An Open Challenge: Area-Specific Terrain Detail Implementation

#1 1. Myth III's Solution to The Problem

when Take 2 assembled a team [only to fire them and abandon the game post-release and leave it floundering until fan mapmakers volunteered to fix it for free] to make the 3rd installment in the game it had purchased from the god-like Bungie before they went to Microsoft, it had to preserve Bungie's unparalelled [still!] RTS gameplay, but upgrade the visuals to cutting-edge. they did a brilliant job, since they hired community mapmakers to work out the answers; and some things they did [like terrain detailing] remain as unmatched as its unique gameplay, 3.5 years after its release! [see pointers to this amazing fan-community-supported game at the very bottom.]

quickly and simply:

MIII 'levels' are maps that use one color image for the entire field of play for an individual skirmish; i will use a Bungie netmap, which i updated to MIII, for the example: 'Leagues from Nowhere':

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/m3-leagues-terrain.jpg

although this doesn't enter into The Solution, for completeness, here is the well-known method of greyscale heightmap used to shape this particular terrain:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/m3-leagues-heightmap.jpg

so far so good; well-trodden ground, ha ha. both of these are inherited from Bungie's M1 and M2.

Bungie's terrain actually had to be in 256 color images; but don't let the brown sand here fool you: one thing the M3 team did was implement many-colored jpgs as possible terrains. we know from TGE that such jpgs look good from afar, but up close blend into swatches of color rather than details. since Myth takes place at a medium distance from the playing field, this is rarely a problem; but the M3 team wanted to make sure that players could zoom in and see detail over color, and that this detail mapped to the color type [grass-grain for green, sandy-grit for sand, etc.]. this last is the missing link.

here follows an in-game image from that map:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/leagues-zoom1-plain.jpg

there are 4 textures visible here; all are implemented with the selfsame alpha-channel detail tiles we are familiar with; here is an image with the textures circled:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/leagues-zoom1-circled.jpg

how did they do it? here follows an image of the 'Hill' on the map, the goal of contention during this skirmish:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/leagues-zoom2-plain.jpg

we will zoom in at 200% to the region to the lower right to find a detail tile seam:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/leagues-zoom2x200.jpg

there are actually 3 detail textures here; top-left, mid, and lower-right. now, all will become clear: here is a shot of a Photoshop file which provides masks for each of those detail tiles, and how they map to the color; the area circled in red is the focus of the close-up above, only masks for the top-left and mid from that prior shot are activated so as to lend clarity; to the right you can see the layer masks themselves and how they interlock together.

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/leagues-zoom2masks.jpg

i won't spend time on how i created these masks and mapped them to the terrain; suffice it to say that some mapmakers paint them on by hand, while i prefer to use the underlying color of the terrain to create masks for each terrain type. this has to do with my proposed TGE solution, actually, far below.

#2 Finally, before closing the door for on the M3 examples, here is a shot from the M3 maptool [Ballistic, made by the fan community with volunteer help from developers let go from the original team, to boot] showing an internal stack of detail tiles, featuring our familiar detail textures [plural!] from those screenshots:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/m3/leagues-detailstack.jpg

the leftmost 3 should be very familiar from the closeup of the hill. so, greyscale mask images tell the engine to map tiling alpha detail tiles into areas cooresponding 1-to-1 to the color terrain. [the flat color terrain is stored in the plugin, along with the .psd file containing masks, and the detail tiles themselves; see Ballistic shot, the folder listing to the left just above the detail tiles.]

one final note is that the use of alpha-channels in a mask also allows the mapmaker to subtly blend *several* detail textures in one area for even more effects; a pixel allowing 'grass' through at 50% and a different mask allowing 'shale' through in the same area will allow them to blend. the downside of this is a performance hit, so most mapmakers keep such blending to a min imum. but the subtlety possible allowed is amazing.

now: how would an imaginary, similar solution look within TSE [given what little we know of it as yet]?

#3 2. Imaginary Implementation of The Solution in TSE Terrain

we know from Ben Garney's message of March 13 that the TSE Terrain

- Supports very large textures stretches over the terrain. Right now the largest supported is 64k by 64k (the max size of a JPEG), but that limit will be raised.

so let us imagine a simple folder in an imaginary Torque TSE build with the following files in it:

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/tse/tse-pretend-terrainmasks01.jpg

for fun, i made the main terrain color map 4096x4096 pixels. for the moment that's my meager example of 'arbitrarily large'. ;) note the mysteriously-titled other images in the same folder; they are the same dimensions of the main terrain color map, but they are greyscale masks; in the next image of 2 file-browsers open, you will see one of these masks hilighted and below it, the simple detail tiles which map to them.

