(02-11-2011 12:15 PM)Esenthel Wrote:  also use [] keys to modify active range.

Aha, thats what I was looking for, I can't believe I didn't know about this before

menu/view/area radius
remember to move your camera around with space key, to view positions outside of the editing rectangle

(02-11-2011 07:30 PM)Esenthel Wrote:  1) http://www.esenthel.com/?id=feature/game...#streaming
no loading screens in 1 world, no matter how big it is
2) no, you can't have multiple worlds loaded at 1 time, you can teleport between them though
3) you don't need to do anything extra, just build your huge world in World Editor
4)
a. yeah, everything
b. it's depending on the view radius (active range Game::World.activeRange
c. yeah
5) if you have company license there's tutorial for that
6) only frustum culling, plus some automatic engine management/optimizations

Thanks, good answers for most.

On (2 and 3): I'm not talking about a pre-built (static) world. I'm confused as how one can create dynamically generated terrain etc with this engine - do you have any suggestions?

Many modern games have things like procedurally generated terrain / worlds. To pre-generate and populate huge worlds in editors is extremely expensive, results in extremely large data files, and gameplay suffers as players get used too the world.

Is there a way to save areas and load them up dynamically in a non-predefined manner?


(6) Are you looking at adding more occlusion options?

There's a topic around here about terrain generation.
Here it is:
http://www.esenthel.com/community/showth...r+skeleton

(02-12-2011 02:43 AM)Dandruff Wrote:  There's a topic around here about terrain generation.
Here it is:
http://www.esenthel.com/community/showth...r+skeleton

Excellent thx for the link.

It seems that is creating a mesh ... I'm not sure Esenthel terrain is simply a mesh though.

But then, the editor obviously creates terrain so coding it should be possible ... just not sure if all that is exposed / available without bastardizing the engine. Do licensees get source to the world editor etc?

I think the terrain is basically a mesh, don't quote me on that though

(02-12-2011 05:02 AM)Dandruff Wrote:  I think the terrain is basically a mesh, don't quote me on that though

Ok thanks for reply again. Hopefully I can get confirmation there is no difference to adding a mesh through code to using the built-in terrain through the editor - still reading wherever I can about it. I would have thought there must be some differences - like for occlusion/culling etc ... but maybe those can be added via code too. In C4 terrain is very different to mesh, although a lot of that is because it's true voxel (3d) terrain, not height-map (2d).

If I'm understanding correctly, each "tile" of the terrain is a 128x128 heightmap, so as you press insert to add additional terrain "tiles", you're basically adding a new 128x128 heightmap.

If that's how it works, I can definitely see how this is more efficient, as 128x128 is a pretty small file size, thus it can be read and streamed in more quickly. To increase the size of your world, simply add more 128x128 tiles in the direction you need to grow it. The engine handles the rest.

I must say, too, that I've been evaluating the engine so far for a project of my own that will require a massive, streaming map. So far it's been a pleasure working with the terrains in this engine. The performance is awesome.

The *only* thing I'd like to maybe see is the ability to grab vertices and move them up and down manually. Not via a paintbrush/airbrush method, but as though you're physically grabbing the vertices and dragging them up and down yourself. I've seen this in other engines' editors and it really provides an extra level of "fine tuning" if you're trying to get a very specific structure, especially for things like breaking up cliffs to reduce stretching and make them look more interesting, etc.

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(02-12-2011 09:27 PM)impi Wrote:  

(02-12-2011 05:02 AM)Dandruff Wrote:  I think the terrain is basically a mesh, don't quote me on that though

Ok thanks for reply again. Hopefully I can get confirmation there is no difference to adding a mesh through code to using the built-in terrain through the editor - still reading wherever I can about it. I would have thought there must be some differences - like for occlusion/culling etc ... but maybe those can be added via code too. In C4 terrain is very different to mesh, although a lot of that is because it's true voxel (3d) terrain, not height-map (2d).

Actually, all terrains are, ultimately, a mesh by the time they're processed by the engine.

Heightmaps and voxels are the means through which the terrains are created/modified.

Voxel tech is very nice, though I agree. Being able to break free of that "vertical axis only" restriction is quite liberating. I'm not a fan of C4's implementation of editing voxels, though, to be honest. Feels awkward to me for some reason.

(02-13-2011 04:05 AM)Wolfsong73 Wrote:  The *only* thing I'd like to maybe see is the ability to grab vertices and move them up and down manually.

Yes, that will be very handy in the editor.

And ideally with a 'magnet' option to affect surrounding vertexes if enabled.

(02-13-2011 04:05 AM)Wolfsong73 Wrote:  Actually, all terrains are, ultimately, a mesh by the time they're processed by the engine.

True ... everything is meshes and textures in the end. But what I meant is there is normally additional info with the terrain apart from just a mesh. But possibly/hopefully all that can be added through code anyway.

(02-13-2011 04:05 AM)Wolfsong73 Wrote:  Voxel tech is very nice, though I agree. Being able to break free of that "vertical axis only" restriction is quite liberating. I'm not a fan of C4's implementation of editing voxels, though, to be honest. Feels awkward to me for some reason.

Certainly it's not the best voxel editor out there (game engine editors rarely have the best ... but more important the engines are good), but luckily it allows voxel raw file imports so one can use Acropora etc (which is amazing).

EE terrain is Mesh+PhysBody

(02-13-2011 07:04 PM)Esenthel Wrote:  EE terrain is Mesh+PhysBody

Ok cool. So I assume it's easy enough to recreate the Physbody needed via code? As the example Dandruff linked too earlier was for the mesh part.

Also : is there any disadvantages or problems you can forsee creating terrain in code ( as large "tiles" ), and obviously destroying them when no longer needed. Or do you think it will be overly complex?

Are any of the terrain texturing functions available via code that can make it easier to achieve that? Also to not have seams between the terrain tiles etc.