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Work in Progress / Gamescape 3d (advanced world builder)

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The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 02:08 Edited at: 15th Jun 2007 01:38
Hello everyone! Took a break from coding for quite awhile but about two or so weeks ago I got some inspiration. My main focus was writing a terrain engine to suit my new games needs. After getting the framework I decided to make myself an editor to basically generate an entire scene including waypoints,scripts,lightmapping,terrain ect. The terrain method used in the editor is my version of a memblock matrix with lod and culling so its pretty fast.

Here are some very early screens as its only a week into development and also some info. When I feel its in a stable state I will release it to the public. Please let me know of any cool ideas you guys have!




Done already:

Gui
importing of objects
Basic Terrain manipulation
rotation,scaling,positioning of objects
dynamic lights
custom windows api interface
heightmap support
realtime vertex painting
new!!! smooth hill brush
multitexturing
autotexturing based on height and angle
.dbo export
Advance Terrain export(heightmap only,needs work!)
realtime lighting and shadows
Texture splatting
plantmaps(just has to be implemented in editor)
dynamic foliage

being worked on:

More Terrain Brushes
waypoints
scripting system
entity system

Features possible:
physics(newton)
animation editing
vertex manipulation

Here are some very early screens. I will be making updates regularly so keep an eye on this thread,lol

New video! Check it out:

In editor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYvioQ2bwBQ

Vid of new shader written special for Gamescape:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3rHfBv44lc

Newest feature! Custom Gamescape multitexture shader. Smooth blending with small performance hit.









AT and .dbo and custom terrain multitexturing:









advanced terraforming tools(hill brush):



multitexturing based on rgb map




vertex alpha support:


paint your terrain:





Heightmap support:


Windows api integration:
[img]null[/img]

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 18:16
Major progress in the last few hours! The heightmap import and export code is ready for implementation as well as a very primative fractal terrain generation code. Vertex coloring is now supported as well as detail mapping.I will post screens in a little while. If anyone has any comments ideas that would be cool.



Big Man
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 20:26
looks good!

Just a quick question: what does it do that the millions of other world building programs cant??

Im not trying to be difficult, nor am i trying to dishearten you from your project im just saying that it would be cool if this prog can offer something different and useful, its just a suggestion

BM

Our aim is to keep the loo's clean, your aim can help.

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 20:53 Edited at: 5th Apr 2007 20:55
I completely undderstand bigman. But theres actually two big reasons behind this project. One is for it to be a wysiwyg editor for my games. The other big reason is to support the creation of my new terrain system based on memblocks. I also plan on it becoming a physics editor for newton so that you will be able to set and test rigid bodies in a user friendly evironment. It will also offer a dynamic foliage system as I said above which will efficiently populate your terrain with plants and trees will applying lod and culling.
This will also have a scripting system which will allow you to save things such as waypoints in an easily parsed format for people with things like darkai to use.
Again I completely understand where your coming from and its stopped me on making a program like this. But its coming to a point where i need this for my own games and I figured id give back to the community by making it for everyone.

Heres a picture of the new alpha map support. Please note that there is only one texture the variation is from being able to paint the terrains vertex alpha with the mouse. im currently working on a color picker.






Big Man
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 21:01
ok cool sounds amazing if you can pull it all off

Good luck to you

BM

Our aim is to keep the loo's clean, your aim can help.

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 21:24
Simple color picking complete!You can now paint your terrains!





The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 21:56
Heightmap support now implemented!





Xenocythe
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 23:25
Nice

This is looking cool.

-Mansoor
The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 5th Apr 2007 23:34
Thanks xeno! Going to work on making different terrain brushes such as hills etc. and also lightmapping. Ill post back with updates soon!



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 00:24 Edited at: 6th Apr 2007 00:33
Heres another screen of my example heightmapped terrain with a new procedural smoothing routine with a vertex alpha gradient:








The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 04:51
Working on the plant map and foliage system as well as a better fractal system. If anyone would like anything added or has any comments it would be much appreciated!



Super Smash
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 17:20
Dude thats fricken sweet, your amazing, how did you do that color thing? Cuase thats very cool.

I rule you all
-SuperSmashcz
Chris Franklin_
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 18:23
That is superb It'll be free right?

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 18:48
Hello everyone! finally got some time to work on it some more

@ super smash its done by using memblocks to access the terrain mesh's vertex alpha in order to make a one textured terrain look multitextured.

@chris franklin thanks! As of now it will be free but if I feel it has reached commercial quality I might consider selling it. But rest assured it will be cheap and if that happens there will be a free version. Again that most likely won't happen but who knows,lol

More screens and features are on the way!



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 19:22 Edited at: 6th Apr 2007 19:30
As promised a new feature fully customizable hill brush!

heres the first screen:








Xenocythe
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 19:32
ARRAYinator... I would like to learn the use of memblocks. Can you please explain exactly how they work? It would be great if you could.

