Foliage
by Paul Castle · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 03/03/2007 (8:51 am) · 4 replies
Hey there. I am pretty new to this so I will have lots of questions I am sure. I am slowly making my way through Ken Finney's All in One book.
Anyway, I've been playing around with the TGE 1.5 Demo and trying to make the foliage replicator work. I drop a replicator in the mission, open the inspector and use the file block to browse to the files that were used in the interactive demo. If I add the Weed01 file, I get the weed pic, but it is a square texture without any alpha (brownish texture all around the main weed). I can make the whole texture go a little transparent messing with the two alpha blocks, but nothing more. If I load the weed01.alpha file, I just get the alpha channel of the weed, but atleast it does not have the surrounding brownish texture.
If I open the editor during the interactive demo and inspect the foliage that is in there, the settings seem to be the same as mine. If I go to the file block and open the weed01 texture, it switches from being transparent around the edges to a solid texture.
I assume I am missing something?
Anyway, I've been playing around with the TGE 1.5 Demo and trying to make the foliage replicator work. I drop a replicator in the mission, open the inspector and use the file block to browse to the files that were used in the interactive demo. If I add the Weed01 file, I get the weed pic, but it is a square texture without any alpha (brownish texture all around the main weed). I can make the whole texture go a little transparent messing with the two alpha blocks, but nothing more. If I load the weed01.alpha file, I just get the alpha channel of the weed, but atleast it does not have the surrounding brownish texture.
If I open the editor during the interactive demo and inspect the foliage that is in there, the settings seem to be the same as mine. If I go to the file block and open the weed01 texture, it switches from being transparent around the edges to a solid texture.
I assume I am missing something?
#2
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=40072
For myself, I ended up copying the foliage replicator instance in the demo's MIS file into my own MIS file and copying the environment folder(with all the grass and weed pictures) into the creator/data folder. This did the trick...I must have had something wrong in mine the first time. Of course this would probably only work if you are using the 1.5 demo.
03/09/2007 (5:42 am)
Well, I am not sure how this thread never showed up in my first search, but this is a very detailed explaination of all the fields in the replicator object:http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=40072
For myself, I ended up copying the foliage replicator instance in the demo's MIS file into my own MIS file and copying the environment folder(with all the grass and weed pictures) into the creator/data folder. This did the trick...I must have had something wrong in mine the first time. Of course this would probably only work if you are using the 1.5 demo.
#3
03/10/2007 (10:17 pm)
I think you have to place the "Weed01.png" and the "Weed01.alpha.png" in the same folder, then tell the engine to look in that folder JUST FOR "Weed01" not "Weed01.png", not "Weed01.alpha.png", just "Weed01". 
#4
I went through the Console.Log and the FoliageReplicate object choked on the CullingResolution.
It says the limit is either 12, 30 or 50 - but the default value when you create it is 64.
So I tried again and set the CulRes to 10 and it worked.
I used a straight PNG (no separate alpha file) and it didn't matter if I added the png extension or not.
I might have to experiment with this a while to get max efficiency.
03/11/2007 (5:45 pm)
Ok, I got it figured out.I went through the Console.Log and the FoliageReplicate object choked on the CullingResolution.
It says the limit is either 12, 30 or 50 - but the default value when you create it is 64.
So I tried again and set the CulRes to 10 and it worked.
I used a straight PNG (no separate alpha file) and it didn't matter if I added the png extension or not.
I might have to experiment with this a while to get max efficiency.
Torque Owner Mike Henry
My foliage replicator doesn't work at all. (TGE 1.4.2)
I've changed the parameters in every way possible, and I get the purple circle, but no foliage.
I've tried several PNG's that work elsewhere, and nothing.
What's up with that?