NXT robot controlled by a cell phone

Exporting models from 3ds max to 3d rad

As I mentioned earlier you can export 3d models from 3ds max to 3d rad. It's not that simple though, there are few things you need to keep in mind.
Anyway first download and install the Panda DirectX plugin for 3dsmax. You can get it here => Panda X plugin

Now the few things you should know before exporting.

3d rad uses a metric system so it is good to have 3ds max set to the same system. Also 1 unit = 1 meter.

3d rad will always place the object according to its coordinates. If the object is centered to 0,0,0 in 3ds max the object will be centered in 3d rad as well. If the object will be somewhere else than at 0,0,0 the object will be at the relative position to that coordinates.

if you have problems with the exported model in 3d rad (bad triangulation) then when exporting in 3dsmax click on the 'mesh' tab and set 'Optimize Mesh' to 'None' (the model will be optimized no matter what when it is loaded as x object).

if you have already textures in correct formats (bitmap) you can just put them in the folder where the exported model will be. then you can check that you don't want the textures to be converted or copied to the directory.

if you are exporting a mesh with bones you need to group it prior to exporting.

If you want to import the model. You need to install a new skinmesh. This will prompt you to create a new skinmesh. Just type the name and hit enter. Then you can copy you exported files to the directory it creates ..\3D Rad\3DRad_res\objects\SkinMesh\data\[name of the directory created]\.Then whenever you add a skinmesh you can change its look by clicking the change button and choosing your own model (will have an icon of 'user defined').

Note that lightning maps etc need to be exported individually (model is one export, the map a second one).

Longer animation for 3D bot

Having some fun with the character....


Im looking forward to bringing it into 3D Rad!
What's a girl gotta do to get a Good Job?! :)

3D Rad

As I already mentioned earlier our task was to program our robot to do something in both the "normal" reality and virtual one. For that 3d RAD game engine was shown to us.
You can get it and learn more about it at 3d rad

3d rad is a game engine that does not require real coding but supports scripting. It is object oriented engine and is easily customizable. You can import models and scenes from 3D Studio but with some difficulties.

At this lesson we tried simply importing already predefined things (a car) and we tried to skin it (we added texture for the car body and tires). We added camera (camchase) so we could see where our keyboard controlled car goes.

We learned that getting a "skin" on the right place on the model is not the easiest thing to do^^.

3D Robot Animated

Been working on a little demo of how the robot will move around and behave... the video can be replaced with anything...

New Pics of the 3D space from Yevgeniya

3D Space in progress... Still working on some furniture to liven up the space.
Good Job Yevgeniya!!

Textures

Texturing the robot... its starting to get some character... still working on a little animation to show him off...

3D space in progress

The space for the robot is slowly approaching the final result. Materials are mapped, transformed and modified. There are even some cool reflections!

Building the robot (video)

In the first post you could check the photos from the construction of ShootterBot. Now we bring you a video of the very same process.

Check it out!

More Progress with the 3D-bot

Here's the progression of our little robot man... I'm gonna start to work on textures next..

Keyboard Input 2 and Double-click

We were continuing working with the keyboard input today. I brought my bluetooth adapter and installed in on the local station. It installed to my astonishment.
After that we started to wonder what to do with the program we were doing.
It took us a long time to figure out what we were supposed to do.

Setting up the NXT brick, NTX drive and the connections. After all that we also had to insert a game controller so we could actually use the keyboard to move it.

We got it set but it still didn't work and we didn't know what's the problem. After some time we found out that when connecting to the brick we needed to DOUBLE CLICK it not just single click it. After that everything started to WORK.

The VPL program looks like this (click on the pic to enlarge it)

Zenja creating the space

Just a screenshot from today's Zenja's creation of the 3D space in which our robot will move. The space is interpretation of the second floor of Prague College.

Good job Zenja! ;)

Some photos!

Working hard is the essence of our team! Good job!

New pics! Good job guys!

Building the Robot in 3DMax

I started creating a Virtual Robot. I'm trying to make it look similar to the actual robot that we've created...

First keyboard input

Our task was to try to move the robot via keyboard input. We were supposed to do that in Microsoft Robotics.

There we can simply use default desktop joystick and connect it to the robot's drive. With this we can both move the robot in 3d environment and the real environment.
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I also created a program that should be able to use left and right keys to control the servomotors in the robot. (I used the tribot manifest...not sure if that works with vehicle type robot...hopefully yes).
The program uses bluetooth to connect to the robot and let him receive the inputs LeftY and RightY.

Keyboard Input - Left/Right

First Steps - NXT program

After assembling the robot we tried our first simple program. It took us some time to get it working - even going forward and backwards was a problem^^. Later we tried something simple with the sensors we had at our disposal.

The application we can set a list of commands for the robot to do. You simple drag and drop boxes. Each of the boxes has a unique function. We started with trying to make it move forward and backward. For that you use the very same box but you reverse the direction in the box properties. After that we tried to do simple conditions. From studying a guitar robot program earlier we learned that it has to be composed of a loop and a switch.

The problem we encountered was with the intervals. There's a picture of a small flower and a mountain. Then you have a slider with values. It took us some time to realize that the flower can be considered as 1 and mountain as infinite value. After that we managed to get the condition more or less right^^.

Building the robot

We decided to build a vehicle type robot that would later be shooting some objects. Later we found out that we chose the easiest type of robot to work with.

Here are few photos from putting it together...(you can also click on the photo above)
Good Job Team