-Mansoor
The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 19:52
Sure! Memblocks are simply blocks of memory that are managed by darkbasic. You can use these to basically manipulate objects images etc. While I don't have the time to go into detail at the moment but ill give you some links and maybe write a tutorial or a quick explanation later. But these links are what I learned from so there pretty good.

My memblock terrain code is heavily based off of kevils memblock matrix code which you can find here:
kevils memblock terrain:

ravens tutorial:


Just so you get the basic idea what you basically have to do is allocate enough space for your memblock based on the object your going to make, write vertex data(normals,position,vertex diffuse,etc.) then use the change mesh from memblock command. Very basic explaination but its all I have time for right now.
Do you mind if I email you about this? Hope this helps a bit.



Xenocythe
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 19:54
An e-mai will be gret. Thank you very much Arrynator

I'll heck out those tutorials. Your concise explanation was good too. Thank you

-Mansoor
The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 19:57
Glad I can help! Ill email you either later or towmorrow with some more stuff. Will be back with more features and screens in a little while.



TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 20:23
Memblocks are awesome but for meshes is it not quicker to use the 'lock vertexdata for mesh' command and the commands that go with it to edit a mesh? I don't know; I haven't tried. I'm just guessing.

The editor is looking pretty awesome by the way!

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:11
@Teh_coderer I believe you are correct with that one. Thats why I am using the vertex commands in conjunction with memblocks for speed and maximum control. Well didnt do too much. Just was squaring away the vertex alpha routines so that I can move on to the other features planned. Heres a screen I made while testing the program for bugs. Just kinda shows how much control you have with painting your terrains,lol.:





Xenocythe
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:19
That looks awesome Arrayinator!
Great job! This is gonna go far!
I can't wait until you can paint textures!


Ok, I played around with memblocks to figure them out. But this is really confusing me.





You see, the image is red, but the memblock is showing red/green. Try that code, it requires no media.

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:34 Edited at: 6th Apr 2007 22:35
Found your problem xeno. Change your code to this:





THe reason is because the first 8 or so dwords are for the header data such as width and height of the image.



Xenocythe
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:38
Oh, I see. Thank you. Is the header data always going to be the first 8?

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:43
yea, will work on painting texures to the terrain to



Xenocythe
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:45
Yay

Hey, do you mind checking out my free media thread real quick? Maybe give some requests? You can request anything... sounds, music, models, whatever. And I'l make it

Anyways, tahnks for all this help on memblocks. Your awesome

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 6th Apr 2007 22:54
No problem. Ill definately check out your thread when I get back in hour. Ill post back with more stuff later.



TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 7th Apr 2007 00:47
Quote: "Just kinda shows how much control you have with painting your terrains,lol.:
"

Lol! That is cool! When you add in texture painting rather than just colours this will, for fear of sounding cheesy, rock!

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 7th Apr 2007 01:47
Thanks Teh_Coderer! Im going to be doing some serious coding to make the texture painting look nice. well ill get back to it ill post with updates as they are made! By the way the foliage system is about half way done now just need to finish getting the culling etc. working nicely.



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 7th Apr 2007 21:34
Hello everyone! Ive been a little busy but I have a good idea on how to add the paint texture to terrain function. The only drawback is that it will require a pixel/vertex shader compatible card. I feel that although it may cause issues that way the effects I will be able to produce will be quite nice! Ill do my best to get a simple example working soon and maybe a video of the editor to go with it. Anyways ill post back soon with updates!



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 7th Apr 2007 22:05
I think I have it! Using green gandalph's terrain blending shader I was succesfully able to paint my terrain. I did it by writing a routine to basically take the texture you wish to paint paint it the correct blend value at the appropriate coordinate on the rgba map save it update the shader on the terrain object. There was a little bit of uv tweaking to do but it works so expect some realtime terrain painting! This pick doesent look like much as its outsid the editor but whats going on behind the scenes is where the real thhings are going on Tell me what you think! I will post more advanced images later:







Xenocythe
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The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 7th Apr 2007 23:01
Thanks xeno! Going to work on getting it working with my terrain now. That example shot was using an object because it seems that memblocks mess up the uv data. So its just a matter of getting it working with the engine. Again thanks fo the support guys. In the last week ive really seen this project grow and its very rewarding encouraging to see that people like the program. I think a demo or at least a video is in order when I get this painting function worked out. Thanks again! youll be hearing from me soon



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 8th Apr 2007 18:57 Edited at: 8th Apr 2007 19:00
Hello everybody! Currently not at my computer so I can't really post any pics but figured id give you guys an update. I havent got that much done but I have fixed the uv data on the mesh so that the terrain blending function works right. Expect an update either later tonight or towmorrow when things quiet down(its easter today so). I will be working hard to get texture painting working nicely. This program has seemed to takin form as a kind of 3d paint for your world generation so what do you all think about making features that youd see in a paint program like brushs, blending, fade out. Stuff youd see in like photoshop but in 3d with textures etc.. I think that would be cool. Let me know what you think and thanks again!



TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 8th Apr 2007 20:00
Sounds awesome. Possibly a function to auto-paint based upon the height of the terrain.

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 9th Apr 2007 04:31
Thanks Teh_Coderer! sounds like a good idea. Its takeing a little longer then expected to get things sorted out with the realtime texture painting. Rest assured it will work but during the process I had to do some rewriting of my terrain generation code and stuff. Its coming along well so ill post back soon when I have it actually fully working,lol. Thanks again everyone!



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 10th Apr 2007 01:12
I am very happy to say that I have implemented texture painting in the engine! THis is a very early screen and it has artifacts due to some uv errors ive been having. So once those clear up it will look seamless unlike this screen. But what it does show is the ability to multitexture in any size or shape with blending which will allow much flexibility in terrain generation and should be able to produce some amazing results. Id just like to say thanks to green gandalph for all his help hes given me so far and for the shader which works awesome! Now heres the screen:






The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 10th Apr 2007 18:43
Uv data is all fixed and the terrain generation is faster now. I will now work on all the tools for the texture painting. I will post screens soon! Any ideas you have are welcome!



The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 02:20
Small update I have tried some different methods and found that the most accurate is painting to the rgb map directly. Not to say I cant make painting to the terrain look great to but I think a combination of both would produce the best effect. So I will be working on a 2d pallete that you can paint to while seeing the results in 3d while you can then paint directly to the terrrain and vica-versa. Heres a small screen just to show you how easy it will be for even a non artistic persom can make a decent terrain in under a minute,lol on the left is the editor screen and the right is the map made in my rgb map editor that I will post a screen of when I get it working in the editor. And also I have not had enough time to really hunt down bugs etc. and im thinking that maybe some beta testers could help out with that so if anyones intrested let me know.





Alquerian
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 02:25
Sure, I would be intersted

Terrain Generation has a whole new face.
The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 03:59
Cool! I let you know when I have something to test. Im thinking about working switching gears from the terrain generation for a little while and moving to physics or waypoints because the terrain generation is the most mature right now and as I mentioned before this is my games level editor and I want to start working on the integration of the editor and the engine. By no means am I done with the terrain but its mature enough to basically do anything advance terrain can do plus vertex coloring and multitexturing so im pretty happy with what I have but it definately can use a bigger feature set. Any ideas you have would be great and if you want to beta test give a shout out. Thanks everyone!



TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 10:45
Yep, count me in. Looks awesome so should be fun plus I tend to be real good at breaking stuff! Lol!

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 18:18
Sounds good! I will probaly have a alpha version ready soon so you guys can get testing,lol. Im debating over whether to work on Ai integration or newton physics integration first. Im thinking Newton would be great because ive never seen a physics editor in darkbasic pro and its been on my list of things to do since I first started with db. So tell me what you guys think and im thinking about getting a video together to show off the editors capabilitys too so ill see what I can put together today. Thanks!



TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 18:22
I've seen a physics editor in DB before but it wasn't part of a bigger editor like this so I reckon that would be pretty awesome.

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 18:24
Do you remember what it was called. Because id actually like to see it to get some ideas.Thanks!



TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 12th Apr 2007 19:11
Umm...sorry but no. It was for Newton though...it was somewhere in this board I think.

The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 14th Apr 2007 02:54
Not really that much progress but ive been working on getting gamescape terrains into my engine and I have made some options such as advanced terrain export, memblock export and dbo export(untested). Ive been playing around with terrain shaders and I found green gandalphs shader which textures based on vertex height and angle and the results are stunning. This shader will definately be built in with the editor and will total to three texture options which are super texture with vertex alpha, rgb map, and auto texuring based on 4 textures. Here is a pic of a modified advanced terrain demo via my editor with auto texturing applied. Thanks green gandalph my game and editor is going to greatly benefit from your shaders!





TEH_CODERER
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Posted: 14th Apr 2007 11:40
That looks pretty! But you made need to increase the texture res a little. Does his shader have U and V as tweakable values? In your editor you could include the ability to tweak these.

Alquerian
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Posted: 14th Apr 2007 19:51 Edited at: 14th Apr 2007 19:52
The shader that he is using to achieve this does allow for UV manipulation. I modified the shader to pass UV Data through dbp instead of having them statically coded into the shader themself, it should be easy for him to implement.

Visit the Wip!
The ARRAYinator
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Posted: 15th Apr 2007 03:18 Edited at: 15th Apr 2007 03:19
Yes I plan to implement that. Would you by any chance care to share the modified shader code? I have been away all day but have been reading up on terrain rendering techniques etc. to see if any of them would seem practical to use instead of my really primative culling system that culls chunks of the terrain. Well anyways thanks again and ill post back as progress is made



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