Weird grass colour and no shadows from trees...help?

[ChrisV]

Hi everyone,

 

Having a strange 'bug' after updating Leadwerks to the latest 2.5.

The grasscolour no longer matches the terrain and the shadows are missing on trees that were placed with the vegetation paint mode (see screenie).

As you can see, some trees have shadows (those were placed manually) while the trees that were painted don't have shadows.

And, the grass is rather dark and doesn't match the terrain anymore.

Anyone else got this problem and knows how to solve it?

 

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Cheers

[macklebee]

for the trees' shadow select 'Always' from the Cast Shadows drop-down list... and for the grass, select a basemap texture...

[Pixel Perfect]

Surely the grass colour should reflect the underlying texture or the blended result of the texture and basemap texture if there is one. I thought the whole purpose was the grass colour was meant to reflect underlying terrain colour!

[Roland]

Yes Pixel is right. The color of the grass reflects the base texture and that is not a bug, its a feature.

[Josh]

I think I know what is happening. Previously, the base texture was ignored and now that I fixed that, it appears black if there is no base texture. I should add a white texture that gets used in its absence.

[ChrisV]

for the trees' shadow select 'Always' from the Cast Shadows drop-down list... and for the grass, select a basemap texture...

Well, to start with, double clicking on both the grass or the 'Spruce' three, brought up a blank window, without the dropbuttons or sliders to adjust the settings.

So, I had to add

require("scripts/class")

local class=CreateClass(...)

in order to see the properties in the window.

Changing the dropdown list to 'dynamic' shadows, did add a shadow on the grass when I add the grass object manually, but not when painting the terrain with grass.

 

The same goes for the Spruce tree. No shadows if I use the vegetation paint tool to add trees, but I do have shadows if I put the Spruce tree model manually.

 

I thought the whole purpose was the grass colour was meant to reflect underlying terrain colour!

That's what I thought as well, but after updating, it no longer works.

 

The color of the grass reflects the base texture and that is not a bug, its a feature.

Maybe its not a bug, but somehow it doesn't work. I'm starting to think it has to do with the 'mesh_diffuse_alphatest_terrainnormals_terraincolor.frag' shader after the update.

 

Cheers

[cassius]

I mentioned this problem yesterday. Its since the latest update.

[Pixel Perfect]

I think what most people are expecting is that the grass colour reflects the colour of the terrain beneath it. That is, the combined blended colour of the basemap and the texture, not just the colour of the basemap as it is now.

[Roland]

I think I know what is happening. Previously, the base texture was ignored and now that I fixed that, it appears black if there is no base texture. I should add a white texture that gets used in its absence.

Aha. Didn't know about that change in the last update.

[macklebee]

Well, to start with, double clicking on both the grass or the 'Spruce' three, brought up a blank window, without the dropbuttons or sliders to adjust the settings.

So, I had to add

require("scripts/class")

local class=CreateClass(...)

in order to see the properties in the window.

Changing the dropdown list to 'dynamic' shadows, did add a shadow on the grass when I add the grass object manually, but not when painting the terrain with grass.

 

The same goes for the Spruce tree. No shadows if I use the vegetation paint tool to add trees, but I do have shadows if I put the Spruce tree model manually.

 

The Vegetation option in the Terrain settings has a dropdown list for picking whether or not you want shadows with your vegetation... this has nothing to do with the model having a script or not.

My guess is that you need to make the Editor window larger by grabbing the lower right hand and dragging down because the default size will cut some of the features off...

[ChrisV]

I think I know what is happening. Previously, the base texture was ignored and now that I fixed that, it appears black if there is no base texture. I should add a white texture that gets used in its absence.

I hope it fixes things. A terrain without grass is like a bar without lemonade.

Thanks Josh.

 

My guess is that you need to make the Editor window larger by grabbing the lower right hand and dragging down because the default size will cut some of the features off...

Heheheh, didn't know that, maclebee! It works now, thanks!

Guess I'll need to make my desktop resolution bigger, or buy me a better monitor. Hehheh.

[macklebee]

I hope it fixes things. A terrain without grass is like a bar without lemonade.

