Simple Terrain Class

[Valmond]

Hi

My game went all slow so I did some simple profiling and well, it's really CPU bound
and it seemed that the Terrain node ate most of the CPU (I have several terrains visible ingame).

First I tried (stupidly) to use VBO but as the terrain optimizes itself each frame that was no good so I wrote a 'fixed' (as in 'not changing')
terrain class that works about the same as the original one (but with VBO) so I though I'd share it here.

BTW my game went from ~15fps to 150+ so for me it was the right thing to do

MSVC project (Windows exe included that shows original and new terrain).

[Brainsaw]

This is cool. Nice work. I just testes the demo, haven't yet looked at the code. Is it easy to replace an original terrainscenenode by yours?

[vinjn]

nice example

I am wondering could the default ITerrainSceneNode has the ability to be a static terrain officially?
I mean some additional function like

Code: Select all

 bool setStaticTerrain(bool isStatic);

[serengeor]

like WTF!!!, from 800~ to 2000~+ fps

Good job

[ACE247]

I'm speechless....
I used to use some Terrain pager class to render large terrains, but this is just awesome. +-3800FPS!!

[Valmond]

Thanks for the nice comments

@Brainsaw

It's not Exactly the same but switching shouldn't bee too hard, if you use
32-bits floating point maps you only need to change the creation call.

Well, the example uses a shader and IIRC the original has some sort of
'base texture' + 'detail map', don't know if that works with a 'normal' mesh.
Feel free to use the shader bundled though.


@vinjn

Or just add this code to Irrlicht (with loaders for 8 & 16 bits and surely some tweaking)?

[Brainsaw]

OK, I'm now back from my vacation and I think I'll take a closer look within the next days, I think I'll try to create an IrrEdit plugin using the terrain (because I always create IrrEdit plugins ). I just try to do put as much of the necessary code into a plugin so that I don't have to code much specific stuff inside my programs but let the loadscene method do the necessary.

[Virion]

this is superb!

[shadowslair]

In both versions I get black terrain. I guess it is not supposed to be black.
I get "Could not create hlsl shader" and "Shader number = -1" in the console window. Well, shader version 3.0 on my Radeon 9550...

[Valmond]

@shadowslair

Is there any errors (or warnings) around that output?

Tested it on a recent ATI a while ago but since then I might have changed something I shouldn't have (nVidia accepts small errors in the code like wrong casts, ATI don't).

[Valmond]

@Brainsaw

Nice!
Tell me if there are any special functionalities you need ported from the original terrain class to the new one.

[ACE247]

I see you used a .raw file for storing the heightmap. Now seeing that I know nothing about raw for storing a heightmap, how can i make one and how can i use it?

[Valmond]

.raw is just a bunch of bytes, here it is 32bit floats (IIRC) but it could be 8bit ints or whatever.

I generate it with a script (just flushes all the floats into a file) and the data comes from Unity3D which I use to model my terrains.

[kidhr]

Hello

Great job !!!
Thanks for your sharing

Unfortunately, I have the same issue than Shadowslair when i try to compile your sample.
The two versions are black
Radeon 5700
Your exe file + your irrlicht dll => ok

msvc 2005 + irrlichit 1.7.1
0 => black
1 => crash on m_MeshNode=smgr->addMeshSceneNode(m_Mesh,parent,-1,core::vector3df(0,0,0));

msvc express 2010 + irrlichit 1.7.1
0 => black
1 => crash on m_MeshNode=smgr->addMeshSceneNode(m_Mesh,parent,-1,core::vector3df(0,0,0));

msvc express 2010 + irrlichit 1.8.0 alpha
0 => black
1 => black
Run with no errors on console

I have missed something ?

Thanks in advance

[Valmond]

Does it work with the original exe?

I'm using a modified Irrlicht (1.7.1), can you link with the Irrlicht in the rar file to see if the problem doesn't come from that?