Geometry Layers

by Nieb-- on 03/30/2007 03:44, 19 messages, last message: 04/06/2007 06:01, 1940 views, last view: 05/01/2024 11:16

I\\\\\\\'ve recently been doing a lot of mapping that involves terrain & caves n\\\\\\\' such. With a relatively large about of time and work it is possible to get \\\\\\\'half decent\\\\\\\' looking terrain/caves.
The problem is when it comes to doing slopes on multiple axis\\\\\\\'s, this is near impossible. So you are forced to do the slope along a strait edge, which doesn\\\\\\\'t look very pretty.
In this example the straight edge is along the horizontal axis;
http://www.snieb.com/edgeh.jpg
In this example the straight edge is along the vertical axis;
http://www.snieb.com/edgev.jpg

The original idea I came to, was using a separate terrain mesh, similar to what you’d find in Far Cry, Battlefield 2, and the Torque GameEngine. But the idea of 2 types of geometry in the engine is just a bit weird and wouldn’t fit in with Sauerbraten’s ideals; also a 2D height-field can be very limiting.

Then I thought, Sauerbraten already is a 3D height-field. Only problem is there can’t be more than one cube/mesh in the same allocation. So the idea is to have 2 separate oct-trees, or ‘layers’, that coexist in the map. Visual examples to help explain this...
http://www.snieb.com/example1.jpg
http://www.snieb.com/example2.jpg
Colours refer to which ‘layer’ they are. In examples you can see that you would be able to have cross-beam or support intersect with a slope and not have it sub-divide. You’d also be able to have different grid sizes intersect and like I said before it would now be possible to have slopes on multiple axis’s.


I understand that this would, most likely, require a lot of reworking of the engine. But, I think that what we get in return for the work is well worth it. This would really expand the abilities of this engine and open the possibility to make higher quality, less \\\\\\\'cubic\\\\\\\', and overall more professional looking maps.

..I could be thinking a bit too much outside the box here (or cube rather). Sounded like a good idea so I thought I’d share, thoughts and feedback are welcome. :)

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#1: ..

by Passa on 03/30/2007 08:21

I like. Good simple idea, only problem (as you mentioned) is that it isn't practical to implement into the engine. Hey, it virtually renders every other map obsolete.

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#2: ..

by absinth on 03/30/2007 15:06

weird, (if i understand you correctly) i thought about the very same thing last night while not being able to sleep ;-)

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#3: yeah

by rock.n.rol_w/o_cookie on 03/30/2007 16:17

That´s a nice idea, Nieb.
And yes, i also thought about that before when i was doing a landscape once. Would be awesome if that would become possible in sauer, it would increase the look of each cave and landscape. Unfortunately, i´m not a coder, so i can´t give any help in that but hope it will become real one day ;)

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#4: I wouldn't count on it...

by Aardappel_ on 03/30/2007 19:14

its an interesting idea, but in a sense it makes a lot of stuff doubly expensive and/or complicated. The work does not offset the gain by several orders of magnitude.

Besides, there would probably be other ways to do what you are looking for, but its not very clear.

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#5: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by Nieb-- on 03/30/2007 20:39, refers to #4

Yeah, after posting this I realized that there would be alot of overdraw problems and I'm sure there are other flaws in this method.

I've been trying to come up with something to achieve this for a longtime. But, nothing I've come up with seems to be a logical choice. Do you have any ideas?

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#6: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by eihrul on 03/30/2007 21:04, refers to #5

Some type of geometry mapmodels?

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#7: ..

by SanHolo on 03/30/2007 21:28

Totally off-topic: How do you get the black lines along the edges?

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#8: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by kurtis84 on 03/31/2007 00:14, refers to #6

Mapmodels could work, but they would need very accurate player clipping. Doom3 has a LOT of huge mapmodels in the maps it shipped with. Some of the models were 60-70% of the entire map. :)

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#9: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by Nieb-- on 03/31/2007 01:11, refers to #8

The idea would work.
But it sounds sloppy, and I don't like the idea of fiddling between two different programs to make a map, ruins the creative flow.

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#10: ..

by Minion...Seriously on 03/31/2007 01:23

May as well make the entire map a map model at that point. Creating a big ass terrain mesh first then trying to put crap on top of it is undesireable as ultimately your terrain has to be modified based on what is actually on it.

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#11: Re: ..

by Nieb-- on 03/31/2007 01:27, refers to #7

>>Totally off-topic: How do you get the black lines along the edges?<<
Press '7' or type '/outline 1'

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#12: ..

by Passa on 03/31/2007 06:32

Maybe one for Cube 3 eh? :P

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#13: ..

by tentus_ on 03/31/2007 08:09

The mesh-augmentation idea sounds like UT to me... an increasing number of maps in UT are 100% models. Crazy.

It's tricky trying to think of a solution that wouldn't become very expensive very fast. Materials wouldn't work (elegantly, at least), mapmodels would get cumbersome and repetitive, and the layers idea seems to be out for now. Every idea I come up with costs too much.

Too bad there's not some 50% format that blends editable geometry with mapmodels (the old "draw from an external mini-source" idea). I keep coming back to this idea where the mapper can hop into a second editing mode and make minor edits to a mapmodel that are contained within the map as small clips of data. When the map is loaded the edits would be calculated and the results added to the mapmodel list as whole new mapmodels (or perhaps into a separate list). Obviously, this adds a ton of code to everything, and there would be tons of limitations to how much the models could be edited (no skinning edits probably, so they'd get ugly fast, and adding or deleting vert probably wouldn't be feasible).

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#14: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by Aardappel_ on 04/02/2007 08:31, refers to #5

you'd first have to show me more clearly what exactly you are trying to do. Because when it is purely about efficiency (less subdiv), then let us worry about that :)

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#15: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by shadow,516 on 04/03/2007 02:57, refers to #14

well, with that system you could make new shapes (ones with more than 6 sides, for instance)

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#16: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by Nieb-- on 04/04/2007 05:25, refers to #14

What I'm mainly trying to achieve is having 2 height-maps, on perpendicular planes, intersect.

http://www.snieb.com/example.avi
http://www.snieb.com/example3.JPG
http://www.snieb.com/example4.JPG

There are some (nasty) ways to achieve this currently in Sauerbraten, but it's very time consuming, rarely looks good, and alot of times just doesn't work, if you trying to do it in a narrow space.

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#17: Re: I wouldn't count on it...

by Aardappel_ on 04/04/2007 19:09, refers to #16

so lets see... you want us to create an entire new engine structure, just to avoid you having to align your heightfields better and/or use a smaller gridsize?

Yes, the fact that's sauers cube's are more restrictive than a generic mesh means that most things are quick and easy, some things are hard or not possible. I think its a good tradeoff. You can always find cases that are clumsy in sauer, instead its more productive to mildly redesign what you're trying to do to a way that works well in sauer. This tends to result in much better maps.

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#18: ..

by Nieb-- on 04/05/2007 15:34

I was just answering your question.

It was just an idea, and I now realize it has flaws and is unlikely to happen.

I'm more then happy with how the engine is now. :)

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#19: ..

by w4 on 04/06/2007 06:01

much better than cube one but i would rather have true curved shapes

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