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Work in Progress / BlitzTerrain

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BMacZero
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 00:27
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Quote: "Yeah, all the brush commands are possible to do with 'set point height' and 'get gound height'. I just want to save people time from writing their own brushes."

I'm not complaining



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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 00:56
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cool, just looking into the changes I need to make to make this work with Dark GDK. Ill also need to get GDK and get some basic experience with it. So I'm able to port my demo's over.


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Airslide
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 01:50
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Didn't even think of doing it with the existing commands - I need to think a little harder sometimes

Does the terrain manipulation work with physics? My initial guess is no...in which case, is there a way we could re-calculate the physics/collision after an adjustment?

Forgive me if these have been answered already

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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 01:56 Edited at: 3rd Jul 2009 01:57
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Yes, I have made a way to do this.

Its pretty simple.

all you have to do is add something like this into your loop.




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Airslide
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 03:58
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That's quite clever!

Of course, I doubt the update process will be quick with things like physics and maybe even Sparky's (in terms of realtime updating) but that would be more than suitable for my purposes. Of course, since it is in sectors it could be split up between loops if need be to improve speed...so maybe it wouldn't be too bad after all.

By the way - does collision use the highest LOD by default? If so, can we have the option to select a lower LOD for collision? I think that could be useful.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 04:49
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Thanks

No but I'll add that option in. I'll get it done as soon as I start my work PC up tomorrow. Only about 3 lines of coding needed for that so it should be in quite quick.


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CuCuMBeR
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 13:54
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For texturing purposes,
you need to add a command like BT Set Terrain Texture terrainid, (stage), image

Otherwise we need to divide the texture ourselves and texture each individual object in the continue loop with the divided part, and thats pretty lots of work to do.

What i am trying to do is use the dbpro blend mapping commands to refer to the terrainid, not the individual objects that make up the terrain.

There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 15:53 Edited at: 3rd Jul 2009 16:00
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If you want to add shaders. Don't use the inbuilt texturing.

In your build loop, just after BT ContinueBuild. Add all your textures, shaders, etc to the object you passed as the first parameter in the ContimueBuild function.

There are 2 UV stages that you might want to take note of.

UV Stage 0 = Texture
UV Stage 1 = Detailmap


Also, if you want to add different textures to certian LOD Stages. Just remember that:

limb 0 = Highest LOD
limb 1 = 2nd lod level
etc etc.

The number of limbs in the object range from 0 to the number of LOD levels specified in 'SetTerrainLOD' minus 1.




Quote: "What I am trying to do is use the dbpro blend mapping commands to refer to the terrainid, not the individual objects that make up the terrain."


The terrainid is not an object number. Its just an index produced by the MakeTerrain function which gets used to build and run the terrain. Object numbers can be seen in the build loop, or in a little loop I posted about 3 posts up.

Oh wait, I just read it again and I can see what you mean.

heres an example.




This must only be called when the terrain is fully built.


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CuCuMBeR
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 17:30 Edited at: 3rd Jul 2009 17:33
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uhmm, both stuff looks good, but i do want neither.
No shader is involved.

I have a full terrain image exported from terragen.
i have a normal map of this full terrain image as well.

I also have detail maps color and normal again.

I want to:
set blend map on terrainid, stage 0, normal map, 10, 24
set blend map on terrainid, stage 1, terrain image, 10, 4

and then,

set blend map on terrainid, stage 2, normal map, 11, 24
set blend map on terrainid, stage 3, detail image, 11, 4

this works in advanced terrain. But if i do it sector by sector in yours, it just tiles the individual sectors with the whole terrain map. I want to stretch it across without hassling to divide the texture myself.

EDIT:
one more thing, i tested several different terrains and its always too rough, not as smooth as advanced terrain. Actually, it is a completely different terrain than what any other 3d application creates out of the same height map.

There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
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Duffer
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 20:51
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@ kaedroho,

Looking good.

Are you going to allow for input of both traditional heightmaps and colourmaps?

With the brush commands, what further brush commands are you now envisioning?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 20:56
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Are you going to allow for input of both traditional heightmaps and colourmaps?

