MegaTerrains - TGEA Update
by Prairie Games · 03/14/2008 (2:26 pm) · 42 comments
Hey all... it's been a bit since I blogged.
I've been hard at work with the GarageGames crew on the upcoming TGEA update. They've put a whole lot of work in and it's seriously impressive :)
The last couple days I've been putting the final touches on something we like to call "MegaTerrains". These are massive terrains which use some of the latest and greatest TGEA technology including clipmaps.
Here's a group of shots which shows off the system: In the first pic, the little black dot in the lower right doorway is a player. The station can be seen near the center of the second pic... and I added a light blue star to where the station is in the third pic.
There's a nifty "MegaTerrain" creator available which allows you to load up a heightmap and baseline its textures. You can also control the square size and height scale of the map you are bringing in.
The full arsenal of Torque's excellent realtime terrain editing, painting, etc are all supported... including making holes in your terrain :)
So, how big can these terrains be? In a word, MASSIVE... and you can have multiple "MegaTerrains" in a mission connected together! :)
I think it's a safe time to get excited about the TGEA update. It'll be here soon :)
-Josh Engebretson
I've been hard at work with the GarageGames crew on the upcoming TGEA update. They've put a whole lot of work in and it's seriously impressive :)
The last couple days I've been putting the final touches on something we like to call "MegaTerrains". These are massive terrains which use some of the latest and greatest TGEA technology including clipmaps.
Here's a group of shots which shows off the system: In the first pic, the little black dot in the lower right doorway is a player. The station can be seen near the center of the second pic... and I added a light blue star to where the station is in the third pic.
There's a nifty "MegaTerrain" creator available which allows you to load up a heightmap and baseline its textures. You can also control the square size and height scale of the map you are bringing in.
The full arsenal of Torque's excellent realtime terrain editing, painting, etc are all supported... including making holes in your terrain :)
So, how big can these terrains be? In a word, MASSIVE... and you can have multiple "MegaTerrains" in a mission connected together! :)
I think it's a safe time to get excited about the TGEA update. It'll be here soon :)
-Josh Engebretson
#2
03/14/2008 (2:36 pm)
Large terrains are great and all, but how about the quality? 
#3
03/14/2008 (2:40 pm)
looks pretty cool but has the appearance of legacy terrain. Is it the chunk style like atlas or is it grid like legacy?
#4
Sometimes I think I'm the last person on earth that has no interest in making MMORPGs or Casual games.
I just want to make something that is immersive with a good story and fun challenging game play.
the stuff I have seen " you tube" from legions looks ok "I like all of the flowers" but it still has that very soft no real detail to it look.
I think what is really needed is the ability to have near vertical surfaces and the ability to paint textures on them vertically so they are not stretched. Something similar to the stamping technology of Id's Tech5 would be nice.
Oh well we will have to wait and see I guess.
03/14/2008 (2:49 pm)
I agree. if all it is gonna be is just huge then no thanx. I'm sure somepeople could make good use of it though. personally I don't have any use for super large terrain. personally what I'm looking for is a lot of detail like what is seen in Crysis. I can deal with a game being in levels.Sometimes I think I'm the last person on earth that has no interest in making MMORPGs or Casual games.
I just want to make something that is immersive with a good story and fun challenging game play.
the stuff I have seen " you tube" from legions looks ok "I like all of the flowers" but it still has that very soft no real detail to it look.
I think what is really needed is the ability to have near vertical surfaces and the ability to paint textures on them vertically so they are not stretched. Something similar to the stamping technology of Id's Tech5 would be nice.
Oh well we will have to wait and see I guess.
#5
03/14/2008 (2:49 pm)
Looks great, can't wait until the next release of TGEA! :-D 
#6
03/14/2008 (3:27 pm)
@James: Have you tried cranking down the Square Size on terrain? That should greatly increase your texture resolution (and thus realism). Also there have been more than one successful attempts to add Shader features (Normal Mapping, Specular Highlighting) to Legacy terrain and that will again greatly increase your realism factor.
#7
03/14/2008 (3:59 pm)
How does this compare to Atlas ? 
#8
Also, is part of this some kind of tool to automatically build a matrix of multiple legacy terrains together? Even if it just loaded and lined them up, and the actual seams had to be hand tuned, that would be fairly huge. If not, that should be pretty simple to develop as an addition to the officially released tools.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall it being possible to change the squareSize on legacy terrain in TGEA. It looks like this is supported now, so linking up several smaller, but more detailed terrains with say, squareSize of 4 or even 2 would look pretty good I think.
How does the clip mapping factor into this enhanced terrain?
Does the terrain itself have the ability to fade out like atlas terrain, eliminating or reducing the need for heavy fog to hide the pieces of terrain popping in and out in the distance like the original legacy terrain? How significantly, if at all, does this effect the framerate? From my experience one of the biggest framerate killers is having a view distance that is too long. Having the ability to make large terrains is certainly cool in and of itself, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of performance enhancements that would make it feasible to actually have the terrain visible from a massive distance away like in the screenshots (or if those are just to demonstrate how big the new terrains can actually be).
