Quality settings
Q. I'm getting black screen no matter what I do - what's wrong?
A. You may have installed DirectX 9, but the card underneath may only really support DirectX 8 features. You need a true DirectX 9 card to use DX Studio. You can double check this by going to Start -> Run -> then type dxdiag in the box and press return. If you look at the DDI Version reported it must be at least 9.
Q. Does turning off the quality setting turn off pixel/vertex shaders?
A. It will still allow post-production effects, but will draw objects with the faster fixed-function render engine (per-vertex lighting).
Q. I noticed that when I preview a scene it defaults the "quality" setting to "on". Is there a way to shut it off by default? Also, if it is off, does it turn off pixel/vertex shaders?
A. Yes, you need to add the following script into the document's onInit function:-
system.qualityMode=false; // force quality mode off
You can also remove the context menu option in the Document Properties if required.
Learning JavaScript
Q. Can you reccomend any good books, webpages or other external resources for learning JavaScript?
A. Nearly all of the coding tricks and techniques that apply to Flash coding work in a similar way with DX Studio functions so you could take a look at some of the Flash (Macromedia / Adobe) games programming books. There are also a couple good web sites that talk about specific commands in JavaScript, such as http://www.javascriptkit.com/jsref/. If you are after a simple book, 'JavaScript: A Beginners Guide' by John Pollock scores well on Amazon.
Editions, Pricing & Royalties
Q. How much does each version cost?
A. License prices are as follows (all prices are shown excluding VAT which you will only have to pay if you live in the EU):
Non-Commercial Std £50
Non-Commercial Pro £100
Commercial Std £175
Commercial Pro £375
If you go to the Buy section on the website, the latest currency conversions can be found there too.
Q. But how much does each license cost exactly in my own currency?
A. Prices are only fixed in GBP(£) so will fluctuate in other currencies in accordance with exchange rate movements. You can check current exchange rates from sites such as XE.com. The final amount will be confirmed by the payment provider at the checkout.
Q. Are there any advertising/spyware programs in the Freeware Edition?
A. No. It's a genuinely free edition for non-commercial use.
Q. Do I have to pay royalties on products I wish to sell that use DX Studio?
A. No
License Upgrades and Support
Q. How much will it cost me to upgrade my current license?
A. You can upgrade to any higher value license without any financial penalty. For example, you can upgrade from a non-commercial standard license (£50) to a commercial standard license (£175) for the face value difference (£125). We do this because we don't believe in making our customers suffer when they find they want more!
Q. Are point versions of DX Studio free to customers? And are there discounts to future versions?
A. Yes - if you buy DX Studio you get 1 year of free minor and major version updates included. If you want to continue with updates after a year, you can add another year of support.
Beta Downloads
Q. I can't find where to download the latest beta
A. To get the latest beta your website account needs to be flagged as a beta tester. To do this you will need to send an email to support@worldweaver.com and we will set your account so you receive beta newsletters (which contain the links you need).
Modelling
Q. Is DX Studio a modelling package?
A. Yes, you can model simple shapes in DX Studio from scratch. For more complicated objects, many people use a dedicated modelling package and export the files into X or COLLADA (DAE) format for use by DX Studio.
Q. Where can I get some more models?
A. There are lots of free models available on the web. Doing a search on Turbosquid including the keyword 'free' is a good starting point. Try to get models in 'X' or 'dxmesh' format ideally, but failing that the old '3DS' format works well. If the model is in MAX format, you will need to load it into 3DS Max and use an export tool.
Interface Options
Q. Can DX Studio create interfaces that can have an options menu for full screen, res size, video options, quality of 3d objects, anti aliasing, all in the program which I create? Also can I make scrolling text menus?
A. Yes, the best way to do this is to add to the right click context menu from the Document Properties. It can execute any script command to toggle variables or call functions to do the action. Scrolling text menus can be done by using a 2d layer, shrunk to a window size at the top level. Then just adjust the text object's y pos in onUpdate.
Q. Do you need a plugin for Web3D content?
A. For Web3D to run in the browser it has to support ActiveX, which limits to IE at the moment. If you browse the page in an non-ActiveX browser, it will display a link instead which when clicked will just play the same doc in a standalone player.
Tutorials
Q. Will you ever consider having video tutorials for Dx Studio? Currently I'm having troubles trying to learn the software with the tutorials that come with it and its harder because I've never scripted before.