Both of which are supported in the latest release:

BT SetTerrainHeightmap terrain,imgnum
BT SetTerrainColourHeightmap terrain,imgnum

Colour heightmapping is currently not tested. I made a mod for Terrasculpt to make it generate them. But this MOD is now lost .

Ill remake it..

With the brush commands, what further brush commands are you now envisioning?
Heres the current list: http://devstorm.phpbbnew.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=56

I'm adding to these lists all the time.


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Duffer
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 21:48
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excellent - any other commands you are envisioning for the final pro version?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 21:50 Edited at: 3rd Jul 2009 21:51
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In development order.

Quadtree LOD system - More poly cuts!

Spherical terrains - For planets (announced this yesterday on devstorm)

Terrain Streaming - For big maps


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Duffer
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 22:46
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@ kaedroho,

Excellent. Didnt know about spherical terrains (ie. planets etc).

If you go ahead with the commands to automatically assign colours to terrain points according to height and that could also apply to spherical terrains that would be the best.

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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draknir_
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 23:46
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Quote: "Spherical terrains - For planets (announced this yesterday on devstorm)"


The awesome features just keep coming in
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Airslide
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2009 23:54
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Once you get the brushes worked out I think you'd be set for an initial release of the pro version - that way I can play with it

Also, another suggestion - can we get the active LOD level on a sector of terrain? This will make it easy for us to say, filter terrain LOD down to objects without needing additional (and redundant) distance checks, since the plugin will have already calculated them.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 01:36
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That's an excellent idea!

Ill also add a GetTerrainSector(terrainid,x#,z#) command to make it even easier (I got that command built in actually).

Shouldn't take long to add.


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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 16:10 Edited at: 4th Jul 2009 18:32
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New command!

BT SetTerrainCollisionLOD terrain,LODlevel

This sets the LOD level that will be used for collision.

So if you put 2 in LOD level, the Collision will be half the detail of the main object, if you put 3, the collision will be quarter. Currently, this is limited to the amount of LOD levels set in 'BT SetTerrainLOD'. In the future, ill add an algorithm to reduce the amount of polys created even further.

Idea: Special thanks to Airslide



[EDIT] Ignore that, you can now set collision LOD levels to any LOD level even if it is higher than the value set in 'BT SetTerrainLOD'.


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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 17:03 Edited at: 4th Jul 2009 18:32
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Another function just addded.

lodlevel=BT GetSectorCurrentLODLevel(terrainid,sector)

This gets the current LOD level of the specified sector. This can be used with an upcoming command, 'BT GetTerrainSector(terrainid,x#,z#)' which gets the sector id of the point specified. Using both of those commands together you can find the LOD level of a certain point, this is good for Object LOD as you can get the LOD of a point directly from BlitzTerrrains LOD Engine.

Idea: Special thanks to Airslide


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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 17:20 Edited at: 4th Jul 2009 17:21
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ANOTHER command added

sector=BT GetTerrainSector(terrainid,x#,z#)

This will get the sector number which is under the specified point. This can be used with the sector commands.


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 20:05
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Liking the progress. Seems the new sector commands would be extremely useful for something like a Level Editor or an RTS where you need to track the objects and their location.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to the release

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Airslide
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 21:13
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Excellent!

At this point, once all the brush commands are done, I can't really think of anything else. It's got everything that I thought Advanced Terrain was missing (and then some!) and the performance boost alone is well worth it. Being able to filter LOD levels down to objects should make it very easy to keep speed up in open-world style games (graphically speaking) and the LOD for collision means that I may still use PhysX after all (I was concerned that it would be too slow in the environment I was planning to make).

Thinking about it now, I could even probably use the new commands to get the sector LOD to force physics objects to sleep or disable at a distance without doing any additional distance checks myself.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Jul 2009 22:20 Edited at: 4th Jul 2009 22:22
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There is a feature that I sort of forgot about.. Its called advanced physics.

