BG Cliff Construction Kit discussion

#1 The Kit is finally out, see the blog about it here.

Here is a teaser image for licensees of the Kit about what's cooking right now:



This is a shader based approach, where you can specify the type of the material that's accumulated on top of a cliff, plus a number of other things. This is still under heavy development, but you won't have to wait for long!

Eventually it would be possible to ie. increase accumulated snow based on how long it's been falling in the scene. This would not be a part of the update, but the option to dynamically update the cliff shader's parameters that affect accumulated materials would let you do this pretty easily.

#2 I bought this pack today. Definately not dissapointed. Congratulations on getting it out.

#3 Thanks J.C. Appreciate the feedback, and ... just wait, there's more of the cool stuff coming! :)

#4 Nice pack but I have just one question, I just ordered it and downloaded. Where would I get the updates from? It looked like a one time only download, not like here to allow logging back in once you get the package. Could you please tell me how updates will be released? Via email to customers? Thanks much and congrats on the pack.

Will Zettler
dlstorminc@yahoo.com

#5 Hi Will,

Thank you. I hope you will be satisfied with the Kit!

All future updates will be posted in this thread. These will be zip files available to anyone with a patching installer in them - much like the one in the Kit. These will always patch the previous version of the Kit.

In the source, any updates for a specific version will also be marked to make migrating changes to a custom code base very easy.

Since the updates will not be of any use by themselves to anyone but licensees, I am not going to put extra energy in making this more difficult, or making my customers register at yet another site for that matter. I wanted to keep this Kit as simple yet effective as possible - in every aspect.

Hope that answers the question. :)
Konrad

#6 Awesome pack, congrats Konrad, torque has needed something like this for a while.

#7 Will, this means that the version that you compiled is not the one where you installed the Kit, or the installation failed. Can you please check if C:\torque_engines\TGEA_1_7_1 is actually the new clean install? Is it possible that you installed the Kit at another location? You can find out by searching your drive for *.cck.bat - these are backup files the kit makes after patching a file.

#8 @Gareth: Thanks! :) Glad you like it!!

#9 Ok everyone,

Here is what I found... first the kit is amazing, I got my problem fixed listed above but the downside is you have to install the pack into the default TGEA directory C:\Torque\TGEA_1_7_1 and patch it from there, then compile. I'm hoping this will be lifted in future versions (?). Other then that, it works great. Sweet looking package add-on. Thanks for the great pack Konrad Kiss... keep up the great work man, I'm in awe of how amazing the pack looks and how easy it is to use once you get it up and going. Well worth the asking price for all the work that has gone into the backside of the pack.

Will
dlstorminc@yahoo.com
Waskom, Tx

#10 @Will: Thanks for the heads up about the installation, glad it worked out!

About the downside, actually I have never tested the installer with the default TGEA directory. I created the installer so that you could install it anywhere - and it's been working like that. I'm sure you or me misunderstood something. The very first version had a problem installing into directories with a space in them, but that has been fixed for the 1.0.1 version - so I've been testing this a lot.

Maybe someone who installed the kit to a different directory could say a few words about his/her experience to back Will or me up? I'm really curious if this is indeed a problem, or just a misunderstanding. I can imagine that the section about installation in the guide needs a more detailed explanation, if so, let me know!

Will, thanks for the kind words about the pack, and I really appreciate you letting us know that installation worked.

#11 Thanks Konrad, Hey still love the pack just shot you another email. Will run tests on a few directories and let you know what I find. I'm very happy with the pack and your support, not trying to flame you or it. Just thought that was strange that it wouldn't compile under the other directory I had installed it to a day or two before, totally unmolested code too. But I'm going to try a few new things out and see if it was me or what... I'll post here when I'm done with the tests.

Thanks again for an awesome pack and great support. Keep up the pace man your doing great.

Will

#12 Here is another screenshot of the Kit's first update in the works, accumulated materials. Of course, this is not real accumulation, but it tries to achive a very similar effect in a way that's a lot faster than real accumulating snow shaders. And - best of all - this is not only meant for snow.



The update is coming out this weekend, and will be free for all licensees. I think it really adds to the realism of a scene, while using a lot less resources than methods without the use of shaders would allow.

The pack will contain an updated guide and a new set of shaders. While the pack already has 40 materials, some of which are cover materials, a few more are included in the update.

#13 Update 1 for the BG Cliff Construction Kit is out!

You can download it here. (30Mb)

This is available for existing BG CCK licensees only - at no further charge. Non-licensees are not licensed to use or reverse engineer this update.

The zip file that you download is password protected. To find the password, open your cck guide found in the root directory of the base Kit, turn to the last page, and on that page, take the first and the last word as one word all lower case.

You will find an updated guide that explains how you should install the update. The update installs only in a clean BG Cliff Construction Kit installation. It patches both source and script files.

You will find 15 new textures for cliffs, some of which work with smaller cliffs, but all of them are generally made to be a cover (accumulation) material.

A new set of shaders are also part of the pack that allow for material accumulation.

Read the guide to learn the use of the material accumulator to be able to quickly assign textures as cover materials. Since accumulation uses very little resources, I think it is a good idea to always use it, because it adds a lot to the eye-candy the cliff provides.

As always, direct any questions or comments here. If you are satisfied with the pack, I'd appreciate if you posted a few lines, or even screenshots, so others can discover the Kit - and I can eventually come up with some cool new update once again. =)

Thanks again for purchasing the BG Cliff Construction Kit. If you haven't done that yet, you can get it here or just go directly to checkout. It's 21.90 euros which is roughly about $29.90 (USD).

I will soon have a .plan submitted with a video about how to use the new features, and I'll show off some really neat examples in a number of different missions.

#14 I was thinking that the Cliff Construction Kit was looking cool, but after seeing the material accumalation screenshot I'm gonna have to pick this up.

Does that work for making things wet also?

#15 @Mike: And you haven't seen the video yet! The best part is when the cliff is being rotated imho - watch as it gains and loses material real time.

I'm not sure if I understood you right - if you meant to ask if the cover (or accumulated) material uses speculars, then yes. You can tweak those too to achieve a dry/wet look along with the cliff. There's an example in the video that's uploading right now.

#16 The video is up in the blog here.

#17 And a nice video it is!

What I had in mind was little pockets of rain water that would collect and eventually overflow to spread across the surface. After seeing the video I can already envision how to manage that with spec and a watery-like texture.

I'll have to do a little financial rearranging before I can buy the kit, but consider it sold.

#18 I can see how you could also do some of that as seasonal precipitation accumulation too. This is just wicked.
And this dts, so the tech could easily be done on other things as well.

#19 @Mike: Ah, I see, that's a really nice idea! I will have to think about how it'd look best. Right now, I'm gonna try to concentrate on an update called "early civilizations". (oooh!)

@Dave: Thanks! There are many possibilities, and yep, it's really easy to apply the tech to anything other than cliffs - if only by using the accu shaders.

#20 Ive been testing the Kit by combing it into my own game's code, and I've found two problems:

In gameFunctions.cpp in the function RegisterGameFunctions the following should be added:

Con::setIntVariable("$TypeMasks::BGCliffObjectType",		BGCliffObjectType);

It is not used in the Kit, but this should be done for good measure anyway.

The other problem is a missed pair of comments around the includes in sgLightManager.cpp, so don't forget to add these two includes to the file if you merge this into your code:

// BG CLIFFS PACK >>>
#include "T3D/bgcliffs/tsBGCliffStatic.h"
#include "terrain/sun.h"
// <<< BG CLIFFS PACK

Both are going to be patched in the next update. If you plan to patch your current version, then no changes to it should be made.