Best Way to Create Terrain

[Jeremiah Griffin]

I've been trying to figure out the best way to create terrain for quite some time now, but I can't find the right solution...

First, I need to be able to (obviously) do collision detection. I couldn't do that with Irrlicht scenes.
Second, I need to be able to make it very detailed and highly populated with entities--houses, trees, bushes, monsters, etc.
Third, the terrain needs to be able to be fairly large--at least vector3df(300, 17.5f, 300) big.

I have tried using 3D Studio Max 9 to accomplish this, but simply creating the ground from a heightmap is above the poly count of the .3DS file exporter. I don't see how it would be possible to put detailed grass on Irrlicht-generated terrain created from a texture file, detailmap, and heightmap.

So, Irrlicht users, how do I create large, detailed, and collision-enabled terrain?

[pinballwizard]

This guy has a pretty interesting infinite terrain demo (no source):

http://www.wc3jass.com/asger/page.php?id=10

You might want to look at it to get some inspiration.

However that demo uses a procedurally-generated terrain. I wonder how easily such a procedurally-generated terrain can be tweaked (e.g. flatten this area here, carve out a river there). That would be pretty neat: by default you have an infinite, detailed, random terrain, but you still can bulldoze areas and add buildings or other geographical features.

It's probably less-than-trivial to implement, though. Any takers?

[Jeremiah Griffin]

That's an interesting program, but it doesn't what I need. I simply need the terrain to be large, but designable. Like the way you can use heightmaps to generate terrain.

That's what I currently have, but I'm unsure how to put modelled, 3D grass onto the base grass texture.

MapClass.hpp:

Code: Select all

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// Information                                                               //
//     File: Include/MapClass.hpp                                            //
//     Description: Interface for MapClass.                                  //
//     Created: 01-23-07                                                     //
//     Copyright: Crazy Panda Games                                          //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// History                                                                   //
//     [01-23-07] JerGri: Created.                                           //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//

#ifndef __MAPCLASS_H__
#define __MAPCLASS_H__

// Includes
#include "irrlicht.h"

// Class
class MapClass
{
    public:
        MapClass();
        void Load(irr::video::IVideoDriver* videoDriver,
                  irr::scene::ISceneManager* sceneManager,
                  irr::scene::ICameraSceneNode* camera,
                  const char* skyBoxTop, const char* skyBoxBottom,
                  const char* skyBoxLeft, const char* skyBoxRight,
                  const char* skyBoxFront, const char* skyBoxBack,
                  const char* heightmap, const char* texture,
                  const char* detailmap, irr::core::vector3df scale);
        ~MapClass();
};

#endif // __MAPCLASS_H__

MapClass.cpp:

Code: Select all

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// Information                                                               //
//     File: Source/MapClass.cpp                                             //
//     Description: Implementation for MapClass.                             //
//     Created: 01-23-07                                                     //
//     Copyright: Crazy Panda Games                                          //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// History                                                                   //
//     [01-23-07] JerGri: Created.                                           //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//

#include "MapClass.hpp"

using namespace irr;
using namespace core;
using namespace gui;
using namespace io;
using namespace scene;
using namespace video;

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// Information                                                               //
//     Name: MapClass::MapClass                                              //
//     Description: MapClass constructor.                                    //
//     Created: 01-23-07                                                     //
//     Copyright: Crazy Panda Games                                          //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// History                                                                   //
//     [01-23-07] JerGri: Created.                                           //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
MapClass::MapClass()
{
    // Unused
}

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// Information                                                               //
//     Name: MapClass::Load                                                  //
//     Description: MapClass loader.                                         //
//     Created: 02-04-07                                                     //
//     Copyright: Crazy Panda Games                                          //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// History                                                                   //
//     [02-04-07] JerGri: Created.                                           //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
void MapClass::Load(IVideoDriver* videoDriver, ISceneManager* sceneManager,
                    ICameraSceneNode* camera, const char* skyBoxTop,
                    const char* skyBoxBottom, const char* skyBoxLeft,
                    const char* skyBoxRight, const char* skyBoxFront,
                    const char* skyBoxBack, const char* heightmap,
                    const char* texture, const char* detailmap,
                    vector3df scale)
{
    // Set the mip-maps creation flag to false
    videoDriver->setTextureCreationFlag(ETCF_CREATE_MIP_MAPS, false);

    // Load the skybox
    sceneManager->addSkyBoxSceneNode(videoDriver->getTexture(skyBoxTop),
                                     videoDriver->getTexture(skyBoxBottom),
                                     videoDriver->getTexture(skyBoxLeft),
                                     videoDriver->getTexture(skyBoxRight),
                                     videoDriver->getTexture(skyBoxFront),
                                     videoDriver->getTexture(skyBoxBack));

    // Set the mip-maps creation flag to true
    videoDriver->setTextureCreationFlag(ETCF_CREATE_MIP_MAPS, true);

    // Create the terrain scene node
    ITerrainSceneNode* terrain = sceneManager->addTerrainSceneNode(heightmap);

    // Set the terrain properties
    terrain->setScale(scale);
    terrain->setMaterialFlag(EMF_LIGHTING, false);
    terrain->setMaterialTexture(0, videoDriver->getTexture(texture));
    if (detailmap != "")
    {
        terrain->setMaterialTexture(1, videoDriver->getTexture(detailmap));
    }
    terrain->setMaterialType(EMT_DETAIL_MAP);

    // Scale the texture
    terrain->scaleTexture(1.0f, 20.0f);

    // Create a triangle selector for the terrain
    ITriangleSelector* selector =
        sceneManager->createTerrainTriangleSelector(terrain, 0);
    terrain->setTriangleSelector(selector);
    selector->drop();

    // Create collision response animator and attach it to the camera
    ISceneNodeAnimator* animator =
        sceneManager->createCollisionResponseAnimator(selector, camera,
                                                      vector3df(60, 100, 60),
                                                      vector3df(0, 0, 0),
                                                      vector3df(0, 50, 0));
    camera->addAnimator(animator);
    animator->drop();
}

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// Information                                                               //
//     Name: MapClass::~MapClass                                             //
//     Description: MapClass destructor.                                     //
//     Created: 01-23-07                                                     //
//     Copyright: Crazy Panda Games                                          //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
// History                                                                   //
//     [01-23-07] JerGri: Created.                                           //
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------//
MapClass::~MapClass()
{
    // Unused
}

Edit: Persistent 3D grass, that covers all grass areas, and is designed in a 3D program such as 3D Studio Max or Blender3D.