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4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
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Gian-Reto Offline
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Post: #1
4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
Hi all

I have a bunch of not really related questions I'd like to get an answer to:

1) I'm building a desert level at the moment and I had to use a lot of fog to hide the end of the viewrange. As Its "kind-of-isometric" and you should be able to see the scenery from quite high above...
Now I would like to make the fog look more like "Sand blown by the wind".... something like a light sandstorm. What would be the best way to achieve this look, without performance taking a big hit?

2) I read in the LOD Tutorial posted in this Forum that it is advisable to have at least one LOD, so that the Parallax/Bump mapping is no longer applied. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, the Tutorial talks about the autogenerated LODs, right? So if I'm using my selfmade LOD-Mesh, I have to make sure myself that the Parallax/Bump mapping is switched of in the material?

3) Is there any possibility to treat a Mesh I Import as "Terrain" in the World Editor? So I can paint Ground Textures on it and all?

4) I assume the ability to control the viewrange for different ingame assets other than grass is not there yet?

Thanks for any anwers


Gian-Reto
01-31-2013 12:24 PM
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Esenthel Offline
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Post: #2
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
2) it's about any LOD (can be manual, can be automatically generated)
more complex shaders are automatically disabled for LOD 1 and above, so you don't need to do anything

3) When it comes to painting textures on the mesh - unfortunately no

4) yes, only grass can be configured separately
you can control your own custom class objects (override virtual draw method and draw only if they're in some range)
terrain objects however at the moment can't be controlled manually
02-12-2013 01:05 PM
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Gian-Reto Offline
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Post: #3
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
2) Okay, good to know, thanks for the answer

3) Thats a shame... guess I'll have to see what I can do in 3D Apps

4) So its not possible for "embed_into_terrain" objects? As far as I know these are giving me the best performance for static objects, right?
02-13-2013 07:34 PM
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xzessmedia Offline
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Post: #4
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
(02-13-2013 07:34 PM)Gian-Reto Wrote:  3) Thats a shame... guess I'll have to see what I can do in 3D Apps

Why is this a shame? In my eyes its incredible when you discover the whole featureset of this engine, all for such low price.. there aren't many indie engines which can beat it. anyways the development progress is quite fast as far i can see..

download sculptris which is free and supports obj import/export

Royality Free Game Ressources
www.xzessmedia.de
(This post was last modified: 02-13-2013 07:54 PM by xzessmedia.)
02-13-2013 07:53 PM
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Gian-Reto Offline
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Post: #5
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
Well, its not like I wanted to critize the Engine for not providing the option. Would just have been a pretty good coincidence as it will be harder to do in 3D Apps I guess....

What I want to achieve is a freeform 3D Object, which I then paint with 3+ tiling textures not unlike how its done with the terrain. I've never done that in a 3D App, and I'm not 100% its possible.
02-14-2013 10:23 PM
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xzessmedia Offline
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Post: #6
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
There are many 3D Apps supporting this.
The question is the budget and what you expect from it.
Zbrush, 3D-Coat,Hexagon2 to count some commercial Apps or sculptris which is free http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/

Royality Free Game Ressources
www.xzessmedia.de
02-15-2013 04:44 AM
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Gian-Reto Offline
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Post: #7
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
I actually own a license for 3D Coat and use it actively to sculpt my 3D Models.... but I never have found any functionality that supported painting existing Textures unto a 3D Model.

Other than that I have Blender and Hexagon, but I'm not to familiar with them.

If you know, could you point me to a good tutorial about tiled Texturing in any of these applications?

Thanks for the heads up any way.

Gian-Reto
02-15-2013 12:24 PM
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dylantan Offline
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Post: #8
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
During the initial development, we were the same issue with "painting textures on the mesh" and our solution is simple, use Zbrush, Maya, Topogun and importantly Photoshop. Zbrush for both sculpting and making UVmap. Maya for everything else, Topogun for retopology of the high res model to lower, and yes Photoshop for painting of either in 2D (uvmapping sheet) or 3D (direct painting) to the model.
02-16-2013 03:22 AM
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scotty1121 Offline
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Post: #9
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
(02-16-2013 03:22 AM)dylantan Wrote:  During the initial development, we were the same issue with "painting textures on the mesh" and our solution is simple, use Zbrush, Maya, Topogun and importantly Photoshop. Zbrush for both sculpting and making UVmap. Maya for everything else, Topogun for retopology of the high res model to lower, and yes Photoshop for painting of either in 2D (uvmapping sheet) or 3D (direct painting) to the model.

I'd like to point out that 3ds max/maya are both very powerful tools, it is possible to uv map in 3ds max and maya very effectively. I agree with photoshop, for putting the uv textures together. But if at all possible after that stage, when you have created your uv map texture use the actual real time editor in 3ds max/maya you can move textures precisely, like a scroll.
02-16-2013 04:00 AM
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Gian-Reto Offline
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Post: #10
RE: 4 questions: sandstorm effect, LOD, Mesh as Terrain, Viewrange for assets
Guys, many thanks for all the useful information....

I think I will have to learn more about my 3D Packages then, seems to be common problem that isn't hard to solve.

I used 3D Coat for sculpting and retopo, with a non tiling uv map and painting direct in pixel mode in the same Tool until now. Thats why I was a little lost on how to do the tiling.
02-18-2013 08:53 AM
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