[SOLVED] No luck in 3D?

Questions
#1

Hi!

So I have retried opening my 3D zombie project following Pawel’s issues with .gltf files. I too could not see the model with the same “bin” file open error. Then, I saved my project and restarted Defold. Now I could see the model. I then set the material and tried running the app but had the same " VERTEX_SPACE_LOCAL does not support skinning" error.

I did what Pawel did and used a custom material, setting the “Vertex Space” to “Word”. And then - I think after closing and reopening - could see the zombie in all its glory, texture included.

BUT BSOD!!! The famous black screen of death strikes again… When I run all I see is a black screen. Is this related to some settings I need to tweak or due to my GPU not being powerful enough (Intel HD 530) ?

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#2

Can you make and upload a repro?

(Also, I don’t think there is a need for separate topic on this, it will be harder to find solution in future references. I know we hijacked that thread a bit, but I think it’s better to continue there)

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#3

Ok sorry for the new thread : I chose to do this since I think my problem is different in a way - driver issues or feeble GPU.

How should I upload my project here? I actually bought the model from an asset store so I don’t know if I can upload it.

#4

Is it happening randomly or what? Surely not because of a bug in your shaders? Is the black screen where - specifically in the game window or do you have the WHOLE screen going black? :thinking:

Try to run the game with Vulkan, your GPU supports it. Steps: if you run a local build from the editor, you need to add appmanifest to Native Extension in game.project, where you leave only “Vulkan” and remove OpenGL.

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#5

Hi, it’s happening always and the whole screen is black. But this is silly. I have the engine working in 2D in another project. It should be just that the model is somewhere out of focus in the window.

I tried Vulkan and it does the same. Are we supposed to move / scale the object for it to be visible? Mine is at location zero, scale of one. All I did is rotate it so it faces me. Should I be using a camera or other game object?

Pretty sure it’s my inexperience at this point.

Thanks!

EDIT: for Vulkan I get: ERROR:ENGINE: Could not find ‘@render’ socket.
EDIT 2: I copied the builtins material and shaders and did not modify those except setting “Vertex Space” to “World” in the material

#6

I haven’t read the previous posts because I’m not interested in this topic, however I did notice this error message. Are you trying to send a message to the render script via msg.post("@render", ...)? If so, then that’s not the correct socket name. Change it to "@render:" instead, with a : character appended.

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#7

Hi Vow, no I am not using any script in the project. It’s just to see if with the updated driver and Pawel’s indications I could see the model I am using. I can in the editor but my screen is blank when I run the app.

#8

So I am getting closer to a solution… My graphics driver gets downgraded randomly. I remember my whole screen going blank for a while (in a flash) when I woke my computer from sleep. I didn’t pay too much attention to it but it must have downgraded the driver because I tried my 2D project and it wasn’t working anymore. Then I reinstalled the newest driver and it worked again.

But the 3D project still shows a blank screen. I suppose at this point the object/model is out of the screen. Is there a way to position it so that it is immediately visible or are we supposed to see what is in the editor right away?

Also do you guys know how I can stop my computer from “upgrading” my video driver?

Lol this looks like one of these Windows problems that I might not have on a Mac??? :sweat_smile:

#9

:grin:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000087834/graphics.html - Make sure not to enable the Execute a clean installation check box.

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#10

Have you tried to run the Defold built-in 3D template? Just to be sure that it’s a problem in your camera/render setup.

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#11

That’s got to be my problem. I was always using the clean install option. Thanks will try installing without it! I googled the issue and all I could find was how to prevent Windows from updating any driver…

I tried running the 3D template and it’s working. The problem with my zombie is that it hasn’t risen yet… more seriously, I see we use camera projection and a camera. So with the proper driver, the problem is just that I am not used to the engine. Will try to add the missing pieces to my project and see.

Huge thank you for your help!

#12

Getting there!!! I can see the model now using a camera. I have one last issue: the background color (black) is bleeding into the model. See for yourself!

EDIT: it probably has to do with lighting or something like that.

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#13

Ok final message here!

