Two questions

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realgaming135
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Two questions

Post by realgaming135 » Sat Apr 20, 2013 8:35 pm

I have a problem with my level geometry. In the level there is a transparant area or hole in my texture, or in the geometry. It is only visible in the game, but in the RFEditPro, there is nothing, I would like to know how to fix this. If you don't know what I am talking about, here is a picture of the error. You can see the skybox through the hole.
screen1.JPG
(49.62 KiB) Not downloaded yet
Next question. When I use the EnviromentSetup entity, and I want the level to be foggy, I can still see the skybox clearly. That means I will still be able to see the far clipping plane. How do I fix this, so the fog is visible everywhere? Here is a picture, so you know what I mean.
screen2.JPG
(51.78 KiB) Not downloaded yet
It would be awesome with some help :D
Thanks
Without facts, a mystery is just a guessing game...

Veleran
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Re: Two questions

Post by Veleran » Sun Apr 21, 2013 11:35 pm

How many brushes are in the first pic and what kind are they?Is there a partial transparent flagged brush?
The transparent bsp brushes must not touch the other geometry.
Give some more details.
For the second pic with the far clip plane,i thought the skybox gets clipped.
You either can checked the option debug - no clipping = on or have not set the clip distance to be far away enough.
I might miss something ,but you can do another final test and put a big bsp box somewhere at the distance,and get a picture to study if it really gets clipped,in case that may help you know how to adjust the settings.

dailoc
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Re: Two questions

Post by dailoc » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:46 am

Hey, I know how to answer the 2nd. I'm pretty sure that your SkyDome is too low. You can set in higher in the script.

Veleran
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Re: Two questions

Post by Veleran » Mon Apr 22, 2013 4:40 am

I see what you mean,the mesh outlines at the mountains will be visible ,you must hide them by setting the fog to start and end before the clipping plane starts.
Of course,what else could still be visible after the far clip-the skydome.
Those brown polygons of the first pic could be just badly imported or compiled bsp geometry.Some times the tiny bsp brushes or others that have faces with no normals-like flipped faces can also give that broken pieces look.

realgaming135
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Re: Two questions

Post by realgaming135 » Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:12 am

About the first picture: Of some reason, that hole just disappered, but is now irritating in a new area.
Veleran you wanted some details: the brushes you see is a part of a terrain which I made in Nem's Terrain Generator, imported to RFEditPro as a map file. All unseen faces I've set them to sky, so the only faces that is not sky, is the surface you walk on. As you probably already know the terrain is made by triangle formed cylinders, so it was alot of faces, that I have turned into sky. I think that's all I can say about it. And no, there is no transparant flagged brushes. Only the faces marked as sky. :)

About the second picture: hey dailoc, I'm not using skydome, but a skybox :wink:
I need the far clipping, because if I don't, the fps will drop too much. I think I know what I wanna do about it.In the real world when it is foggy, the sky have the same color as the fog, which means, you cannot see the sky through the fog. So I am just gonna remove the skybox texture, and it will look foggy everywhere :) I think I need the sun to shine a little bit through, but maybe I can do that with the skydome :)

Thank you both for helping :D
Without facts, a mystery is just a guessing game...

dailoc
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Re: Two questions

Post by dailoc » Mon Apr 22, 2013 10:35 am

Yeah, Skydome is much better and easier to use.

Veleran
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Re: Two questions

Post by Veleran » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:16 pm

Cylinders you said in Nems?I though all bsp collision is triangles in Nem's generator.Did you export from there any hint brushes along the basic geometry?It might be the cause of the bugs of the terrain.

You can still optimize the skydome if you want,I use only far clip and distance fog because it is faster on very old pc.
Last edited by Veleran on Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

realgaming135
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Re: Two questions

Post by realgaming135 » Mon Apr 22, 2013 2:52 pm

alright, my english is not always the best :wink: but yeah, it is made of triangles then. I just thought that it was only called 'triangle' when it was in 2D, therefore I said 'triangle formed cylinders' :) But yeah, then the terrain is made of triangles.

anyway, thank you both for helping :)
Without facts, a mystery is just a guessing game...

Veleran
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Re: Two questions

Post by Veleran » Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:04 pm

I did nt expect you read so soon the post,before i edit and remove some tricks i wanted to mention-maybe its early for that.
I was looking at that tool now -maybe you can be first to check it and try it as StaticMesh entity with collision type 3 in the editor.
If the collision is nt good enough and you get stuck or can not jump then you can ditch it.

http://terrain-generator.software.informer.com/

Better not mess with Milkshape- use Gmax which ifs free ,easy and not difficult like Blender 3d.

Veleran
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Re: Two questions

Post by Veleran » Mon Apr 22, 2013 3:47 pm

There are tricks you can do by using actor mesh terrain will try to write less as possible.

I prefer to create the terrain in Max to export as actor and use it later as Staticmesh entity in the level editor RfEditPro,
Create convex shapes that match the overall shape of the terrain and export them from max as Quake or Half life .map.
The advantage is that you can put a detailed mesh for display and have optimized low polygon clip bsp brushes for the collision and have fast frame rate.


