Wishfull thinking #2: Shapes on Terrains

I always feel slightly guilty for posting things like this, since I am not able to create the described systems, but I get all excited over the idea, and can't stop myself. I post in hopes of inspiring others, who know way more about such things than I.

Placing objects on the terrain:

Just saw this old thread, www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=33267 and wanted to belch forth additional ideas:

Wouldn't it be cool if you could use the terrain editor interface - where you use that grid that slides over/"sticks" to the terrain - to also place objects?

Like, say, you wanted a bunch of trees through this one valley - just like in the terrain editor, you could use the texture slots gui, only have shapes there instead, and then draw those shapes onto the terrain.

That would be such a huge time saver in terms of production.

It seems like it might not be too hard to impliment... The gui is already there - the terrain editor interface. The technology is sort of already used by the "fxShape replicator"; although I know nothing about how that was implimented. The fxshape replicator does seem a little buggy sometimes...

At any rate, that would be such a huge time saver in terms of production.

I have a friend who used to work for Arena.net (GuildWars). One time he let me take a look at their level editor - it was very cool. It had something sort of like what I described above, as well as other neat tricks.

One thing it did that was also very cool was that you could create rules where the engine could automatically place objects according to the "type" of terrain in the level.

If there was a Torgue version I can imagine it would be a little bit like the terraform settings in the mission editor, only instead of adjusting where the textures are placed based on height, imagine shapes being placed instead of textures. You could have grasses at lower elevations, that slowly blend into a mix of grass and highplains trees, which in-turn, blend, as you go up, into various alpine flora and fauna.

Again, it seems like the code is halfway there in torque - take the terraform gui and code and mix it with the shape or foliage replicator (especially the settings for "allowed terrain") and you might have a start...

So ya, that's my thought for the day. Not entirely original, but, I think, it would be Ultra Handy (tm).