This definitely looks cool. I'm very interested in learning more.
03/14/2008 (4:12 pm)
Very interesting. I see that it looks like these support 512x512 heightmaps as opposed to 256x256 for the original legacy terrain. Is there support for other sizes?Also, is part of this some kind of tool to automatically build a matrix of multiple legacy terrains together? Even if it just loaded and lined them up, and the actual seams had to be hand tuned, that would be fairly huge. If not, that should be pretty simple to develop as an addition to the officially released tools.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall it being possible to change the squareSize on legacy terrain in TGEA. It looks like this is supported now, so linking up several smaller, but more detailed terrains with say, squareSize of 4 or even 2 would look pretty good I think.
How does the clip mapping factor into this enhanced terrain?
Does the terrain itself have the ability to fade out like atlas terrain, eliminating or reducing the need for heavy fog to hide the pieces of terrain popping in and out in the distance like the original legacy terrain? How significantly, if at all, does this effect the framerate? From my experience one of the biggest framerate killers is having a view distance that is too long. Having the ability to make large terrains is certainly cool in and of itself, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of performance enhancements that would make it feasible to actually have the terrain visible from a massive distance away like in the screenshots (or if those are just to demonstrate how big the new terrains can actually be).
This definitely looks cool. I'm very interested in learning more.
#9
03/14/2008 (4:40 pm)
How does this compare to ET:QW terrain solution? E.g. ET:QW supports 32K x 32K terrain textures... 
#10
03/14/2008 (4:52 pm)
Great! now Iam force to upgrade LOL :) Why are people so down on large terrains. Not everyone, but come on, I rather have too much then too little. How long to think you will be able to keep TGEA/TGE/TorqueX in the sole realm of Indie game producers. Larger companies may want to buy commercial versions of torque by the buckets and expect to see some high-end features. and as far as filler, look at all the content packs coming out now, and the numerous little companies that all they do is make content filler by wahzoos. <-I tried to google what exactly is the metric amount of a wahzoo but I think is more than Yal-zah. :) 
#11
One question: Can you adjust the size of the lightmap used on the terrain?
03/14/2008 (5:24 pm)
This looks positively great, Josh! Thanks for all the hardwork. I hope this comes out soon!One question: Can you adjust the size of the lightmap used on the terrain?
#12
03/14/2008 (8:26 pm)
I am so anxious for this, I hope this comes out very soon, and the pics look great:) 
#13
03/14/2008 (9:00 pm)
Looks great.
#14
Of course, this is just the ground... you'll probably want some foliage and stuff too :)
03/15/2008 (1:47 am)
The clipmapping system is capable of excellent texel density and is quite configurable.Of course, this is just the ground... you'll probably want some foliage and stuff too :)
#16
Haven't had any experience with TGEA yet.
03/15/2008 (2:33 am)
So detail textures are on a per texture basis now, or are those just the regular textures with a lot of detail in them?Haven't had any experience with TGEA yet.
#17
03/15/2008 (2:43 am)
Those are regular textures and are about as detailed as the detail textures used to be... and you can still add detail textures over the top. In fact, hooking this up to the creator right now :)
#18
03/15/2008 (3:37 am)
This looks great! Kinda like what ATLAS could have been... is Atlas dropped in favor for MegaTerrains now?
#19
I saw it asked and didn't see it answered, but no, MegaTerrains do not use chunked LoD like Atlas does (which is the reason why they can be edited in real time, whereas Atlas terrains cannot), so you do not gain the benefits of hugely massive view distances like you do with Atlas. However, as you can see from the screenshots, the allowable view distance is quite large.
03/15/2008 (3:54 am)
Atlas and legacy terrains have always each had their strengths and weaknesses. MegaTerrains don't affect the use or benefits of Atlas in any way, especially for modeling real world terrain datasets.I saw it asked and didn't see it answered, but no, MegaTerrains do not use chunked LoD like Atlas does (which is the reason why they can be edited in real time, whereas Atlas terrains cannot), so you do not gain the benefits of hugely massive view distances like you do with Atlas. However, as you can see from the screenshots, the allowable view distance is quite large.
#20
...and also since we could have as much detail in the regular textures as the detail textures had, I assume the detail textures now could be used for what textures USED to be used for? (e.g. Creating the variation over large stretched areas to minimize repetition.)
03/15/2008 (4:01 am)
Details on a per texture basis I hope! ;)...and also since we could have as much detail in the regular textures as the detail textures had, I assume the detail textures now could be used for what textures USED to be used for? (e.g. Creating the variation over large stretched areas to minimize repetition.)
Torque 3D Owner Rodney (OldRod) Burns