Spherical Terrain in T3D
by Agent Deluxe · in Torque 3D Professional · 06/01/2011 (7:06 pm) · 15 replies
Well, this is my first time posting here, been a member since 2008. I am an artist (of course) who needs some direction involving spherical terrain. I have looked through the forums (is it just me or is the search tool off?) and the only person to actually implement this is bill vee (whom after trying to contact at least 20 times) hasn't once gotten back to me. I have been reading up on CLOD, ROAM, Paged Texturing and the such, but as far as knowing where to start editing the source code (I'm an artist), I am at a loss. I have downloaded several open source programs that have done it (celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia/, infinite universe engine - http://www.vterrain.org/Packages/IUE/, ossim planet - http://www.ossim.org/OSSIM/ossimPlanet.html,etc) but I'm pretty sure it's not as simple as copy and pasting. So I was thinking, since that's exactly what i want to do regarding my project, and the coding to do it is already done, it would be just a matter of merging it with the terrain source? If anyone with some programming talent willing to help me I would be more than willing to offer my skills as an artist on their project. Thanks guys!
#2
06/02/2011 (2:40 pm)
Thanks, and again for the quick reply. Yeah, planned on learning programming this summer, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that that's what it's gonna take to get what I want in my project, I just didn't want to start from the beginning when it has already been done several times. I've just cracked open C++ for dummies and am using visual studio 2010 for my environments, but I'm just like, well I have the source for exactly what I wanna do (celestia src, and infinite universe src), and know the concepts behind how these systems work, but I don't exactly know how to merge that source code into T3D's. What I was looking for is someone to point me to the source files in T3D that I would need to edit. Thanks again!
#3
06/02/2011 (2:47 pm)
to Matt, for example, (if you wanted to make a trade for art) with your code for the planetary system, it would make a lot more sense to me of whats going on, and incorporating that code that's already available from the programs I've mentioned probably 100 times easier. Again I would be more than willing to do some art or animation for you in return. Thanks! 
#4
06/02/2011 (3:09 pm)
a big stumbling block is going to be that you have the binary release, which doesent have the source to implement something like this :/
#5
BTW, love the work your doing!
06/02/2011 (3:32 pm)
Thanks for the concern Andy, yeah, I actually gave Garage Games my 99 bucks after sleeping on the idea (me = superbroke), literally a few days before they went dark, which really made me upset, and gave me a case of buyers remorse, but a buddy I was working on a project with had the alpha with src. Eventually, GG came back online, but by that time my friend gave up on them and the project. As well GG told me I'm S.O.L. and that'd I'd have to pony up another 100 bucks, (which I will do once they actually have a full release) because I don't want to get burned again (my heart goes out to those that paid the orginal $1000 dollars!)BTW, love the work your doing!
#6
06/02/2011 (4:16 pm)
(update) Well, they must've heard me haha, 1.1 has just been released hahaha!
#7
06/15/2011 (4:36 pm)
Any other help from someone who's implemented this in T3D would be greatly appreciated! 
#8
06/22/2011 (2:08 am)
This would be really nice to know how to do. :) 
#9
01/01/2012 (1:36 pm)
*bump would like to see a resource on how to do this. 
#10
01/01/2012 (4:20 pm)
Why not just apply a spherical height map? Or is this going to be a complete sphere? If it is a complete sphere then that would change everything like physics and the player would have to be able to rotate and not assume an orientation in 3 space like it does now. That would be a lot of work, but it would be an interesting and possibly fun resource. I kind of like the idea of a space sim where you can actually approach planets and simulates gravity.
#11
01/18/2012 (12:22 pm)
I agree with you Jeff and Frank about a resource. I've emailed Matt Houston about the work he's done with planetary objects, but I guess he just wants to sit on the great work he's done so far that I've seen... ...but what can ya do?? 
#12
01/18/2012 (4:07 pm)
Bill Vee's blog posts were very thorough in covering the theory of various spherical terrain systems and how he went about implementing a shperical heightmap modifier for Atlas terrains. He then stitched 6 of these modified terrains together to create a sphere. Player/camera controls were then modifed to allow 6 degrees of freedom camera movement. Spherical waterblocks were added, spherical cloud layers. Gravity objects to simulate push/pull. His blogs were a fascinating read. However, I don't think he's done much with Torque since early 2011.
#13
01/19/2012 (12:10 pm)
Im not sure, but does T3D use the atlas terrain anymore? Yes I have looked through his posts which were informative as far as theory-which I was able to wrap my head around, but it was implementing the code changes required that I needed help with. I have been reading up on CLOD, ROAM, Paged Texturing and the such, but as far as knowing where to start editing the source code [in torque3d]... And I'm pretty sure TGEA (which is what Bill used) uses a different terrain system than T3D. Again I'm just an artist with basically no coding skill (yet), so I was looking for someone who happened to already have it implemented in T3D such as what Matt showed me in his work with planetary systems. I guess I just did't want to have to start from scratch and also be able to see how and where the changes to code were made in T3D- another reason I wanted to barter some artist work for some coding work. But I'm sure if I'm persistent it will work out.
#14
01/19/2012 (2:45 pm)
No, Atlas was removed for Torque 3D. But the belief was that the method Bill had used would work for T3D's terrain as well.
#15
01/19/2012 (4:00 pm)
Thanks for the info, I guess I'll just have to start from scratch I guess. 
Torque 3D Owner Matt Huston
Atomic Banzai Games
Chunk LOD Terrain - tulrich.com/geekstuff/chunklod.html
Rendering Very Large, Very Detailed Terrains - www.terrain.dk/
So you create a cube of terrains (6 terrains). Then use the following formula to make them spherical: mathproofs.blogspot.com/2005/07/mapping-cube-to-sphere.html
Good luck!