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Regarding the Advanced Terrain as it was called in DBPro, I've never used it in my big project since there's no way to alter the lay of the land except by loading in a new heightmap. The old 'matrix' commands for terrain let you move around the verts of the terrain for morphing it on the fly, and for world builder type apps where you allow the user to raise and lower the landscape. But this feature is noticibly absent from the Advanced Terrain kit.

Is this ever going to be changed to allow morphing/editing of the terrain on the fly?

Thanks, and best regards,
-=VRMan=-

If it's a tool you're working on, you could just make a matrix that reflects the properties of a height map drawn, and then print out the height map as a bitmap based on vertex heights. Then load that height map into your actual game.

Tools don't have to be the real thing, after all, as long as they reflect what they do.

It's the same in games - they work more with illusions than facts.

Hi Entomophobiac,

Yes I realize there are several workarounds or ways to make this type of thing happen, but what I was asking was whether or not they ever plan on adding this functionality to the command set. It seems like they could easily add this, as well as other helpful commands. Thanks for the post though.

Hmmm,

I actually haven't been able to get the terrain commands to work at all with this version of the GDK (DarkGDK - Version 1.6.2c). The program compiles, and runs, but I get no visible terrain (although the program appears to think it's there since dbGetTerrainGroundHeight is moving me up and down).

I've tried several times in different projects, and once I copy pasted directly from the terrain example source. Still invisi-terrain. I'm even using the map.bmp, land01.jpg, and landdetail.jpg files from the example.

Is this known not to work? Or if it does work for you is there some 'trick' to it (as in is there some sort of file pathing issue or issue with image formats?)

Thanks for any help, this kind of thing is very frustrating for me when I just want to get on with a new idea.
-=VRMan=-

PS> and just to clarify, I am pasting my land and detail images to the bottom corner of the screen just to prove to myself they are loading (which they are) and yes I am calling dbSetupTerrain(); and dbUpdateTerrain(); in the main loop. Ive tried everything with no success so far. I can post the code if you want, but it's gonna basically be the same as the sample terrain demo.

Oi!!! What a waste of time!

I finally figured it out!


And it was something I never


ever


would have guessed....



What a pain!



C o m e o n g u y s !



Why do you do these sort of things and never document them??!?!?!?!?





Ridiculous!!!








Do you want to know why the 'sample' terrain works and YOUR PROGRAM DOESN'T work with the gdk terrain commands!?!?!?!















Probably because you do things in an organized way like I do and keep track of your objects with some sort of system.






Well I do and it's quite simple.
I have variables called:
int nextobjnum = 1;
int nextbmpnum = 1;
int nextsndnum = 1;
etc.
And when I want to load an object I say something like this:

int spaceship = nextobjnum;
nextobjnum++;
dbLoadObject("spaceship.x", spaceship);

Well this is all fine and dandy and works perfectly and helps you keep track of your objects.















Well....










With every 'subsystem' inside DBPro and DGDK such as images vs objects the numbers can be the same - meaning - you can have an object=1 and an image=1.













WHAT THEY FAILED TO MENTION ANYWHERE I'VE EVER SEEN (sorry for yelling but come on, this is such a waste of time for me and for COUNTLESS OTHERS it seems when I look through the forums) is that the so-called 'advanced terrain engine' uses up regular db 'object numbers!!!!!'


GRRR!



Why couldn't they just have dropped in a little tidbit of info in the help file somewhere saying something like:

'Hey guys, the reason we use 200 for the skybox in our terrain demo isn't just because we think 200 is a nice fancy looking number for a skybox, but it's because unbeknownst to you, object numbers 1-199 seem to have been taken up by the terrain.'




/calming down
/rant ending






Sorry I got a bit upset there, but it just seems like such a simple thing for them to 'mention' somewhere. Like I said, every other 'sub-system' of the DBPro and DGDK use their own numbering system. So you can and do have a matrix 1 and an image 1 and an object 1. Why does terrain have to be different and share objects, and why didn't they mention it??

I've been reading everywhere trying to figure out what was causing my issues with getting the terrain engine to work and keep running across similar posts from people saying things like 'hmm my skybox seems to blink in and out of existence'. Well this wasn't because of dbSetCameraRange issues as people suggested, it was because the poor guy used something like a 1 for his skybox object, and the terrain engine was clobbering it.

So to summarize: (lol)
-The terrain commands do indeed work in the GDK.
-...with one slight glitch: they use up an unknown number of 'objectIDs' without telling ya.
-The fix to your woes with terrain in GDK?
Make your handy 'nextobjnum' variable or your GetFreeObject() function start with a number that is at least 200!

Ok, I've wasted enough time on this. And so have many other people I'm SURE of it. (I've literally spent probably the last 4 hours solid trying to get it to work, and last week probably another 4 hours, when all they had to do was tell you that you shouldn't expect it to work like MakeMatrix(1

Grrnight

I could have told you that, but you never asked...

j/k

The best assumption for now then is to always assume that any addon plugin/extension that uses object geometry, will use the standard object IDs used by DBP or DGDK. My CSM importer uses normal DBP objects, hence why a CSM Initial Object function was added.

