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Work in Progress / BlitzTerrain

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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 18:03
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Hopefully, In a month or so. I still have a lot of features to do. But none of them are very big so it shouldn't be too difficult to add them back in. There's now over 40 commands and I still have a lot more planned. I think there will be about 60 when the whole thing is done.

BlitzTerrain - FREE LOD Terrain plugin for DBPro
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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 21:29
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BT Update is officially gone!!

Its been split up into the following commands.

BT SetCurrentCamera CameraID
BT UpdateTerrainCull TerrainID
BT UpdateTerrainLOD TerrainID
BT RenderTerrain TerrainID


This allows you to optimise your code for multiple terrains and cameras to make it very fast.

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KISTech
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 21:43
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So now on to streaming terrain??

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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 21:45 Edited at: 3rd Dec 2009 21:46
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Still a few more basic features to go. I'm coding the above functions. Which is nearly done. I need to do the following things:

LOD Seam Fix
Environment mapping
Loading Commands
RTMS

Then I will start on additional functions. I just want to get what was in 1.05 + loading out atm. I will work on additional functions after the release of BlitzTerrain 1.06 which shouldnt be long.

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KISTech
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 21:51
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So how hard is it going to be to create terrains? Will there be an editor for manipulating the landscape and texturing the ground that will allow saving the newly customized terrain?

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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 22:16
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I might make a sample editor, but I'm hoping that people will use the RTTMS commands to make their own. They're faster than anything which can be coded in native DBPro. I made the commands so people can fast terrain editors.

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KISTech
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 22:27
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Ah, I see. Very cool indeed.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2009 22:39
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Ok, LOD seam fixing now. I will have to reorder the vertices inside the vertex buffer first. So I have the vertices around the edge of the sector first in the buffer and all the rest at the end. This is so I don't have to lock the whole vertex buffer when editing just the edges.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Dec 2009 11:19 Edited at: 4th Dec 2009 11:20
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I'll do Environment mapping later today. I havnt finnished LOD fixing. But Environment mapping took no more than an hour to do last time, so i'll quickly add that back in. I will add Loading and saving commands in after environment mapping. Then send it off for early beta testing. A public beta will be made available soon after.

The full version should be ready about 3 months after the free version. I still need to discuss with the team which features will be in which version. I want the free version to be faster than Advanced terrain and have more features, but still allow the full version to have enough features to make it worth buying.

What i have in mind right now is a free version which has faster rendering than advanced terrain and basic RTTMS commands. The full version has more advanced RTTMS commands + streaming and a few extra features thrown in. I will also make a shader for Blitzterrain to give it features such as multidetailmapping, and normal mapping (to bring back the detail lost from lowing LOD levels). My multidetailmapping idea will support up to 31 detail maps.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 4th Dec 2009 16:04
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The Weekend has Begun. And the first weekend in weeks which I haven't got anything planned except for sitting infront of my PC coding solidly until monday.

Which means that I should get alot done. I'm hoping to get a closed beta out after this weekend and an open beta a few days after.

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BMacZero
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Posted: 4th Dec 2009 16:11
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/happydance

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Balid
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Posted: 5th Dec 2009 21:24
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Quote: "sitting infront of my PC coding solidly until monday"


Now that's what I call a good weekend.


Coming soon: Indigo a DBPro IDE alternative
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KISTech
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Posted: 6th Dec 2009 00:39
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Wish I could still get away with that..

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Lost in Thought
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Posted: 7th Dec 2009 09:06
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Great job man. Congrats, this is coming along nicely!

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kaedroho
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Posted: 9th Dec 2009 13:26
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Thanks for all the comments

Ive nearly done the new LOD seam fixing code. It just has a few problems, but ill hopefully get them sorted by the end of the week.

I've done a bit of RAM optimisation. Now instead of storing floating points for each vertices position. They have now been replaced with 2 Bytes with the row and collumn of each vertex. 4x the RAM improvement and a tiny increase in the time it takes to generate the mesh. But its worth it.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 10th Dec 2009 19:38 Edited at: 11th Dec 2009 10:33
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Ok, LOD seam fixing is so close to being finished. But it works on some edges but not on others. I've attached a screenshot of an edge that has actually worked. The new Blitzterrain render commands allow me to get right up close to a seam without it moving away.

There is obviously a very small bug somewhere. I shall keep debugging until I find it. Once I've done that then I just have a few more features to add then a full test can be done. I'll make sure that there are as little as possible bugs in the final release. But as BlitzTerrain is by far the most complicated project I've ever made, there will be bugs.

EDIT: forgot to attach screenshot. lol.

