MegaTerrains - TGEA Update

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Rodney (OldRod) Burns   (Mar 14, 2008 at 21:32 GMT)

Wow, very nice!! So, when will we be seeing this for ourselves? "When it's done"? :)

Peter Simard   (Mar 14, 2008 at 21:36 GMT)

Large terrains are great and all, but how about the quality?

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 14, 2008 at 21:40 GMT)

looks pretty cool but has the appearance of legacy terrain. Is it the chunk style like atlas or is it grid like legacy?

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 14, 2008 at 21:49 GMT)

I agree. if all it is gonna be is just huge then no thanx. I'm sure somepeople could make good use of it though. personally I don't have any use for super large terrain. personally what I'm looking for is a lot of detail like what is seen in Crysis. I can deal with a game being in levels.

Sometimes I think I'm the last person on earth that has no interest in making MMORPGs or Casual games.

I just want to make something that is immersive with a good story and fun challenging game play.

the stuff I have seen " you tube" from legions looks ok "I like all of the flowers" but it still has that very soft no real detail to it look.

I think what is really needed is the ability to have near vertical surfaces and the ability to paint textures on them vertically so they are not stretched. Something similar to the stamping technology of Id's Tech5 would be nice.

Oh well we will have to wait and see I guess.
Edited on Mar 28, 2008 22:32 GMT

Edward Smith   (Mar 14, 2008 at 21:49 GMT)

Looks great, can't wait until the next release of TGEA! :-D

Mark Dynna   (Mar 14, 2008 at 22:27 GMT)

@James: Have you tried cranking down the Square Size on terrain? That should greatly increase your texture resolution (and thus realism). Also there have been more than one successful attempts to add Shader features (Normal Mapping, Specular Highlighting) to Legacy terrain and that will again greatly increase your realism factor.

Ed Johnson   (Mar 14, 2008 at 22:59 GMT)

How does this compare to Atlas ?

Matt Kronyak   (Mar 14, 2008 at 23:12 GMT)

Very interesting. I see that it looks like these support 512x512 heightmaps as opposed to 256x256 for the original legacy terrain. Is there support for other sizes?

Also, is part of this some kind of tool to automatically build a matrix of multiple legacy terrains together? Even if it just loaded and lined them up, and the actual seams had to be hand tuned, that would be fairly huge. If not, that should be pretty simple to develop as an addition to the officially released tools.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall it being possible to change the squareSize on legacy terrain in TGEA. It looks like this is supported now, so linking up several smaller, but more detailed terrains with say, squareSize of 4 or even 2 would look pretty good I think.

How does the clip mapping factor into this enhanced terrain?

Does the terrain itself have the ability to fade out like atlas terrain, eliminating or reducing the need for heavy fog to hide the pieces of terrain popping in and out in the distance like the original legacy terrain? How significantly, if at all, does this effect the framerate? From my experience one of the biggest framerate killers is having a view distance that is too long. Having the ability to make large terrains is certainly cool in and of itself, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of performance enhancements that would make it feasible to actually have the terrain visible from a massive distance away like in the screenshots (or if those are just to demonstrate how big the new terrains can actually be).

This definitely looks cool. I'm very interested in learning more.

Kevin Rogers   (Mar 14, 2008 at 23:40 GMT)

How does this compare to ET:QW terrain solution? E.g. ET:QW supports 32K x 32K terrain textures...

Johnny Hill   (Mar 14, 2008 at 23:52 GMT)

Great! now Iam force to upgrade LOL :) Why are people so down on large terrains. Not everyone, but come on, I rather have too much then too little. How long to think you will be able to keep TGEA/TGE/TorqueX in the sole realm of Indie game producers. Larger companies may want to buy commercial versions of torque by the buckets and expect to see some high-end features. and as far as filler, look at all the content packs coming out now, and the numerous little companies that all they do is make content filler by wahzoos. <-I tried to google what exactly is the metric amount of a wahzoo but I think is more than Yal-zah. :)

Jaimi McEntire   (Mar 15, 2008 at 00:24 GMT)

This looks positively great, Josh! Thanks for all the hardwork. I hope this comes out soon!

One question: Can you adjust the size of the lightmap used on the terrain?
Edited on Mar 15, 2008 00:26 GMT

Bobby Leighton   (Mar 15, 2008 at 03:26 GMT)

I am so anxious for this, I hope this comes out very soon, and the pics look great:)

J.C. Smith   (Mar 15, 2008 at 04:00 GMT)

Looks great.

Prairie Games   (Mar 15, 2008 at 08:47 GMT)

The clipmapping system is capable of excellent texel density and is quite configurable.



