TERRAIN

[ghettoboy]

[refractor]

Hello.

If you're serious about commissioning somebody to write you a terrain engine, you should:

write a much more verbose/"better" specification saying what you want, exactly ... "write terrain" is a little ambiguous

put a post in the job-offers forum

maybe offer a way of proving that a payment could/would be made to the provider


On the other hand, I gave a link to a terrain paper in the "Assembler" thread, if you want to give that a looking over:


.. but to implement that "properly" is going to take assembly language and skills you *probably* don't know yet (maths, mainly).

I believe that Phantom published a terrain engine demo a while back, but I'm sure he'll get back to you on that one

Cheers, good luck,

Refractor.

[ghettoboy]

obviously id prefer not to pay...
i only want to know how to do this as i have an idea for a game and i will need 3d terrain...ive read all the stuff in opengl and directx and ...i have no problems writing the cod for heightmaps or even just importing a 3d max model.

my problem is that i saw the phantoms voxel engine..and realised that this could be done using easy ce ...but whatever i try i cannot get anything to work.

anyway lots of people have given me links to terrain building faq's etc etc... and now i have so much info on how to this kinda stuff im getting to feel a bit of an expert.

but can i get anything to work on my ipaq...NOOOO!!!
and as i cant find anyone to show me how they have done it..if anyone actually has anyway..then i thought that maybe if i can pay someone then i wll get to know how.

I have told my parents its for eduction..which it is ,so they are willing to pay..but i dont really like misleading them.
so i hope that answers your question

[Phantom]

That engine I wrote is a voxel engine. And I sold it. Can't tell you who bought it.

Anyway, the basic idea of a voxel engine is:
- For each scanline, find the 2D world position. If you would simply plot a texel there, you would get a mario kart view. Start with the bottom scanline (the 'closest' one).
- Instead of simply drawing the texel, you fetch it's color and height (from a height map, same size as the texture).
- Now, draw vertical bars with the height you got from the heightmap. Clip them against the bars you already have drawn.

That's the basic idea. My engine used some more stuff, like fogging, bilerp, animated water, a spherical sky dome, reflections etc., but above stuff is the basis.

[MirekCz]

hey, well.
1.voxel landscape is fine, but:
a)it's often blocky
b)it's problematic to add objects over it (you either have to use 3d objects or use some bitmaps (forgot the word for it atm.. argh)

another approach is an usual 3d approach, it's harder to start and possible a bit slower, but it often allows for better results in the long run and it's easier to use it with other objects.

If you want I can help you out a bit, unfortunetly I have lost my cable connection and using analog modem only atm, so I mainly read/answer emails. feel free to email me if interested.
PS.check out old PC intros/demos, they often have got such effect and sometimes come with source.

[Dan East]

Hmm. I can only think of a couple games (one that is not even released) that use voxel landscape engines. I wonder which one it could be?

Dan East

[Village_Ideot]

[Digby]

[refractor]

[ghettoboy]

[simonjacobs]

[ghettoboy]

[simonjacobs]

[ghettoboy]

[simonjacobs]