Terrain

#1 I didn't first-handly work on the terrain, so I can't really explain the specifics; I just can't help but show you a couple of examples of what has come out of the work that has gone in to terrain. =)

#2 This looks amazing! Can you leak more details? Maybe some background info on how the blending is done?

Edit: added some sense to my post

#3 Looks like there is still just a single detail map in those images. Do you have any examples where multiple detail maps are in use?

Thanks for your reply. :)

#4 Nice terrain :)

Though, cropped/resized images usually dont look as good as regular ones :)

Btw, on top image i would probably have modelled the wodden fence thing to the left better, like having a "hole" or something in the ground, right now, its like really sharp corners where it hits the ground (looks very fake) hehe, anyways, just a thought.

And the idea it good (texture wise) but who would really put a fence down into hard rock (or the ground rock its in), hard work :P

And now.. any news about Beta release ? (cant be far now :P) i cannnnt waaaaiiiiit !

#5 Wow the screenshots look fantastic, thanks for sharing them Steven. We should see some really amazing things coming from Torque 3D

#6 The blogs still not up but I did notice the first two parts of the South Pacific Demo are uploaded on vimeo, and they go into some of the details: http://vimeo.com/groups/1622/videos/3992810 and http://vimeo.com/groups/1622/videos/3992822 .

#7 The videos look great.I was pleasantly surprized at the detail and the physics of it.

#8 Huzzar for a terrain noise brush! Physics look good too.

#9 Yeah I've had a look at the Videos J.C. and can't wait til the beta is released so that we can have a look and play with it ourselves.

Come on GG we want our new toys :) muahaha

#10 Yeah, awesomeness on the video's oo.. GIVE US BETA !! :)

/Gonna go play with some nukes until release *hint to hurry* :P

#11 So that looks great. I'm satisfied. Beta please. ;)

#12 Looks very interesting on the video :)
And finally at least a hint of how the terrain system works and the new editor althought the pure weakness of the camera makes it pretty hard to see much of the editor sadly.

I really like what I saw of the new editor capabilities (not only what tools there are directly but the kind of stuff the editor finally allows)

#13 Will the skybox exist in the release? If possible, please add more high quality skyboxes into T3D. ;)

#14 I just got access to these forums... so i'm playing catch up with posts.

The terrain now uses what i'm calling "id map blending" as opposed to the old opacity map methods. We only store one material id at each pixel in the map... in the shader we work out the blend amount automatically by looking at the neighboring ids. This is what allows us to support many more terrain layers without the cost of needing another 8bit channel of opacity data.

So you loose explicit blending control... but you gain resolution and number of layers to paint with. I think its an acceptable trade off although i'm sure someone will whine about it. ;)

And yes... it supports per-layer detail maps.

#15 @ysun - There is a new SkyBox object which replaces the old Sky object. I think there will be a couple of new stock sky texture sets from the new demos.

#16 @Tom, that's really good news, thanks for sharing.

#17

Quote:
And yes... it supports per-layer detail maps.

That's excellent news. =)

#18

Quote:We only store one material id at each pixel in the map... in the shader we work out the blend amount automatically by looking at the neighboring ids.

That's an awesome idea! If someone must keep blending at a specific percentage, he or she could always create a new material. With which one would also be able to achieve much better results anyway.

Plus, we can always create new algorithms for blending different materials. (as in: not continous / linear blending).

I think you guys made a great choice, and I'm really excited to take a look at the terrain from the inside. :)

#19 Thanks Konrad.... yea thats the basic idea... "blending" terrain materials is a weird game-tech concept and not anything you really see in reality.

Quote:Plus, we can always create new algorithms for blending different materials. (as in: not continous / linear blending).

What i'm planning on doing this week is to use the alpha channel of the detail texture us to mask the blend. This should give an artist controlled patterned fringe between material transitions.

The idea came from this Oblivion mod and its only really possible because i'm using this new id map.

#20 Thank YOU, Tom! :) Great idea to use the alpha channel of the detail texture.

I was thinking that further blending methods would be available if the terrain always used normal maps (and why wouldn't we want that with such a great engine). Blending normal maps too would definitely add to realism.

But, yeah, that alpha channel blending on that mod page looks really awesome. I am crossing fingers that it makes it into the first beta. :)