At anyrate, use dbObjectExist or OBJECT EXIST() before using the ID obtained via an incrementor.

Paul.

Hey VRman don't worry about apexNow, he seems to be a dink to everybody, and of course in his immaturity he completely misses your excellent point - you yourself and me, and even apex had to figure out that theGameCreators blew it with the terrain thing, and basically all their documentation is sub-par (are they just too busy trying to find new ways (products) to get more $$$money$$$ while they seem to leave their flagship products in a unprofessional state, seeminly unfinished and undocumented?). Granted you and I both know that there might be some advantage (I heard you say it before vr, did you forget about that?) to using up an object id since you can then muck with the terrain a little more. But why not document it at all?!?
If they had bothered to actually just tell you in the stupid help file (or anywhere, even a comment in the sample would have been something) then we all wouldn't have to waste valuable time trying to read their minds when they decide to break their own traditional coding style which has always been each engine or subsystem I think you call it which is a good way of saying it has its own id system. It makes no sense, and any other half-respectful company wouldn't do that, both in the coding style (ids for terrain clashing with regular objects) and their documentation that hasn't been touched in like 4 years?!?!?
I'm mostly fed up with it, and think I might try to learn Ogre. Even PureBasic, an excellent, fast language has good documentation for every single function with examples for each function right there in the smartHelp so you don't have to waste time trying to find some example on the web in some forum lurking with a couple annoying little stuck-on-himself-in-love-with-himselves, where it works until you stick it into your own code and it doesn't work for some mysterious reason (like the ids ha).
People (?) like apexNow think they are hot-sh** because they waste their time first and figure crap out, but in reality they are just feeding a bad image to a good company like game creators by catering to the crap dox which encourages them not to bother polishing their product since someone seemed to get it to work. bah.
What a waste of time even writing this post was, I would hope this sort of discussion would be obvious to anyone running a business (but doesn't seem to be to theGameCreators). They are wasting money now on support by not spending a little now to polish everything up....... duh.

Apex/Paul go find someone to give you a hug instead of being an immature #$*&^ to smart people all over this forum.

Whoah that's kinda flamey for me, but hey he deserves some of his own medicine and I like your screensavers vrman and I even bought your fishtank and tideforces (the bomb) like way back in the 90's and still show it to my friends.

Keep it up!!
-Dan LeBaron

Wow, what a post ... and it's your very first one too! All because you don't seem to know that 'j/k' means joke.

Now read ApexNow's post again, and see how it all makes sense.

Oh, and terrain objects just use up a single ID, so that removes the 'unknown number' part of the problem too

@aicoder, Thou blesrubbering rough-hewn mouthed vacuous moldwarp!

j/k = Just kidding

Seriously though...



I'm sure my wife would probably disagree with you on that point. Anyway, moving on....

Paul.

Oh dont worry, reading it was even more of a waste of time. I'd have to say go and sit down and have a coffee while you think of what you just said.
Then, when your brain finally kicks in after the caffeine comes into effect, consider this: Apex is one of the most mature members on this forum, period. He made a joke and so is acting the pr*ck?
You need serious help buddy...

aicoder, as IanM and Kentaree have so eloquently pointed out, you are soooooooooo way off about Apexnow that it doesnt even require an explanation. Anyone on this forum for any period of time knows that Apex is one of the most helpful and talented coders here, and a damn nice guy at that! You should spend some time looking thru the entire forum and see how much he has contributed to this community. Its guys like him that make this place thrive. It's trolls like you, who don't know jack sh*t, who don't do anything for anyone.

I think you need to first, educate yourself on the topic before speaking, and secondly, after realizing how wrong you really are, offer a sincere apology. Or please find another language to use, like you said, and make like a tree, and leave.

Uh hi,

Yeah although it's true that Apex has kinda treated me with an attitude in his responses several times on this forum your post was kind of over the top Aicoder and he did say just kidding. And I can take it =). Thanks for the support I guess hehheh.

I was upset at the time when I wrote my 'long' post above and it's just because I feel it's stupid that they don't document things and waste my time (to the point of nearly giving up on it sometimes, but DBPro and gdk is just too convienient for prototyping, so here I still am=). But nobody is a 'pri**' as you say, and yelling at people won't help anything man.

So basically in a nutshell, while I welcome your support by buying my products (thanks) I don't really want to be associated with someone who is bashing people here.

-VRMan

VRMan3D,

I'm in total agreement, and of course, it was just a mere pun of humour on my part . I've never tried to belittle or insult people on this forum, as it's an important porthole of information and solutions, hence the specific j/k reference on my initial post.

I will always attempt to assist and even solve any problems that may be workable to a point, so hopefully, any matters with him or yourself are now in the past.

Anyway, hope the overall effort wasn't wasted on time, and that you did eventually resolve the initial problem

Paul.