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/tse/tse-pretend-terrainmasks02.jpg

can we start to imagine how this might look and work in-game..? i did not try to optimize the images, but given that both the masks and the detail tiles could be greyscale, as assets they could end up being extremely small.

so. perhaps impossible, but at least we can begin to imagine how it might work, and why it should...

now, what about the current TGE? no matter how great the TSE is, wouldn't it be nice to improve the detail handling of the TGE for the sake of future lightweight games that still use it? the principles above could work in our imaginary TGE, also... [this last section will be pretty short; you should all see where i am going with this, and perhaps one of you already is working on an implementation of a Solution! :) ]


3. Imaginary Implementation of The Solution in TGE

the only difference, as i see it, could be that each colored terrain tile would gain one more dependent file: an alpha image mapped to *it alone*, which told the engine to apply different textures to different colors within its small scope. the single terrain color tile i have left in our folder should be very familiar...

www.wholesignal.com/torque/terraindetail/tge/tge-pretend-terrainmasks.jpg

thus, the masks could give even someone who needed a different detail for a custom terrain tile in a town square graphic the chance to do so.

of course, the [dis]advantage of being mainly on the art side of things is that i have no idea how this might be implemented in *code*, or even if it's possible. but by using masks of the same size as the color tiles already in use [with TGE] and to be used [with TSE], it certainly seems so possible that i can taste it.

any developers up to taking The Challenge? think it can't be done? think it might be possible but it would take a slightly different approach? think there's another even easier way? here's your chance to say so...:

(and remember, the winner *will* get a prize, of some sort, on me.)

oh yeah, a plug: MIII has one of the most vibrant, if small, gaming communities out there, and was basically saved from oblivion when mapmakers for it got permission from the distributor [Take 2, who bought it from Bungie] to fix the thing themselves for free, in true indie spirit. it's got a brilliant gameplay, thanks to Bungie pre-MSoft, that has never been matched in any other RTS, since it focuses on realism in individual skirmishes [it's actually, RealTime TACTICAL; no resource hoarding, but minute battlefield physics & control]. anyone interested in innovative game design shld check it out;

search.ebay.com/myth-3-cd
flyingflip.com/forum/
www.wholesignal.com/myth/media/shadowmtntextures/MythIIIScreenSnapz010.jpg
www.wholesignal.com/myth/media/shadowmtntextures/MythIIIScreenSnapz015.jpg

#4 [i sent a note to Ben Garney inviting him to check out this thread, but then checked his .plan and realized he's 1 day into a much deserved 2-week computer-free vacation! so i guess our first round of brainstorming is gonna be grassroots skunkworks, like we like it! :) ]

#5 The Prize:

no takers, eh..? :) very well; sweetening the pot; the person who comes up with a solution to this problem in TGE that is best will receive, from my pocket, $150 to buy the TSE Early Adopter engine, or any other Torque-related goodies they want. [it has to at least go to game-creation gear]. it may seem like a lot, it may seem like nothing, but it's a genuine offer of a prize for the Challenge and is the most i can commit to right now. i'd make the same offer for a TSE fix, but it seems like it'll be awhile before many developers have that level of control over how it evolves.

- aqaraza

#6 Very interesting read.. well thought-out. I hope some of the Tork brainiacs jump on this, bash some skulls together, get things done!

#7 Me too. :) i am beginning to despair, though. i feared i was speaking an alien language. but, i spoke with a friend in the Myff community who also has Torque and he says that he thinks this fix should be possible. but he won't have time to look into it for awhile... which leaves the prize up for grabs! ;)

#8 It seems as though you can paint textures right onto the terrain, why shouldnt you be able to do the same with detail textures.. *shrugs* I guess thats just one more dimension of data that would have to be sent over the network.

#9 They are allowing arbitrary textures to be "painted" (or decaled) onto the terrain. This would allow someone to place detail decals anywhere on the terrain. Remember, Ben's got a ways to go with the TSE terrain. As for a TGE solution, I have something already but it's (unfortunately) proprietary.

- Brett

#10 Assuming the Myth map structure didn't change too much (safe bet) they were already marking each triangle with terrain flags to indicate passibility, etc. It would be easy enough to simply add a detail map flag at the same map scale which would LOD away after a fairly short distance. The big drawback is, of course, that you've added another texture pass for those tri's, but it's probably not that big of a deal on current hardware. If you were feeling clever the detail maps could be procedurally generated based on the heightmap and coloration, so you wouldn't need to have any extra data taking up space and transfer time.

