Atlas Hole Cutting Update?

#21 Guimo--if we're talking about the same comment, that was almost 2 years ago. As it turns out, to accomplish that he had to completely re-write how Atlas was organized (hence Atlas2), and that took more than a year and a half due to additional technology and research that had come out during that time.

As of right now there are no formal "promises" or expectations of when the feature will be out.

Of course, I may have missed something!

#22 No you're right. The topic recently got bumped, and Ben's comment was from 2005. Yikes.

#23 Guys.. it really isnt that hard, the steps are:

1) Get the chunk you want to edit, this has to be at the bottom-most leaf level, as this has collision and this is what is used at the highest LOD.

2) Edit that chunk to create the hole in the mesh

3) Update collision meshes to incorporate the new chunk

4) Recursively generate the higher LOD's from the new leaf with the hole in

Done!

Its easy to do 1, 2 and 3 but 4 is taking some time to figure out.

This is the same for ALL editor functionality though. Basically you have to effect the bottom-most leaves (the ones holding the geometry) and then propogate any changes up the tree. In theory, once the propagation works, you have the ability to edit the terrain however you like (as long as you can figure out how to edit the mesh).

The only other issue really is that the atlas mesh uses a clipmap, but in effect it isnt a terrain anymore, so there is a duality to how it works. In theory I guess it would be better to unify the texturing so that EVERYTHING is a clipmap (which I believe is what JC was suggesting he was thinking of doing), or allow some kind of material update, so that you could "bake" items into the mesh and have seperate textures (rather than relying on everything being in the clipmap).

#24 If it was *that* easy Phil, wouldn't you think that someone had done it already?
Might be easy for someone like yourself, though. :)

#25 Har!
You are right! Post date was 2005!!!... I must be more careful while reading posts... :)

Luck!
Guimo

#26 I still think a marker that will just port you thru the terrain to inside whatever cave, basement, city is on the other side is a good idea and you would not need to touch atlas code to do it. Call it a zone or hole marker and they are just added in the mission as points 0-9 etc one ports to another.

#27 Stefan: well, I'm speaking from some experience here :) seriously, the thorny issue is the processing of the leaf nodes into the upper nodes (i.e. doing the LOD from bottom to top again once you edit the geometry).

#28 Aye Phil, I figured.

But there is no such official resource to be found, and if it was so easy then I am sure one would be posted. You can not compare the regular programmer around here with someone who has been in the industry since what, 92? ;)

I would look into this if I had the time or interest (and know-how), but I have none of that.

#29 Yeah, I'm hoping that Ben perks up a bit time wise and gives some feedback from the GG end. I ran into a problem with the LOD generation (which simply refused to bloody well work).

My problem is that I can figure out alternatives for our products, but it isnt really workable for GG's purposes.

Anyway, I'm spending my time looking at polysoup externally edited stuff right now. Collada/FBX or whatever.

#30 Polysoup as in the polysoup mesh resource, or just exporting to Atlas from Collada/FBX?

As for alternative methods, why would you not use the one that works for your product?

#31 I'm pretty sure Ben G. is working on that "recursive" LOD generation right now. When he solves it and it's done, it'll be called the "Atlas Terrain Editor."