Of course, this is just the ground... you'll probably want some foliage and stuff too :)

Matt Kronyak   (Mar 15, 2008 at 08:54 GMT)

Edited on Mar 15, 2008 08:54 GMT

Ryan Jaeger   (Mar 15, 2008 at 09:33 GMT)

So detail textures are on a per texture basis now, or are those just the regular textures with a lot of detail in them?
Haven't had any experience with TGEA yet.

Prairie Games   (Mar 15, 2008 at 09:43 GMT)

Those are regular textures and are about as detailed as the detail textures used to be... and you can still add detail textures over the top. In fact, hooking this up to the creator right now :)

Oliver Rendelmann - DerR   (Mar 15, 2008 at 10:37 GMT)

This looks great! Kinda like what ATLAS could have been... is Atlas dropped in favor for MegaTerrains now?

Stephen Zepp   (Mar 15, 2008 at 10:54 GMT)

Atlas and legacy terrains have always each had their strengths and weaknesses. MegaTerrains don't affect the use or benefits of Atlas in any way, especially for modeling real world terrain datasets.

I saw it asked and didn't see it answered, but no, MegaTerrains do not use chunked LoD like Atlas does (which is the reason why they can be edited in real time, whereas Atlas terrains cannot), so you do not gain the benefits of hugely massive view distances like you do with Atlas. However, as you can see from the screenshots, the allowable view distance is quite large.

Ryan Jaeger   (Mar 15, 2008 at 11:01 GMT)

Details on a per texture basis I hope! ;)

...and also since we could have as much detail in the regular textures as the detail textures had, I assume the detail textures now could be used for what textures USED to be used for? (e.g. Creating the variation over large stretched areas to minimize repetition.)

Henri Aalto   (Mar 15, 2008 at 11:35 GMT)

Will it be possible to import the lightmaps for the terrains as well? I mean the in-engine generated maps are not that good when compared to e.g. lightmaps rendered in Terragen. Also, the ability to use colored lightmaps would be a bonus in such a scenario (the setup works great with Blended Atlas terrains).

Kevin McLaughlin   (Mar 15, 2008 at 13:57 GMT)

I find it INCREDIBLY ironic that you use the same name as Solstar's Realmcrafter used for *their* 512x512 terrain editor. "Megaterrains" must just be a popular name, eh? ;) Might want to look at a new name, though! ;)

Looks seriously great. Combination of large terrains plus tight texel painting is tough, but if you've got it, that's super. Since you're already borrowing the Megaterrain name from RC, I'll toss out some feature suggestions from that program you might want to look at implementing:
- onscreen gui editor gadget that lets you click on a 64x64 segment and have the camera teleported there (easier movement when you have huge terrains, or multiple terrains)
- ability to "paint" objects like grass and trees (replicators work well, but not for everything - filling a 5x5 mile terrain with grass is otherwise a rather large chore!)

I'm hearing a lot of people saying "I need to go buy TGEA now!" Good think I already own a license... ;)

Dave Young   (Mar 15, 2008 at 14:11 GMT)

Looking great Josh!!!

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 15, 2008 at 14:40 GMT)

yeah foliage painting would be sweet! Or better yet have a defined eco-system list. say something like

eco-system:grasslands

//model percentage

grass05 60
grass03 20
flower02 10
plant1 05
tree01 05

See how the percentages total 100 then where ever you pain with that brush it will distribute those models in the listed percentages

This is kinda the way that Vue Infinite works we use it for animations at work. Of course Ideally you would want a eco-system editor in the engine too.
Edited on Mar 15, 2008 14:51 GMT

Michael Perry   (Mar 15, 2008 at 14:42 GMT)

Awesome work on the Mega Terrains Josh! Truly amazing to see in action =)

Due to the new terrain system, as well as the many other new features provided by the update, my Indie company has decided to upgrade to TGEA for Ars Moriendi. Every limitation we were facing before with TGE has now been eliminated.

Again, congrats to Josh and the other developers involved in the project!

Prairie Games II   (Mar 15, 2008 at 16:22 GMT)

Thanks, the MegaTerrain stuff represents the work of many developers. I just got the chance to put a bow on it :)

@Kevin: I didn't come up with the name and I highly doubt the person who did has ever looked at RealmCrafter. The original name was "MultiMap", but it was decided that "MegaTerrain" would be easier to find in the creator...

Mike Rowley   (Mar 15, 2008 at 17:48 GMT)

This sounds awesome. I can think of several game types that this would be perfect for. :)

Quote:

---

yeah foliage painting would be sweet! Or better yet have a defined eco-system list. say something like

eco-system:grasslands

//model percentage

grass05 60
grass03 20
flower02 10
plant1 05
tree01 05

---

This sounds like what Ben Garneys forest pack does.

