/learn
Step by Step Tutorials
The tutorials have samples that are ready to run. All that is needed is to link the Pico Lux Kit library.
IMPORTANT:
Samples and tutorial code need to have the library linked in to run them. See User Guide 2. Preparing your project for details. For iOS, rename the framework to PicoLuxKit.framework and drag the .framework file to the project, set Framework search paths to your location. For Android, edit the build.gradle file provided setting the path to the .arr file and name of the .arr dependency. For C++, also add the header search path for the Android headers. Apply these changes for the version (Full, Beta or Trial) that you intend to use).
Making a Game
Part I. Project and Content Setup
Making a Game
Part II. Rendering and Animation
Making a Game
Part III. User Interaction
Making a Game
Part IV. Collision Detection
This tutorial showcases creating FX for your app with Pico/AppFX, from scratch to full FX implementation, in a few simple steps. The project is also provided so you can run and play with it yourself.
The tutorial shows the basics starting from a bare app to implementing FX, and explains more in depth all things that matter: from Anti-Alias, to casted soft shadows, focusing with depth of field post-pro, or performance and integration with your app. Easy.
This tutorial is focused on app FX, but game developers or anyone else can benefit as well, as the rendering mechanisms and development are pretty much shared.
Lighting relates to adding light to a scene, and this tutorial shows the ways that you can do this with the Kit and how to combine them to create realistic effects to a series of gothic crypts for a dungeon game.
It explains lights, shadows, light maps, and other artifacts to achieve realistic lighting fast and easy.
This tutorial is more game related, but illumination applies to everything 3D, so everyone can benefit from reading this.
This tutorial explains how to manage content with Pico Lux Kit and some of its advantages.
Content needs to be prepared for use with Pico/X, and several tools are provided for this that have unique features. Like other aspects of the Kit, the solution is designed to adapt to your workflow.
Export tools read the data from your 3D modeling software and adapt it for your app. Blender, Maya, and MAX are supported. The Pico/Archiver, par, lets you pack and go. Content can be organized in sub-directories, and structured in recursive sub-archives.
The tools work with Windows, Linux and macOS, to support platform diversity, and inclusion in your CI system, for an outstanding team workflow.
The strategy to render complex materials with Pico Lux Kit is based on a layered approach, and this tutorial shows exactly how to do it.
A complex material is one that requires multiple textures, illumination methods, texturing types, color properties, or lighting properties applied in diverse ways to the same object being drawn to achieve a specific appearance.
Drawing more complicated surfaces is simplified by using layers of simpler surfaces that stack on top of each other to define complexity. This method is very intuitive, easy, straightforward and that works for most common use cases. This tutorial works on Beta, a 3D female robot model with intricate details appropriate for this demo.
The 2D functions allow you to draw images, sprites, text, UI components and do post-processing effects. This tutorial relates to the drawing functions proper, while the UI toolkit and post-processing are treated in other documents. It is important to understand 2D drawing if using the UI toolkit because drawing is done with these same functions. You can perform 2D drawing with or without the UI toolkit, the functions are the same.
2D games are one common scenario where you would use these type of functions, but other 3D content can use them as well. Other types of applications might want to display images, or text, or have a UI to interact with the user. They all follow the same usage principles.
2D imaging has many uses in both 2D games, 3D games and FX for apps. The same mechanisms for 2D drawing are also used to draw content with the UI toolkit, explained separately. You can draw text, plain 2D images, sprites using alpha channel, do post-processing effects or draw your UI, in a straightforward and simple way, in all supported languages and platforms.
User interfaces are necessary to have your app interact with the user, and Pico Lux Kit provides a UI toolkit with essentials to build your interactive real-time app or games user interfaces.
Pico/UI is customizable, built for speed, easy to learn and use. Making your app's UI is a breeze. It is also portable, as the interfaces are exactly the same in every language and platform supported.
Pico/UI functionality is presented as a set of controls that can handle screen taps, timers, grouping, depth ordering, and drawing 2D, 3D or FX content.
The UI toolkit is built so that you can overlay it over your 2D game, your 3D game, render 3D over it, or under it, or easily cache it inside an intermediate render target texture, apply post-pro FX to it, have it function at a different rate from your other content, or re-render the UI inside your other 3D environment.
Flexible, powerful and easy to use. Check it out.
Adding 3D content to wearables has never been easier. Pico/X is perfectly suited to run in these smaller profile devices. The mechanism for doing this is exactly the same as any other Android app, but fitted to the smaller form factor that is a wearable device.
All the same features of the regular version of Pico Lux Kit for Android are also available for Wear OS, you just need to be aware of the smaller capabilities of these devices, something that can also affect battery life.
You can create content for Wear OS using Java, Kotlin or even C++, to make 2D apps, 3D content, add Pico/AppFX, or even Pico/UI. Every feature is available for use.
Skinning and per-vertex mesh deformation are complicated mechanisms to allow character animation, but they are crafted for simplicity with Pico Lux Kit, so it's easy for you to make use of this complicated feature.
You create your 3D models, bone hierarchies and animations in your favorite 3D software, and then use the python export tools to prepare the data for use in your real-time app. This will export one resting pose for your character plus any number of additional bone poses to represent individual keyframes of any number of animations.
Like everything else, it's kept simple, easy to use and customizable, so it can adapt to your specific project needs. And, as usual, it's also available in all supported platforms and languages.
This tutorial shows Alma, a female character that could be the subject of, say, a fantasy game. The app shows the bare basics of skinning, loads one rest pose for the character, and one bone pose to show how a mesh is deformed with just a few lines of code. Everything is explained in detail.
Atmospheric effects are another mechanism to help add realism and immersion to a scene that would otherwise look dull and unrealistic.
An atmosphere always consists of some type of particulae at a certain amount of density in space.
The solution proposed by the Kit is not to describe the physical properties of such an atmosphere, but rather to simulate its results to have an artistic appearance.
Adding an atmosphere to create a sense of depth and immersion to a scene is easy, fast and performant using a simple post processing mechanism that combines a rendered scene and an atmosphere image to achieve the desired results. This can be combined with other post processing effects like a camera bokeh effect, combine two separate renderings, or applying bloom to enhance illumination.
Using post processing filters can enhance your final image to make it look more realistic, or to tune it for your needs.
Mini Tutorials
More Coming soon
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