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3 Dimensional Chat / T.ed and .dbo export question

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action 9000
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Joined: 27th May 2008
Location: Alberta, Canada
Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 21:09
Hi,

I just had a question about the Vertex Alpha export option for .dbo files in T.ED.

When I select Vertex Alpha as my choice when exporting a map called, say, map1.ted, the export process gives me two files:

map1a.dbo
map1b.dbo

Loading map1a into my game gives me the proper collision for the terrain, except the terrain is completely invisible/seethrough.

Loading map1b into my game also has proper collision but contains only the bottom texture layer and none of my other texturing.

Does anyone have any idea with this a/b thing is about or why my texture layers aren't appearing?

I'm having a completely different set of problems with .x format (it works but I can't seem to blur the seams between textures at all, which is causing a lot of ugly, ugly effects and making it impossible to decorate the landscape) so I'm hoping for an alternative somewhere. So far, the .dbo export seems even more useless.

Can anyone clear this up a little?

Thanks!
PAGAN_old
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Posted: 29th Nov 2009 11:05 Edited at: 29th Nov 2009 11:09
i had this problem for a while, it droveme crazy. then i picked up dbp yesturday and gave it another shot with a new project.

i covered the entire map with texture (left no spot with default textures) and exported it as .dbo with vertex alpha, i also had export the terrain as a set of blocks turned on (even tho i only had one block).

In Dark basic, i loaded the map1a.dbo and to my surprise, the ground was there and properly textured


uploaded a screen as proof

try it and tell me if this works for you, i am curious about my discovery

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 30th Nov 2009 16:51 Edited at: 30th Nov 2009 16:56
Ok i have been playing with T.ED all night yesturday and figured out some stuff.

Just like before, load the .a files only (make sure you fully paint them, dont leave any default textures). But if you notice, that when its loaded, its completley faded and kida transparent to the backdrop. There are 2 things you can do here that can help.

One, Cnange your bacdrop color to black, that way the faded parts dont look as bad. Another thing that greatly improves and almost gets rid of faded parts is upping the vertex alpha ramp in T.ED. When you are done painting your terrain,, just cluck tools ant at the bottom, keep adding the vertex aplpha ramp (it will make your texstures look sharper and better) untill you dont notice any more improvement, and then export it with vertex alpha, you still might notice that some spots where different textures merge might be a little faded, but with black backdrop (instead of the default blue) it will be practically unnoticable.

I uploaded another screenshot after i maxed the vertex alpha ramp, notice my previous screenshot has strange black spots that look out of place? they are not shadows, they are faded out spots that appear there before you max out the vertex alpha ramp.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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action 9000
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Posted: 30th Nov 2009 23:18
Very interesting, I shall try this when I have time!

Thanks for the feedback!
PAGAN_old
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Posted: 1st Dec 2009 14:06 Edited at: 1st Dec 2009 14:08
this works good with .58 version of db, but later versions dont render the texture blending and you get empety spots in those places, Yoo have to somehow enable the texture blending which i have not figured out yet.

However, there is function somewhere around here that fixes that problem. Ilwill paste the code but i do not take any credit for for it. It works by first exporting the terrain from T.ED as a .x file w vertex alpha, then you load into dbp, run the function and it saves both layers seperateley as.dbo files. and this time if you load the .dbo file the blending textures show up with no problem. Personally i just forget the base layer and do load the detal layer the way i explaned above.



dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
action 9000
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2009 16:12 Edited at: 2nd Dec 2009 16:15
Aye, I have the same problem with the latest version of Dark GDK that you mentioned.

This function is just what the doctor ordered though, I can't thank you and the creator enough for this!

I'll play around with this, it sounds perfect!
action 9000
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2009 18:10 Edited at: 2nd Dec 2009 18:23
Hmm okay, I was playing with this and first things first, I'll post the translated code for C++ and my game.

It will be a bit different because I'm looping through an 8x8 grid of terrains with the names
gv1(#,#)

mapName is a string that contains the filename of the map we're working with at the moment.




I'd like to say it kind of works, but whether I load the Base terrains or the Texture layer terrains, I still end up with only the bottom gray stone layer instead of my grass. It might be working *slightly* because my stone has a slightly greeny colour (as can be proved in an in image editor), however it's like the grass layer is about 1% opacity, despite it being maxed out for alpha in T.ED when I exported the .x vertex alpha files.

Seems I'm still having quite a few issues here. It seems to *Work* but it's still not getting what I need, for completely unknown reasons.
PAGAN_old
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Posted: 4th Dec 2009 18:16
the way you describe it sounds like you are loading the base layer because it is very similar to what i used to get before i figured this out. have you tried loading just the texture layer without any base layer?

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
action 9000
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Posted: 4th Dec 2009 21:01
I've tried loading both, just the Base layer and just the Texture layer. The result is the exact same every time.
PAGAN_old
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Posted: 5th Dec 2009 02:32
so there is no difference between the 2 that you can see?

can you provide me with a small sample of your terrain so i can try to load it?

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
action 9000
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Posted: 5th Dec 2009 20:08
Sure thing. Here is one of the 64 pieces that make up my terrain, X format freshly exported from T.ED following the plan (maxed out V Alpha .x export).

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 6th Dec 2009 10:25
the file loads but i cant see it anywhere in the dbp universe for some reason.

i loaded it up in the modeler tho, havent looked at it closeley tho, but while i am at it, here is the code i use to convert my .x files to base and overlay. just paste it into a new dbp file and change my directories to some that contains your terrain, you should see immediate results with this. the terrain should have some color in it, green or whatever you painted it as.

if its the same as the code you are using, try it anyway in a new dbp file as sometimes these things dont work with your code but work on a new template so when i run into that problem, i load the code i want to work on a new template and rebuild my project around it, but thats just something i do lol



dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
action 9000
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Posted: 6th Dec 2009 18:34
I don't have DBP so I'll translate it to DarkGDK first.

I tried making it a separate application before but that ran into its own problems because of my 8x8 grid of maps. I guess I'll just do best convering them one at a time but the time that will take when I get a few terrains...ugh

Thanks for the help, I'll play with it when I get a chance.
PAGAN_old
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Posted: 6th Dec 2009 19:01
oh, its pretty much the same code as what i gave you before, i just forgot that i gave it to you. Well, looked at the terrain through the modeler, it looks like all the layers have the same texture applied to them.

Another thing that can help you is exporting it with the same settings as me, because i think you are exporting it wrong. see the image attached.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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action 9000
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Posted: 8th Dec 2009 23:19 Edited at: 8th Dec 2009 23:21
I've always been curious what "Base Up X Order" did but it is possible I had that turned off in my export.

Do you know what Base Up X Order or the Offset options do?

I shall confirm I have it set properly and will try again.

Will post the results soon. Thanks!
action 9000
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Posted: 8th Dec 2009 23:46 Edited at: 9th Dec 2009 00:02
Okay, I did just get it working. The problem was actually in my translation from dbBasic code to DarkGDK.

I went over it and changed a line..and saw the resulting program work beautifully.

Thanks a ton for all the help, You don't know how valuable this is!

Do you know the name of the author of that code snippet? I would love to add both you and that author into my game credits. This makes an absolutely MASSIVE difference in the visual quality of my game and once again, I can't thank you both enough!!
PAGAN_old
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Posted: 9th Dec 2009 10:39 Edited at: 9th Dec 2009 10:41
thanks!

you are proboly the only person on the forums who have spent as much time trying to figure it out as i did, i was at this for months only figured it out recently, but glad i could help

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=94380&b=1
this is the autor of the function as far as i know

i would add the entire list of everyone on the forums to my credits.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them

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