In a computer climate dominated by the idea of Virtual Reality, Domark may have come up with the best piece of software imaginable. 3D Construction Kit claims to include the ability to build a world and fill it with whatever you want. Does it live up to its promise? FRANK O'CONNOR investigates...
The great thing about the included game is that you can fiddle around with it by using the game as one of your own saved files. You can now mess around with the objects and buildings in the game. In this case, we floated a pyramid above the house (it made sense at the time).[NOIMG]The fly option comes is very useful indeed. It's kind of like a helicopter, whereby you can hover around at will.This may look like a detailed and intricate object, but it's really just a set of shrunken, stretched and compressed cubes.
Incentive has been pumping out Freescape games for years now. Freescape Is a 3D environment system using filled vectors to create a fairly realistic “world”. The games were immensely entertaining, combining the “real feel” with brilliant elements of strategic and puzzle gameplay.
VIRTUAL REALITY
Virtual Reality is a rather trendy name for a concept which has been around for quite some time. Early flight sims created a kind of Virtual Reality, giving trainee pilots a safe and realistic environment to fly a “virtual” aircraft in. As computing power and graphic handling improved, so did the presentation of the Virtual concept.
Only in the late-'80s did the idea really take off and people started to realise new and more complex applications for the idea. Virtual Reality, as we have come to know it, is a computer-generated environment. It doesn't have to copy the real world, though. In fact, you can take the real world and turn it on its head.
The concept took a great step forward when computer boffins came up with interactive helmets and gloves. The helmets contained LCD display goggles and an array of sensors. These sensors detect movement in the wearer and send instructions to the computer, so that looking up, for example, changes the viewpoint on screen accordingly. The gloves work in much the same way, allowing the user to hold, pick up or manipulate objects in a virtual world. The concept has been applied to full bodysuits, expanding the capabilities of the system.
Virtual Reality can be used for many things. It can be used as a tool for architects and city planners, for a start. Imagine designing a building and then being able to walk around in it before it's even built! Or planning road layouts and driving round them to check the traffic lights. The most sinister application of all, of course, is the military potential...
Pilots and tank drivers can be trained in extremely realistic scenarios. The pilots can turn their heads and watch through the “cockpit” as enemy fighters streak past and behind.
The idea of a Virtual office has been passed around, too, allowing people in different countries to assemble in one “office” and conduct business meetings. Networking and modems would be required to bring this system into being, but the idea relies on processing power more than anything else.
These things would seem to be a long way off, but the fact is, there are already Virtual arcade machines up and down the country, running on Amiga-based systems (admittedly souped-up Amigas, but Amigas nonetheless). People who talked about this as a leisure pursuit for the twenty-first century are now eating their words and looking forward to domestic virtual reality within the next ten years.
Now Domark and Incentive have teamed up to bring you the system which created it all. 3D Construction Kit is a user-friendly Freescape environment designer. With it, you can build any object you care to think of (as long as it has no round edges); you can make a whole city, a car, an aircraft. The only real limits are your patience and imagination.
The first thing you'll notice upon getting your copy of 3D Construction Kit is the size of the box. Looking more like an expensive IBM business package than an Amstrad title, the box contains everything you need to get started.
Included is a comprehensive but not over-long manual, one disk or two cassettes (depending on your machine) and a VHS video cassette. The package looks extremely professional and not a little daunting.The best advice upon opening the pack is... DON'T PANIC!
People deal with software in different ways. Some read all the instructions carefully before starting, others bung it straight in the machine and start experimenting. We would recommend the latter, but sooner or later you will have to refer to the manual.
Once loaded, you are presented with a menu. This allows you to choose from the following list of options:
128K Editor (main program for 128k machines)
64K Editor (two parts for 64k machines)
The Freescape Compiler (arranges your construction into a fluid, working format)
A disk formatter
Use the disk formatter first if you have a disk-based machine, as Kit files have to be saved onto a special format.
The main menu screen contains a panel of icons. The options these present include Load/Save for the files you create. Those you use most are Create/Edit. Create, when selected, allows you to create a variety of two and three-dimensional objects. These include cubes, triangles, pyramids, lines and other polygons.
The objects in this menu all have set dimensions and appear in the same place when chosen. This is where the Edit function comes into play. Selecting Edit reveals a sub-menu, with a list of object-defining commands.
A free game is included with the package. It's a shortish adventure involving a space shuttle, a computer and a large dose of explorational ability.
