Myrddin Landscape Plugin SDK

[nico008]

After spending some hours commenting a lot of lines, I finally found something!!!
If I remove <WaterPlane></WaterPlane> section from Datas\landsample.xml, it works perfectly (except there is no more water in the world )

Any idea?

[satik]

I tried to compile it, but i didnt find zzlip.h and had some other problems...
I managed to run my application in release mode using compiled file from demo, but I cant run it in debug, here is ogre.log

...
17:49:15: Plugin successfully installed
17:49:15: Loading library .\PLugin_ZPK
17:49:15: Installing plugin: ZPK archiver
17:49:15: ArchiveFactory for archive type Zpk registered.
17:49:15: Plugin successfully installed
17:49:15: Loading library .\Plugin_LandscapeSceneManager
17:49:15: OGRE EXCEPTION(7:InternalErrorException): Could not load dynamic library .\Plugin_LandscapeSceneManager. System Error: Uvedený modul nebyl nalezen.

in DynLib::load at ..\src\OgreDynLib.cpp (line 81)

("Uvedený modul nebyl nalezen" = something like "Specified module not found")

any ideas? Or could anyone send me compiled Plugin_LandscapeSceneManager.dll for debug? (Mogre 1.6.2)

[monah]

Help me please with splatting.
1. Can I draw a road when i use autosplatting?
2. I have alpha map:

and config file:

Code: Select all

    <Splatting MaskSize="128"
               AutoSlopeNormalYMax="0"
               AutoSlopeNormalYMin="0"
               Specular="true"
               NormalMapping="true"
               OffsetMapping="true"
               OffsetMappingScale="0.04"
               OffsetMappingBias="-0.02"
               SpecularShadowFactor="4"
               ColorMapBlendFactor="1"
               ColorMapBlendSaturate="true"
               Use4LayersOnlyForFarRenderables="true"
               ExtMaterials="">
        <LayerMaterials>
            <MaterialDefault BaseTexture="splatting_default.dds"
                             DetailTexture=""
                             BaseUProj="200 0 0"
                             BaseVProj="0 0 200"
                             DetailUProj="20 0 0"
                             DetailVProj="0 0 20"
                             BaseUFunc=""
                             BaseVFunc=""
                             DetailUFunc=""
                             DetailVFunc=""
                             Diffuse="1 1 1 1"
                             Specular="0 0 0 1"
                             Emissive="0 0 0 1"
                             EmissiveFunc=""
                             Shininess="8"
                             DetailBlendFactor="2"
                             ApplyEnhancedLightingToDetail="true"
                             EmissiveColorMap="false"
                             BaseSpecularColorMask="false"
                             DetailSpecularColorMask="false"
                             UseDiffuseAsSpecularMask="false"
                             SpecularColorMap="false"
                             NormalMapping="false"
                             OffsetMapping="false"
                             OffsetMappingScale="0"
                             OffsetMappingBias="0" />
            <Material BaseTexture="grassbase.dds"
                      DetailTexture="grassdetail.dds"
                      NormalMapping="true" />
            <Material BaseTexture="volcano_2.dds"
                      DetailTexture="volcano_2_d.dds"
                      Specular="0.2 0.2 0.2 1"
                      UseDiffuseAsSpecularMask="true"
                      NormalMapping="true" />
            <Material BaseTexture="myrddin.dds"
                      DetailTexture="rockdetail.dds"
                      BaseUProj="100 0 0"
                      BaseVProj="0 0 100"
                      Specular="0.5 0.5 0.5 1"
                      ApplyEnhancedLightingToDetail="false"
                      UseDiffuseAsSpecularMask="true"
                      NormalMapping="true"
                      OffsetMapping="true" />
        </LayerMaterials>
	<PageMaterials>
        	<Material x="4" z="4"
                  	Layers="-1 1 2 3 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1"
                  	NumLayerPerTile="3" />
	</PageMaterials>
    </Splatting>

I get next result:

first material <Material BaseTexture="grassbase.dds"
DetailTexture="grassdetail.dds"
NormalMapping="true" /> is not visible. How to fix it?

