^_^ np, if you like I could post up me recode of the 'Amiga' ball demo.
the original one was from before they had texture mapping, so the guy (can't remember his name) actually wrote it to create the texture pixel-by-pixel then the texture routine.
much like you'd have to if you don't use an API.. sweet if you want to jump in at the deep end (which I doubt you'll have a problem with) but no so sweet if you'd like an easy to understand quick example.
you want to know the funny thing. it's actually quicker than DBP, that kinda made me laugh but it's annoying having to create and seed everything.
like
<3d.camera>
<3d.camera.position>1.0, 1.0, 1.0</3d.camera.position>
</3d.camera>
that's only an example, cause i forget the actual script, but right now it's syntax isn't user-friendly. the developer of it has promised it'll change before release to be better, but for now it's a little too long winded for my likes.
Quote: "WHAT!?!?! Im not talking about body parts flying off the car, they have had that for years. Im talking about the body itself realisitcally crumples as well as the body parts that fly off realistically crumple. To me it looks like whatever physics engine they are using is taking care of that. WOW!!! "
:: yawn :: The XNA Demo showed accurate damage models, which NO isn't something we've seen before. It wasn't random parts flying out of the cars, but physical attribute damage done to solid mesh.
previous examples of this have basically been in the form of Carmageddon-Style.. where the cars are built around being broken apart, even the dings that happen to the cars were either put there via Normal Mapping or pre-Made.
The XNA Demo was the first to show real-time CSG effects while utilising 3D Math to simulate realistic damage. While no it didn't show metal crumpling, this isn't actually WOW type stuff.. given the difference is minimal. It is a case of adding stress factors before breakage.
Checkout the latext NovadeX demonstrations and they have a number of similar examples showing breakable link-chains, CSG bond stress, also the new XNA Cloth Shader demo from NVIDIA shows the ability to real-time slice materials.
While Shader 3 has enable the grunt-work to move from CPU to GPU, the actual effect has been around for years. It's mearly a question of computers catching up to what developers are doing.
If you look at what we were doing 3 years ago, you'll see demonstrations of real-time volumetric fluids; akin to what Maya has.. however until the market is majoritively using Shader 3, there is just no way to really achieve it without the top-end Shader 2 cards. I believe there is a keynote speech about this very fact attached to the Cloth example.