For the flat horizontal terrain in gmax you set tools/grid and snaps/ something like grid 64 units.

Create the basic terrain primitives:

With snap to grid on (look for it high up) you create two triange shapes (Create panel/shapes/create line ) in the top viewport,both triangles make a square.
You apply to them Modifiers/Extrude and give them depth of -64.

In the top view select the two triangles and clone them horizontally and vertically to assemple the whole terrain like 32x32 squares.The quick way to do so is-tools/array and pick transform +64 to have each cloned piece placed 64 units further from the previous.
You can skip the array tool for the moment if you do not understand it right away.

Give height and shape to the ground surface

Select all cloned triangles and apply edit mesh on them.
Hide the bottom vertices and move the top vertices up and down to give shape.
If you move the vertices to the sides horizontally it will not work well.Keep it deformed only vertically.

To have the terrain staticmesh match the triangle brushes slopes you create a box with the same snaps on to the grid
that has vertices to the same place as the triangles.
Delete the bottom vertices and you got a flat sheet mesh.
Select the sheet together with the extruded triangles and apply edit mesh to all of them together.
Turn off the 2d snap or reduce it to something like 8 utnits and you re ready to deform the landscape,both the clip brushes and the future staticmesh actor.

To make smooth slopes use the affect region tool for the vertex mode in edit mesh to move the vertices up and down with fall off.

All this will take hours,so if you want a quick level preview just use Nems generator for the moment.

When you can get tools there

http://www.realityfactory.info/forum/vi ... 691#p39811

realgaming135
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Re: Two questions

Post by realgaming135 » Mon Apr 22, 2013 11:16 pm

I will try to use Static Mesh to get a terrain into RealityFactory. Maybe I can avoid those wierd holes and errors like the hole on the first picture. And if fps is still high even with the terrain, it then sounds like the right thing to do.
And later I'll try to do it with Gmax. :)
Without facts, a mystery is just a guessing game...

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bernie
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Re: Two questions

Post by bernie » Tue Apr 23, 2013 1:37 pm

RF isn't happy with terrains and outdoor scenes, however it is possible.

OK here's a rough guide but please experiment it's the best way to learn.

You need the following 4 programs.

L3dt its free get it here: http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/downloads/standard.php

T2 Also free get it here:- http://www.toymaker.info/html/downloadT2.html

Milkshape $30 worth every penny and an invalualble program for RF, it's easy to learn and use, It also has a 30 day trial. Get it here:- http://www.milkshape3d.com/

Equity 7c Free get it here:- http://sourceforge.net/projects/rfxtools/

L3dt:
Export the heightmap as .bmp
Export the textures,lightmap and terrain normals as .bmp

T2:
Make a new project
click file -> Load New in the heightfield and load your height map.
click new texture in the texture and load your texture bmp file.
Click create.
Set output texture to the size you want the default is 256x256.(It must be square
and a multiple power of 2 ie 128x128, 256x256, 512x512 etc)
Tick the box slice textures and make it 2 slices wide and 2 slices high.
Click Go.
When it has done its calculations click Show Mesh.
Make mesh dimensions width 32 height 32 (these dimensions should be the same
high as wide but they don't need to be a power of 2. Bigger numbers will create more polys
smaller numbers will create less polys 32x32 will make 7688 polys, experiment here to make your
lods. You can go higher than 32 x 32 but not recomended for RF, EXPERIMENT with the figures)

Make the world units width 1024 height 1024
clear the boxescreate one mesh and create one texture.
make number wide 2 and number high 2.
click OK.
When the view comes up click export.
Tick the 3ds format in export format.
Clear the box Swap Z and Y. (very important).
Click ok.
Name your file and save.
Close viewer and close T2.

Open Milkshape
Import your 3ds file.
You should have a file that is 7,688 triangles split into 4 groups.

Now for the tricky bit.

Make sure you have saved your MS3d file as ALL.ms3d.
go to groups and select mesh0
click edit -> Select Invert
Press the delete key on your keyboard to delete what you have selected and
you will be left with the top left hand quarter of your map.
Delete the materials Mat1, Mat2 and Mat3

Save AS TL.ms3d

close this file.

Open All.ms3d
Select mesh1 (Bottom left) and do what you did with mesh0 only deleting Mat0, Mat2 and mat 3 and saving as BL.ms3d

Repeat for mesh3(top right) and mesh4 (bottom right). Deleting the materials you dont need.

Now build your actors in Equity from the MS3d files, load them into RF and line them up so they join as seamlessly as possible.


I hope this helps.

realgaming135
Posts: 87
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:05 pm
Location: Denmark

Re: Two questions

Post by realgaming135 » Fri Apr 26, 2013 3:48 pm

Hey :)

I think it will help. Now I just need to do that thing in Milkshape, and then I'll see if it helps.
Thanks :D
Without facts, a mystery is just a guessing game...

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