I'm in the planning stages of a new project: a golf simulation. I've been doing a lot of research on the net about different techniques I could use for creating the terrain. I've settled on the "method" I would like to use in the editor for defining everything from fairways and greens to wooded areas and landscaping, which is to use spline curves. Another golf game does this, CustomPlay Golf and I think the idea is novel. I've had some experience creating courses using traditional modeling techniques in 3ds max, and the ease of using a heightmap+splines would be infinitely better.
My question to anyone who might have some insight is this: do you see any pitfalls or potential problems with using a traditional heightmap brute force terrain, that is then split using splines for defining the different textured areas? ie, the fairway are would be given a different texture than the rough. Now before you ask, "well why don't you just blend textures on the terrain," I know that would be easier, but it doesn't look realistic. Real courses have fairly defined separations between surface types, and you've have to use a really high-res texture to look decent. Also, I want to be able to easily make arbitrarily shaped depressions (bunkers). Using splines seems like the perfect fit for this.
It anyone has any experience with something similar, or wisdom on the subject, I'd really appreciate it.
Advice Needed for Golf Simulation Terrain
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- OGRE Retired Moderator
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Re: Advice Needed for Golf Simulation Terrain
Sounds interesting. 
Edit: Man, CustomPlay Golf looks sweet.
Edit edit: And then he saw the trailer!
That editor is impressive.

By brute force, do you mean no LOD on the terrain? If you are going to have different levels of detail on the terrain I think it'll get a bit more complicated splitting/connecting the geometry. You can get away without LOD for smaller terrains but golf courses tend to be large, so its probably best to use some kind of LOD, I think. I'm no expert here, and it also depends on the system requirements of course.Mix wrote:do you see any pitfalls or potential problems with using a traditional heightmap brute force terrain, that is then split using splines for defining the different textured areas?
Edit: Man, CustomPlay Golf looks sweet.
Edit edit: And then he saw the trailer!

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- Gnoblar
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- OGRE Retired Moderator
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Ah ok, then it should be quite doable.Mix wrote:I've been thinking of being able to define 'hole areas', which would encompass one hole. They would in turn be used for some LOD, since you only need to have high detail on the current hole.

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- Halfling
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I've seen references to this idea before, and am confused how you'd actually do it. I haven't seen anything in the docs/apis of the scene managers which allow you to define a hole where the heightmap isn't filled in. Can anyone give me the words-of-one-syllable explanation?Mix wrote:I've been thinking of being able to define 'hole areas', which would encompass one hole.

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- OGRE Retired Moderator
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@Baldrake: I think you are talking about something different. When Mix refers to 'hole areas', I think he means a larger area of the map which contains one hole on the golf course, not small holes in the terrain. The latter would require a modification of the TSM, please start another thread if you want to discuss that. 
I don't know Mix' plans, but I don't think the terrain scene managers would fit this task because they're specifically targeted heightmaps, which this isn't really once it has been splitted up. Maybe using the OctreeSceneManager with fitting geometry chunks would be a better bet?

I don't know Mix' plans, but I don't think the terrain scene managers would fit this task because they're specifically targeted heightmaps, which this isn't really once it has been splitted up. Maybe using the OctreeSceneManager with fitting geometry chunks would be a better bet?
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- Gnoblar
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