Gareth Fouche   (Mar 15, 2008 at 18:44 GMT)

Now I'm kinda conflicted. What is the difference between this and Grome? Is the difference great enough to warrant the extra cost? Will an atlas terrain generated by Grome be faster/more efficient? Which will use less disk space for an equivalent map?

(Hmmm, just thought to ask this, can we paint holes in an atlas terrain?)
Edited on Mar 15, 2008 19:07 GMT

T Squared (Thanhda Tie)   (Mar 15, 2008 at 18:54 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

WOW amazing, looks similar to Dekkers code! which is good. so is this going to be an official update within TGEA? is this an expansion of Legacy? because im using AFX, and want to know if it will be compatible with this terrain system, VERY excited.

Kevin McLaughlin   (Mar 15, 2008 at 19:24 GMT)

Josh, I have no doubt that copying the name of the Solstar product was accidental. :) I just thought it humorous. ;) It probably IS worth changing it, just to avoid any potential infringement issues down the road, however.

Thomas Oliver   (Mar 16, 2008 at 00:41 GMT)

AFX will be updated to this new version of TGEA when it is released. They did say it may take a little bit afterwards for the AFX updates is released but it is in the works. Just alot of changes between TGEA 1.0.3 and this new update to TGEA.

The different between this and Grome? Theres alot of difference. Grome is a standalone application where this is a update to TGEA. This update to TGEA uses all ingame tools and the ingame editor. So theres no switching to a third party app. Also the terrain tool listing above is geared to legacy terrain where Grome is more geared toward atlas terrain.

As far as making holes in atlas terrain. I dont think we will ever see that ability. The atlas terrain system was not designed from it and to add in that funcitionality would take massive amount of work and manhours for such a small feature that only a small portion of the community would use.

J.C. Smith   (Mar 16, 2008 at 03:28 GMT)

@T_Squared: I'm pretty sure this is an extension of legacy. If that is the case then I would hope it could still import from a bitmap. If so you could have Grome export the individual pieces of the terrain as bitmaps and then import them into the engine. I'm not sure on that as I haven't seen the new terrain engine, but I'd think that would be the case. Personally I love Grome's editing system, it's great to work with, and removes the need for an in-game editor. However, if the performance and graphics of the new system is good then I'd just import the Grome terrains into it. My largest gripes with Atlas at the moment are that it's difficult to get a high texture resolution up close and hard to implement a per-material detail texturing system without killing performance. If the new terrain can improve either of those areas, then I'd gladly move over to it. Otherwise, I'm happy with Atlas. Either way, it's great to see a lot of changes on the way for TGEA.
Edited on Mar 16, 2008 04:37 GMT

Syllus   (Mar 17, 2008 at 14:29 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Quote:

---

Those are regular textures and are about as detailed as the detail textures used to be... and you can still add detail textures over the top. In fact, hooking this up to the creator right now :)

---

This is fantastic... our number one complaint with all of the gg engine product line is, and always has been, with the terrain texturing... even if you reduced the square size of the terrain to a low number (which casused all sorts of other problems... (engine instability, movement issues, severe editing issues as the editing brushes did not scale with it so you ended up with an extremely small brush now effecting a HUGE area of land and no longer had the ability to get even the slightest bit of detail editing into the terrain etc.) the limited 256x256 terrain texture still looked WAY to big and getting nice clean detail was near impossible... of course this is where, in the post you would get spammed by people saying "thats what detail textures are for!" which was a complete crock because you could not do a per texture layer detail texture... you had one.. just one detail texture for the entire terrain which was, for the most part... useless if you were trying to create a serious game where the visual quality was on par with anything else on the market. Making a simple believable gravel road (where the size of the rocks were anywhere near correctly scaled for the player size, was pretty much impossoble. If you used the so highly acclaimed "detail texture" you could get a passable gravel road... but then your dirt, your grass, your sand, and your cliff faces... all loooked like gravel as well.

It was a huge let down and shock that the gg engines neither supported terrain texture layer scaling, nor layer based detail textures. Nearly every other game engine and terrain editor I have ever worked with supported at least one of those two if not both.

My question to you is this: you said you are hooking up the detail texture capability now.. is it the same old 1 detail texture per terrain... or will you be able to select a texture layer and apply an individual detail texture to that layer (so grass can look like grass and gravel can look like gravel)? And.. if it is going to be the same old "near worthless" 1 detail texture per entire terrain ... is the new clipmapping system capable of high enough texel density that we can get believable gravel / sand / dirt etc just from the texture? (is the max texture size for terrain still 256x256 also?)

