Bump maps without geometry
by Andy Hawkins · in Torque Game Engine · 09/01/2005 (3:57 am) · 2 replies
I want to attempt something in Torque and so I'm posting this to see if people think it is possible.
I heard of a technique where bumpy roads that make a vehicle bump up and down, can be generated without tesselating the mesh, but by reading the height values of the texture of those meshes, giving pixel perfect accuracy to a bump mapped surface.
So a second texture is assigned to a mesh which can be the bump map but it is a true bump map. In the first instance it can change the appearance of the texture based on the lights hitting it, and the angle of incidence of the observer. In the second instance the greyscale data can also be fed back to the wheels of a vehicle passing over it, making the vehicle bump up and down realistically.
Can this be achieved in Torque and if so, which classes in the original source would be involved?
I heard of a technique where bumpy roads that make a vehicle bump up and down, can be generated without tesselating the mesh, but by reading the height values of the texture of those meshes, giving pixel perfect accuracy to a bump mapped surface.
So a second texture is assigned to a mesh which can be the bump map but it is a true bump map. In the first instance it can change the appearance of the texture based on the lights hitting it, and the angle of incidence of the observer. In the second instance the greyscale data can also be fed back to the wheels of a vehicle passing over it, making the vehicle bump up and down realistically.
Can this be achieved in Torque and if so, which classes in the original source would be involved?
#2
I think the work-around would be to embed the tyre slightly into the ground so even at the extreme bumps which did not cause the vehicle to jump the tyre would still be in contact with the polygon in question. The embedded tyres would look normal, as there is some flattening at the base of a rubber tyre due to the weight of the vehicle causing the base to spread a little. While the tyre would not spread actually, it would look like it was spreading and at the most extreme bump it would appear to round out, as if the weight of the vehicle was reduced, giving the impression it was almost about to leave the road.
Yeah? No?
09/05/2005 (7:31 pm)
I'm not talking massive textured polys though. I'm talking about say 5 x 5 m textured polys (in game world terms) with just generally rockiness not hills or anything - and it's a valid point your raise.I think the work-around would be to embed the tyre slightly into the ground so even at the extreme bumps which did not cause the vehicle to jump the tyre would still be in contact with the polygon in question. The embedded tyres would look normal, as there is some flattening at the base of a rubber tyre due to the weight of the vehicle causing the base to spread a little. While the tyre would not spread actually, it would look like it was spreading and at the most extreme bump it would appear to round out, as if the weight of the vehicle was reduced, giving the impression it was almost about to leave the road.
Yeah? No?
Torque Owner Griffin Milsap
If your bump map creates data to make the vehicle's tires move realistically ABOVE the flat (pseudo 3d) surface, then it would look really tacky, as if you were floating on air.
If you actually find a way to get down into the insides of your pseudo 3d texture, you might be able to pull it off, but by then, its probably the same amount, if not more, processing to create this pseudo 3d area than just creating mesh.
I don't know how you would go about doing this, but TSE has bumpmapping capabilities which you may be able to expand upon.
-griff