Atlas caves/overhangs
by Alex Huck · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 11/20/2006 (12:49 pm) · 7 replies
Is it possible to get caves in Atlas with the tools currently available? Those being as far as I know L3DT and Terragen. These tools create a 2D height map so I assume no, but are there any other tools anywhere that can do this? Are there any that are in development?
I heard from these sources that you can make overhangs and caves:
www.garagegames.com/docs/tse/general/ch05.php
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TSE/Atlas/Using_Atlas2
I heard from these sources that you can make overhangs and caves:
www.garagegames.com/docs/tse/general/ch05.php
tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TSE/Atlas/Using_Atlas2
About the author
#2
11/21/2006 (2:32 am)
I think I recall that some people have done this by flipping terrains upside down over the normal terrain. Or perhaps that was with the legacy terrain?
#3
edit host back up ;)
11/21/2006 (11:17 am)
Hey guys, a project i was working on last year created Atlas caves by adding 2 atlas instances. One flipped (for the cave roof). The only problem we ran into was where the 2 instances actually touched. Frame rate went to like 0. with atlas 2 that problem has seemed to go away, at least from my tests.. here is a pic.edit host back up ;)
#6
However in Titas what we are doing in the interims for caves is as follows.
Place 3 Atlas2 instances (we call these tiles).
Tile1 is your cave floor and it's highest point should be no higher than -100z
Tile2 is your cave ceiling and it's highest point should be no higher than 0z this terrain should also have a 180 rotation in the z plane.
Tile3 is your "above ground" area. It's LOWEST point should be no lower than 0z.
These should all be placed in the exact same x,y plane with z factor being the only difference. I lovingly call these "terrain sandwiches".
Ideally when you make your HeightMaps for the 2 lower terrain pieces you should do it so that the edges if the terrain meet up, effectively sealing the player in. Leave a believable sized gap in one spot to function as an entrance. place a tigger area here all the way in the back.
After you have placed your terrains, you can set your fogging and create a black fogstorm below z 0, which makes it really feel like it's a pitch black cave in there and a clear blue day up top.
Next place a .dts or .dif object shaped to look like the surrounding terrain, prefferably make it look like a cave.
At the back of this create a trigger area.
Now all you need to do is set up the triggers to transport (setTransform) on the player as they move back and forth between the inside and outside of the terrain. If you want to make it even more believable create a light and place it just outside the cave exit, so it looks like there is light shining in.
Regards,
Dreamer
12/07/2006 (8:20 am)
Ideally you would want to modify your atlas instance to "carve" out a cave.However in Titas what we are doing in the interims for caves is as follows.
Place 3 Atlas2 instances (we call these tiles).
Tile1 is your cave floor and it's highest point should be no higher than -100z
Tile2 is your cave ceiling and it's highest point should be no higher than 0z this terrain should also have a 180 rotation in the z plane.
Tile3 is your "above ground" area. It's LOWEST point should be no lower than 0z.
These should all be placed in the exact same x,y plane with z factor being the only difference. I lovingly call these "terrain sandwiches".
Ideally when you make your HeightMaps for the 2 lower terrain pieces you should do it so that the edges if the terrain meet up, effectively sealing the player in. Leave a believable sized gap in one spot to function as an entrance. place a tigger area here all the way in the back.
After you have placed your terrains, you can set your fogging and create a black fogstorm below z 0, which makes it really feel like it's a pitch black cave in there and a clear blue day up top.
Next place a .dts or .dif object shaped to look like the surrounding terrain, prefferably make it look like a cave.
At the back of this create a trigger area.
Now all you need to do is set up the triggers to transport (setTransform) on the player as they move back and forth between the inside and outside of the terrain. If you want to make it even more believable create a light and place it just outside the cave exit, so it looks like there is light shining in.
Regards,
Dreamer
Associate Tom Spilman
Sickhead Games