Thank you for all the effort going into this... this is going to help aleviate a lot of visual problems with this engine in an outdoor setting, not to mention my issues with our teams artists... ever tried to convince an artist / world designer that the tool you are using is the best you can get on a cost to capability comparison when they cant even scale terrain textures in it to make a somewhat believable looking dirt path? lol Thanks again! Can't wait for this to be released!

Ideas for consideration: One thing that I have always wished for in TGEA, was the ability to create a shader material out of a terrain texture and paint the terrain with the material rather then the base texture...this would allow a great deal of visual improvement for outdoor environs. With this you could make riverbeds/shores actually appear to be wet, snow covered areas could reflect the sunlight much like real snow, and you could get some really nice normal mapping into the terrain on a "per texture layer" basis so to speak. Painting with materials rather then just base textures would open the doors for a whole new degree of visual quality products coming out on this engine (especially with this new clipmapping systems ability to do high texel density!). At least IMHO. Granted I realize that this may very well require a ton of work in the current engine, I am not by any means trying to belittle the complexity of it, but I can assure you that my team would gladly pay for an upgrade with this sort of capability and I am sure others would as well. Anyhow just an idea I thought I'd toss out since the topic of the day was the terrain editing. :) Once again this looks great and hints at being a HUGE improvement to the gg develop line IMHO and I thank you once again for all your hard work and dedication! :)
Edited on Mar 17, 2008 14:50 GMT

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 17, 2008 at 15:10 GMT)

I think I read somewhere up top that 512 was the max for terrain but I could be wrong. I agree with you that if you can have a detail texture for each base texture it is all worthless.

Just wondering. We found a resource that we were using a while back that made it so that there was 2 detail textures one was scaled at 2% of the other This completly broke up the repitition you could see. Plus you had the ability to control it in the editor. if we can get one detail texture per base texture I wonder if we could then implement this. Even if you are using the same texture just using it once at 2% of the first one. should provide a good result. As for painting shader that is jut not going to work. I mean in theory you could design a HLSL shader that funcion as a layered shader container and then you would paint weights. But I would thinkg there would be a pretty big performance hit with something like that as well as requiring a pretty high shader model to do so. So you would pretty much be cutting out anyone with anything less that a GF7 I would think.


In my opinion, since the terrain is being limited to 512x512 I would say have support for a terrain normal mapyou would make the normal map at a much high size and give pretty good detail to things like ridges and peaks of mountains.

but again, I have said this many times all of this is crap if something isn't done about the verticle faces of terrain. Every modern engine on the market today has something to overcome this.

these have been huge strides guys but fix the real problems! Terrain size is not the real issue with TGEA terrain and it never has been. Terrian quality is the issue at hand.

also just something to consider. Did you guys consider a mix of the two usingsomthing like legacy terrain in the editor and then when the level was saved out have it compile to atlas? This would give the best of both worlds. Of course you would have have much higher resolution than 512x512 in the editor though.

deadm4n   (Mar 18, 2008 at 12:28 GMT)

when is the release date and what is the cost?

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 18, 2008 at 14:55 GMT)

...

no release date so far and it is free for TGEA owners.

Kory James   (Mar 18, 2008 at 15:38 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

I was wondering if they have plans on implementing this bumpmapping normal mapping parrallex code in the update click here

thanks for your time
Edited on Mar 18, 2008 15:48 GMT

Gareth Fouche   (Mar 18, 2008 at 16:33 GMT)

Josh, the clipmapping shot you showed there, you had high texel resolution at the players feet. When I work with clipmaps for atlas I get pretty low res textures close by, masked by a detail texture. If I play with the UV scaling in the shaders I get higher res textures but they blur a lot due to the clipmapping going on.

This addition looks to fix that issue, will it be added for Atlas terrains as well? Or only legacy? Or is this possible for Atlas with clipmapping at the moment and I'm just missing something simple? The only way I seem to be able to get really high texel density without blurring at the players feet is by circumventing the clipmapping process entirely and doing a straight texture blend like legacy does.

deadm4n   (Mar 18, 2008 at 17:31 GMT)

@ James - Thanks for the info!

i hope this comes out in the near future! it is exactly what i have been hoping for.

James Brad Barnette   (Mar 19, 2008 at 15:55 GMT)

Here ya go, if you are a TGEA license holder it looks like the beta is getting opened up to the rest of you
read Matt's post HERE
Edited on Mar 19, 2008 15:56 GMT

Tobias Niva   (May 28, 2008 at 11:54 GMT)

@ Jaimi (and all others):

Did you find an answer to if the lightmap size of these MegaTerrains is adjustable?
(I

Jaimi McEntire   (Jul 02, 2008 at 02:14 GMT)

@Tobias: by default it is 1024x1024 now. You can change this in the terrdata.h header.

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