You basically register all your dynamic objects with the system, and it uses an inbuilt fast zone system to calculate which sectors should be activated for physics. And only activates parts of the terrain that need collision. Using a command (I think its 'phy set object collision') you can do this. But only in Dark Physics. Newton has the command, but it doesn't work.

I got a very nice speed increase too. With the original ONE (BT1 Game Engine) I got 35 FPS to cap at 60.


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Duffer
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 10:23 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 10:25
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@ kaedroho,

Not saying I wouldnt pay for the Pro version without them but the BT SaveTerrain and BT LoadTerrain commands, some brush commands and the BT PaintTerrainPoint(x#,z#,col) command as well....

How many levels of LOD and textures/blend are you at now? ie. could I have a path texture on the base and detail textures and then perhaps another texture on the path one?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Airslide
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 11:31
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Sounds cool! I imagine that the speed boost with the LOD setting would help too, not to mention further optimization that could be made (perhaps I could unload and reload physics bodies dynamically - I think that standard rigid bodies setup pretty quickly in DP).

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kaedroho
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 17:31 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 17:46
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BT PaintTerrainPoint(x#,z#,col) will be very easy to do in texture mode 1. As it uses the specified image to texture it. This will be slow because it has to use memblocks to change the image.

So maybe I can also add a command like BT UpdateTerrainTexture. Which will be called only once per loop instead of once per set point colour. Making it alot faster.

Using texture mode 0, I can just go into the vertexdata and change it using the RTMS.


Quote: "How many levels of LOD and textures/blend are you at now? ie. could I have a path texture on the base and detail textures and then perhaps another texture on the path one?"


Up to 7 LOD levels. And you can blend as many textures as DBPro supports, I think it's 8.


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kaedroho
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 18:04 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 19:14
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I was just experimenting ways to change the LOD of the whole terrain (good for graphics settings) and found a much better example of Quad rotation. Like I said earlier, the effect is more annoying as the tile size gets bigger, so prepare to be really annoyed! Then relieved to see there's a solution for it.

Sorry about the camera angle, its really difficult to get it in the exact same place both times.


Before Quad Rotation:




After Quad Rotation:





Much better I think . This will basically, allow you to have really big tiles with low visual impact.

I've noticed this problem a lot in games like BF2. I gotta get to the patents office soon!


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BMacZero
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 19:07
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This is turning from something I might pay $30 for to save some FPS without doing the work myself into something I am absolutely going to need for the incredible bargain price of $30 .



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KISTech
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 19:16
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I have to say, it's work like this that really brings DBPro/GDK to life. This is outstanding work, and likely something that is far beyond the capabilities of most of us. I know personally the math that is likely involved would make my head hurt for days..

Excellent, excellent work. I can't wait to plug this in to my FPS project.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 21:27 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 21:32
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Thanks for all the nice comments

Heres a little feature list of upcoming features:

Free version: (all of the below are also included in full version)

QuadTree LOD inside sectors
Realtime Environment mapping
Realtime Texturing
Loading/Saving
Detail of terrain setting - So its easy to optimise for different PCs
Quadmapping - This allows fast get ground heights and LOD seam fixing when using QuadTrees and Quad Rotation/Exclusion.
Normal Map generation (to keep detail in low detail sectors)
Environment map generation (depending on height/slope of the terrain)

Full Version:

Realtime Exclusion mapping
Spherical Terrains
Loads of new brushes
Some heightmap and texture generation algorithms
Erosion
Streaming terrains


I have plans for every single one of the above.

I probably missed some by accident. If I did, then please say.


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Duffer
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 21:28 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 21:30
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@ kaedroho,

Good grief. This just keeps getting better/bigger.

Think I follow what you say re setting terrain point colour - I think I was thinking of texture mode 0 - the basic texture covering the terrain...

Beyond that, and referring back to colour palettes for the above according to the height, it might be best for us to write our own routines for that ie. how many stages in the palette would you have and you'd have to assign colours to each and grade between them - ouch - as long as setting the terrain point colour works we can write our own functions for the rest.

Would be helpful with the final pro release to give some examples of how to apply blended textures etc. think you have already partly covered that.

