Tag: separating materials 3D model

Until now all the materials in 3D Wayfinder have been replaced with each 3D model update. Now it is possible to keep the materials and their attributes’ values. This will save a lot of time, when creating a nice-looking 3D wayfinding application. See how to separating materials from geometry.

We have added a small feature to our 3D model converter. That enables to replace the 3D models without overwriting the materials. This means, that all the changes that were made in 3D Wayfinder for the purpose of tuning materials, are not lost when replacing 3D models. See it in user manual.

3D modelling software packages are different and the way 3D models are exported also varies. In most cases you need to change the color of the materials (diffuse and ambient color). After the creation of the model to get good looking 3D floor plans. We are now supporting specular shader, transparency etc. that might not come directly from the converted models. All these material attributes can be changed in 3D Wayfinder, but these values were replaced each time the geometry was updated. Now there is the option to keep the materials and their values, when replacing the 3D model.

At the same time we have added ambient attributes to each material when uploading the 3D model for the first time or when replacing the model. So there is no need to enter the “ambient” attribute anymore, just change the color.

Recently we introduced improved transparency in 3D Wayfinder handling to FRAK engine. It can now be configured between three transparency rendering modes: sorted, blended and stochastic.

The sorted mode is what used to be the default earlier. There is mainly for backwards compatibility and fallback reasons. This can be used for decent transparency. But the geometry has to be modeled while keeping in mind that transparent meshes are compared by their centers.

Failure case for the old algorithm:

The first of the new modes is blended and it uses the weighted blended order-independent transparency algorithm. Also with a few modifications related to handling alpha-mapped surfaces. This mode is the new default for the engine. Since floating point textures seem to be supported by most browsers these days.

Weighted Blended Order-independent Transparency:

The second new mode is stochastic. It is still a work in progress. But a viable alternative for certain situations. Stochastic transparency in 3D Wayfinder works by using random noise to give each transparent surface a proportional probability of getting through to the camera. This provides slightly more physically correct results. Currently is a bit too noisy.

Stochastic Transparency: