Caelum Skies, Water, Terrains and ... things

Luth

16-04-2008 09:47:59

Hi!

Since i'm trying to write a (quite primitive) terrain generator in C# for use with Managed ETM, i have a few questions. Maybe someone can help me out there a little.

1. Is there a maintainer for Mogre in the forseeable future? I haven't found a lot of information since the last huge update, the last post in the maintainer thread is almost 7 month old and i'm too lazy/unwilling to learn C++.

2. I read someone has build a wrapper for the Caelum Sky system. Any idea if and where i can get that one or alternatives for a nice backround lightning? I suppose i could use the light information from Caelum to generate new lightmaps in a worker thread from time to time.

3. Is it planned to wrap the new ETM Version 3.0, whenever it is completed? I unfortunatly got no idea how to do wrapping such things on my own ... and i'm unsure if the person that wrapped the last version is willing to do that again.

4. Did anybody manage to create nice water materials or generate meshes to apply them? I've taken a look at things like Hydrax ... but it think those aren't available in a .Net-Version. Furthermore it seems a little overpowered for my terrain since it seems to be made for whole oceans with lot's of detail and doesn't seem to support rivers yet.

5. Does somebody know or can estimate, how much performance it costs, to call functions in an unmanaged library pretty often? Maybe things like the ETM lightmap or normal calculation would be a faster, when they are done with the Mogre Classes or something instead of just wrapping them?

6. Is anybody interested that i publish that thing once it's a bit more finished? Output currently looks like this:



lilljohan

16-04-2008 16:25:20

3. Is it planned to wrap the new ETM Version 3.0, whenever it is completed? I unfortunatly got no idea how to do wrapping such things on my own ... and i'm unsure if the person that wrapped the last version is willing to do that again.
I have no plans to wrap Version 3.0, unless i need those features for my game, which i probably won't since i don't have any time to work on it any longer =/

5. Does somebody know or can estimate, how much performance it costs, to call functions in an unmanaged library pretty often? Maybe things like the ETM lightmap or normal calculation would be a faster, when they are done with the Mogre Classes or something instead of just wrapping them?
I don't think there is any big overhead on calling the unmanaged functions.

// Johan Gustafsson

Marioko

16-04-2008 17:12:04

1. Is there a maintainer for Mogre in the forseeable future? I haven't found a lot of information since the last huge update, the last post in the maintainer thread is almost 7 month old and i'm too lazy/unwilling to learn C++

I am the current maintainer, i builded the last (1.4.6) version.. currently i superbusy but i going to make a new update for OGRE 1.4.7 in a few days. Take a look to the wiki if you want learn how to upgrade MOGRE and compile from source.

The best and easy way to use OGRE (C++) addons in MOGRE is creating a brigde (like a wrapper but only using need it classes) between OGRE-MOGRE, for example: normally OGRE addons need a SceneManager pointer to work, you can cast (using C++/CLI) a MOGRE SceneManager to OGRE SceneManager directly like this:

Ogre::SceneManager scnMgr* = (Ogre::SceneManager*)mogreSceneManager;

In this thread i talk about that: http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2addons/viewtopic.php?t=6646

...and i'm too lazy/unwilling to learn C++.

Hey if you want use all the power of OGRE world (like NxOGRE, Hidrax,PortalSceneManager, PLSM, etc,etc) you need know the basis of C++, and you can use C++/CLI to mix OGRE and MOGRE easily

Beauty

16-04-2008 23:45:51

Maybe here you can get some useful ideas for terrain generation parameters:
http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT (a small resolution version is for free)



2. I read someone has build a wrapper for the Caelum Sky system. Any idea if and where i can get that one or alternatives for a nice backround lightning? I suppose i could use the light information from Caelum to generate new lightmaps in a worker thread from time to time.

