New Terrain Early Shots

[James Proctor]

No you do not need a frame listener to use the terrain. To update the terrain you would put the updating code in your application's update loop.

[vodkabears]

I wonder if i ever need something to update every frame?

[James Proctor]

Theres alot of things you would need to have updated every frame. If your going to use Caelum or SkyX those will have to update every frame, If you use Hydrax that will have to update every frame, The list goes on. To create a update cycle do something like this

Main.cpp

Code: Select all

int main()
{
	Server *server = new Server();

	while(!server->shouldQuit)
		server->update();

	delete server;

	return 0;
}

Here you create a instance of your application and in a while loop you add your update method (server->update()) which as long as the application is running the update loop will run each frame. When you close the application it will delete the instance of the application and return 0 which will shut it down.

[vodkabears]

Thanks James, I asked it because i've took a class from Terrain sample and there is an update function, but i can see terrain in my app just doing terrain's setupContent(), without update.
Now i added update to main loop, but nothing seems to change, i still can see terrain and nothing is wrong .

[James Proctor]

I am pretty sure that the only time you really need the terrain update is if you are changing the terrain while the program/game is running. So like if you were making a terrain editor where you could raise or lower the terrain then you would need the update. If the terrain is just static and once it loads it stays the same then I don't think the update is needed.

[Beauty]

The first post is one year old and in this thread is much information.
This new terrain scene manager seems to be a great improvement.

Unfortunately there is no wiki page about the new terrain system. (or did I overlook that?)
It would be very useful, if somebody would catch all interesting information from this long thread and put it to a wiki page.
This would improve the overview very much. Especially for people who would like to use it.

What should be the name for the wiki page?
Will the new terrain manager get a specific name?
"new terrain" wouldn't be the best name, because in some years the people don't think it's "new".
Maybe then there comes the next generation which is called "new new terrain"?
Does somebody has some suggestions?
What's about Sinbad Terrain Manager?

[Xplodwild]

There a Terrain sample which includes everything everyone wants to know.

Btw, am I the only one who have problems with depth shadows not rendering or badly rendering?

[Beauty]

There a Terrain sample which includes everything everyone wants to know?

Do you mean there IS a terrain sample? Or do you mean Is there an example?
If exists an example, where is it?

For the Mogre wrapper (Ogre with C#) there is an alpha version of the new terrain system. I would like to test it. Unfortunately I don't know where to get information about the new terrain system. Searching in the wiki for terrain or new terrain will give you tons of unrelated search results.

I want to create a wiki page (or more) about the new terrain system.
But I need to know where I can find useful information about.

Please tell me links where I find related information. (post it here, don't send me a pm)
Forum discussions, code snippets, source codes, etc.

[Beauty]

Ok, one interesting forum thread I found:
Future plans for Ogre::Terrain?

[Jabberwocky]

If exists an example, where is it?

They do go over the basics in basic tutorial 3.
http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/Basic+Tu ... =Tutorials

For more technical details, I think you need to go into the source code, or dig through this thread.

[Beauty]

Oh, great page
I didn't know that this basic tutorial got details of the new terrain system. And there is much useful in it!

[Noman]

I have a small question about the terrain system -
Its possible to use the terrain without a heightmap to get a flat terrain (a plane, basically).
However, I don't see that its possible to use the terrain without generating a global normal map. In the case of a flat terrain, the normal map will be trivial (all pointing in the same direction) and a waste of texture/shader calculations.

Am I missing an option somewhere or is this really the case?

[sinbad]

Yes, there is no special-case for a completely flat terrain. The assumption is that no-one would use a terrain system if it was completely flat

[Noman]

Assuming I want to use the terrain system mainly for the material generator (IE I have a plane with several layers consisting of the diffuse+specular,normal+height texture combination), do you think I would be better off using the terrain system or perhaps try to use the terrain material generator directly?

[thepriest]

Hi all.

No time to read the thread completely. Can anyone tell me where I can get the source code of this terrain system to play with it?

[haltendehand]

It's included in the standard Ogre Download.

[sinbad]

Assuming I want to use the terrain system mainly for the material generator (IE I have a plane with several layers consisting of the diffuse+specular,normal+height texture combination), do you think I would be better off using the terrain system or perhaps try to use the terrain material generator directly?

I think you'd be best to just use the material generator, the terrain comes with lots of complexity you don't need for a plane.

[Beauty]

Some weeks ago I read that the Terrain Scene Manager will be removed from Ogre, because the new terrain system.
The new terrain system is much more better, but I also like the plain old TSM.

The old Terrain Scene Manager (TSM) is easy to use and for importing a terrain you need just 2 single picture files (heightmap + texture).
It's nice for newcomers who just want to play around. Also it fits to the need of several applications (e.g. my scientific simulation). There is even a new published commercial game which "just" use the TSM.
An other point: For the MOGRE (.NET) users we created a wrapper for the new terrain system, but it seems to be unstable and is still not ready. We don't know if we will get it ready until you publish Ogre 1.8.

So I want to ask, if there is a way to use the old Terrain Scene Manager also in further Ogre versions?
Maybe as add-on, which is offered and supported by the Ogre team?

In the past I read, the Paging Landscape Scene Manager 2 (PLSM) is an extended version of the TSM.
Is it possible to use this as replacement for the TSM with the same terrain resources for Ogre 1.8?

I'm afraid that I can't use my terrains (pairs of 2 image files) when the TSM is removed.

[CABAListic]

Anything that can be done with the TSM is also possible with the new Terrain component. It's just that certain setups aren't easily accessible right now, which is on our agenda for 1.8.
That said, PLSM has long been unmaintained as far as I'm aware, and it's never been particularly stable. You'd be better off with the Terrain component.

[Beauty]

Thanks for your feedback.
I'm happy to hear that I can use my "simple" terrains (pairs of 2 images) with the new terrain system.
Hopefully that our C# terrain wrapper will be stable and support this feature.

By the way:
Our C# wrapper has 2 libraries for the new terrain system. One for the terrain system and one for the paging system (if I understood right).
Are there really different Ogre components for terrain and paging?
Is the new terrain system part of the Ogre core or an official add-on?

[zaph34r]

Someone else already had the same problem a few pages earlier, but there wasn't really any solution, so:

My terrain is transparent, and i have no clue why.
I basically just implemented the Basic Tutorial 3 for the new terrain system, with my own framework, without using anything else at all, default settings, default textures.

Any ideas?

[nevarim]

problem is that with your texture terrain is transparent and with default texture isn't it?

p.s. i have a little question about terrain new, terrain istance is delimited by minbatchsize and maxbatchsize? if yes i've a problem, with respectively 33 and 65 i have only one terrain with worldsize of 33000 :S and for load it i use loadterrain(0,0);

and if i try to load terrain 0,1 log sayd me that there isn't terrain 0,1 :S i unerstand well? this is the functioning of new terrain instance?

Nevarim

[tod]

AFAIK batch size refer to the way a page(terrains) is further split by the engine it has no influence on terrain world size, only on performance, batch count and stuff like that.
Maybe there isn't a terrain 0,1 The terrains, when using paging, are tiles indexed by default from 0,0 and stored in binary files with names like terrain_000000,terrain_001000, etc.

[Beauty]

It's time to have a related page on our Wiki documentation.
So I created a new wiki page for the new terrain system: Ogre Terrain System

Also I'm not shure, if my short description is right.
I read the word "component" instead of "scene manager". Isn't it a scene manager?
If my description has to be improved, just do it.

In 2009 sinbad (founder of Ogre) started to create a new terrain system. It' a scene manager, which replaces the old Terrain Scene Manager and includes ideas of other terrain add-ons. Since Ogre 1.7 the new Ogre Terrain Manager is part of the Ogre core.

This forum topic is very long and I didn't read all the pages again for grabbing important details.
So please feel free to add more useful stuff to the new wiki page.

E.g. more features, usage notes, code snippets, links

TODO: Add link to the API class reference (if it exists)

[jacmoe]

It's not a scene manager.