Terrain Thickness
by James Dunmow · in Torque Game Engine · 05/17/2004 (9:37 am) · 3 replies
Quick question with possibly no quick answer ;)
Basically what I've done is implemented the changes to stop the endless repeat of land/water textures leaving me with an island floating in the sky. Perfect. But now I want my 'sky island' to appear to have some substance to it that the 2d tile edge doesn't give me.
Anyone got any bright ideas on how I might have my terrain fake some depth to it, as opposed to being 2d if viewed from the side? The extrusion wouldn't have to be anything more fancy than being 'earth brown' despite the texture atop it.
Basically what I've done is implemented the changes to stop the endless repeat of land/water textures leaving me with an island floating in the sky. Perfect. But now I want my 'sky island' to appear to have some substance to it that the 2d tile edge doesn't give me.
Anyone got any bright ideas on how I might have my terrain fake some depth to it, as opposed to being 2d if viewed from the side? The extrusion wouldn't have to be anything more fancy than being 'earth brown' despite the texture atop it.
#2
Worst case scenario is I'll throw extra terrain tile(s) along the edges, give it a dark brown/earthy texture, and pull it as straight down as I can. I don't expect anyone to be allowed to interact with anything UNDER the mesh so it'll give me the illusion I need. I'd think there'd be a more elegant way to handle it, however.
05/17/2004 (10:48 am)
Nah. Shouldn't take major hacking or require a model.Worst case scenario is I'll throw extra terrain tile(s) along the edges, give it a dark brown/earthy texture, and pull it as straight down as I can. I don't expect anyone to be allowed to interact with anything UNDER the mesh so it'll give me the illusion I need. I'd think there'd be a more elegant way to handle it, however.
#3
With the right fog settings and a little scripting to make a "floor" (maybe a z-axis addition to the Mission Boundries resource, which wouldn't be that hard) I think you'd have the effect you are looking for.
If you are looking for the full floaty effect MAX2MAP is your new best friend.
Here's an interesting thought.
You CAN have more than one TerrainBlock per mission. If you could add a parameter in the terrain code to invert z-axis interpolation (mInvert), so that the TerrainBlock is inverted when it renders. Then you could stack a "regular" (mInvert=false) TerrainBlock on top of an "inverted" (mInvert=true) TerrainBlock, like a clamshell.
Gravity wouldn't be affected (so you couldn't walk on it) but you would gain all the collision detection.
What a neat idea....
05/17/2004 (1:17 pm)
As James said, if you aren't planning to move UNDER the mesh then remove the tiling (detailed ad nauseum elsewhere on this site), set your flight ceiling to around 1km and make your "island" 500m high.With the right fog settings and a little scripting to make a "floor" (maybe a z-axis addition to the Mission Boundries resource, which wouldn't be that hard) I think you'd have the effect you are looking for.
If you are looking for the full floaty effect MAX2MAP is your new best friend.
Here's an interesting thought.
You CAN have more than one TerrainBlock per mission. If you could add a parameter in the terrain code to invert z-axis interpolation (mInvert), so that the TerrainBlock is inverted when it renders. Then you could stack a "regular" (mInvert=false) TerrainBlock on top of an "inverted" (mInvert=true) TerrainBlock, like a clamshell.
Gravity wouldn't be affected (so you couldn't walk on it) but you would gain all the collision detection.
What a neat idea....
Torque Owner Westy
if all eges were flat/level (same height) u could use a model to represent earth underneath it, and scale it to size of terrain.