BG Cliff Construction Kit discussion

#281 We have bought Sahara and also Cliff Construction Kit.
I am trying to install the CCK into Torque3d v1.1 beta 3 and I'm having some problems.
Some of the references to lines in source code files which have to be changed appear to be missing in 1.1 beta3.

Quote:Hey Christian. That has not changed. When 1.1 release is out, there will be an update for the CCK. There will be some videos about it before that, but the actual CCK release will be for the 1.1 release version of T3D only. This is because I am not able to support alpha or beta versions at this time.

Quote:Thanks Sean. The CCK is only supported for T3D 1.0.1 - as it was a final release. However, there's something else really close to getting out into the store for T3D 1.1 B1 and further beta releases (a free pack for all CCK licensees, yet it's a different pack) that will make you happy I hope. :) There's just one small bug to get rid of, and I will be ready to uncover further details about it.

Does this mean the kit will be updated for beta 3 at some point in the near future, will it be updated for the 1.1 final release?

Does Sahara have the same kind of functionality regarding making cliff faces?

#282 Sahara works fine in beta 3, you only need to manually merge two files. The rest will apply the patch without an issue. Just follow the guide that is on the website to properly merge the files into the scripts/engine. I am using it in beta 3 without any issue.

Sahara != CCK however, it has a lot more functionality then the CCK did. You can basically use the system on any object in the game.

#283 Hello Skipper,

Of the two kits, only Sahara is available for 1.1 Beta 3. My reply to Christian was before Sahara was considered to be developed. The problem was that some of the tech the CCK was based upon was changed and / or made deprecated - so the product line stopped there. If 1.1 final will receive the same kind of support for custom materials as 1.0.1 used to have, then the CCK will definitely receive an update for 1.1 final. (This is still unclear to me whether the features are missing temporarily or for good - there's evidence over the forums for both theories.)

Because of this, it would take a significant effort to make the CCK work under Beta 3. This version has a good amount of custom material features stripped from the engine without which I can't simply port the CCK - it would need to be a complete rewrite. Of course if I'll have the time to experiment with a new approach, then it will be a fun project to take on - but right now I can not afford that.

When Sahara came out, it was a free upgrade to those customers who already have purchased the CCK - as a way of saying thanks. These are however two separate products. While the CCK includes the cliff shapes, and it is able to apply the same material accumulation effect, it does this on any material in Torque 3D 1.1 Beta 2 and 3. The CCK on the other hand has specific tools for placing and fine-tuning cliffs. Part of the CCK is about being able to place cliffs with randomly varied textures over the scene. This is not possible with Sahara.

So, both products have their own pros and cons.

@Sean: Many thanks for helping out with the answer!

#284 @Konrad - np, I really enjoy playing with Sahara and the CCK. The capabilities it adds to the engine make it well worth getting the add ons. Being able to throw in new objects and apply accumulation to them really adds depth without having to spend hours messing with models. I have pushed the kits to all of my fellow developers to make sure that we were all using the same tools.

#285 @Sean: Thanks. :) For a long time we did not have an in-house artist, but we needed about 6 different types from many of our models - the ones that appear in different ecosystems through our game - cliffs, portals, buildings, etc... and we wanted snow, dirt, grass, ice on them.

I'm really glad that you find these useful!

#286 Oh dear, I was really looking forwards to making some huge cliffs, it sounds great.
I hope the new team at Garage games decide to restore some of the functionality you need.
Can I have a refund?
If it gets updated in future Torque3d versions I can buy it then.

#287 Sure, no problem. Please allow me to do the refund in the morning, its 2:35am here and I was about to get some sleep - but didn't want to keep you guessing. :)

Edit: Done!

#288 I was looking at some of the features you were hoping to add, it sounds great.

Quote:A few features that are on our list of TODO things for the Kit:

- Terrain-cliff intersections made more natural through partial and varied terrain material inheritance at the intersection
- Make replication a script-driven process, so plug-ins can be made...
- Plug-ins such as create labyrinth
- More modifiers and presets based on the community's requirements

We will work more on cliffs that intersect the terrain at a later date. We want them to pick up a definable amount of terrain material, so that intersection looks more natural and less sharp.

With Sahara and the rule based terrain painting resource this could really make it easy for artists to produce seamless looking levels integrating open terrains with dramatic rocky features, it would really help cut down on texture tiling artifacts too. For me the look of the engine is the most important thing and making a natural looking environment is the top priority.

Now the future of the Torque3d engine seems more assured for the future and the 1.1 final release is on the horizon, and with the new influx of indie developers, I hope you decide to update the Kit if possible.

#289 Did you receive the refund?

Actually, terrain - cliff natural intersections can be done with Sahara.

We have procedurally generated forests working (partially script based, but to achieve better performance, lots of it is in C++), but the solution is still being tested. I am hoping to share that code with the community as a resource once it is stable enough and I have the time. I still owe Steve Acaster some code I promised him last year that I'd publish as a resource, but I have trouble finding the time to prepare that as well. So I can't say an ETA yet.

The above procedural generation also respects maintaining a traversable path from point A to point B - in that aspect it could be used to make a maze-like level, but not quite ideal for it. This is results in a more natural, crowded but guaranteed-to-be-playable level than a maze.

I also did a plugin for Constructor some time ago that is able to generate an optimized maze mesh, but it was discontinued. I am planning to pick that up to create a maze generator in the future - though these would primarily be low poly simple structures aimed at mobile platforms.

Some of the community ideas already made it into the CCK and Sahara. One of these was the UV coords resizing feature - but that's the only thing that comes to mind right now.

Granted, Sahara needs you to define what material is accumulated on the top or the bottom of (or all around) a shape, but automatic material inheritance is not hard to achieve at all. Ie. drop your shape, flip a switch, and it gets covered by whatever material the terrain has below it. It has a rather low priority right now, however.

So all in all, there is indeed progress in all those points, but by time and through progress the goals might have been altered slightly.

#290 We're experiencing technical difficulties with our server at the moment. We're on it, I hope it will be back up within a few hours at most. Thank you.

#291 Yes thanks very much I got the refund.

I've installed Sahara but I haven't had a chance to look at it in depth yet, I see there's some Cliff shapes in there, maybe I can do something with them.

Quote:Actually, terrain - cliff natural intersections can be done with Sahara.

I didn't realize Sahara can also affect terrain, I'm very eager to make my cliffs blend into the terrain seamlessly, where do I start?

#292 Just a little update on the outage - it will take us about 12 hours to remedy the issue. Unfortunately our servers will not be reachable until then.

@skipper: Cool, thanks. Actually, Sahara can not affect the terrain, but it can use the same material as the terrain on a shape's bottom - which would result in the same effect.

#293 Our servers might be unreachable in the coming days as we move our architecture over to the Amazon EC2 cloud.

We hope to sort everything out by the end of the week. Hopefully it will result in a more responsive connection for you, but more importantly in more reliable hardware - something we've been having troubles with ever since the website was online.

The outage will not affect our emails, so please contact us at the support address in your docs or konrad _at_ bitgap.com.

Thanks for your patience!

#294 The website is functional once again, thank you for your patience.

The Bitgap web server is now located in the US (east coast) instead of Central Europe.

I've received a few reports that downloads would sometimes be dropped with large files. I think we have sorted that problem out, but if you have any annoyances, be sure to let me know!