Thanks Josh.

 

 

Heheheh, didn't know that, maclebee! It works now, thanks!

Guess I'll need to make my desktop resolution bigger, or buy me a better monitor. Hehheh.

 

glad to help...

 

agree that the grass should work without a basemap or with one... i personally like using a basemap with the blend adjusted on each of the terrain textures as it gives the terrain a more interesting texture...

[macklebee]

you or cassius should make a bug report on the lack of basemap causes color issues as Josh tends to forget about stuff unless its posted in the Bug Tracker screaming for his attention...

[cassius]

I found some grass in le 2.24 in the foliage folder.Looks good. I kept this version as it was one of my favorite pre lua versions.

[ChrisV]

Just wondering, though...the base map texture for the grass is 'grass_lemix2.dds', right? Because I do have that image file in the Models\Vegetation\Plants\Grass folder.

I also opened the grass_lemix.mat file, en it contains this:

 

texture0="abstract::grass_lemix2.dds"
texture1="abstract::noise.dds"
clamp0=0,0,0
clamp1=0,0,0
cullface=0
depthmask=1
depthtest=1
alphatest=1
overlay=0
color=0.5,0.5,0.5,1.0

shader="abstract::mesh_diffuse_upnormals_sway_meshlayer.vert","abstract::mesh_diffuse_alphatest_terrainnormals_terraincolor.frag"
shadowshader="abstract::mesh_shadow_sway_meshlayer.vert","abstract::mesh_shadow.frag"

 

So, is this correct?

Is there anything I can do to fix this myself, or do I have to wait for a fix by Josh?

 

you or cassius should make a bug report on the lack of basemap causes color issues as Josh tends to forget about stuff unless its posted in the Bug Tracker screaming for his attention...

Ok, will do.

[macklebee]

The base texture can be any texture you want... it has nothing to do with a grass material file. The grass material file just uses a shader that allows the grass to be colored based on the blending of the base texture and the terrain layer textures. Just select a base texture and then adjust the blend of your other terrain textures to see the base texture blended in...

[ChrisV]

That must be the problem then, because in the latest level editor, I don't see the 'Base texture' load option.

 

[edit]

Hum, seems we're not talking about the same thing. I do have the 'Base texture' load option, but under the 'Paint' tab for the terrain. But, that doesn't affect the vegetation colour either. It stays black.

 

[edit 2] Hold on, it seems I'm getting somewhere now. The grass does get colour now. Hehehh. The only difference now is that I'll need to set a texture for every terrain material to colour the grass. But, it does look good too.

 

Thanks though, macklebee.

[Pixel Perfect]

The grass material file just uses a shader that allows the grass to be colored based on the blending of the base texture and the terrain layer textures.

Well in my copy of 2.5 the grass colour still seems to be completely dependent on the base texture, the terrain layer texture appears to have no effect, nor the blend setting, on the colour of the grass!

[ChrisV]

Well in my copy of 2.5 the grass colour still seems to be completely dependent on the base texture, the terrain layer texture appears to have no effect, nor the blend setting, on the colour of the grass!

Yep, that's the same for me, Pixel Perfect.

I also have to use a base texture to get some colour (other than black) on the grass.

 

Cheers

[macklebee]

Well in my copy of 2.5 the grass colour still seems to be completely dependent on the base texture, the terrain layer texture appears to have no effect, nor the blend setting, on the colour of the grass!

 

yes you are right - I meant that it is supposed to do this according to original intent... and how it will be done once Josh actually fixes it. It looks like josh has taken it the opposite way when he "fixed" the bug... before i believed it only was effected by the terrain layer texture and now it appears its only effected by the basemap texture... oh well - he has responded to it in the bug tracker so hopefully it will be a quick and dirty fix that he can do along with DebugJoints()... so expect to have it fixed by tonight!

 

EDIT-actually before the grass was affected by the terrain layer textures when there was no basemap and if there was a basemap, then the basemap was the only thing that effected the grass color... now it looks like he changed it so only the basemap effects it with no regards to the terrain layer textures

[Pixel Perfect]

Sorry for the confusion Glad we are all agreed that Josh needs to fix this