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 21:30
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I could always make it generate an environment map, then you simply have to apply the texture to it using the environment map.


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Duffer
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 22:20 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 22:21
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@ kaedroho,

Would I then read from the environment map to derive the height? to then derive the colour? or derive the colour from the environment map directly and then apply a point by point colour/diffuse to the main texture? Wouldnt that involve setting the environment map colours from the terrain point heights in the first place?

Anyhows, wouldnt that be slower anyway than just say reading terrain height point by point and and with each point then colouring point (according to height) point by point? (I am missing something here about environment maps arent I?!)...

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 22:25
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Environment maps basically map which parts are beach, which parts are grass, which parts are rock, etc.


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Duffer
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 22:43 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 22:47
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Noting the ability to set any particular point on the terrain's colour/diffuse, I was basically wondering whether it might be possible to create command(s) to automatically paint the main texture (mode 0) over the entire terrain with colours according the various heights and with a cut-off for scaled water colours as well...

something like this:-


a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...

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Duffer
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Posted: 5th Jul 2009 22:50 Edited at: 5th Jul 2009 22:59
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the thing is - how many set colours to assign to ground and sea levels according to height...

but if a command could be introduced to colour/diffuse in texture mode 0 the entire terrain according to height and some notional min and max height for land and sea..... something like:-

BT Autocolour Terrain terraidID, terrainPaletteID (maybe ignore terrainPaletteID if you're only having the one customisable terrainPaletteID)

- and blammo - terrain coloured to look like a tundra, desert, martian or whatever landscape - according to the paletteID...

if you had say, as above, 4 to be assigned colours (perhaps chosen with command) for sea levels and 9 to be assigned colours for ground/land levels and automatic grading and blending between them?

maybe:-

BT SetTerrainPaletteColour(colourID,actualRGBcolourAssignedToColourID,[optional? paletteID)

Not sure how many customisable colourIDs you'd have for the terrainPalette (if only one terrainPalette)

is this helping? do you see what I was getting at? (probably not - I'm not very good at explaining this...)

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 6th Jul 2009 01:30
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Yes, your trying to tell me about colour pallettes. This will be possible to do outside of BlitzTerrain inside your own code. I may add that in later on, but id rather focus on getting the other commands sorted first.

I got Quadmapping working! . It can now load terrains from a list of quads instead of a list of heights. This is making loading times 6x faster. Expect that to drop to 6x lower when I add some of the advanced features. However, this does bring the possibility of a new file type for BlitzTerrain.


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kaedroho
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Posted: 6th Jul 2009 15:55 Edited at: 6th Jul 2009 18:35
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It can now get ground heights from Quadmaps.

This may cause a problem inside caves. As there will be 2 heights, 1 inside the cave and 1 just on top of the cave. The system wont know which one to get. It will always return the ground height calculated from the first quad to be found which contains the specified point.

EDIT: Even better! it now gives an accurate ground height regardless of the rotation or the size of the quad! (the old algorithm had trouble with this)


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kaedroho
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Posted: 6th Jul 2009 19:31 Edited at: 6th Jul 2009 19:32
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I guess that no ones interested in this new feature then... Well you will be when I've added the ability to reduce the amount of polys inside a sector! Ill also add something I call "Streaming Qmaps". They're very self explanatry...


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Azunaki
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Posted: 6th Jul 2009 19:59
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seems interesting. this sure is looking nice(interesting new feature... if only i knew what exactly that was)
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Duffer
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Posted: 6th Jul 2009 20:48 Edited at: 6th Jul 2009 20:50
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@ kaedroho,

Hell - I'm interested in any and every improvement to this already top-dollar plugin - I'm assuming the reduction of polys per sector is another potential speed gain? And I'm assuming the Streaming QMaps is terrain streaming of a sort?

Jumping up a few entries on this thread, have you pretty much sorted the quadmapping? Are the BT Load and Save Terrain commands just around the corner?

