GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 566689
3D improvements for glChess?
Last modified: 2014-08-21 02:30:04 UTC
Here are some suggestions for improving glChess in 3D mode: - OpenGL Shading, ie. so that the chess pieces have shadows cast on the board. - Reflection of chess pieces on board, like previous versions of glChess had. - Render chess pieces based on models from Blender, which would allow improved details of the pieces, animation and the possiblity of having different pieces. For example, the pieces could be modelled in Blender, then exported to the 3DS format, and imported into Python using Dice3DS. Dice3DS requires numpy tough. http://www.aerojockey.com/software/dice3ds/index.html - Perhaps we should consider requesting that the Python OpenGL libraries and Python GtkGLExt libraries become blessed external GNOME dependencies, so that glChess always has access to 3D mode?
The Vala rewrite supports 3ds models and uses GLX directly so points 3 and 4 should be done.
In my gnome-chess 3.8.3, my opinion is that there is not enough colour difference between the "black" and "white" pieces. The "white" pieces should be whiter, and the "black" pieces darker. I will attach a screenshot.
Created attachment 260332 [details] Screenshot of gnome-chess in 3d mode
The models don't seem to be too shabby, but the UV mapping/textures seem sub par and the general lighting gives off a 1990 feeling.
We're removing 3D mode due to this bug. We'd be happy to restore it if a talented graphics artist were to fix it up to modern standards.