefox - it has some issues with reversed UV coords I think.
Heres a demo I am working on: http://cloudsim.gagagames.com None of my work is minified, so feel free to dig through it.

[fabrobinet]

Thanks for the insights and sharing the nice demo, promising work !. I also used webgl-loader in the past and even in this project, it is a very efficient and smart format. One issue I had with it was the fact it seemed to require lots of changes to be extended to support everything that can comes up from COLLADA. FYI here is one comparaison of Open3DGC and webgl-loader http://kmamou.blogspot.com/2013/07/open3dgc-updated-results.html.
BTW, glTF is also available in Three.js now, so once the glTF loader in there supports decompression, it might be handy for you at this point...

[dlannan]

Hi - the main reason I moved away from glTF was the ability to get my data from a good source (like unity3d or Max) and have it produce a consistent output. The problem I have had in the past with collada and a number of the formats I tested from threeJS is the difficulty to get a stable output from a wide range of sources. This led me to the solution of a Unity->UTF8 modified exporter and loader combo. This makes my data pipeline very stable and easy to use. Additionally the scene information is reflected through the dataset - this is important for scene organisation.

Yes the compression is a nice feature especially for the size of scenes I'm working with, but if its hard to get assets from one source to a destination source, then it doesn't matter how good the loader is. The webgl-loader Im starting to develop though is now using a different mathematical scheme for data management (dynamic fixed point and some other tricks). Which will provide automatic lodding, and a number of other features into the loader without need for extra development (will be part of the mesh description).

Anyway.. good luck with it. Cheers, Dave.

[fabrobinet]

@dlannan just to close the thread.
We talk about your feedback within the working group and we agree that for depending on the needs and team, a straight output to glTF would be relevant. We will experiment this as soon as we can, but it can't happen until the v1.0 is wrapped up. With should be < 3 months from now.

As an aside, now windows build are available in release. (again sorry for the inconvenience).
Thanks a lot for your feedback and insights.

[sayangel]

@dlannan just came across this thread. Currently my workflow is split between Unity and WebGL. As you mentioned, getting consistent output is difficult. Would love to learn about your Unity->UTF8 pipeline.

[dlannan]

Hi there - I did this all around a year ago. I still have the exporting tools, and they are being integrated in a 'bigger + badder' application based around Unity3D itself. I'm happy to share some of the code for this, I'll try to organize a github repo with the exporter in it.

To clarify the usage:

• I use Unity3D as the "scene builder" and prepare a scene how I want.
  This allows me to use all the 'import' methods of Unity3D to bring in the assets. I only support
  basic shader setups (1 or 2 textures) and collapse materials in objects.
• Then I export the whole scene (or a single Object) to the UTF8 format
• Then I use my own ThreeJS setup to load in the assets and place them correctly. As I mentioned I have my own scene structure for this (it effectively reflects the Unity3D Node hierarchy).

So if any of this sounds useful Id be happy to pass on some of the work. BTW - good luck with the VR, we recently have just completed a few man months of VRs (Oculus) + OVR + GreenScreen testing for use in simulators. Interesting results. Looking forward to more Hololens type toys :)

[sayangel]

hey @dlannan awesome! this is along the lines of what I've been looking for. Would really appreciate anything you'd be able to share and if I can help in any way I'd be happy to contribute. I've been trying to do the inverse of what you're doing and set up a scene in ThreeJS and load that into Unity. But I think what you've built will certainly help and maybe it's better if I go Unity to ThreeJS.

Thanks for the response! would love to hear more about your VR work too. Sounds really cool.

[sayangel]

hey @dlannan any updates? let me know if you need any help!

[dlannan]

Hi,
So sorry.. Im currently flat out with work. 1 week of QA and such on my project to go. Should have some time after that.
I could possibly find the parts and put it in a zip, but it probably wont be very usable.
I'll hopefully get to it soon, please bump this in a week's time. :)

dlannan

From: sayangel
Date: 2015-05-20 02:14
To: KhronosGroup/glTF
CC: dlannan
Subject: Re: [glTF] Windows build has dependant dll's (#265)
hey @dlannan any updates? let me know if you need any help!
—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[dlannan]

Hi again,
Good news and bad news. I found the code - took a fair amount of digging, seems I didnt have it in my normal repo setup. I found what seems to be a broken version. I'll get it working again and put on github. The basic idea is it takes the OBJExporter for Unity and that was converted to generate UTF8 compliant output. It currently only supported 1 material per mesh, which is a little limiting, but that can be easily extended. I'll get back to you in a day or so once its all online.
Cheers,
Dave Lannan

[dlannan]

More good news. I also found why the export code was broken - I stopped using it. I forgot I had used a OBJ -> UTF8 convertor tool available on Google Code, with a modified ThreeJS loader. Will have this up soon.

[dlannan]

To those that might be interested:
https://github.com/dlannan/unity-utf8exporter

[sayangel]

@dlannan awesome!! thanks for taking the time to dig this up. I'll take a look and let you know how it goes/make any PRs if I make useful changes :)