Something for the future - how about a command that took the 2d x and y on screen (and camera ID) and calculated down the z# to give you the correct terrain and/or sector and or x#/z# posn in sector your x and y in 2D are hanging over - a bit like a pick limb command? - might be very useful for terrain deformations etc? other damn handy uses as well - appreciate it would involve other maths etc - as I say something for the future?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 6th Jul 2009 23:18
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Quote: "I'm assuming the reduction of polys per sector is another potential speed gain?"


Yes, it will make your sectors look like this:


The smaller quads being in the more higher detail areas. And this will still have the sector based LOD switching algorithm with it. Making this terrain engine run a hell of a lot faster!


Quote: "And I'm assuming the Streaming QMaps is terrain streaming of a sort?"


Yeah, I binned the old algorithm. The old algorithm used point lists. (an array with each point and their heights). The new algorithm uses Quad lists (list of where these 4 sided shapes I call quads but most people call tiles will go). The new algorithm loads a lot faster as it is all preprocessed data. No RAW stuff. So streaming wont create random jerks.


Quote: "Jumping up a few entries on this thread, have you pretty much sorted the quadmapping?"


Its all working, just need to make it fix LOD seams, add tile exclusion and rotation then its just as good as the current release, only faster.


Quote: "Are the BT Load and Save Terrain commands just around the corner?"


Yes they are! Just going to add the above features into the quadmapping first though.


Quote: "Something for the future - how about a command that took the 2d x and y on screen (and camera ID) and calculated down the z# to give you the correct terrain and/or sector and or x#/z# posn in sector your x and y in 2D are hanging over - a bit like a pick limb command? - might be very useful for terrain deformations etc? other damn handy uses as well - appreciate it would involve other maths etc - as I say something for the future?"


You can already do this by using pick screen with sparkys collision dll. Ill see what I can do for the future though, but with sparkys, its very straightforward. I used it in the editor demo.


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kaedroho
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Posted: 7th Jul 2009 19:57 Edited at: 7th Jul 2009 19:58
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I just got this new algorithm working. Started work on it this morning.

It reduces the amount of polys in areas that do not have much detail. For maximum gain in FPS with minimum visual impact

Its called Quad Reduction. Currently, it only supports reducing the quads down by 1 level. But this is just a test of an idea I had this morning of how to do this.


Screenshot:




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Airslide
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Posted: 7th Jul 2009 20:01
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So open, flat areas will have fewer polygons than mountains/hills?

Cool

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kaedroho
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Posted: 7th Jul 2009 20:46 Edited at: 7th Jul 2009 22:51
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Yep, this will bring a MASSIVE gain in FPS. I'll release a demo when I've finished it.

Well, all my tests seem to run flawlessly. So I'm now going to take this new algorithm to the next level! Hopefully it will be in the next release.

I've also came up with a solution for the pinholes which will hopefully work.


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AndrewT
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Posted: 8th Jul 2009 02:55
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This is truly impressive! Nice work.

i like orange
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kaedroho
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Posted: 9th Jul 2009 15:52
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Right, I'm adding 2 new commands:

BT SetTerrainQuadMapping terrain,enabled
BT SetTerrainQuadReduction terrain,enabled

You must have quadmapping enabled in order to use quad reduction!

Quad mapping is not finnished, there is still seams and pinholes to fix.

I'm going to focus my attention on the old heightmapping algorithm and try to fix those pinholes. I have an idea on how to do this. Once thats done, I'll make another release.


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Duffer
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Posted: 9th Jul 2009 22:14
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@ kaedroho,

Great... looking forward to next release - this is really coming together. It's clear it's going to be one the very top addons for DBPro...

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Duffer
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Posted: 10th Jul 2009 20:10
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@ kaedroho,

problem is we are kinda getting used to some major new enhancement to this plugin every day - spoilt is what we are...

how goes it?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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kaedroho
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Posted: 11th Jul 2009 18:53 Edited at: 11th Jul 2009 18:55
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Hey, sorry for a lack of posts.

I've recently been getting a few projects sorted out within Blitzwerks and learning some new tricks in DBPro. I now know matrix algebra, this will be useful for when I add spherical terrains, people will want to rotate them.

Ill be back to work later today.


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