Grass Shader
by J · in Jobs · 03/24/2010 (12:58 pm) · 0 replies
I have been hunting for a grass shader to put into Torque for over a year now and I have come across many different varieties and ideas to achieve a plush grassy environment for my projects. Unfortunately none have had the quality, nor the preformance that I need. Please don't tell me groundCover/ForestKit/foliageReplicator; you can use all of those in conjuction and still not achieve what's in many of the games today, the tutorial link below, or achieve the preformance needed to render other art resources, postFX, and other shaders.
I've considered editing the groundCover or foliageReplicator, but I don't have the shader know-how.
What I would like is a shader that can render grass like this:
http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems/gpugems_ch07.html (using the 2nd or 3rd animimation process that use little or only one draw call for efficiency; little to no fps hit)
My desired result would be something in the neighborhood of this: www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-10-unigine/63143
I would really like to have the ability to tell the shader which texture to render to. That is, a dialog in the editor:

or from script
It can then render on a terrain material or on an object's diffuse texture; allowing for grass and leaves on trees with excelent preformance and smooth animations.
I am currently attempting to get even a basic grass shader to work in Torque3D, but I have little knowledge of shaders.
I am willing to pay, please send me a quote; but I would also like to learn how it is done and gain some know-how along the way.
Desired Options: - trying to keep it simple
Editor Dialog or Script support (see above code and pic)
Material or Texture to render the foliage on
Material or Texture that is used on the polys
Exponent for setting wind strength (don't need min max or anything complicated, just a range of 1 to 5 for calm days to storms)
Exponent for size (again, no min/max, just a basic range of 0.1 to 5 or similar option)
Light variation for day and night. No need for special lighting or user set lighting. You can change the color of the diffuse texture in the material editor.
Edit:
I'd also like a nice alpha fade in
Any other questions or things I didn't think about or mention, please don't hesitate to ask.
Thank you,
Jeremy
www.act7gaming.com
jeremy@act7gaming.com
I've considered editing the groundCover or foliageReplicator, but I don't have the shader know-how.
What I would like is a shader that can render grass like this:
http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems/gpugems_ch07.html (using the 2nd or 3rd animimation process that use little or only one draw call for efficiency; little to no fps hit)
My desired result would be something in the neighborhood of this: www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-10-unigine/63143
I would really like to have the ability to tell the shader which texture to render to. That is, a dialog in the editor:

or from script
new materialFoliage("TextureOrMaterialToRenderOn", "TextureToRender", WindStrength, SizeExponent);It can then render on a terrain material or on an object's diffuse texture; allowing for grass and leaves on trees with excelent preformance and smooth animations.
I am currently attempting to get even a basic grass shader to work in Torque3D, but I have little knowledge of shaders.
I am willing to pay, please send me a quote; but I would also like to learn how it is done and gain some know-how along the way.
Desired Options: - trying to keep it simple
Editor Dialog or Script support (see above code and pic)
Material or Texture to render the foliage on
Material or Texture that is used on the polys
Exponent for setting wind strength (don't need min max or anything complicated, just a range of 1 to 5 for calm days to storms)
Exponent for size (again, no min/max, just a basic range of 0.1 to 5 or similar option)
Light variation for day and night. No need for special lighting or user set lighting. You can change the color of the diffuse texture in the material editor.
Edit:
I'd also like a nice alpha fade in
Any other questions or things I didn't think about or mention, please don't hesitate to ask.
Thank you,
Jeremy
www.act7gaming.com
jeremy@act7gaming.com
About the author
I used to be obsessed with building my own open-ended RPG and a 3D Side Scroller RPG. But the job/house/girlfriend got in the way. I know, I know. Now I concentrate on doing architectural renderings (with the help of T3D of course) and VBA programming.