TerraEd Rocks!!
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/TerraEd Rocks!!
| ||
| If you haven't seen it, check out the TerraEd program. I've been playing with it for the past couple of days now and I just love it. It's only $25 and it's worth every penny!! |
| ||
| I agree, ...Edit - I updated the shot to show TerraEd Better. Here's the latest shots from a level that is 4 days old now.  Oh, and I am using Particle Candy for the waterfall - although there are some problems using particle candy and TerraEd together - the .TED format draws the scenery in such a way that distant scenery shows through particles which are close by... I haven't figured away around this yet. Moving the particle update about in the programme does not fix the problem. Any way as long as there's no scenery (trees, grass etc) behind your particles you are ok (terrain side works beautifully). :) IPete2. |
| ||
| Sounds like an alpha transparency issue. Polygons with alpha aren't sorted using the z-buffer so there can be draw order problems. |
| ||
| Link to TerraEd homepage ?? |
| ||
| Terraed: http://www.3dgametool.com/project_terraed.htm http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=32688 |
| ||
| You might find this useful for your alpha problems: http://www.blitzbasic.com/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=850 |
| ||
| I'm happy if your happy :) |
| ||
| IPete2 , re the grass, if you make the alpha channel darker near the bottom of the grass, it will fade in to the scenery . rather than those harsh edges. |
| ||
| Spindeln Look : http://www.blitzbasic.com/toolbox/toolbox.php?tool=69 |
| ||
| @IPete2 Is it the 'Particle Candy' System in your shot. |
| ||
| RUZ, Cheers for the idea - that would be better methinks! Thanks for the alpha blending and zbuffer tips guys! I'll check them out! @Ed - Is 'Particle Candy' in the scene? Yes! definately - the waterfall is all particle candy emitters. I just liked the setting too! :) Im using a number of emitters here the two high water fall emitters are actually fountain emitter, there's a smoke emittiet at the bottom with a blend set to 1 (in PC) and a waterfall emitter in the middle which, because of the way it was set up - moes left and right randomly spawning new waterfall 'gushes' - very life like. IPete2. |
| ||
| Some comments: 1) The drifting camera (when using cursors) remembers its speed when you let go of the right mouse button mid-drift and then press it again later. 2) I managed to get a MAV when fiddling with Object Options. Although I had trouble replicating it. 3) Sometimes dropdown boxes don't respond to my clicks (once open) and revert to previous setting. And questions: What formats can you export to? I would find it useful to export the whole thing (including terrain) as a mesh (b3d and/or X). |
| ||
| Great thx guys , have to buy this one. |
| ||
| Try a look on the last terraed version :) This is the final 2.0.4 release :) http://www.3dgametool.com/project_terraed.htm Worklog 2.0.4 : --------------- -Function added : Menu Enable all objects shadow + Undo -Function added : Menu Disable all objects shadow + Undo -Function added : Menu Enable all objects wind + Undo -Function added : Menu Disable all objects wind + Undo -Function added : Menu Save as... (i hope do you like it) -Function added : Hierarchy window for show and find all your object easily with traveling and zoom :) ... (i hope do you like it to) -Function change : Menu Save -Bug removed : When you undo the objects shadow are off ! sorry ... Try the HIERARCHY Window after loading the demo map :) ... Download the latest version on : http://www.blitz3dfr.com/terraed_projet/TerraEd.zip  |
| ||
| I Love TerraEd too! Im' very happy with this program as this program was exactly what I was going to develope for myself, But there's no need to now because filax has taken care of this for us! And also too! As hard as filax is working on this program and such... It's only going to get better & better! filax also supports his products very dam well as well, which I find to be very important! Unlike CShop4.1, That once you has purchased it!! You recieve no more updates for it in the important areas like it should have included with it: import for .X, .B3D, .3ds If josh would merly spend a little time with CShop4.1 and develope these importer's for CShop, CShop4.1 would also be a very excellent tool as well! But when you can't even import not even one of these model formats into CShop4.1 ... It makes the product look bad! But I use CShop4.1 for making my base levels, And I use TerraED now to import the very needed model formats into my base CShop4.1 level! I just wish josh would support his products like filax does! I've only been playing with TerraED now... But Im' at the point noe where I can start making some serious stuff with it and plan too this weekend! Filax... I appreciate every bit of hard work & effort you have put into TerraED! I look forward to going to my email everyday now because there might be another great update for TerraED! Keep up the excellent work your doing! |
| ||
