MacRock

(I have a beta of a PCRock available... Please download it below.)

TextureWare: If you use MacRock please send a texturemap to textures@mail.laffeycomputer.com

Current Version: 1.0.2 (1.0b2 for PcRock Beta)

Date Modified: Apr. 18, 1999 (Sept 7, 2000 for PcRock Beta) (MacXRock for OS X added Dec. 10, 2003)

Overview


MacRock is a 3D rock generator. It creates rocks of varying resolutions. MacRock exports to DXF ASCII file format, so the rocks can be imported by most 3D applications.

 

Details

MacRock lets you specify a number of different settings to control the complexity, smoothness (or lack of), scale, and precision of the rocks it creates.

Currently, the interface is text based. But it is easy to use. We hope to add a GUI at some point as well as batch generation of multiple rocks.

Complexity

This controls the resolution of the rock. The higher the complexity the greater the number of polygons and the greater size of the file.

Polygons generated by MacRock:

   Complexity           Polygons
       1                     80
       2                    320
       3                  1,280
       4                  5,120
       5                 20,480
       6                 81,920
       7                327,680
       8              1,310,720
       9              5,242,880
Randseed
 This is the random number seed MacRock will use to make the rock. If you use the same seed (and other settings) MacRock will make the same rock again and again. Use the "+" character to have MacRock pick a seed for you.
Smoothness
 This is a floating point (decimal) number that controls how smooth or bumpy the rock is. A higher number makes a smoother (more round) rock. Start out around 0.7-1.2
Scale Up

This controls how large the final rock is. You may always scale the rock in your 3D app; however, sometimes it is difficult to work with a very large or very small object. The choices are:

     
    ScaleUp   Multiplier
       0 =          1
       1 =         10      10^1
       2 =        100      10^2
       3 =       1000      10^3
Decimal Digits
 This is the number of digits after the decimal point in the DXF file. Note that more digits creates a bigger file. All digits to the left of the decimal are significant so if you use a Scale Up value greater than zero you need fewer decimal places.
A good staring point is 4 - Scale Up.

 

Origin

The rock routines were originally authored by Steven Pigeon. His website about "PovRockGen" is at http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pigeon/pub/PovPage/RockGen/RockGen.html

We added DXF export (instead of POV ray), Mac implementation, scaling, and variable precision to the game.

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Revision History

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