ShowTerrainInside field having no effect
by Tony Peguero · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 01/06/2009 (4:02 pm) · 2 replies
Hi all.
I'm using TGEA 1.8.0, and having some trouble with terrain showing inside my interiors. I am trying to create a bunker-style building that is mostly buried. I know that I must set the terrain tiles within the building to empty, but the bits around the edges, where the tiles are both inside and outside, are tricky. Every thread I have seen on this topic says that this is the purpose of the interior's ShowTerrainInside field, which should disable terrain visibility (I know that it will not affect collisions) inside the building, as long as the interior is "portalized". I cannot get it to work, so I assume that my portals are not set up correctly.
Can anyone please direct me to some advice on how the portals need to be set up for this to work? At the moment, my interior consists of just a hollow box with a hole in the roof. In the hole is a portal brush which fills the hole completely, but is slightly thinner than the roof brush. I am using Constructor 1.0.51 for making my interiors.
Note that I know there are many other tricks that are commonly used to deal with the terrain edges, but I'm not interested in hearing about those. I just want to get the engine to do what the docs say it is supposed to do, and if that's not sufficient, only then will I fall back on those tricks.
I'm using TGEA 1.8.0, and having some trouble with terrain showing inside my interiors. I am trying to create a bunker-style building that is mostly buried. I know that I must set the terrain tiles within the building to empty, but the bits around the edges, where the tiles are both inside and outside, are tricky. Every thread I have seen on this topic says that this is the purpose of the interior's ShowTerrainInside field, which should disable terrain visibility (I know that it will not affect collisions) inside the building, as long as the interior is "portalized". I cannot get it to work, so I assume that my portals are not set up correctly.
Can anyone please direct me to some advice on how the portals need to be set up for this to work? At the moment, my interior consists of just a hollow box with a hole in the roof. In the hole is a portal brush which fills the hole completely, but is slightly thinner than the roof brush. I am using Constructor 1.0.51 for making my interiors.
Note that I know there are many other tricks that are commonly used to deal with the terrain edges, but I'm not interested in hearing about those. I just want to get the engine to do what the docs say it is supposed to do, and if that's not sufficient, only then will I fall back on those tricks.
#2
Thanks again.
01/06/2009 (5:52 pm)
Thanks Michael, that's put me on the right track. I somehow missed that TDN page, and it told me a lot of things I didn't know. Turns out I was breaking a few other rules too. I now have a simple interior that is working correctly, so I should be able to apply what I've learned to more complex designs.Thanks again.
Associate Michael Hall
Distracted...
Portals work fine and they correctly occlude terrain while inside for me using TGE 1.5.2 and TGEa 1.7.1, but I haven't tried 1.8.
More tips: Constructor-Portals
Beyond those commonly used tricks that you don't wont to try yet there is also a code resource that does a good job of using portals and triggers to selectively disable terrain visibility and collision.
edit: forgot the link - oops!