| No problemo :) it's normal, you have payed for tool and services ! |
| ||
| Yeah maybe so... But at least you care about your customers and don't just brush them off like they are nothing! You support your products! And that's why your customers and future customers will always come back to you though! Word by mouth does get around and by that manner... It can either cause a company or individual to gain customers or to lose them! Your definately doing the right things filax and you care also which is very important!!! And that alone means alot to me! |
| ||
| Ok i take note for the future :) check your email i have send to all my customer the update 2.0.4 with hierarchy window :) |
| ||
| Hey guys 'n gals! Please take a look at TerraEd Released under User Creations for a couple of new screen shots! IPete2. |
| ||
| filax - any chance of some response to my post above? ^^^ |
| ||
| ??? what ??? i don't see you message ? |
| ||
| You don't see this? -> MasterBeaker (Posted 2004-04-19 11:35:27) Some comments: 1) The drifting camera (when using cursors) remembers its speed when you let go of the right mouse button mid-drift and then press it again later. 2) I managed to get a MAV when fiddling with Object Options. Although I had trouble replicating it. 3) Sometimes dropdown boxes don't respond to my clicks (once open) and revert to previous setting. And questions: What formats can you export to? I would find it useful to export the whole thing (including terrain) as a mesh (b3d and/or X). |
| ||
| No i have no plan export for the moment. Question 3) May be a FPS problem, when you select an option wait a little :) For the other question i'm giong to see |
| ||
| That was totally unhelpful. So, you don't export to anything? |
| ||
| unhelpful ? for you :) Terraed is not a 3D editor but a world editor. It work with pre made elements. I export in my hown format (loadable in blitz easily) |
| ||
| plus the Format chosen by Filax is Ascii, so it's easy to parse and to edit. Since the loader routine is available in the .bb files that come with TerraEd, that shouldn't be a problem at all. And third - there is a save .B3D routine by jfk in the code archives, so it should be easy to save everything in one .b3d file. Regards, Dirk |
| ||
| Master Beaker, I haven't had any of the problems you've mentioned. |
| ||
| I must say that Filax's TerraEd is a superb product. I have had no crashes, no problems and his loader is super easy to work with. The wind option is fantastic and placing objects on the terrain is easy and performs EXACTLY as you would like it to. I can really see making a full game with multiple levels using this tools, Photoshop, Blitz (of course) and a model editor like Milkshape or 3D Studio. Since this program uses heightfields to generate terrain, using programs like World Machine, Terragen or Vue De Espirit makes it much easier. Most of these tools have massive terrain editing abilities and can export terrain data, heightfields and color and bump map data. I would seriously take a look at TerraEd, as I have purchased (and created) quite a few world editors and this is the 1st one that really makes me feel like I can finish the worlds - not just start them. Not to bash other programs, I like Catography Shop, but it really does have too many bugs to be a useful and reliable tool. Josh does, I guess, the best job he can to help, but it really is not good enough. Filax makes a change the second you mention something. I have had four updates since I bought the program five days ago. A word of advice Filax: DO NOT CHANGE THE FILE FORMAT MIDSTREAM or with a next update, like what happens with CShop - then you have to dump everything you were doing just to start all over again. Keep the worlds compatible from one version to another. Thanks for a great program Filax - I will be reviewing it for you in its entirety when I have put it through its paces. One last thing - the fact that this program works so well AND was made with Blitz3D itself says a million things about both packages. Mike Felker |
| ||
| Is it possible to add your own custom objects? for placing emitters for particle systems, triggers, spawn points etc? |
| ||
| Tainted: While it does not look like you can place entities in the truest sence of the word, you can place 3ds and b3d objects - so if you were to place a null object (like a sphere or something) - you could use that as a placeholder for any stuff you want to do external to TerraEd - that's my best guess. Mike |
| ||
| I really don't know if the product was really meant to go that far Musicman. |
| ||
| Craig: Whether or not it was meant to go that far, fact is, everything is placed in an ASCII readable file, so there is nothing stopping you from making an object at location x,y,z that you can then make do something. For example, in his own demo, Filax has his logo plus two flying spheres - was the program meant to do that? No, but he was able to anyway. Mike |
| ||
