[GSoC 2012] Volume Rendering with LOD aimed at terrain

[PhilipLB]

I wonder, why there are shadows at all. There is no shadows support (yet) in the triplanar shader. The RTSS-version could work though, but hasn't normal mapping.

[masterfalcon]

I've noticed lately that I will get a crash in VolumeChunk if I stop the volume terrain sample. Are you seeing this too?

[PhilipLB]

Hm, too bad, works for me.

[masterfalcon]

Ok, I've narrowed it down. It only occurs when you call renderOneFrame manually. As is the case for Cocoa based windowing on OS X.

[MirceaKitsune]

Still haven't found a good voxel terrain system with digging / building support, so I'm curious how this is going. From what I saw in the last videos it's working very nicely! I still have some questions however:

- What license is the code under exactly?

- Will the code keep being updated and kept compatible with newer releases of OGRE? Or will it eventually be abandoned once it's ready? Especially since I'm not an experienced developer, I'm worried that future versions of OGRE might stop working and I won't know how to fix the volume terrain system. I'm not sure if OGRE has a policy about keeping all functions compatible throughout releases, but I heard some updates can break code using it.

- Where can I get and compile a functional demo of the volume terrain, containing only relevant assets and code? I looked at the BitBucket repository but that seems to contain a lot of unrelated stuff (like OGRE itself with all the default samples). I'm looking for the files that contain the terrain system and a demo of it (if any demo exists). I have OGRE in my system libraries so I can reference it from there, only need the C++ files of this project with cmake config if any. I can probably try it out then.

[PhilipLB]

The GSoC project has been merged into Ogre. It's a component now. You find it in the branch 1.9 along with two samples. Here's also some documentation: http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-ind ... eComponent

It's under the same license as Ogre, MIT.

[MirceaKitsune]

The GSoC project has been merged into Ogre. It's a component now. You find it in the branch 1.9 along with two samples. Here's also some documentation: http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-ind ... eComponent

It's under the same license as Ogre, MIT.

Woah... so voxel terrains are possible natively with OGRE from now on? That's fantastic I'll try to compile OGRE manually since my distro's packages don't have 1.9 yet, and see how it goes.

[MirceaKitsune]

Sorry for double post. I got OGRE 1.9 from HG yesterday and tried this out. Half of the samples don't work well for me and I need to debug... but the two Volume samples loaded and I could see the surface.

I was curious if there is also a demo with some basic terraforming. Like the current Volume Terrain sample where you can fly around, but you can left-click to add to the terrain and right-click to dig through it or something like that. That would be very appreciated... is there such a thing for the new system? Here's some examples of what I mean (older attempts to do this in OGRE):

[youtube]3hSVjqsXPOo[/youtube] [youtube]-hJkrr5Slv8[/youtube]

[PhilipLB]

Modifying a volume like this is a mid term goal and not yet possible. See
http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-ind ... lumeFuture
for the details what's missing, the "Editing capabilities" part.

[MirceaKitsune]

Modifying a volume like this is a mid term goal and not yet possible. See
http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-ind ... lumeFuture
for the details what's missing, the "Editing capabilities" part.

I understand. Will the final version of OGRE 2.9 have that, and possibly a sample with terraforming? Also, will it support defining each voxel in the code or maybe saving / loading voxels to / from text files or databases (currently I'm seeing you need a 3D texture)?

[PhilipLB]

2.9 definitely. 1.9... Not sure, I work every now and then in my spare time on this project. Shooting rays is on it's way, but more complicated, than I thought (more complicated than in PolyVox because of not using discrete 3D fields). Serialization and loading of scenes work. Then you see the missing features needed for a complete editor in the wiki-entry. Still a bit of work.

[MirceaKitsune]

2.9 definitely. 1.9... Not sure, I work every now and then in my spare time on this project. Shooting rays is on it's way, but more complicated, than I thought (more complicated than in PolyVox because of not using discrete 3D fields). Serialization and loading of scenes work. Then you see the missing features needed for a complete editor in the wiki-entry. Still a bit of work.

Right, 1.9 I wanna attempt a voxel terrain project sometime which is why I'm curious. It's meant to work the same as in MineCraft, only with marching cubes for smooth realistic landscapes. I've been trying to do that with PolyVox, but now that OGRE will support it natively I'd much rather use this. Hope realtime editing of voxels will be one of the next features in this project... I'll wait and follow this thread for updates.

[PhilipLB]

Better follow this one: http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=72895

[MirceaKitsune]

Better follow this one: http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=72895

Followed that too, thanks.

[Zonder]

Shouldn't this be locked really since there is a new thread now to follow for the component