REQ: Experienced Programmer for coding new Grass?
by addiktive · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 02/10/2007 (7:49 pm) · 10 replies
Quick question: Has anyone looked at implementing a grass system similar to Trackmania Nations?
And would anyone be up to the task/have any idea in the difficulty of implementing it?
Basically it renders the blades of grass with differing lod detail and it also crumples under the car, effectively creating tracks in the grass. This would be an ideal effect for our RPG, but as we are currently looking for coders, we dont have the means to create/test the theory, or coders to bounce ideas off.
Its just an idea, and I really dont know how feasible it is, all I know is that the grass looks brilliant ingame.
Example Pic:
And would anyone be up to the task/have any idea in the difficulty of implementing it?
Basically it renders the blades of grass with differing lod detail and it also crumples under the car, effectively creating tracks in the grass. This would be an ideal effect for our RPG, but as we are currently looking for coders, we dont have the means to create/test the theory, or coders to bounce ideas off.
Its just an idea, and I really dont know how feasible it is, all I know is that the grass looks brilliant ingame.
Example Pic:
About the author
#2
Has anyone ported it over to TGEA? Its ideal to get us started on our lush environment :)
addikt
02/13/2007 (2:04 am)
Wow, cant believe I missed that, thanks for the heads up :)Has anyone ported it over to TGEA? Its ideal to get us started on our lush environment :)
addikt
#3
It's currently a side project to everything else, but if your interesting, gimmie a email and we can talk about it.
02/13/2007 (3:27 am)
I've been slowly developing some really fancy grass code.It's currently a side project to everything else, but if your interesting, gimmie a email and we can talk about it.
#4
addikt
02/13/2007 (1:19 pm)
Sounds interesting Jeff, you can contact me at: addictive@ihug.co.nz or visit our game forum at http://addiktive.proboards58.com/index.cgi and we can chat via PM or post :)addikt
#5
02/13/2007 (8:29 pm)
Fired ya a mail.
#6
Cheers
addikt
03/12/2007 (3:10 pm)
Well no luck so far... Anyone interested in giving this a shot? We are basically after high density grass with minimal fps loss, and the potential to trample it..Cheers
addikt
#7
03/14/2007 (8:42 pm)
Wow that sounds tough. I added 3d grass to a game engine that I built from the ground up, but I didn't have the ability to flatten it. First what I did is create several levels of detail that are rendered depending on the distance from the camera. I placed the grass in blocks so each had a bounding box and could be culled when it wasn't in view. It's still a big performance hit, but very possible none the less. I'd definitely look into something called Polygon Cruncher if I remember right for 3ds Max. I used that to really lower the poly's in the grass.
#8
The biggest difference is that a resource like twSurfaceReference is a revision or two away from being possible with Atlas2. Once a resource like twSurfaceReference is possible for Atlas2 terrains it should be changed, because the really cool effect of fxGrass is the automatic color blending of the terrain texture the billboard rests on. If someone knows how to grab the pixel color at a point on Atlas2 terrain, I'll add it in now. For my usage it's not worth it to add it in just for legacy terrains. Does twSurfaceReference work in TGEA w/ legacy terrains? Does it even work in TGE1.5?
It's really pretty straight forward since it was based on fxFoliageReplicator.
* Convert to fxFoliageReplicator-style vertex buffers
* Add gradient coloring via texture or terrain pixel
* Add quad texture support
* Allow for datablock specified shaders, or default to fxFoliageReplicator shader
* Pass fog texture to shader, which fxFoliageReplicator does not
Can't ETA... Work is kicking my butt right now, but it should be no more than a week if not sooner.
03/15/2007 (1:28 am)
I dunno about the crushing... but I did start converting this to TGEA today. The reason I'm investing the time is because the way that fxGrass places the foliage is different enough from fxFoliageReplicator that it still has a legitimate role.... and I want it. :)The biggest difference is that a resource like twSurfaceReference is a revision or two away from being possible with Atlas2. Once a resource like twSurfaceReference is possible for Atlas2 terrains it should be changed, because the really cool effect of fxGrass is the automatic color blending of the terrain texture the billboard rests on. If someone knows how to grab the pixel color at a point on Atlas2 terrain, I'll add it in now. For my usage it's not worth it to add it in just for legacy terrains. Does twSurfaceReference work in TGEA w/ legacy terrains? Does it even work in TGE1.5?
It's really pretty straight forward since it was based on fxFoliageReplicator.
* Convert to fxFoliageReplicator-style vertex buffers
* Add gradient coloring via texture or terrain pixel
* Add quad texture support
* Allow for datablock specified shaders, or default to fxFoliageReplicator shader
* Pass fog texture to shader, which fxFoliageReplicator does not
Can't ETA... Work is kicking my butt right now, but it should be no more than a week if not sooner.
#9
04/01/2007 (5:19 pm)
Have any of you seen the grass in the PS2 game "Shadow of the Colossus"? Its been a while since I played it, but its multiple layers of a grass cross-section pattern that are parallel and each just a bit above the terrain. Think its called a shell technique and is used for grass and fur. I think this combined with a replicator would do a decent looking job! 
#10
04/01/2007 (6:37 pm)
Hmm that might be interesting, a fur shader on a flat grass texture, if your dealing with short blades of grass. It would likely have a large performance impact though unless the shader was very efficient. I haven't seen the game, sounds cool though. 
Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark