ArtifexTerra Terrain Editor [1.2 Beta Release 10.3.14 Pg.16]

[Nauk]

Closing in on release candidate of the new Ogre::Terrain loader, I ended up having to convert a lot more than originally anticipated, but now it works , just some polishing and code cleaning work left now. First version will be basic like the old one, without paged grass. The grass loader is in the works and will come as a separate release like previously said.

[drwbns]

Any plans on integrating the new VolumeTerrain component?

[amigoface]

very nice !

any plan to integrate the terrain paging fonctionnality into the editor ?

[Nauk]

@drwbns: I definately would like that, I am following the development on and off losely, but I have no clue yet how far editing functionality goes. We shall see

@amigoface: thank you and yap, paging is coming, I started working on Artifex Terra 2 a couple of weeks ago, testing tech etc, paging and native Ogre::Terrain support are 2 of the main topics, along with a GUI revamp to QT. Additionally I started working on an alternative terrain system for larger terrains, but more about that when I have something to show

[Zonder]

@drwbns: I definately would like that, I am following the development on and off losely, but I have no clue yet how far editing functionality goes. We shall see

Editing wasn't in scope for the gsoc I know he is continuing its development though for his thesis editing might be on his agenda

[Nauk]

@drwbns: I definately would like that, I am following the development on and off losely, but I have no clue yet how far editing functionality goes. We shall see

Editing wasn't in scope for the gsoc I know he is continuing its development though for his thesis editing might be on his agenda

That would be great It is not a trivial topic I can imagine. Anyway I am not in a hurry, since I have a full plate with my current todo list for Artifex.

[Zonder]

You could just get it so it supports rendering with it. And add editing later but sorta defeats the object

[Nauk]

You could just get it so it supports rendering with it. And add editing later but sorta defeats the object

Not really, it more or less is "only" a matter of hooking in an existing 3D editing API, don't have to reinvent the wheel for that Though right now I have next to no clue about voxels. I downloaded the code a couple of weeks ago but I didn't have time to look at it yet.

[Nauk]

Unlike said before I redecided to finish the grass loading first before I release the new Ogre::Terrain loader. So here is a new shot of the new loader, now with PagedGeometry 1.1.4 grass loader, releasing the code some when tonight or tomorrow. I still need to do a little bit more testing and implement some minor things, like unloading Ogre::Terrain, loading of converted blendmaps instead of reconverting them every time new (although the conversion is pretty speedy), adding VC9 Projects (right now I am working with VC8), that is more or less it

[duststorm]

That's a really nice screenshot!
One thing I like less about the PG grass, though, is that they are lit based on light direction. It makes it really obvious that grass are simple planes because each grass plane is lit evenly, while different grass objects have varying brightness.

I've been modding the shaders of PG's (tree) impostors to make them work with changing lighting conditions, and used a simplified lighting equation in which I add the ambient term and a fixed scalar of the diffuse component of the light, without accounting for incoming light direction.
It's not perfect, but at least it doesn't exhibit strange changing lighting (with impostors this is even more problematic as they continually turn to face the viewer).
I've not used grass in any of my applications, though.

[Nauk]

@Duststorm: Thank you Happy you like it. You are totally right about the grass lighting. I would be interested in your shader modification if you want to share it

And here is the new Ogre::Terrain loader, still WIP and beta, but working. I am not really happy with the terrain lighting yet and currently working on improving it - anyway it got to do it for now:

Download:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/artifex ... p/download

Repository can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/artifexterra3d/

Critique and improvements are most welcome

[duststorm]

I would be interested in your shader modification if you want to share it

Sure, I have no problems sharing it. (I would have done it at some time anyway)
Note that I only modified the shaders for tree impostors, I haven't looked at grass yet.

What I did was modify the PG code that generates the shader a bit (for impostors it's in the BatchPage.cpp file). You basically add "ambient_light_colour" and "light_diffuse_colour" auto params to your shader input. Then add these terms to the output color. This is for the impostor that doesn't include any lighting at all.

The grass shaders (if it even is shader-based) will probably have "derived_light_diffuse_colour" and "derived_ambient_light_colour" declared as shader constants. Changing these to their non-derived counterparts might already solve the problem (give or take some extra scaling of their value).

The general idea is to give them a shader material that does not account for the angle of the incoming light.
I hope this brief explanation is useful. When I have some more time to spare I'll show more complete examples.