I got it to work. I was missing a script with this line in the init function:

msg.post("@render:", “use_camera_projection”)

After properly positioning my model, I have it shown in all its ugliness. Poor zombie doesn’t know what awaits for him now :joy: !!!

Didn’t need lighting or anything fancier than the camera projection line. I understand that properties such as “tint” and “light” are shader parameters. I am better understanding this now.

Thanks for all your help and mostly your patience :pray: !

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#14

Glad you were able to get it working!! As you learn the Defold engine, you’ll learn about what other engines such as Godot and Unity “hide” from devs. Lighting has always been a shader, the “lights” you place in other engines, those are just visual representation of passing parameters to the shader. Defold was originally designed as a 3d engine specifically built to make 2d games. Most of the “typical” 3D game work was started by the Defold community, it wasn’t until after this happening that use cases became apparent, and the engine started adapting more for 3D games. Defold as an organization provides its users with what is needed to make their games, they listen to us and in a lot of ways “We the people” (yes I’m American lol) dictate where the engine goes.

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#15

Hi! Thanks!

Yes it’s closer to the metal as they say! Shaders is something I want to learn and use for sure. Not now though as I need to better understand the engine first. This is in part why I chose Defold. I feel lost looking at other more complicated engines. I am used to code. I feel Defold strikes a nice balance between engine features and hands-on, pure coding. And then there is Lua. I MUCH prefer Lua than learning GDScript, for example. Lua is so simple and easy to use. And more portable.

I really like the Defold project and its community. This is the other reason I picked Defold. I feel Defold doesn’t get the love it deserves out there. I think it needs a successful title, of Balatro magnitude. And the developer being vocal about what engine he is using. People respond to this kind of publicity. So it’s in Defold’s best interest we make successful games! And be vocal about Defold!

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#16

Defold is getting out there more and more, especially as other licensed engines start changing their pricing plans. I believe the biggest hurdle with Defold is the lack of talent in the field, studios want to be able to hire multiple programmers and replace them if problems arise. LUA is a great language to learn as it easily embedded into many applications including controlling custom hardware in machines. GDscript is only going to ever be used in Godot. I see a future of programmers being very comfortable with LUA coming into the market as they learned LUA in Roblox as kids.

But still some of the most successful games are created by building game specific engines in C++, I believe this why Defold is working towards being able to use the engine entirely in C++.

Right now as the engine stands, it is one of the strongest and lightest HTML5 engines and highly optimized for mobile. Defold doesn’t expect to compete against something like Unreal, Tim Sweeney has a great team and foundation already. Defold really never expected to even compete against Unity but the community has pushed the engine into a more 3D focused realm. I believe once C# support is finished we will see a lot of devs coming to Defold

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#17

That’s an interesting observation about young Lua developers growing into Defold. I didn’t know work was being done to use C++ exclusively. That’s be nice for sure as I use it daily. And I think yes I saw C# being worked on. Unity devs would certainly feel more at home. Should Defold target only one language apart from Lua though? The team is small as I understand it. Chasing too many rabbits at once is more difficult!

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#18

Yes, this is a valid concern and one we are aware of ourselves. We have some information about C# and other languages here:

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#19

Hi!

Thanks for pointing me to the faq. As it is mentioned, C++ support is mostly there, a proverbial low hanging fruit. Will performance be better than that of LuaJit? I know a lot of devs do not like Lua because it’s not statically typed. I think for larger studios / projects static typing is helpful.

For C# I know a lot of studios want it. I suppose it’s easier and/or more economical to find C# devs than in the case of C++ or Lua.

As for the Defold team, nice work! Releasing a stable version every month or so is quite challenging. Other engines release far less often. Perhaps releasing every two months would give you more oxygen for when C# and C++ (though here it shouldn’t be too difficult) support is here. Though C# will be for extensions only so in a way support should be the same for any language that you can write extensions with. And Defold supports many already.

I suppose documentation will have to be revamped. Do you plan to rewrite / heavily update documentation for C++ for example? Lua’s documentation is fantastic. You would have to add C++ functions signature everywhere in the doc. I think at first this is the minimum needed. You probably know the Playdate console. They have completely different documentation. One for C, one for Lua. This is best but more work for sure.

Cheers!

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