If I ever manage to find a weekend for playing with the Torque RTS stuff I plan on implementing the terrain generation technique that Oddlabs is using for Tribal Trouble, as described here but that weekend isn't likely to show up soon. TT looks like good fun for the whole family, and is by a small, independent team who shares information and code - I'll be buying it.

- eli (or Kanen Faud'r for you Myth types)

#11 Brett - thanks for the reply. i also saw the example of the target image drawn onto the terrain, but i was under the impression that this was coloration of the underlying terrain image, directly, and not the detail alpha clearly seen in

http://public.garagegames.com/brianr/SSOTD/3_10_05/screenshot_00003.jpg

clearly, having the detail be a part of the color terrain wld be ideal, but looking at that image, it seems like doing this would take an unthinkably huge color terrain image. but, perhaps you mean something else.

even if your solution for TGE is udenr wraps, i'd love to see a screenshot of an area displaying several blended texture tiles in proximity, just to see that it can be done.

#12 Eli / Kanen [you shld drop back by the Myff neighborhood! :) ] -- thanks for the reply.

terrain marking does still work like that in M3 [though other things abt the map format have changed]. i wonder, how does passability work in Torque? in the demo, my little ogre dude can scale some horrendous walls. :) if there is already a mechanism for mapping passability, then this would be one way; to tie that to a detail tile. not ideal, but better!

clearly they can map color terrain to slope automagically, and that's a good trick. accessing that mechanism and assigning a detail tile to steep slopes vs flatter ground or depressions would be functionally identical to binding a single detail tile to a single terrain tile, at least for the left 3 banks in the Terraform Editor, where Torque seems to draw its slope-based terrains from.

i'll have to look into Tribal Trbl's method. i do like that TSE will allow [require??] painterly creation of height terrain and texture colormaps. it'll annoy some, but it appeals to the Myff mapper in me.

there are a few Myth folks, who are doing the improvements to the M3 engine and who created Ballistic, the editor, who have looked into Torque RTS for a project. nothing's come of it yet, but i'm bending the ear of one of them; the one who assured me this detail alpha fix was probably possible in Torque.

#13 [Ed - short note - as for network overhead, if each player *has* a local copy of the map being played, which is true of most games, then no such info wld have to be sent; it'd be built into the map. thanks for giving this some thought!]

#14 I'd suggest looking into the MaterialMapping pipeline for adding detail textures.

#15 An update on this long-term challenge: i have not done much more than this, but have become as convinced as ever that, once we fix this flaw, whether in TGE or TSE or both, these engines will gain by leaps and bounds over shipping engines when it comes to terrain lushness and detail.

i was playing World of Warcraft, and examining their terrain. i noticed that it tiles even more obviously than TGE's does. only after thinking on it for a bit did i realize that this is because [i think] WoW is asking its color terrain tiles to do double-duty; they color the landscape, but also act as the detail, it seems. [if they *are* using alpha detail tiles, then they really should have opted for larger ones to minimize the obvious tiling; but again, i think they're using color textures only.]

the advantage is that they do indeed have material-specific texture detail [cobblestones, grass, all in the right places, etc]. so, the good news is that, at least, if TSE is unable to fix this flaw in its first run, it will still be able to meet or exceed that level of detail, by calling upon the color image to do the 'heavy lifting' of displaying landscape detail to the user.

but, if we are able to implement area-specific detail textures, we will be able to have our cake and eat it too. so stay tuned, and of course, the challenge and prize still stands. :)

in the works: a terrain system with dozens of landscape textures and details that can be used with TGE to subtly blend and diversify terrain, using the existing technology.

#16 Old thread I realise, but did anything come of this? It would be awesome to be able to choose the scale of textures painted, or at least have them not end up being so big they are simply a blob of color.

#17 I would love to have a detail texture per Color texture on the terrain.

#18 Absolutely! I want to have this winding cobblestone path but right now its just a blur. If I could have a detail texture just for the path...oh! that would be awesome.

#19 Really i think the whole detail texture thing was invented due to lack of video memory. These days we see games with a huge amount of textures, with no need for detail textures.

Take a look at World of Warcraft, ok big budget - but very very ancient technology wise, yet the terrains look lush (they are a bit lazy at times and tile things too much but on the whole its awesome). They only look so good because they are so varied - no detail textures, dont need them because the color textures are nice and sharp, plenty of textures in use, much variety.

I know the TGE one is hard coded because it was originally for a specific game, but surely after this amount of years that excuse still cant stand as to why it doesnt allow texture scale and more textures per terrain.

Are there any plans for this?

Does TSE allow texture scalling and not having to use detail textures?