A. Yes - we've added video support to the gallery, and will use the same player for some 'how to' videos coming in June.
Q. Are there any step by step tutorials covering novice to advanced interactive projects?
A. Yes - keep an eye on the Wiki as we're adding to this all the time.
Security
Q. Is there an option to not cache files in the temporary folder?
A. The only thing you should find in the temp cache is light maps and face directories (for picking). We now stream the document straight from RAM without caching to disk, which is much more secure. Try doing a cache clear from Tools -> Preferences -> General to Delete Temporary Files, and you shouldn't see any mesh/bitmap info appear again.
System Requirements & Engine Info
Q. What's the minimum graphic card requirement for using DX Studio?
A. If it's built to support DirectX 9.0 then it should be ok.
Q. What's the maximum number of polygons you recommend for models?
A. There is no hard and fast rule for this. It depends on the hardware that both you and any users are running. Basically the more powerful the pc, the more polygons you will be able to process.
Q. Does DX Studio work on Macs?
A. Sorry, not at the moment.
Q. How´s the performance of DX Studio regarding complex levels, with lots of 3D objects (props, vegetation details, trees, houses, NPCs), collision meshes etc? Is it capable of handling mid-sized and big worlds, like for example a GTA´s city, Battlefield 1942 scenery or an MMO world? How´s the frame rate regarding poly count limits etc? Some (but not all) of my game ideas include medium sized and big sized worlds.
A. At the moment it's up to the user to stream in and out meshes or scenes depending on how much they want to throw at the card at once. But good news is you can stream these in the background so you never get a 'loading' screen. Fewer world objects with higher poly counts per object are the fastest for rendering. We may add some automatic features for paging large scenes later this year.
Q. Does DX Studio use any kind of optimization algorithm for the levels, like BSP trees, Octrees or whatever? Does it have any tool for creating portals (or turning a 3DS mesh into a portal or occluder)?
A. DX Studio throws most data straight at the card, which is now becoming faster than BSP given it's quicker for graphics hardware to blit it than it is to test for inclusion. It does also support LOD which helps slim down high poly models as they get further away.
Q. Does it support Nvidia´s FX Composer .fx files? How´s the pipeline for developing shaders to use inside of DX Studio? Do you have any kind of shader library?
A. Yes - the fx files are exactly what's inside the dxeffect files. Try renaming a .dxeffect from your my documents\dx studio documents\library\plugins folder to a .zip (or just opening as a zip if you use winrar), and you can see the .fx file, resources and header file that describes it. It also supports .fxh headers. You can put your own into the zip and it will pick it up in the editor/player. We'll be adding a tool to do this without having to manually edit zips in the near future.
Q. Does DX Studio include a built-in physics engine?
A. Yes - it's got two to choose from. One based on the Bullet library and one on the PhysX library.
Import / Export
Q. I use maya for the 3D content, so... How´s the maya-to-DX Studio pipeline? Do you recommend me using a Collada exporter or a .x exporter? And which version of them?
A. Aparently on the Autodesk website there's a FBX to COLLADA (DAE ) converter but we haven't had a chance to try it yet. This should give the best results as skin/animations/etc are fully supported with this path.
Q. Does DX Studio support blendshapes/morph targets in the Collada files or in the .x files?
A. Not yet, but it's marked in for September this year.
Q. Do you have a list of all the formats that DX Studio can import directly?
A. COLLADA (DAE), X, 3DS, ASC, PRJ, DXF, IOB, TS, LWO, LP, RTG, RBS, RWX, SCENE, STL, COA, COB, GEO, WRL, OBJ, XGL, ZGL, XYZ.
Compatible media file formats include WAV, BMP, PNG, JPEG, GIF, TGA, TIFF, DDS, MPEG, AVI, MP3, OGG, FLV.
Q. Which kind of media can DX Studio output?
A. You can build single EXEs for CDROM or download, or publish to HTML for web. You can also embed the player in a C#,VB.Net,VB6 or other COM development environment, or drop it in to an OLE applications such as MS Powerpoint. You can also build AVI/GIFs for production use or also handy for preview videos, or build a Vista 3D gadget for the sidebar.
Demos
Q. Do you have an example of a realtime app that uses DX Studio?
A. DX Studio is used by DT Media Ltd. to generate an entire naval simulator (with hundreds of ships, dynamic GPS based terrain, firing missiles, helicopters, ocean, etc). There screenshots are of realtime 3d and training are straight out of DX Studio...
http://www.dtmedia.co.uk/bb/gallery.htm