[myrddinson]

Hi guys,

for Monah:
yes you can draw a road with auto-splatting enabled : actually you can do that with the provided MOgre demo.
For the problem with your config file, actually materials layers indexs are zero-based and the first 4 slots of "Layers" are dedicated to b, g, r & a channel respectively of the first splatting mask (if auto-splatting is disabled as it is the case in your config file) so "Layers" should be
Layers="0 1 2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1"
if you use only 3 materials of course in the page (MaterialDefault is the base material for all materials)

for Satik:
zzlip.h is part of Ogre VC9 dependencies so you should install it before compiling MLP (unpack Dependencies directory in the Ogre root directory)

[myrddinson]

Hi guys,

well MLP is still alive...

Sorry but i was quite busy the last months and could not spare time at all on MLP.

First thanks to OkskEE for the help he provided on this forum and DanielSefton for porting MLP to 1.7

I will not maintain anymore MLP for Ogre/Mogre 1.4 or 1.6 in future releases:
actually i intend to port MLP to the just released 1.7 stable
(thanks again to DanielSefton for the work done yet it will spare me a bit of time)
I will not maintain VS2005 projects files too: only VS2008 projects files will be provided from now.

In order to help you to add custom haze passes to custom materials, haze shaders (but not sky shaders) will be made public.

In order to decouple tools too from TerrainSceneManager I will release external tools to generate ARGB-packed splatting textures from single channel splatting masks & to generate TerrainSceneManager compatible heightmaps from external heightmaps: so if you do not use editing features in MLP, you should be able to build ARGB-packed splatting textures & MLP heightmaps even if you disable TSM_EDIT preprocessing directive in plugin.

When i am done with the above features and when i have fixed the last bugs, i will release final v1.0 (MIT license now for all C++ sources - shaders sources are protected by copyright but you can use free the provided shaders.zpk file if you do not modify it). Commercial release will follow a bit later (including unrestrictive license for the shaders). No release date yet because it will be difficult to be sticked with it

After that, i will focus on the upcoming v2.0 which will include - eventually - the following features:
- optional depth scene rendering (see below)
- optional haze/fog rendering in a single fullscreen compositor pass (with depth scene rendering enabled only): if depth scene rendering is enabled, as fog can be rendered in a single fullscreen pass, you do not need to add haze pass to custom materials in order to apply fog to custom objects.
- enhanced sky shaders (more realistic clouds and night sky, optional deferring of light scattering computation in pixel shader in order to render sky as a full-quad without tesselation)
- enchanced water shaders (projected grid rendering, better sun/moon reflection, underwater rendering)


Kind regards,

Myrddinson.

[myrddinson]

Hello,

for Monah again:
your splatting mask size is 1024 so you should set MaskSize to 1024 too otherwise your splatting mask is converted to 128x128.

[nico008]

Nice to see you again myrddinson.
MLP is very good!!!!

I'm looking forward to seeing the v1.0

See you

[monah]

I have working programm with configuration:

Code: Select all

	<PageMaterials>
        	    <Material x="4" z="4" Layers="-1 0 1 2 -1 -1 -1 -1" NumLayerPerTile="4" />
	</PageMaterials>

How I must configure MPL for drawing roads with auto-splatting?

[myrddinson]

Hello,

first you must enable auto-splatting; for instance:

AutoSlopeNormalYMax="0.9"
AutoSlopeNormalYMin="0.8"

then if you still use only 3 materials (if auto-splatting is enabled, first index is reserved for ground and second one for slope)
you should set Layers to:

Layers="0 1 2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1" (indexs in layer material table)

for 4 materials, it should be:

Layers="0 1 2 3 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1"

if auto-splatting is enabled, beware that splatting mask channels are not mapped the same:
blue channel is mapped to layers indexs 0 & 1 (with auto-splatting, it is the shader which sample blue coef between materials 0 & 1 depending on slope)
green channel is mapped to layer index 2
red channel is mapped to layer index 3
alpha channel is mapped to layer index 4
so with auto-splatting enabled, you need only one splatting mask if you do not use more than 5 layers.

[monah]

I create splatting mask:

And configure MPL:

Code: Select all

    <Splatting MaskSize="128"
               AutoSlopeNormalYMax="0.9"
               AutoSlopeNormalYMin="0.8"
               Specular="true"
               NormalMapping="true"
               OffsetMapping="true"
               OffsetMappingScale="0.04"
               OffsetMappingBias="-0.02"
               SpecularShadowFactor="4"
               ColorMapBlendFactor="1"
               ColorMapBlendSaturate="true"
               Use4LayersOnlyForFarRenderables="true"
               ExtMaterials="">
        <LayerMaterials>
            <MaterialDefault BaseTexture="splatting_default.dds"
                             DetailTexture=""
                             BaseUProj="200 0 0"
                             BaseVProj="0 0 200"
                             DetailUProj="20 0 0"
                             DetailVProj="0 0 20"
                             BaseUFunc=""
                             BaseVFunc=""
                             DetailUFunc=""
                             DetailVFunc=""
                             Diffuse="1 1 1 1"
                             Specular="0 0 0 1"
                             Emissive="0 0 0 1"
                             EmissiveFunc=""
                             Shininess="8"
                             DetailBlendFactor="2"
                             ApplyEnhancedLightingToDetail="true"
                             EmissiveColorMap="false"
                             BaseSpecularColorMask="false"
                             DetailSpecularColorMask="false"
                             UseDiffuseAsSpecularMask="false"
                             SpecularColorMap="false"
                             NormalMapping="false"
                             OffsetMapping="false"
                             OffsetMappingScale="0"
                             OffsetMappingBias="0" />
            <Material BaseTexture="grassbase.dds"
                      DetailTexture="grassdetail.dds"
                      NormalMapping="true" />
            <Material BaseTexture="volcano_2.dds"
                      DetailTexture="volcano_2_d.dds"
                      Specular="0.2 0.2 0.2 1"
                      UseDiffuseAsSpecularMask="true"
                      NormalMapping="true" />
            <Material BaseTexture="myrddin.dds"
                      DetailTexture="rockdetail.dds"
                      BaseUProj="100 0 0"
                      BaseVProj="0 0 100"
                      Specular="0.5 0.5 0.5 1"
                      ApplyEnhancedLightingToDetail="false"
                      UseDiffuseAsSpecularMask="true"
                      NormalMapping="true"
                      OffsetMapping="true" />
        </LayerMaterials>
	<PageMaterials>
        	<Material x="4" z="4"
                  	Layers="0 1 2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1"
                  	NumLayerPerTile="3" />
	</PageMaterials>

But auto-splatting material is not visible:

How can I fix it? Thanks!

[monah]

somebody can help me?

[myrddinson]

Hello,

actually your splatting mask should be blue (blue channel is used by both layer 0 & 1 for auto-splatting) but the road which should be green (for layer 2) and most importantly the alpha channel should be 0 because you do not use layer 4 (because sum of all channel values for one pixel must be equal to 255 (or 1.0 in shader)).

[RobertoK]

Very, very nice screenshots!
I'll have to try it out.

[nico008]

Hi there.

I just wanted to know when is the next release coming?

Thanks in advance.

[Beauty]

In you demo the water isn't visible from "underwater view".
Will this be changed in version 2?

In edit mode you see a green "tool marker". (like a ring)
I suppose it's a ManualObject.
At the inner border the ring less transparent and to the outer it gets more transparent.
How did you define the material?
I don't know how to create a "sliding" transparency value.

On sourceforge I wanted to look inside your source code, but I don't see source code there. Maybe it's not published, although it's LGPL?

[DanielSefton]

Download the package from SourceForge, the source is in there - it's not on SVN.

[snoefler]

@Beaty: It in the MLPSDK09xsources you can get from sourceforge... have a look on GameMain.cs (its only in the C# source, correct me if I am wrong). The "PaintBrushCursorBuildVertexBuffer" function creates a new object for the green select circle.

I currently want to implement a "select circle" for objects using Myrddin.
When picking objects standing on the terrain, there should be a circle on the ground.
First I wantet to implement "Projective Decals" like in the Ogre Intermediate Tutorial (see http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/Projective+Decals ). But Myrddin does not support for example "mSceneManager->getOption ("getMaterialPageName", myOptionPtr);" (correct me if I am wrong?)

So I have a look on the above mentioned Implementation:
Myrddin creates a Manual Object "floating" on the terrain with many vertices and need many calls on "GetHeightAt" wich makes many rays intersecting with the terrain to get the terrain height.
But this would be extemely slow when picking for example 100 Objects... and If I am using a less detailed grid for the "select circle" some bumps from the terrain could intersect with my ring.

Decals "only" update the material used for the terrain so I dont net to shot rays on the terrain on every few pixels to get the height...

Any ideas how to use "Projective Decals" with Myrddin? Or any other good workarounds to get the same effect?

[Beauty]

Good note!

It's a ManualObject which uses a material with texture. The texture coordinates will be calculated related to the brush settings.
The material definition is in the file CursorBrushPaint.material. It refers to a texture which contains the file CursorBrushPaint.dds.

I never heard DDS. Here I found information about. (Maybe somebody wants to know.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectDraw_Surface
http://wiki.rigsofrods.com/pages/Making_DDS_textures
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_t ... tools.html ..... here is also a simple viewer and a Photoshop plug-in

Now I can see the texture (see attached picture). Although it's pink instead of green. Maybe this happens by the material settings.

Code: Select all

material Cursor/BrushPaint
{
	technique
	{
		pass
		{
			lighting off

			scene_blend alpha_blend
			depth_write off
			depth_check off

			texture_unit
			{
				texture CursorBrushPaint.dds
				colour_op_ex modulate src_texture src_manual 0 1 0 0.2
				tex_address_mode clamp
			}

		}
	}
}

[Beauty]

Myrddin creates a Manual Object "floating" on the terrain with many vertices and need many calls on "GetHeightAt" wich makes many rays intersecting with the terrain to get the terrain height.
But this would be extemely slow when picking for example 100 Objects... and If I am using a less detailed grid for the "select circle" some bumps from the terrain could intersect with my ring.

You could use a smaller amount of GetHeightAt() and interpolate the other vertex positons. For example use a ring with 96 vertices, but only query 8 hight values. The easy way is linear interpolation. Splines would be good for smoth interpolation, but could cause too much CPU load. (I don't know how much) Maybe there is a good middle way.

Even when you get the real height of all vertices - there could be terrain-ring intersections on very hilly terrain. But is this realy a pain? Maybe render the ring on top of the render queue (e.g. like a GUI). Then intersections aren't visible, because the terrain is always looking behind/under the ring. But I don't know if this is looking realistic.

Just as an idea

[snoefler]

Hi, thx for the notes... currently I use low detailed manual objects... like you mentioned.

But the best approach would be "Projective Decals" ( http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/Projective+Decals ) but I dont know how to get this work with Myrddin. The tutorial needs options from the scene manager Myrddin dont support (PLSM2 supports this).

Any hints on "Decals" with Myrddin?

[Beauty]

Projective Decals seems to be interesting.
I think the Paging Scene Manager and Myrddins Landscape Plugin are both open source.
So there is a chance to look to the PSM code how it's done and then try to add it to MLP.
Ok, this could be much work (or maybe not so much?). Just as an idea

[snoefler]

Yeah you are right... but I hoped Myrddin arrises and told me "No, stop, it works like this..." or fixed it "magically"

[monah]

how can I get a message about load (show) or unload (hide) pages?

[Beauty]

1)
My main application uses the old Terrain Scene Manager and loads terrain by hightmaps of picture files.
Is it possible to load such terrain data to a Myrddin application/editor, modify it and then save it back to a heightmap picture file?
The modified terrain I would like to use with the old Terrain Scene Manager.

2)
What/where are the licences of the terrain textures of your demo?
I would like to use them for my application, but don't know if it's allowed.
I mean the files in directory MyrddinLandscapeDemo\Datas\Terrain\materials\textures, for example GrassDetail.dds

[Beauty]

Today I looked deep into the downloads (sources, etc.) for about 3 hours. (... and 1 more to write this post)
It's very complex (for me) and I couldn't compile it, although I read the installation instructions. (They are a little bit unclear for me.)
Alternatively I tried an other way: I copied the binary files of the precompiled demo to the MogreDemo. After little config modifications I could run it, but the applications only showed an error window.
Error Message: entry point not found in OgreMain.dll
This looks like incompatible dll files, but the same dll file combinations works well for the precompiled demo.


Then looked to the MogreDemo code to see how the SceneManager is used.
And I read in the (huge and detailed) MLP user doc file.

Unfortunately I didn't see a way how to load terrain data from a common picture file (e.g. png), nor how to export a heightmap to a common picture file. It seems so that this haven't been choosen for this SceneManager.

In the terrain chapter I found an interesting note:

MLP is a largely modified version of the Ogre TerrainSceneManager plugin [...]
see plugin interface commands for how to convert external source heightmaps to plugin-compatible heightmaps

Unfortunately in the linked chapter was no information about common file formats. It's only about the MLP RAW format.


Then I tried to open a raw file (landsample_hm_0_0.raw) with the tool Large 3D Terrain Generator and with the right parameters it worked.
Menu > File > Import > Heightfield ...
In the wizard field Maximum alt I typed in 65536 (value of 16bit) and in the advanced options I set width and hight to 257.
(The width and height value 257 I calculated by: raw filesize(132,098) divided by 2 (because of 16bit) and from this the square root)
Maybe I need to apply the InvertY option for flipping the height value.

Then I exported the height as png file.
The converted heightmap picture is looking well. (As example I attached the converted file landsample_hm_0_0.raw).

Ok, this is not a nice way for exporting / converting height maps, but it works.
(Although it's much redundant work when you need to convert many raw files. The example scene of the demo is splitted to 64 tiles.)
Maybe there is an alternative commandline tool for converting. In the best case with the option to merge all tiles to one full heightmap image.
Maybe Myrddin or somebody else wrote a tool like that?
Alternatively I could write an own converting tool. (This I could extend for processing parameters from the xml terrain description file.)

But I still have the problem:
How can I load a height map of a common picture file?
Is there an undocumented way to do so? (e.g. Smgr.SetWorldGeometry(var.terrainConfigFile) like the old Ogre terrain scene manager)


And one further task:
I would like to save a copy of the whole texture.
Maybe this I can do by a second viewport with an othogonal top view. And from this (somehow) I can take a screenshot with high resolution.
Does somebody has a code snippet for such a task?

The editor will be released later: not before june 2009 now i think because it is still at 20% - and i cannot work at full time on it...

But as the plugin will be released soon, you will be able to build your own editor around if you cannot wait for the official editor - plugin will include editor features yet like heightmap/splatting mask/lightmap/colormap painting.

Myrddin, I suppose you didn't finish your editor (because it's not downloadable at sourceforge).
Maybe you can publish the current state of development?
Does somebody else wrote an editor based on MLP and like to share it?


Does somebody has a copy of MOgreSDKDemoVS2008 (subdirectory of MLPSDK093Sources.rar), with sucessfully compiled binaries for Mogre 1.6.5?
If yes, I would be happy when I can get a copy of it. (Because of my compilation trouble.)


Sorry, I wrote so much text again.