Tag: C#

WPF Flyby – a YouTube video demonstration

Posted on by ARSpaulding

This thing that I’ve been talking about all day which has been driving me up the into a wall is finally in a state that is viewable.

Its a basic set of 3D text and a shape, neither of which is “rendered” in the way that many are used to when thinking of using 3D modeling tools, instead, its been kept somewhat raw but in an interesting way – its all kept as code – XAML to be exact.  It includes environmental factor code to allow for lighting and color variations when the text “interacts” with the lightsource.

I don’t know enough to know if it can be used in a way where multiple sources of light are present, but at this point, I’m pretty impressed at the power of XAML.

The below video is a camtasia recording of the “application” such as it is.  The button is set up, not with a trigger to start (which could have easily been set), but by a c# method.

The only thing that I would do differently is to have the button reset the storyboard to 0 (zero) on mouseDown which should allow for the storyboard to “rewind” and replay.

I’m wondering if it would be something where it would detect the place of the animation – such as  if the storyboard is greater than 0, then reset to 0.

I’m digging around google and have posted on the WPF MSDN forums to see if I can find an answer.

Anyway, here’s the video:

Hello brick wall!

Posted on by ARSpaulding

Brick walls are nice.  Sturdy and thick.  The big bad wolf cannot blow them down.

I’m looking straight at one.  ZAM3D by Electric Rain is not available for download on a trial basis.  You have to fork over $200.00 for it.  Its neat that they make the tool available for download, but to continue within the scope of this book, I need to be able to export to XAML.

So I’d found a highly approved alternative – Blender3D with the codeplex plugin.  The export tool is great, but Blender3D requires Python, and not just any version of python.  It requires 2.5.2 or earlier.

Their download page for that isn’t linked to on their main page, so you have to find it by way of google.  So I find it, and the downloads which are available are for 64bit versions of windows installed, x86, or an entirely different operating system.  There is someone on source forge which has made available something related to a 32bit binary for us still running in 32bit and I’ve downloaded this, but it tells me that I am required to have an even earlier version of python – that earlier version doesn’t have the download for my lowly 32bit windows xp.

UGH!  So now I’m stuck.  Victor Gaudioso, author of the book that I’m going through on Blend 2 has examples available for download, so in light of my beautiful brick wall, I’ll just download his project, snatch up the XAML that his 3d object has, and work with that.

public Window1()
{

InitializeComponent();
mainWindow.Ariel += new Ariel(mainWindow_Ariel);

}

void mainWindow_Ariel (object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e)
{
MessageBox.Show(“Ariel is Frustrated”);
}