| MusicMan : For the logo and the runing sphere, it's just an example for demo about terraed with animated object possibility ! look inside the code, in terraed i have called this object "LOGO" and in the code you can see a function : ; ------------------------------------------------------------------- ; Method for animating an object on a Terraed Map ; ------------------------------------------------------------------- Ter_AnimateTerraObject("Logo",1,0.5) there is no secrets :) it's just an example with animated object for demos. |
| ||
| Come to think of it, it would be very ineffiecient to render everything in one big b3d file, since every tree etc would be different object. By loading with filax .ted format (and subsequently using his Inc_TerraEdLoader.bb) he does a CopyEntity. If I think about it even more, there should be a BuildingEd that does the same. Actually that's the way UnrealEd works. Every complex 3d object is loaded as a 'static mesh' so that it is hold only once in the 3D Card. Regards, Dirk |
| ||
| That might be true some of the time. But there are some good reasons to make it into one exportable mesh: 1) Support for other engines, and thus more customers and a larger user base. Extends the life of the application. 2) The mesh can be edited elsewhere. 3) It can be sliced up for quad/octree systems. 4) It doesn't tie the user to one engine. What if I later switch to another engine? I lose my assets and my tool (TerraEd), which is a good enough reason not to buy IMO. |
| ||
| Again, you should be able to do that by iterating through the loaded model and saving all in one b3d file. |
| ||
| I could also write my own dropper/world-editor, but that would also defeat the object of obtaining a 3rd party tool to do it for me. I am merely giving reasons why it would be a good idea for filax to think about adding more export options. Reasons that would likely benefit the user, the product, and filax himself. Also, you could argue that saving to one b3d file, as you suggested, only covers point 3). For the others I would need to convert to X, 3DS, ASE etc. |
| ||
| What I find of further interest is - apart from TerraEd - what does happen when you whack everything in one b3d file? I am not too familiar with the binary representation, but what would happen if you take the famous tree demo that works with CopyEntity: when you push everything in one .b3d file, and reload it, are the created tree object entity instances from one mesh or a multitude of meshes? If the latter would be the case, then this would justify the eproposal of a level format similar to the .ted format. How does for example Gile[s] solve this issue (btw next on my list of things to buy)? |
| ||
| It would be the latter. But, B3D file format being flexible as it is Mark could easily add an external (or even possibily internal) reference node type. But, what you have to remember is that for large levels you are likely to want to chop it up anyway. AND combine objects with the same texture within each 'slice'. So CopyEntity() or not becomes a bit a non-issue. Good point tho. |
| ||
| I am having problems using the demo version of TerraEd - specifically with the UI - getting it to register double clicks in the file dialogs and even single clicks on buttons/menus. Seems like it's not polling the mouse often enough - perhaps it's just my slow PC - but I don't have the problem on other GUI's made for Blitz - just this one - I have noted it before on another app with the same GUI. Can anyone tell me the name of the GUI used? |
| ||
| BCF 3.0 Works fine here. If you are having trouble with some objects - just go around the opposite side of them and click from that side - (sprites mainly). IPete2. |
| ||
| Thanks I will try other apps made with it. No - it's not object selection - it's simply everything that the mouse has to click on - for example - the mouse click on a button does not register if I just 'click' the mouse - I have to hold the mouse button for an extra fraction of a second until I physically see that the click has been registered (focus shift or whatever)... getting it to register double clicks is practically impossible and therefore renders the app pretty much useless to me. It has something to do with the way BFC handles polling the mouse for sure.. I've seen other apps made with this and they have the same problem for me. |
| ||
| @Brendane: I had the same thing at first. On my machine it did help to alt-tab back to the desktop and into the application again, then it was way faster. In the end I installed the newest graphic drivers - since then the problems were gone. Works like a breeze now. Regards, Dirk |
| ||
| Thanks Dirk, I will try the things you suggested and let you know. |
| ||
| Yeah, it really does rock. I love you Filax. Love, you, FILAX!!!!111one |
| ||
| Thanks :) i plan a nice addition for the next release ... but it's a secret :) |
| ||
| Filax, did you get others with the problem of mouse clicks/doubleclicks I mentioned earlier in this thread? I have latest drivers as Dirk suggested and tried switching between desktop and application. Even with just a file requester showing and no heavy processing going on I can't get mouse doubleclicks to register. |
| ||