You can move the objects around in three dimensions, stretch, shrink, rotate and turn. This means you can move a pyramid, for example, place it atop a cube and stretch it skyward. There are a decent range of colours available and shading an object is extremely simple. If the object is three-dimensional, you can colour all its sides.
Colouring is simplicity itself. You select the shade option and a panel opens up beneath the standard control menu. On this panel are a selection of fairly simple shades. Clever programing allows eight colours in the normally four-colour mode 1. This selection has been further improved by stippling two different colours together to make an in-between shade.
3D Kit still isn't exactly exploding with colour, but there are enough shades to give realistic shadow and light sourcing. If you plan to make a large structure, say perhaps a village, then some careful thought about a light source will be required. A basic guideline is to decide where you want the “sun” - from then on, everything facing the sun is a bright colour. Object sides which do not face the sun are then shaded in darker colours.
The Legend of Freescape
Virtual Reality is a rather trendy name for a concept which has been around for quite some time. Early flight sims created a kind of Virtual Reality, giving trainee pilots a safe and realistic environment to fly a “virtual” aircraft in. As computing power and graphic handling improved, so did the presentation of the Virtual concept.
Castle Master took the Freescape theme back in time to medieval days. The sequel, Castle Master 2: The Crypt, hasn't been available in the shops - until now. It can be bought as part of the Virtual Worlds compilation just published by Domark/lncentive.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a software house called Incentive decided that Pac Man and Space Invaders just weren't, well, real enough.
“We don't want to just see the maze, we want to be there!”. And so they put on their special programming pants and sat down to revolutionise the games industry...
Driller ms the first of the Freescape programs and arguably the best. It borrowed the 3D concept from lots of different sources. Flight sims had been using polygons for years, but they weren't particularly detailed and increased size meant reduced speed. Incentive invented new coding techniques to get the thing running. It was fast. It was big. It was clever.
They released the game on just about every format known to man and it was greeted with incredible adulation.
“Do it again”, cried the world. “We want some more of those spanky Freescape games.”
The second Freescape title was Total Eclipse and although it looked and played similar to the first game it was bigger, it was faster, it was better.
The crowd went wild and the Freescape games went on to become one of the biggest success stories in software history.
Incentive then joined up with games publisher Domark to release Freescape game number three - Castle Master, a medieval romp through the rooms and vaults of an ancient castle.
Now Domark/lncentive has come up with the 3D Construction Kit. You can create your own 3D environments and maybe even program another Driller...
All three previously-released Freestape games plus a fourth, Castle Master II: The Crypt are being sold as part of the new Virtual Worlds compilation from Domark/lncentive. Look out for the review next issue!
Driller, the first of the Freescape games, is now considered a true classic
If you want to use the software as more than just an object designer, then your'e going to have to leam the complicated bit. 3D Construction Kit uses a very simple programming language to handle the more complex aspects of the program.
It looks a little like BASIC, but is actually a lot simpler. For example, collision detection allows you to destroy objects with a laser. The laser is activated by pressing the Spacebar. This brings up a secondary cursor on the screen. This cursor can be guided quickly and accurately to the object you wish to shoot.
To give the object the ability to be destroyed, a typical line in Kit's object language would look something like this:
IF SHOT 4 2 THEN DESTROY 4 2 ENDIF
It doesn't take long and it's a fairly logical and intuitive system. The main difficulty you'll come across is spatial awareness. It can be difficult knowing exactly where you and the objects you are building are at any particular time. Fortunately, a plan view is available from the main menu. Mapping larger complexes of buildings and structures is definitely advisable; the program itself gives correct coordinates at all times, displayed in a bar below the main screen.
The control panel is a joy to use. The arrow pointing forward obviously moves you forward. The arrow pointing up is similarly logical. This is also true for the slightly more complicated edit screen. This time the arrows represent STRETCH, MOVE, SHRINK, POINT and TURN.
Viewing the structures is also simple. A little “eye" icon is displayed, with a facility to look up or down. Clicking on the main “eye” returns your viewpoint to the horizon.
If you don't feel confident about building something from scratch, there is another way: Load up the included game demo and try messing around with the objects in that. These are already endowed with the more complex attributes of the program and can be redesigned until they are almost unrecognisable.
Disk users will have to use the special Kit formatter to save their designs, but tape users have an easy time of it. The multiload on tape is simple, quick and efficient
The program reeks of quality. Expensive it may be, but 3D Construction Kit is easily the most innovative piece of Amstrad software ever.
Enough of the theory. We set out to create our own skyscraper using 3D Construction Kit. (See the accompanying walk-through.
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L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko.
