tips for outdoor scene creation?

[kneeride]

ok, i've have an ogre app compiled with all the demo material (ie tutorial terrain and robots). i now want to now create something unique (what i have is hardly something to showecase ). so i was wondering if you guys could give me some tips (i am terrible at design/modelling). i would like to do the following:

create the terrain:
- scene is outdoor
- create a small terrain
- (i dont need terrain paging)
- heightmap would be fine
- apply a texture to each square in the terrain

add objects to the terrain
- trees
- buildings
- (it's for a medieval scene)

any suggestions?

- any good terrain editors? im not sure which one to use. it does not need to be too detailed (ie some of the ones in the 'require a toolset page' seem to create landscapes too realistic for my needs)

- is PGLM-MapEditor any good?

- is there any place i can get free buidlings and trees. last time i checked www.ogrerepository.org it didnt seem to have too much stuff

- if i need to build objects myself, i plan on using blender. would it be worth using sketchup for buidlings/castles?

- how do i put the static objects on the terrain. ie do i need a scene manager tool/app for this?

- how do i load static objects in ogre (ie trees/houses)? i guess i dont want them loaded as movable objects. not sure if i can load in the terrain.

i wish to achieve something like this:
http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?set_alb ... _photo.php

thanks for your time.

[Kojack]

I was looking the other day for terrain editors. The 2 best ones I found were:
Freeworld 3d
PNP Terrain Creator

Both are pretty good.

Freeworld 3D
+ Ogre support (import ogre meshes as objects, export dotScene).
+ Very nice camera control.
+ Very cool road support.
- Trial version has no export ability, so you have to buy the program without any idea what the exported terrain is like.
- The license is locked to a specific pc (hardware config based). Some people on the forum said that even unplugging a usb bluetooth adapter caused the program to stop loading because the license didn't match the computer anymore.

Terrain Creator
+ Ogre support (import ogre meshes as objects, export terrain sectors to ogre meshes).
+ Free version has full export ability.
+ C++ api for plugins.
+ A pro version with multi user networked terrain editing is due this year.
+ Environmental sound support.
- Free version is limited to terrains of 3072x3072 vertices and certain limits on the number of objects placed in each sector.
- Camera isn't as nice. It's a terrain walking camera (not a free flight one like freeworld3d).
- Free version watermarks exported meshes and heightmaps with a logo in the middle of the map.

My students were going to buy Freeworld 3D (they really liked how easy it was to use) for a project, but the fact that the editor locks to a specific computer makes it unacceptable. When working on projects they aren't always on the same computers, and the artist couldn't work at home and at college.

(Edit: Ok, I guess the commercial versions of Terrain Creator are useless for student use too, since the license is locked to the mac address of the computer).

[kneeride]

thanks Kojak. that info is very helpful. im am downloading terrain creator. i'm hoping that it has sample trees and textures so i can start building.

i'm not sure about paying for a terrain editor though. i'd rather pay for a real application (like a 3d engine )

Kojak, if you're looking at these products, does that mean there is a whole in the open source/free community for terrain/scene editors? i would be happy to build one myslef, however i would have thought these products were a dime a dozen.

yes terrain creator is free, however im gonna have to pay to get that damn watermark removed...

[Kojack]

Another good looking one is Leveller

It seems pretty powerful, and has some cool features like photoshop style selections (magic wand, rectangular, etc. Editing is restricted to selected region) and rubber stamps.

The demo can export terrain heightmaps, but you can't save the scene.
There's no object (trees, etc) support that I can see, just terrain editing. The full version is $149us.

The interesting thing about Leveller is that Daylon Graphics (the creators) want to make the project open source. 25% of all sales go towards an open source fund. Once the fund hits $200000us, they will release Leveller's source under a license like bsd or similar. If the target isn't reached, they won't release the source.

So far the fund is $3220.65. I'm not going to hold my breath.


I have an urge to write my own terrain editor. But I'm more interested in spherical terrains rather than rectangular ones.

[kneeride]

thanks kojak, these are exactly the product reviews i'm after
the only problem is i'm looking for free level editor tools. i'm from AUST and believe $300 AUST is too pricey.

i'm actually suprised you are looking at these products when you use a free 3d engine (ie ogre). as i said earlier i'd rather throw $$ at ogre or modellers.

and besides, there must be many free level editors that have good functionality...and probably 100s uncompleted :S

[jacmoe]

My students were going to buy Freeworld 3D (they really liked how easy it was to use) for a project, but the fact that the editor locks to a specific computer makes it unacceptable. When working on projects they aren't always on the same computers, and the artist couldn't work at home and at college.

How about contacting soconne (the author of FreeWorld 3D) and ask about a student license (transferable between two machines) ?
Or tied to a specific network?

[Kojack]

i'm actually suprised you are looking at these products when you use a free 3d engine (ie ogre).

Well, I've only spent about 2 hours looking for and testing editors (plus doing other stuff while waiting for downloads), and it's not even for me directly. I didn't find a single free one which was even close to usable.

Then again, they all beat the Morrowind / Oblivion editor, that thing is just painful.

[crispi]

Hi!

When I was looking for Terrain Editor myself a couple of weeks ago, I found the L3DT editor which worked quite fine for me. Basically, you can use it for generating all kinds of maps (texture map, heightmap, lightmap, normal map, etc.), I am not sure if it can export to any useful formats.

However, it suited my needs very well. Especially if you are working on a tilebased game, the creation of a map is quite fast. Instead of editing the terrain with phtotshop-like tools, you can just assigne certain attributes (like height, erosion and terrain type) to every tile. After some number crunching, the editor just pops out a nice terrain, which looks good in most cases.

Although I think this editor might not be sophisticated enough for your needs (doesn't support trees, buildings, etc. ), you might give it a try. There's also a free license available.