| It's strange because you don't need dbl click under terraed ;) ?? (only in file selector) but i think that is a FPS problem because your are the one to tell me this problem ? What is your PC an dGFX card ? |
| ||
| Yes, it is only in the file selector where you need to dblclick. It could well be a FPS issue - but even with no world loaded when I am using the file dialog to select a file to load it happens. Trouble is, I can't use the dialog to locate the file because I can't choose the directory :| It's a 1Ghz PIII with an onboard SiS630 (yes yes, but it's not below spec as far as I'm concerned :) ) |
| ||
| "SiS630" I have an old PC with an SiS chipset, it is unable to do anything blitz3d above about 10fps. I suspect your problem is FPS based more than anything else, what does it say your FPS are ? there shown in the bottom left corner above the Terrain button. |
| ||
| Version 2.0.5 is online (with lighmaping + shadow) Official page : http://www.3dgametool.com/project_terraed.htm Download the latest version on : http://www.blitz3dfr.com/terraed_projet/TerraEd.zip   |
| ||
| Well I get around 33 fps with nothing loaded.. with that the button clicks seem to work ok - just button/menu clicks mind you. However as soon as I open a file requester the button clicks are very slow to be detected - have to hold the mouse button.. double clicks almost impossible. Seems strange that the FPS would drop just with the file requester open right? I mean, it seems as though the main rendering loop for the display engine is halted anyway while the file requester is up... is that so? What would make the file requester run so slowly? |
| ||
| what is your machine, is the real question ? i have made terraed for run, with an 1,5 Ghz pc + Geforce 2 MX. and for information, the windowed mode (if you use it) is much slow than fullscreen. |
| ||
| How fast is the actual terrain rendering? How is your real-world game examples fps? |
| ||
| download the demo landscape there is a fps counter. |
| ||
| Ok :) Downloading now! EDIT: ok, thats very impressive.. ran smooooooth on my 1.8ghz, gf4 computer. |
| ||
| for the next release i'm working on a nice textured colormap generator |
| ||
| This is great filax. I can't keep up with your improvements! Keep it up! |
| ||
| My machine is a PIII 1Gghz laptop with an onboard sis630, winMe, I really can't see any reason for the problem - there's nothing much rendering - I don't get a slow framerate for the projects I make - other gui's work perfectly fine. It can be done. |
| ||
| hum ... :) i can't help you. |
| ||
| Brendane, this is very strange. As I told you I had the same problem, and they totally went away by installing new drivers. But beware! on laptops like mine (and yours?) you have to be very careful to install the right drivers. Mine's a Dell, and after consulting our Sysad I had to go to the Dell side and download drivers there, and nowhere else. So you might doublecheck this. That said, I can imagine on the other hand that the GUI uses some exotic DX thing that simply isn't implemented in a very efficient way on the nVidia2go chips (or yours, whatever that is). So maybe there is a way to check whether the GUI component gets an extra overhaul. Oh, and by the way - windowed or fullscreen doesn't make a difference on my machine. I am sure that this is a matter of what of the DX specs are implemented how. And this is a matter of the chip and it's drivers. Regards, Dirk |
| ||
| @Filax :) No worries - thanks for trying. Do you give the source for BFC btw? I'd love to see what's going on for myself. @Dirk Yes, I can't imagine anything is implemented efficiently on this chip but I updated the drivers recently anyway. Windowed and fullscreen make no difference on my machine either. Guess I'm stuck if I can't get a look inside BFC. :| Thanks anyway fellas. |
| ||
| Plan for 2.0.6 : I plan to a compatibility with AlienCodec BlitzTREE references map :) (The little heightmap with GREEN point) Like that you can use terraed for placing you objects directly. Brendane : change your PC !! ;) lol |
| ||
| Hehe... yeah... one of these days I might just do. :) |
| ||
| Hey Felix, if you plan on making a color map generator, make sure you not only base the texture change in the landscape on height, but also on polygon slope angle. Everyone make a terrain texturing system always seems to miss that step. The slope of the polygons is important because vegitation rearly grows on gliffs, but it will grow on the flat or slightly sloped sufaces. I can render some examples for you in my 3d rendering package if you don't understand what I'm talking about. Also, I have code that will get that slope value too. |
| ||
| Filax, do you have a rule of thumb for the FPS hit that your worlds add to a game? For example, if I see 40fps in the TerraEd editor, would that translate reliably to some XXfps (20fps?) hit in my game on the same hardware, screen resolution and color depth? This assumes that Blitz3d and the hardware respond linearly within some reasonable range of polygons, textures and game cpu loads. Maybe a formula like this? GameFPS_Terrain = GameFPS_NoTerrain - EditorFPS / TerraEdConstant thanks- Paul |
   |