TGE-1.4 'grey-square' glitch with terrain bump-mapping
by Steven Peterson · in Torque Game Engine · 02/22/2006 (3:52 pm) · 4 replies
Not sure if this is a known issue but I haven't seen it yet so thought i'd speak up.
When I set the 'bump-texture' for terrain in TGE-1.4 and TLK-1.4 and look around, these grey squares about the the size of one terrain-texture-tile appear and dissapere in the terrain.
Has anyone else noticed this before?
When I set the 'bump-texture' for terrain in TGE-1.4 and TLK-1.4 and look around, these grey squares about the the size of one terrain-texture-tile appear and dissapere in the terrain.
Has anyone else noticed this before?
#2
- Hardware: Pentium IV, 512mb ram, 32mb Radeon-7000
- Software: Windows-XP Pro.
- Engines: TGE-1.4, TLK-1.4
- Missions: Stronghold, RTS-EnviroPack Missions, and custom
This one is simple to replicate and on the scale of "always, sometimes, never" it ranks "always".
1) Load up a stock 1.4 engine.
2) With your favorite blend of 'Stronghold'.
3) Hit F-11, and go into the 'World-Editor Inspector', and click on the 'terrain' datablock.
4) Under the 'media' sub-heading copy whatever's in the 'detailTexture' block into the 'bumpTexture'
5) Hit apply
If you look close the Bump-mappping IS applied to the terrain (looks very cool in some settings). However,as one walks/looks around in 1st OR 3rd person mode 1 or 2 nearby terrain-tiles will flicker between their normal texture and a flat grey with no detail or bump mapping applied. As one approaches, the tile will fix it'self and the problem will jump to another nearby tile.
I just tried this in an old TLK-1.3.5 and the bug wasn't present, but the bump-mapping didn't seem to be working either. Don't know if thats an accurate data-point though, as it's a modded engine.
I don't have a 2nd hardware-environment to test on. :-( On my system though, the problem IS plainly present in every mission i've tried it, in every version of 1.4 i've tried it.
On my personal priority list this ranks as 'minor annoyance' but a bug is a bug and I like to share ;-) Hopefully this will help somebody.
02/22/2006 (6:37 pm)
Fair enough:- Hardware: Pentium IV, 512mb ram, 32mb Radeon-7000
- Software: Windows-XP Pro.
- Engines: TGE-1.4, TLK-1.4
- Missions: Stronghold, RTS-EnviroPack Missions, and custom
This one is simple to replicate and on the scale of "always, sometimes, never" it ranks "always".
1) Load up a stock 1.4 engine.
2) With your favorite blend of 'Stronghold'.
3) Hit F-11, and go into the 'World-Editor Inspector', and click on the 'terrain' datablock.
4) Under the 'media' sub-heading copy whatever's in the 'detailTexture' block into the 'bumpTexture'
5) Hit apply
If you look close the Bump-mappping IS applied to the terrain (looks very cool in some settings). However,as one walks/looks around in 1st OR 3rd person mode 1 or 2 nearby terrain-tiles will flicker between their normal texture and a flat grey with no detail or bump mapping applied. As one approaches, the tile will fix it'self and the problem will jump to another nearby tile.
I just tried this in an old TLK-1.3.5 and the bug wasn't present, but the bump-mapping didn't seem to be working either. Don't know if thats an accurate data-point though, as it's a modded engine.
I don't have a 2nd hardware-environment to test on. :-( On my system though, the problem IS plainly present in every mission i've tried it, in every version of 1.4 i've tried it.
On my personal priority list this ranks as 'minor annoyance' but a bug is a bug and I like to share ;-) Hopefully this will help somebody.
#3
02/22/2006 (8:27 pm)
I am not seeing this on my copy of 1.4. It is possible that it is a card specific problem (a 32mb Radeon-7000 is getting a little long in the tooth these days).
#4
02/23/2006 (7:48 am)
Not going to argue that, except to say this would be the first time this card has had a problem with Torque. Still, your probably right. :-) 
Torque Owner AllynMcelrath