EDIT: Giving it some thought overnight, and in maths class (got a bit bored) I think the cause of it is the LOD map. Basically, because BT uses QSP, its really difficult to find out what the LOD levels of the neighbours are. So I made a LOD Map which is a simple grid of values saying the current LOD Level of each part of the terrain, then the system can simply just fix the LOD levels.

BlitzTerrain - FREE LOD Terrain plugin for DBPro

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kaedroho
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Posted: 11th Dec 2009 11:39
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The RTMS commands will be started soon, does anyone have any suggestions/feature requests?

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Duffer
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Posted: 11th Dec 2009 14:28
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paint commands per vertex? on the x,z?

brush commands as already envisaged?

single command to paint according to height?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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BMacZero
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Posted: 11th Dec 2009 15:22
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All I need is a command that sets the height of a particular vertice, and a command that reads the height of a particular vertice. With those two, everything else can be easily worked out in DB, though perhaps more advanced features like brushes could be added later.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 11th Dec 2009 16:56 Edited at: 11th Dec 2009 16:58
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Quote: "All I need is a command that sets the height of a particular vertex"


That would take no longer than 2 secconds to make! Litterally!


Quote: "paint commands per vertex? on the x,z?"


This is also possible using memblock images(in BT 1.05 you need to set texturemode to 1), when you altar the image it will automatically update in BlitzTerrain too I will get to work on some commands that can do it faster than memblock images though.


Quote: "brush commands as already envisaged?"


Any particular brushes you want made?


Quote: "With those two, everything else can be easily worked out in DB"


When looping through large areas of vertices, its better to use C++. As it is lower level it is easier to optimise the code.



I will do the RTMS commands in 2 steps then.

1. Set point height
Paint point

2. Brushes for painting and sculpting
Function to create a texture depending on height/steepness of terrain.

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KISTech
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Posted: 11th Dec 2009 19:08 Edited at: 11th Dec 2009 19:09
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So when you say "brushes" are you talking about the ability to basically "paint" a texture on a surface? (alpha blending I'm assuming.), and the ability to use the brush to modify the height? That's the main features I'm after in creation tools.



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kaedroho
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Posted: 12th Dec 2009 18:30 Edited at: 12th Dec 2009 19:05
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YABBA DABBA DOOOO!!!

LOD is officially, DONE!!!!

The hardest part is over, Everything else should be easy now.


Edit: just started on a blitzterrain page. http://technology.blitzwerks.co.uk/BlitzTerrain/

It isn't very good atm, as I made it in notepad. Hopefully, soon I could get someone to make a proper website. It just has a few useful links.

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BMacZero
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Posted: 12th Dec 2009 19:11
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Cheers

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Hassan
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Posted: 12th Dec 2009 20:54 Edited at: 12th Dec 2009 20:55
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Quote: "Everything else should be easy now."

oh well..

anyways, gz on finishing it, looks amazing =D

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kaedroho
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Posted: 13th Dec 2009 01:29
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New demo been released!
http://www.devstorm.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=109

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KISTech
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Posted: 13th Dec 2009 19:53
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I don't know what to say. There are no words.

Spectacular doesn't seem to cover it. As you said, the terrain is massive.

Running at 1920x1200 my FPS never dropped below 240.
At 1024x768 it never dipped below 320.

Fantastic work.

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BMacZero
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Posted: 13th Dec 2009 21:59
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Omg-omg-omg, I cannot wait to mess around with THIS.

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Zipir
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Posted: 13th Dec 2009 23:47
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when its done will be ultra finish impresive job
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kaedroho
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Posted: 14th Dec 2009 11:37
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KISTech, BMacZero and Zipir, Thanks

Just found an article on the front page of blitzwerks!

http://www.blitzwerks.co.uk/?p=88

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 14th Dec 2009 21:00 Edited at: 14th Dec 2009 21:03
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Yeah, you need to mail me an updated changelog :S

On a side note, what do people think of the site? It should be fully functional now.

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Airslide
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Posted: 15th Dec 2009 06:01 Edited at: 15th Dec 2009 06:01
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Amazing!

This is definitely on my must-buy list.

If (after you finish this, of course) you were to create a good foliage plugin, we'd have a complete out-door environment solution available to us

But that aside, this looks pretty incredible. Out of curiosity, I'd love to see a direct comparison with Advanced Terrain. I know it won't hold a candle to this but I'd like to see just how massive an improvement it is.

Oh, and nice loading bar

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trogdor
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Posted: 15th Dec 2009 09:03
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Looks great, and runs fast.
I'm buying this when ready.