[Nauk]

I would be interested in your shader modification if you want to share it

Sure, I have no problems sharing it. (I would have done it at some time anyway)
Note that I only modified the shaders for tree impostors, I haven't looked at grass yet.

What I did was modify the PG code that generates the shader a bit (for impostors it's in the BatchPage.cpp file). You basically add "ambient_light_colour" and "light_diffuse_colour" auto params to your shader input. Then add these terms to the output color. This is for the impostor that doesn't include any lighting at all.

The grass shaders (if it even is shader-based) will probably have "derived_light_diffuse_colour" and "derived_ambient_light_colour" declared as shader constants. Changing these to their non-derived counterparts might already solve the problem (give or take some extra scaling of their value).

The general idea is to give them a shader material that does not account for the angle of the incoming light.
I hope this brief explanation is useful. When I have some more time to spare I'll show more complete examples.

Yup I get the picture Thanks for the explanation.

[amigoface]

hi Nauk ,

Great plans

large outdoor terrain is something that i am waiting for a long long time in ogre,

with the upcoming terrain paging fonctionality and the right editor i think that we can make something cool

please keep us informedi, will stay arround

good day to everyone

[Nauk]

hi Nauk ,

Great plans

large outdoor terrain is something that i am waiting for a long long time in ogre,

with the upcoming terrain paging fonctionality and the right editor i think that we can make something cool

please keep us informedi, will stay arround

good day to everyone

Thank you and happy you like it Amigoface Things are in motion now, I just finished to strip down Artifex of all existing GUI and upgraded all libraries to Ogre1.8 and VC9. Now I have a barebone editor with keyboard and mouse support waiting to get a new and shiny QT GUI. About the terrain I am quite excited about a tech I found not long ago, the demos are quite impressive but it will take a good while until I got something to show there.

[drwbns]

Good luck Nauk, your work is impressive thus far. Can't wait to see what you roll out with next

[duststorm]

About the terrain I am quite excited about a tech I found not long ago, the demos are quite impressive but it will take a good while until I got something to show there.

Are you perhaps referring to the Scape terrain sculpt publication?

[Nauk]

Good luck Nauk, your work is impressive thus far. Can't wait to see what you roll out with next

Thank you, feedback like that is definately good fuel

About the terrain I am quite excited about a tech I found not long ago, the demos are quite impressive but it will take a good while until I got something to show there.

Are you perhaps referring to the Scape terrain sculpt publication?

Haha, I have been eyeing and reading up on GPU editing since quite a while and Scape is an amazing project, but that is editing tech and I certainly would love to have it integrated in Artifex, it is high up "on my eventually somewhen todo list". The terrain rendering tech I was talking about has nothing to do with it. I am going to reveal more once I have something to show, most likely I will hold it back until I have an at least beta ready renderer. It is nothing new, just a bit mixing and hacking up of existing libs, which I hope it is going to work like I imagine, so pure hypothetically at the moment.

[amigoface]

ok nauk, we believe in you

[Nauk]

ok nauk, we believe in you

I would hope so

[Nauk]

Next version of Artifex coming up with many improvements and fixes. This is likely the last major one with the old GUI, apart from a minor maintenance release there after.

Here are some of the things that have been done so far:

• Upgraded to Ogre 1.7 for better shader and DirectX support

• Upgraded to PagedGeometry 1.1.4 for grass lighting support

• Ironed out several UI glitches and roughs

• Improved shaders and streamlined the shaders with focus on making them single pass, especially the Triplanar shader got a lot of love and is now single pass too with lighting.

• Light/Shadowmapping

• Added more project templates

• Improved lighting

• Many small bug fixes

• Improved Ogre::Terrain loader and support with template

That is just a very short summary of my todo list. I am still not finished and there is a number of goodies I am working on right now and that will find their way in.

Here some preview screenshots (click to enlarge):

Enjoy

[FlorianGeorge]

Beautiful. Having such a gorgeous example map is a big plus and motivation for map designers looking into using your editor.

[amigoface]

lovely pictures !

with the right assets, it will look just perfect i think

[Nauk]

Thanks to the both of you, happy you like it . And yes, the assets need some love too, specially the materials. That demo zone has been growing since 4 years now, every version a bit more.

[drwbns]

Any word on voxel based editing? I don't know if you've seen this recently - http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=73105

But I'd like to do some research on what's neccesary for real-time voxel based editing