load a mesh from file then convert to terrain scene node??

[devsh]

Hey I'm currently doing it for ROFH....

I was wondering can I getMesh("landmesh.obj");

and then somehow create an empty TerrainSceneNode and swap the contents and lengths of index and vertex buffers???

[mtbal]

first things first, WHY??
next, I don't think it can be done. the mesh that TerrainSceneNode uses is created from a height map, and you can't really convert a mesh to a height map. Theoretically you could go vise-versa.

[bitplane]

The best way would be to cast rays against a triangle selector, use this to build the heightmap, then write it back out to disk. Once you've done this slow process once, you'll be able to load it back up again quickly next time round.

A terrain is a very restricted sort of mesh, so it will only work with very specific types of obj files. You'll lose UV mapping, vertices will be evenly spaced, everything will be welded together, you'll lose smoothing groups, multiple materials, it will only have one side and so on.

[devsh]

well first of all i'd like to convert to terrain scene node because of LoD

and is it the only way??? cant i just load the mesh as a normal mesh and swap its mesh buffers... or even vertex/index ones?

[Virion]

you can use oct tree scene node

Code: Select all

irr::scene::ISceneManager::addOctTreeSceneNode  ( IAnimatedMesh *  mesh,  
  ISceneNode *  parent = 0,  
  s32  id = -1,  
  s32  minimalPolysPerNode = 512,  
  bool  alsoAddIfMeshPointerZero = false   
 ) 

[bitplane]

and is it the only way??? cant i just load the mesh as a normal mesh and swap its mesh buffers... or even vertex/index ones?

The terrain mesh is organized in a very specific way. The LoD algorithm (geomipmapping) relies on a specific width, height, plus the number of, position of and order of the vertices. It also only supports one mesh buffer. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it will be a pain to do with a mesh loaded from a mesh loader. You'd have to write the OBJ exporter so that the mesh is exactly what the terrain node expects, or rewrite it.

[devsh]

But I am looking for very detailed terrain and octtree still renders at highest lod

[vitek]

The solution is simple. Either write code to do what you want, find code to do what you want, or live with the restrictions of the Irrlicht terrain scene node.

Travis