There is a very new project. I added informations to the wiki. Maybe there is also something sky related. You can look to the code and ask in its thread.
http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/My ... ape_Plugin



6. Is anybody interested that i publish that thing once it's a bit more finished?

It's always useful to puplish useful things. The best way (I think) is a wiki page with all needed informations and a thread for talking / improving. (also link wiki + thread each other)

Luth

17-04-2008 09:54:46

I have no plans to wrap Version 3.0, unless i need those features for my game, which i probably won't since i don't have any time to work on it any longer =/

Damn. :D Well, I got to see then if somebody else does it...or wait for the complete feature list and check if it seems worth it. If i undestood that right, there will be separated access to the heightmap data and vertex data in the next version, which sounds like a quite interesting thing.

The best and easy way to use OGRE (C++) addons in MOGRE is creating a brigde (like a wrapper but only using need it classes) between OGRE-MOGRE, for example: normally OGRE addons need a SceneManager pointer to work, you can cast (using C++/CLI) a MOGRE SceneManager to OGRE SceneManager directly like this:

Oh ... i didn't know that before. Sounds very usefull so i'll take a look into it. And I didn't mean that i'm too stubborn to take a look into C++ at all ... actually i converted some of the used algorithms from C++ to C#. I just don't have the time to *completely* learn it from the scratch. If it is enough to know about common datatypes and general language structure to mix them together, i'm very fine with that.

And to mention that too: I'm very glad to know that Mogre is going to be improved and maintained for the next time!


There is a very new project. I added informations to the wiki. Maybe there is also something sky related. You can look to the code and ask in its thread.
http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/My ... ape_Plugin


Thanks for pointing that one out, i didn't know that until now. These screenshots look quite amazing, and those skies and water implementation seem to be enough for my needs, judged by the pictures. Well ... I hope my computer can handle them. I'll take a look at it this evening to see if i can use it or parts of it. The feature list and screenshots from L3DT look quite impressive too, although i didn't test the demo yet. It also seems their goal is kind of different ... but still i will try to take a look how they did their water mapping and such, i'm still missing that alot in my programm. :oops:

It's always useful to puplish useful things.
I suppose other people have to judge if it is usefull for anything. My current goal is to obtain a "playable" map of limited size, like maybe 512x512 or 1024x1024 size, not necessarily a very natural one. With "playble" meaning something, that can be used for a topdown view to place buildings/units in it, rather then walking around on the terrain.

Zool

17-04-2008 13:41:52

Hey, just want to mention that I agree with Beauty, putting stuff in the wiki is the best idea.
Even if nobody is interested in your work right now, somebody may be in the future, and it would help a lot to avoid doublication of effort.

That's the open source spirit :)

Marioko

17-04-2008 14:32:35

yep that is the spirit, the wiki power is the best for sharing stuff :D and forums for improvements that stuff..

Luth

17-04-2008 20:29:51

You are right of course ... i'll probaly do that, once that thing is a bit more finished, the output looks a bit better and it has less bugs in it.
If it ever reaches that state, i mean. And i suppose this will take a while since i have a bit more to do with my job currently. :)


Edit:
Maybe i'm blind, but i didn't find any sources included in Myrddins Landscape Plugin Demo. Did i miss a link or something? Or is there no code available currently?

Beauty

17-04-2008 22:48:04

Maybe i'm blind, but i didn't find any sources included in Myrddins Landscape Plugin Demo.
Oh sorry, I thought they would be, because myrddinson wanted to public it under LGPL license. Ask him. Maybe you will get them.

Luth

17-04-2008 23:09:30

Nah ... not now. I suppose he'll release it if the code is more finished and i can wait for that. Meanwhile i decided to work a bit down on my todo-list with the more basic stuff, before i get lost in skies and waves and shaders and .... it's too dangerous to keep on reading for weeks without programming a thing. :D And thanks again for pointing out that L3DT site. That guy has a lot of usefull hints on his site, how he did plateus, cliffs, terraces and such. I will try to implement at least some of this.