3D Game Programming All in One (Course Technology PTR Game Development Series)

2017-07-07 02:10:07

You've already seen in Chapter 12 how to create a terrain using height maps. Torque also has a built-in Terrain Editor that you can use to manually modify the terrain height map and square properties.

Terrain editing is done using a Terrain brush. The brush is a selection of terrain points centered on the mouse cursor in either a circular or square configuration of different selectable sizes, as you can see in Figure 18.18.

Figure 18.18: Terrain brush.

The brush can also be either a hard brush that has a uniform effect across the surface of the brush or a soft brush whose influence on terrain diminishes toward the edges of the brush. You can adjust the soft brush fall-off rate in the Terrain Editor Settings dialog box, found under the menu Edit, Terrain Editor Settings.

Run your sample game, and when you have spawned into the game, press F8 to switch to fly mode.

Fly up a fair bit to get a good overview of the surrounding terrain.

Press F11 to switch to the Editor GUI.

Choose Window, Terrain Editor.

Wave your cursor over the terrain, and notice the Terrain brush marked on the terrain.

Drag your mouse up and down after clicking over some area of terrain. You will see your terrain change to conform.

Experiment with using different actions to see how the Terrain Editor works.

Tip

Every now and then while in the Terrain Editor, press Alt+L to redo the lighting. The cursor will freeze for a few moments while the lighting is done.This will cause the new terrain changes you've made to properly generate shadows.

Every now and then remember to save your work.

Table 18.3 describes the Terrain Editor functions that are available in the Action menu.

Table 18.3: Terrain Editor Functions
Function	Description
`Select`	Selects grid points that will be painted with the brush.
`Adjust Selection`	Raises or lowers the currently selected grid points as a group.
`Add Dirt`	Adds "dirt" to the center of the brush.
`Excavate`	Removes "dirt" from the center of the brush.
`Adjust Height`	Drags the brush selection to raise or lower it.
`Flatten`	Sets the area bounded by the brush surface to be a flat plane.
`Smooth`	Smoothes, within the bounds of the brush, rough areas of varying terrain height.
`Set Height`	Sets the terrain within the brush to a constant height as specified in the Terrain Editor settings.
`Set Empty`	Converts the squares covered by the brush into holes in the terrain.
`Clear Empty`	Makes the squares covered by the brush solid.
`Paint Material`	Paints the current terrain texture material with the brush.

Table 18.4 describes the functions of the Terrain Terraform Editor (see also Figure 18.19), the one we used in Chapter 12 dealing with height maps.

Table 18.4: Terrain Terraform Editor Functions
Function	Description
`fBm Fractal`	Creates bumpy hills.
`Rigid Multifractal`	Creates ridges and sweeping valleys.
`Canyon Fractal`	Creates vertical canyon ridges.
`Sinus`	Creates overlapping sine wave patterns with different frequencies useful for making rolling hills.
`Bitmap`	Imports an existing 256 by 256 bitmap as a heightfield.
`Turbulence`	Perturbs another operation on the stack.
`Smoothing`	Smoothes another operation on the stack.
`Smooth Water`	Smoothes water.
`Smooth Ridges/Valleys`	Smoothes an existing operation on edge boundaries.
`Filter`	Filters an existing operation based on a curve.
`Thermal Erosion`	Erodes an existing operation using a thermal erosion algorithm.
`Hydraulic Erosion`	Erodes an existing operation using a hydraulic erosion algorithm.
`Blend`	Blends two existing operations according to a scale factor and mathematical operator.
`Terrain File`	Loads an existing terrain file onto the stack.

Figure 18.19: Terrain Terraform Editor.

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