Is there a way to have a day/night cycle affect the terrain colors and or shadow casting?

I would like to use dark clouds day/night cycle with it if possible.

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.
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Xenocythe
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Posted: 16th Dec 2009 02:56
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The new demo is brilliant.

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N3wton
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Posted: 16th Dec 2009 03:06
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kaedroho I've been meaning to post for awhile now

So, here's my problem I'm trying to use evolveds terrain shader with blitzterrain. Basically I have it working apart from one part, the detail (colour) map. It tells the terrain where abouts to position the textures and blend them ect...

What I do is I use some code i've written to convert the hightmap used to a color map, then in Advanced Terrain I apply it to the object. The problem with blitzterrain is that each terrain is made up of multiple objects.

So I figured I have two options (unless you can sujjest a better way) I either use my current way then split up the image and apply each sector with a sector of my image. OR I write a new algorithm which gets the height of each tile of the sector and converts that to a color map and applies that...

So, I'm open to suggestions

Yours
N3wton

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kaedroho
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Posted: 16th Dec 2009 11:05
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Try using this command before Build terrain.

BT SetTextureMode TerrainID,1

By default, blitzterrain 1.05 applies textures with vertex colour. If you use this command it will blend both textures onto the terrain just like advanced terrain does.

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KISTech
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Posted: 18th Dec 2009 17:40
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It's been quiet.

Must be getting closer to the holidays.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 18th Dec 2009 21:34
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It's the holidays now YAY!!!

Recently, I have been switching the websites server. Now were on a proper paid web host and its a bit faster too.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 18th Dec 2009 23:04
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The help files should be here now (if they're not, wait a day or 2):
http://bt.blitzwerks.co.uk/Help/

http://bt.blitzwerks.co.uk/ will be the BlitzTerrain website.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 19th Dec 2009 15:39
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As the new version is very different to any of the old versions, I have decided to change the version from 1.06 straight up to 2.00.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 19th Dec 2009 22:01
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Just finished the website. I still need to put a logo on there, but what do you guys think?

http://bt.blitzwerks.co.uk/

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Hassan
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Posted: 20th Dec 2009 13:16
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its pretty good, no much colors, like the gray style =D

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Zipir
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Posted: 21st Dec 2009 17:11
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<<kaedroho>> how is going your works?
when will be
blitz terrain 1.06

im waiting you for Alien vs Preadator (ARCADE GAME)
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The Wilderbeast
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The main website@ blitzwerks.co.uk is also completely finished and I would appreciate any comments on the design etc.


Blitzwerks | Indie Development Team
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Azunaki
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Posted: 23rd Dec 2009 10:53
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both sites look very good.

[url]http://myportfolio.x10hosting.com/[url]
visit my site.(still in progress)
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kaedroho
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Posted: 28th Dec 2009 20:23 Edited at: 28th Dec 2009 20:25
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Just been doing some testing.

I made 2 demos. Both the same resolution, same terrain, same detail, same settings. Only difference was is one demo used BlitzTerrain 1.05 and the other used BlitzTerrain 2.00. Heres the results:

BlitzTerrain 1.05
FPS: 500 - 600

BlitzTerrain 2.00
FPS: 800 - 1100

I will do the same with advanced terrain and upload all the demos for you to see.

For you guys who don't already know, BlitzTerrain 1.06 has been put right up to 2.00 as its a completely different from 1.05.

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KISTech
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 02:19 Edited at: 29th Dec 2009 02:21
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Nice, very nice.

(silently chewing on the arm of my chair waiting for the release of this and XenoPhysics...)

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jeffhuys
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 11:59
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Awesome man!

Quote: "(silently chewing on the arm of my chair waiting for the release of this and XenoPhysics...)
"

Oh man, I know what you mean. BlitzTerrain + XenoPhysics + Dark Basic Professional = Pure win.

You're the 'th to view this signature!
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Melancholic
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 12:21
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Quote: "Oh man, I know what you mean. BlitzTerrain + XenoPhysics + Dark Basic Professional = Pure win."


Completly agree
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kaedroho
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Posted: 29th Dec 2009 16:58 Edited at: 29th Dec 2009 16:59
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Thanks

Just hit 4000 lines and 50 functions today!

I am currently working on the RTTMS.

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kaedroho
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Posted: 31st Dec 2009 19:12
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Just added a new function.

BT SetTerrainExclusionThreshold TerrainID,threshold

I just thought, that instead of you guys having to generate an exclusion map for water. You instead could set the heightmap as the exclusionmap and set the level which you want to exclude. so you can exclude quads under water without having to make an exclusion map!!

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